PURPOSE:    

 

This report responds to direction received from the City Council at the September 28, 2004 meeting.  At that meeting, the Council considered three alternative scenarios for commercial and industrial growth during the 20-year period covered by the current Land Use and Mobility Element updates.  The Council directed staff to develop a fourth growth scenario, somewhat lower than the prior �Moderate Growth� scenario, for traffic forecasting purposes.  The traffic forecast results of that new modeling scenario, along with those of a fifth scenario, are presented in this report.  The Council is being asked to select one of the growth scenarios to be the basis for analysis in the environmental impact report being prepared for the joint update of the Elements.   

  

BACKGROUND:

 

Staff is preparing an environmental impact report to analyze the proposed changes to the Land Use and Mobility Elements of the City�s General Plan.  One of the principal areas of analysis is the effects that growth that is permitted by the Land Use Element (LUE) will have on long-term traffic conditions.  Policies contained in the LUE control both the amount and distribution of growth, which together affect traffic generation and distribution.  In this LUE update, one of the ways in which staff will be proposing to control the amount and distribution of development is through the use of a trip-based intensity measurement standard (�TIMS�) that will cap the number of vehicle trips permitted by new development, based upon the location and land use category in which a particular development site is located. 

 

The three development scenarios presented at the September 28, 2004 Council meeting, and the two new scenarios, reflect alternative amounts and distributions of commercial and industrial development during the next twenty years. Each scenario has an ultimate build-out which represents the maximum development that could occur assuming that the pattern and amount of future growth is constrained by the specific TIMS limitations, which would be distinct to each scenario.  Staff has utilized the City Traffic Demand Model to forecast the 2025 traffic condition that would result from each of the five development scenarios.  The growth scenario selected by the Council will become the �preferred project� in the environmental impact report and, as such, will be analyzed to determine potential impacts and necessary mitigation measures.  It is possible that the proposed growth pattern could be further modified through the environmental process to avoid or reduce identified impacts.       

 

At the prior Council meeting, staff presented year 2025 traffic forecasts for three alternative growth scenarios.  For comparative purposes, the �Existing Plus Entitlements� growth scenario was modeled to illustrate year 2025 traffic conditions at thirty intersections, if only those commercial and industrial projects that have already been approved are added to existing development.  That scenario adds 7 million square feet of new commercial and industrial development (primarily in the Media District) to the current 39 million square feet city-wide.  The second scenario, �Moderate Growth�, assumes that another 6 million square feet of commercial and industrial development is added beyond the 46 million that is included in the prior scenario, for a total of 52 million square feet.  A third scenario, �High Growth�, added another 6 million square feet of commercial and industrial development, for a total of 58 million.  The year 2025 traffic forecasts that were previously done for each of these three scenarios are attached for reference.    

 

After reviewing the year 2025 traffic forecasts for each of the three scenarios, the Council directed staff to develop a new scenario with (1) a 3 million square foot commercial and industrial growth increment, rather than the 6 million square feet assumed in the Moderate Growth scenario, and (2) a forecasted residential growth that is more consistent with the residential changes being considered for the Land Use Element update.  Since these residential changes have not yet been considered by the Council (this is scheduled as a discussion item on the October 26 agenda), staff can only approximate the growth in residential dwelling units that could occur as a result of subsequently approved changes.  For the purposes of this modeling, staff has used a growth increment of 9,000 residential units in place of the 14,000 unit increase assumed in each of the three prior scenarios.  This lower number reflects the residential changes that staff will be presenting to Council.

 

NEW FORECASTING SCENARIOS:

 

Two new scenarios were developed:  (1) the Council-directed modification, referred to as the �Reduced Growth� scenario, which assumes a growth of only 3 million square feet of commercial and industrial development, rather than the 6 million square feet included in the prior Moderate Growth scenario, and a residential growth increment of 9,000 units, rather than the prior 14,000 unit increase; and (2) the �Strategic Growth� scenario, which assumes that 2 of 3 million square feet of commercial and industrial growth reduced citywide in the Reduced Growth scenario is added back to the City Center and South San Fernando Redevelopment Project Areas, resulting in a citywide growth of 5 million square feet.  The latter scenario also assumes the 9,000 unit residential growth increment.

 

The Reduced Growth scenario achieves the 3 million square foot reduction from the Moderate Growth scenario by cutting the amount of commercial growth assumed for the strip commercial areas (Burbank Blvd., West Magnolia Blvd., West Olive Ave., etc.), and in the City Center and South San Fernando areas.  The Strategic Growth scenario re-assigns 2 million square feet to the Downtown areas, raising the growth assumed for those areas from the 1.6 million square feet assumed in the Reduced Growth scenario, to 3.1 million square feet in the Strategic Growth scenario. 

 

The residential growth assumption is the same for both of the new scenarios.  The 9,000 unit growth increment is the approximate theoretical build-out of residences in both the existing residential zones, and in the new commercial and mixed use zones where residential development will be encouraged.  The assumed growth in the residential zones reflects density and land use category changes that will be proposed as part of the Land Use Element update.

 

2025 TRAFFIC FORECASTS FOR TWO NEW SCENARIOS:

 

The results of the traffic forecasts done for the Reduced Growth scenario are shown in Table 1.  The citywide reduction from the Moderate Growth scenario of 3 million square feet of commercial and industrial development, along with reduction of 4,000 residential units, results in a total of 12 intersections projected to operate at LOS E or F with moderate improvements in 2025.  By implementing more extensive improvements, including street widenings requiring right-of-way dedications or acquisitions, each of the 12 intersections could feasibly be improved to LOS D or better.  This compares favorably to the traffic conditions reported for the Moderate Growth scenario, where 17 intersections were projected to operate at LOS E or F with moderate improvements, and 3 would remain at LOS E even with more extensive improvements being implemented.  The Reduced Growth scenario improves the forecasted levels-of-service at 14 of the 30 intersections from those levels forecasted for the Moderate Growth scenario.

 

Table 2 shows the results of the Strategic Growth scenario.  While this scenario includes 2 million more square feet of development than does the Reduced Growth scenario, the traffic forecasts are very similar.  The same 12 intersections would operate at LOS E or F, with moderate improvements, and each could feasibly be improved to LOS D or better with more extensive roadway improvements.  The reason that the 2 million square feet of additional commercial growth does not cause greater impacts to intersection operations is that in the Strategic Growth scenario all of it is allotted to the City Center and South San Fernando Project areas, where the street capacity, freeway access, and public transit services are able to accommodate it. 

 

ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION:

 

The Reduced Growth scenario improves forecasted traffic conditions over the Moderate Growth scenario by reducing the projected citywide growth of commercial and industrial development from 6 million to 3 million square feet.  Since this reduction was applied