BONUS: In defense of freeways
GD: Population is going to grow, and we still need to accommodate people traveling by car. We can't just abandon them.
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GD: More than two thirds, maybe three quarters of the people right now are making their trips by car. But slowly we need to provide other options.
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AB: From KPBS in San Diego, this is Freeway Exit. I'm Andrew Bowen. Our guest for this bonus episode is Gustavo Dallarda. He's the director for Caltrans District 11, which covers San Diego and Imperial Counties. Caltrans, of course, is the California Department of Transportation. And those of you who have listened to all of season 1 will know for the past 50 years, this agency has been in a constant state of evolution. It built all of California's freeways… and in the process, it did a lot of damage to people and the environment. And when I talk to Caltrans officials nowadays, I get the sense that they know… and they want to do right by those communities and heal the wounds caused by freeways. But Caltrans is also tasked with protecting the investments taxpayers made in our freeway network. And sometimes it's hard to do both things at the same time.
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AB: We've had a lot of voices on this podcast with some pretty radical ideas about what to do with our freeways. Gustavo Dallarda points out whether you like it or not, people still rely on freeways to get around. And as you just heard, he thinks we've put so much stock into cars and freeways that our transition away from them has to be slow and gradual. Dallarda was appointed district director in 2019, but he's worked at Caltrans for more than 30 years. He's originally from Argentina. His dad was a contractor who built a lot of Argentina's water infrastructure. And visiting those construction sites as a kid instilled in him a fascination with engineering. We're going to get right to it, so here's my interview with Caltrans District 11 Director Gustavo Dallarda.
AB: Can you start by just defining what a freeway is?
GD: Sure. A freeway is a highway where you basically can get from one point to another without having to stop at a lot of signals. It has grade separated interchanges, so it allows you to make a trip pretty efficiently. So if you think about our county, if you try to get from, say, Chula Vista down south or San Ysidro, all the way to the northern part of the county, imagine how long it would take if you just take city roads where you have to stop every five minutes for a signal, and you waste maybe three to five minutes at every signal. Freeway allows you to make those trips a lot more efficiently, a lot quicker, but it also allows you to connect different cities. So say, for example, San Diego and Orange County or Los Angeles. Freeways are designed for higher speeds than local streets. So you need to make sure that you have the right curve radius and the right horizontal and vertical alignment. But there are many other considerations in building a freeway, and a big one is trying to minimize the environmental impacts. And we do that following state and federal law to make sure that when we design the freeway or modify a freeway, that we do the proper environmental analysis and consider all of the resources that may be impacted by that new freeway or that reconstruction, and make sure that we address that properly. And as part of that environmental studies, we also engage with the public to make sure that we're addressing the public's concerns … which is maybe something that, when freeways were originally built, were things that were not very considered very widely. And that's why now I think we have a much better approach than we did in the past.
AB: Tell me about how freeway engineering or design standards have changed over time, because if you look at the 163, two lanes in each direction, and you compare that to, say, the 805 or the 15, I mean, they look very different. They feel very different. So tell me how the standards have changed over time and why.
GD: The standards have changed because the vehicles have changed, the speeds have changed, the access in and out of the freeways has changed. Some of the original highways were built on what used to be the alignment of what Native Americans used to go from one place to the other because they were wise and they followed the best path to go from one spot to the other. Those trails grew into first two lane roads, and those two lane roads eventually became what our freeways are nowadays. So when you look at some of our older freeways, the standards, maybe the shoulders were not ten foot shoulders like there are nowadays, and some of the curves were a little bit tighter than they are today. The interchange pacing maybe is not what it is today. So all of those things are part of an evolution to make sure that when people are traveling are safe.
