LA motorists keep driving at any price
LOS ANGELES, June 2 (Reuters) – If you think rising pump prices since the start of the Iran war could help clear Los Angeles’ clogged highways, think again. Drivers in the often gridlocked city, where unleaded gasoline prices run well above $6 a gallon, appear accustomed to sticker shock, according to data provided to Reuters by government officials.
In an exclusive analysis for Reuters, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) found that major highways in the Los Angeles area have generally not shown a significant decline in vehicle kilometers traveled since the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28.
That analysis, covering nearly eight weeks ending April 23, examined traffic data from highways including Interstates 405, 10 and 5. These are some of the nation’s busiest highways and are part of the nation’s cultural fabric due to Hollywood movies and viral national news events like OJ Simpson’s slow-speed police chase in 1994.
While traffic moved only slightly up or down on most major highway sections, some showed increases of around 9% or decreases of almost 3% over the period analyzed.
“I think we’re immune,” said Marco Falcon, a 44-year-old Los Angeles resident who shrugged when told of the finding.
The data supports more than two decades of research showing that U.S. gasoline demand is mostly inelastic; This means drivers are either unwilling or unable to change their habits. prices rose.
In fact, a 2006 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that drivers changed their habits much less during gasoline price increases in the 2000s than during the oil shock of the 1970s.
The average price of a gallon of regular gas in Los Angeles was $6.07 on Monday, according to data from auto club AAA; This was up almost 28% from a year ago and 36% above the national average.
While no one likes to pay more for gas, Falcon said Los Angeles drivers understand that the highest gas prices in the country are part of living in car-obsessed California.
“You have to understand what your priorities are,” said Falcon, who continues to drive because it would take three to four times as long to use lower-cost buses.
“For me, time is money.”
Total weekday bus and train ridership increased 1.6% year-over-year for the combined months of March and April, while passenger miles increased 0.8%, according to data from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro).
An agency spokesman said higher gas prices may have contributed to the gains, but the network is adding new stations and expanding into new areas.
“People don’t change their behavior very much,” said Brian Taylor, a research assistant at the Transportation Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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If traffic sometimes seems lighter in Los Angeles, Taylor said, it’s because small reductions in the number of vehicles on the city’s near-capacity freeways create huge changes in flow.
“A 10% drop in traffic can result in a 40% or 50% drop in latency,” Taylor said.
(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
This article first appeared on USA TODAY: Los Angeles freeways remain busy despite gas prices, analysis shows
