Los Angeles area gets poor grades in urban health

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The Daily Breeze


Friday, February 04, 2005

Los Angeles area gets poor grades in urban health

Regional planning agency says problems of traffic, air quality, education and housing continue to worsen as the population soars.
By Gordon Smith
Copley News Service

Traffic congestion, air quality, education, housing, income level and other measures of the Los Angeles area's urban health grew steadily worse from 1999 to 2003, according to an annual report released Thursday by a regional planning agency.

The dismal "report card" from the Southern California Association of Governments suggests that state, county and local agencies have failed to address these and other issues in any comprehensive way, despite repeated calls to action by planning experts.

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For example, the population of SCAG's six-county planning area grew by 350,000 people in 2003 -- more than 10 percent of the nation's total population growth during that year. The growth in the six counties -- Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Imperial -- also represented an astonishing 56 percent of the state's population growth during that period.

The region's traffic congestion continued to be the worst in the nation, very nearly earning an "F" grade from the report's authors. They settled for assigning it a "D-" instead. Despite the gridlock, mass transit ridership declined 2 percent from 2002 to 2003, and the percentage of people car pooling to work declined by 1.5 percent, the report noted.

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