Los Angeles should look back to the LA Olympics when LA restricted commercial traffic during
Rush Hours. Traffic really moved well.
A similar policy today would move traffic more smoothly & cut down of freeway accidents involving big rigs. Why would the owners of trucking companies want their drivers unneccessarily bogged down in LA rush hour traffic burning
drivers’ wages & fuel? Would rerouting & rescheduling truck traffic be better for all concerned.

1) Buses: A bus trip of significant distance in LA takes 2 to 3 times longer than id done by car. The weakness is LA is so large that it takes hundreds of routes to cover it. The result is any trip usually takes two or more buses to accomplish. The time for transfers and connections adds up quickly making a car ride seem far more attractive. More buses on the road may help short distance commuters, but wont save freeways where people are traveling longer distances.

Subways: Well planned subways such as the Metro Red line have the promise of huge success. At 7am the red line is standing room only by its 2nd station stop. Where the bus moves slow on congested streets the red line flies underground. There are at least 3 or 4 other corridors in LA that could easily support a subway. With trains every 10 minutes, convenient park and rides, and on time station stops the subway is a luxurious way to travel.

Capacity: Adding more capacity is not always the answer. But in LA there are bottlenecks where capacity is the issue. With the exception of a half dozen 2 lane canyon roadways, the anemic 101 and 405 struggle to connect the valley and LA proper. The connecting stretch of the 405 is the number one traffic delay zone nationally over decade running.

Carpools: A great idea for people people who live close to one another, like one another’s company,work near one another, and arrive and leave at the same time. Unfortunately finding a carpool partner is often more difficult than finding a spouse.

I think the future of LA will depend on more of everything. Subways, buses, more lanes, and better urban planning. I also think it will depend on LA governments, businesses, and residences changing their habits. Is there a compelling reason telecommuting is the exception and not the norm for some office jobs? Is there a reason 8am is still the standard start time for most businesses and schools, why not 7 or 9? Do large central offices really save money compared to smaller regional offices when we consider traffic and pollution? Our traffic problems are mostly due to too many sheep trying to follow the norm at the same time. Any fix will require everyone to step outside the norms.

In any case, the distinction between “urbanized area” and “metro area” is relevant here because, as most serious students of urban planning know and as you mentioned, the urbanized portions of Greater Los Angeles have the highest development and population density of any urban area in the country. Prof. Cervero and others have said that the City of Los Angeles itself has “problematic density,” in that population is distributed in such a way that there are only a few corridors in which reserved-ROW transit could be effective (Wilshire, Downtown-Koreatown-Hollywood, maybe the 405/Sepulveda corridor between Sherman Oaks/Van Nuys and LAX) but there are many places in which density and congestion are too high for buses in mixed traffic to provide effective mobility.