Written By: Aaron Cuellar, Staff Writer
URGENT: How to solve Riverside’s traffic problems using lessons from the past and technologies from the future.
There is a sort of existential dread I think many of us feel every time we are stuck in traffic. A voice in your head quietly tells you that you could be doing any number of things that would be a better use of your time, but instead, you are here, feeling each agonizing second tick by, as you steadily grow older. Every rush hour seems to be a quiet dystopia we force ourselves to accept, with every errand becoming a herculean task.
This sentiment is anything but unique. Local news feeds consistently report on road rage incidents almost every day, and delivery services, which serve as an alternative to laborious car trips, only continue to become more widespread. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some way to get around traffic, or better yet, if there was no traffic at all? Turns out, this is not just a daydream. In fact, Riverside used to be almost completely congestion free. What happened?
In one word, cars. Originally, our city was built out along a system of streetcars, with each new neighborhood having a connection to a greater transit system. These would all feed into downtown, at which point they would connect to either conventional rail or an interurban (an electric train similar to streetcars but faster and longer-distance) operated by the Pacific Electric Railway, which traveled all the way to what is today Central Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and parts of the San Fernando Valley. Eventually, Pacific Electric purchased tracks in Riverside, Redlands and San Bernardino, bringing what was once the outer fringe of the Inland Empire into the greater LA metropolitan area. At the system’s height in the mid 20s, it was composed of over 1000 miles of track. However, the system began to decline in the late twenties due to the rise of the personal automobile and, in particular, the back to back crisis of the Great Depression and World War Two. The death knell came in 1953, as Riverside, Los Angeles and other Southern California cities were bulldozed to make way for freeways, and Pacific Electric was sold several times, ending up in the hands of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1958. Ultimately, service was reduced, and most of the tracks were sold or ripped out. The final remnant of the once vast transit network, an interurban between LA and Long Beach, closed in 1961.
Well, surely cars and highways proved to be superior to trains and rails, right? Why else would they have won out? Not quite. Traffic today is awful, no matter how many freeways are built; even as early as 1990, new rail lines were being opened in Los Angeles to combat massive gridlock. As it turns out, building for cars, and only cars, would make almost everybody have no choice but to drive. We could spend an unlimited budget on new automobile infrastructure, and traffic would actually get worse. This occurs because of induced demand: as more capacity is added to a given mode of transportation, travel times are reduced, and as the quality of infrastructure increases, more people will choose to use that mode. Transit, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure are affected by this differently than car infrastructure. Sidewalk and bike lane improvements are simple and relatively cost effective, if more capacity is needed, and can serve a massive number of trips per hour, even at a basic level. Rail lines are the most efficient forms of public transportation and can provide more frequent service, extend trains, switch to higher capacity vehicles, or even implement partial or total automation, without having to significantly change their static infrastructure. Even then, smaller improvements, like signaling upgrades and grade separations can be implemented. Only systems with extraordinary demand would require more than the standard two tracks to be added. On the other hand, to move more people, a freeway has only one option: build more lanes. These take up large amounts of space, are prohibitively expensive, and provide only small throughput (people per direction per hour) increases. Notably, additional tracks are more space efficient than an equivalent number of car lanes and have exponentially more capacity. The only permanent answer to traffic, therefore, is to get people out of their cars and onto other modes of transportation.
Knowing this, one would expect that I would be thrilled to hear that Riverside would be returning to the days of the Pacific Electric, building a streetcar line from downtown to UCR. In actuality, I was thrilled when it was canceled, if it was canceled. Documentation for the project is incredibly sparse, and despite extensive research, its status could not be ascertained. Nevertheless, almost all transit is good transit, and the Riverside streetcar proposal is the exception that proves the rule. The sentiment is noble, but the project itself is very flawed. For one, it would employ unproven wireless tram technology from the manufacturer TIG/M. The vehicles would run on batteries, which have a very limited lifespan, dramatically limit maximum operating range, and are not particularly environmentally friendly or ethical in their manufacturing. They would also feature supplemental hydrogen fuel cells, which require expensive extra infrastructure. The technology they rely on is also unproven, especially on such a small scale. Even if the vehicles are reliable, their capacity is very low. The company offers two models of tram, one that can hold only 100 people and an articulated variant that can carry 200. Additionally, the streetcar itself is an insufficient transportation solution in modern times, with the tendency to operate in mixed traffic, thus being extremely slow-moving and thereby not conducive to high ridership. Even when operating in dedicated lanes, which does not seem to be part of the proposal from TIG/m, streetcars suffer when not also provided with traffic signal priority, which North American cities are historically averse to implementing. Moreover, with a sprawling city like Riverside, to provide adequate coverage, operating costs would be extremely high. Riverside would be far better served by a fully automated light metro system, similar to Vancouver, British Columbia’s “Skytrain” or Honolulu’s upcoming “HART.” Although more expensive initially, it costs far less to maintain and operate such a service while avoiding most of the costs commensurate with a traditional metro by utilizing smaller trains and infrastructure. This type of transit forces operators to provide more frequent service to meet capacity goals, which is ideal for a city of Riverside’s size. Similar municipalities, which have built bus rapid transit systems, streetcars, or even full light rail have cut back service to decrease costs, thus lowering ridership and beginning a vicious cycle of deterioration. An automated light metro, with significant infrastructure already in place, would avoid this by forcing high quality service through its fundamental design, while still maintaining a reasonable price.
Ultimately, in the face of global warming, rising cost of living, and a need to allow everyone to participate in society, building good transit is a vital necessity. No matter what, any public transportation improvements we make in Riverside will be beneficial, but it is important to make the best decision we possibly can.