The Coastal Transportation Corridor Ordinance attempts to regulate traffic congestion in a busy Los Angeles community by requiring new real estate developments to mitigate future trips and to contribute to a trust fund for improving traffic flow within the affected area. 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 was 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 some bicycle parking facilities as well. The companies affected by the ordinance offer a substantially smaller proportion of their employees free parking at work, and, among employees 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. Although twice as many workers in buildings affected by the ordinance carpooled to work, they were a small fraction of the workforce. A sizeable proportion of workers in the study area generally leave work outside the peak period, probably to avoid late-afternoon congestion.
Samenvatting