by Kevin Reilly
The vast majority of commuters coming to North Island travel alone. Hypothetically speaking, if they were all in carpools of three to a car, the number of cars could be reduced to one third of what it is now. Could it be done?
A legal justification to promote carpooling might be based on the fact that Third and Fourth Streets are reportedly well beyond allowable limits for noise and air pollution. Coronadans have a right to expect that all measures to reduce pollution to allowable limits in their community will be taken. A positive and proactive City Attorney, willing to work hard in the interests of the citizens, might be the key in fighting this battle.
If two of the three lanes on the bridge coming over in the morning were designated as carpool lanes tomorrow, the third lane would back up onto Highway 5, causing havoc and a massive outcry. But if the idea of carpooling was introduced gradually, maybe over a period of a few years, one small step at a time, that goal might eventually be realized. The best way to change people’s habits is, of course, very slowly.
The Incentive Plan
Here’s an outline of a possible approach. Under the premise that people will do whatever is most convenient at the moment, the idea is to work with incentives that, little by little, will result in the desired change. The incentive to be used in this case is the time it takes to get to work. If carpooling will reduce that time, more and more people will consider it.
We might start by designating one inbound lane as a carpool lane for 2 or more people from 7 to 8am, five days a week. This initial change should have a minimal effect, and presumably minimal resistance from commuters. Some might choose to carpool, but probably most will either just stay in the other two lanes or travel outside the carpool hour. The goal at this point, however, is simply to introduce carpooling on the bridge once again, get people accustomed to seeing the lane, and get them thinking about it.
Maybe six months or a year later, the time could be changed to add an hour, from 6 to 8am. This will probably result in a little congestion in the other two lanes, creating a somewhat increased incentive to consider carpooling.
After perhaps another year has passed, when everyone is accustomed to the carpool lane from 6 to 8am, the hours might be expanded once again, or the standards might be changed to require 3 people for a carpool instead of 2. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem for commuters who are already carpooling; they just pick up one more person on their way to work.
After yet another year, two of the three lanes might be designated for carpools only, instead of just one, but the number of people required dropped from 3 back to 2. Carpooling commuters would welcome this change, since they would then have two lanes for carpooling with only two people required. And more people would be inclined to carpool, since only two people would be required to qualify, and only one lane would be left, at that point, for non-carpools.
Ultimately the carpool requirements for the two lanes might be increased back to 3 people.
The secret to success for this plan over the long term (don’t tell anyone) is to create enough congestion each step of the way in the non-carpool lane(s) to back it up over the bridge, but not onto Interstate 5. Thus a continuing incentive for carpooling, where there are no back-ups and the traffic flows quickly, would be maintained.
Of course the specifics as outlined here are meant just to provide an idea of how this approach might be slowly but progressively implemented over time. Each step would depend on the results of the step imposed previously. Presumably qualified traffic engineers, experienced with carpool lane implementation, could work with the three factors (number of lanes, number of people required for a carpool, and carpool lane hours) to create and maintain a reasonable “incentive level” in the non-carpool lane(s), and thus ultimately achieve the desired results.
Several other factors might be worth considering in conjunction with the above changes, or at a later date. For example, designating carpool lanes during peak hours on Third Street, or at North Island entry gates, might also be helpful.
Real Results
In the ideal end-state a few years from now, three people in a carpool would zip over the bridge to Coronado with no delays, and anyone else would be delayed sufficiently that they would be highly motivated for commuting purposes to get in a 3-person carpool in the future. The number of cars coming into Coronado would be drastically reduced.
There is probably no need to have carpool lanes on the bridge leaving Coronado, since commuters who carpool over in the morning are likely to carpool home in the evening as well. But with so many fewer cars coming in, outbound traffic at the end of the day should similarly be reduced and flow much more smoothly as a result, rather than backing up all the way down Fourth Street as it does today.
In fact, if this plan was successful, a few years from now the number of lanes on Third and Fourth Streets might even be reduced, returning some of their previous residential character to those homeowners who have been so tolerant for so long.
An additional benefit might be that, by eliminating the congestion on Third and Fourth Streets, there would be no reason for commuters to try to avoid the mess, as they currently do, by speeding through and negatively impacting other residential areas.
And finally, if one-person, one-car simply doesn’t work very well anymore, commuters not inclined to carpool will actually consider alternative transportation methods when, otherwise, they never would (ferry, bus, vanpool, park & ride, etc.).
The caveat to remember here, of course, is that no one thing will solve all of Coronado’s traffic problems. But incentivized carpooling has the potential to be a significant step in the right direction, especially on the basis of traffic reduced per dollar spent. From an economic perspective it may be the best ever.
