Preliminary Evaluation of the Coastal Transportation Corridor Ordinance in Los Angeles

The Coastal Transportation Corridor Ordinance attempts to regulate traffic congestion in a busy Los Angeles community by requiring new real estate developments to mitigate their trips and to contribute to a trust fund to be used to improve traffic flow within the affected area. In order to conduct a preliminary evaluation of the trip reduction portion of the ordinance, a sample of eight buildings housing 117 firms was selected. Three buildings housing 44 firms were subject to the ordinance, and a control group of five buildings housing 73 firms were not affected by the ordinance. Differences in ridesharing facilities, services, and subsidies were observed, and 1,216 workers in the two groups of buildings were surveyed to determine their travel patterns. The results show that developers affected by the ordinance are significantly more likely to include preferential parking for carpoolers in their projects, and to include some bicycle parking facilities as well. The buildings affected by the ordinance offer a substantially smaller proportion of their employees free parking at work and, among those who pay to park, those in the buildings covered by the ordinance pay higher rates. The provision of these facilities, and the combination of parking fees and other promotional efforts, have had a very small initial effect on workers’ decisions to drive to work alone. The proportion of workers driving to work alone is similar in the experimental and control groups. Though twice as many workers in buildings affected by the ordinance reported carpooling to work, they were a small fraction of the workforce. A sizable proportion of workers in the study area generally depart from work outside the peak period, probably in order to avoid late afternoon congestion.