Justification
First, some may argue that this approach is “sneaky” and that it isn’t right to intentionally inconvenience commuters. There might even be some sort of law against it, which is where the City Attorney comes in. The counter-argument is that commuters in cities everywhere use carpools very successfully without any difficulty whatsoever every day (two great examples are back and forth to the Pentagon, or in the San Francisco Bay Area across the Bay Bridge). Providing carpool lanes for commuters with an incentive to use them, perhaps inconveniencing a few, is a far more reasonable alternative than decade after decade of beyond-legal-limits pollution in a residential community.
Second, the bridge brings cars into Coronado at close to 60 miles per hour. But the speed limit on Third is half that, and there’s a stoplight at Orange. Third Street is, in effect, the bottleneck that slows commuter ingress. By reducing the number of cars coming across the bridge, the bottleneck effect of Third Street would also be reduced, and maybe even eliminated. As a result, total time for many commuters might potentially be reduced from what it is today, both coming into North Island as well as leaving at the end of the day on Fourth Street.
Third, as we all know, “green” is the right answer over the long term, and getting increasingly important every day. Recently the California Air Resources Board established San Diego Region targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction of 7 percent by 2020 and 13% by 2035. Carpooling is an obvious element toward achieving these goals.
Fourth, connecting a major, freeway-like thoroughfare (the bridge) directly to the residential grid of a small town at an almost random point is a big traffic engineering no-no. This is especially true when that thoroughfare primarily serves commuters whose only goal is to transit through the town as quickly as possible to, in this case, a major government installation. Coronado residents don’t deserve to bear the brunt of the collateral damage resulting from this flawed arrangement. There may not have been a better way to design the connection in this particular case, but that doesn’t mean that all reasonable measures to mitigate the resultant damage to the affected community should not be taken. Carpooling is a more than reasonable way to do this, both practically and economically.
Finally, carpool lanes have been routinely implemented on major thoroughfares worldwide as the traffic volume that they have needed to carry has gone up. Over the last forty years traffic volume on the bridge and on the Third / Fourth Street couplet has gone up dramatically. How much worse does it have to get before carpool lanes are implemented here? The time has finally come. In fact, it’s long overdue. Given all the factors, there is no reason to wait any longer.
A Time for Action
Ever since the bridge was completed in 1969 the traffic situation in Coronado has grown steadily worse. As archived issues of the Coronado Journal and Eagle and Journal at the library will attest, traffic has been Coronado’s #1 problem, and public issue, for forty years.
And for just as long our elected officials have not known what to do. Many have taken the view privately that “nothing can be done.” Publicly, though, their one answer has consistently been “tunnel rhetoric,” which was used for so long it’s possible some of them even believed it.
The truth is that millions of dollars were spent on what appears akin to a lottery ticket. And even if that ticket was a winner, the possibility of which is arguable, despite its enormous expense the tunnel wouldn’t solve the growing problem on Orange Avenue, or any of the growing problems elsewhere in town.
Forty years of no real action is a long time, during which most all of us have of necessity become accustomed to, complacent regarding, and ultimately resigned to the slow but longstanding degradation imposed upon our community. Many of us have arranged our schedules to avoid being on the most affected streets at the “wrong” times, just like residents in a “big” city. Newcomers don’t recognize how quickly, and how much Coronado has changed, and continues to change. Newcomers from the Los Angeles area don’t even think there is a problem!
But as you know, recently an overwhelming majority of Coronado voters sent a clear message. Traffic is still an issue and they don’t like what hasn’t been happening.
Hopefully four out of five Council members, who like their predecessors politically espoused tunnel rhetoric from the beginning (which is infinitely easier than actually pursuing timely, realistic solutions) received that message. Hopefully they received it loud and clear.
Let’s be honest. Drilling a multi-year, multi-billion dollar, mile long tunnel under the ground for wealthy, whiny, lobbying Coronado was unlikely to ever successfully compete for funding with countless other, far more urgent traffic problems statewide. Large numbers of those problems can be solved for the same price, or even much less, than solving one (small) problem in spoiled Coronado if, just assuming, the State wasn’t broke at some future point. The tunnel was a pipe dream, and Coronado voters aren’t smoking it anymore.
So now we’re back at square one. The slate is clean. The Council appears to be listening. The voters’ patience for outrageously expensive, never-ending studies is over. And thus a unique opportunity for real action, and concomitant leadership on the part of the Council, is at hand.
Toward that goal I hereby turn “The Incentive Plan” over to the Coronado City Council for investigation and further action / liaison as may be appropriate.
Traffic is still Coronado’s #1 public issue. The Incentive Plan is just one idea; surely there are others. If they don’t work we can learn from our mistakes but, if we never take any action at all, nothing good can ever happen. This is our home. We know what it can and should be. The future is at stake and is what we make it. Let’s get started . . . shape it the way we want it to be . . . and not give up. Coronado Council, we’re counting on you to lead us.
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