AB: So as vehicles started getting faster and faster, the response from the engineering community was basically like, we need to give people more time to get off the freeway so the off ramps are longer or give people a wider curve to change to a different freeway. So that's why the interchanges take up a bigger footprint. Is that kind of —
GD: Yeah, that's part of it. And part of it is really learning, right, as you go along, just learning from data and learning for the standards are based on data and learning from things that work and things that don't work. Protecting our slopes and going from a two to one slope to a milder slope, because you can recover if you get off the pavement. As well as our protective devices. You look at the guardrail systems that we have nowadays and they're completely different standards from what we used to have. And those standards are completely revisited as we get more data and as vehicle also changes.
AB: What are some of the biggest changes that you've seen at Caltrans in the course of your career here, and when did you start?
GD: So I started about 30 years ago, in the early 90s. And at that time some of the key connections between some of our communities were not there from a highway standpoint. So I saw some freeways being built, like the 125, the 52, the 56, the 905, and the latest one, which is the SR-11. So during those 30 years, I saw many new freeways being built. I don't see that looking forward. There are no new freeways being planned for San Diego. All of those key connections have been made on the highway system. What we now need to focus on is continuing to maintain and operate that freeway system and trying to get more out of it, trying to be more efficient in moving people through the system and better integrating the highway system with a transit network. I do see some lagging in the completion of our transit network. We definitely are making great progress, and the completion of the Blue Line all the way to UTC and UCSD is key. We need more projects like that and we need more transit projects that get people faster and really a competitive alternative to driving alone.
AB: After a short break, we talk about what it's going to take for California to wean itself off the freeway… and what Dallarda thinks of freeway decommissioning. You don't want to miss this. Stay tuned.
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AB: This is Freeway Exit from KPBS, I'm Andrew Bowen. One of the reasons I started this podcast was I noticed an ever growing chasm between what San Diego and California say they're going to do on climate change and what they're actually doing. Here's an example: Both the governor and state legislature have officially adopted a goal of net zero emissions by 2045. And last year, the state's Air Resources Board attempted to lay out a roadmap for how to get there. It determined that every part of California needs to sharply and quickly cut back on driving. Specifically, vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, has to go down by 25% by 2030. So one out of every four trips by car just wouldn't happen. Or the average trip would be three-quarters the length. That's a big change. And 2030 is a tight deadline. So I asked Dallarda, given this goal from our climate scientists and our elected government… how do we make that happen?
GD: So it's undoubtful that we need to reduce the miles that we travel. And how can we do that? More people in vehicles. Instead of one person per car, we need to have more people in vehicles. Right. You see that in many countries. But here, unfortunately, we still have a lot of people driving alone. How can you incentivize that? Well, through lanes that encourage people to carpool or to participate in vanpools or in transit. The share of people that use transit is way too small. We need to at least double it, triple it maybe. That's going to put into effect those vehicle mile reductions that are mandated. It's basically not relying on people buying more cars and making trips alone. Population is going to grow, and we still need to accommodate people traveling by car. We can't just abandon them because more than two thirds, maybe three quarters of the people right now are making their trips by car. But slowly. We need to provide other options.
AB: You said slowly, but the deadline is very fast approaching. And I'm thinking about how basically every IPCC report that we've gotten has said we're not doing enough. Change is not happening fast enough. We're not decarbonizing our economy or our transportation network fast enough. When we listen to the scientists, there's a real sense of urgency. And I'm just being honest with you, I don't see that sense of urgency when we're really talking about the changes to our transportation network. I mean, carpool lanes have existed for a long time, and we've always toyed with different ideas of how to encourage carpooling. And yet it's still something that not very many people do. So will we have to start talking about more radical solutions the closer that we get to that deadline and the more that we understand how what we've done so far hasn't been enough?
GD: Yeah. The challenge, of course, is that infrastructure projects take a long time because of the process itself, right, and sometimes the financing as well. But we got to keep our sights on the mission, which our mission should be to implement that regional transportation plan that we have and that doesn't get implemented by flipping a switch. We need to be honest about that, and we need to look at the projects that are prioritizing that plan, and we need to commit to those projects. We need to try to secure the funding, and we need to try to move as quickly as possible. But there's no magic solution here. There is no silver bullet. You have to basically look at what we've laid out as the future of transportation for San Diego and slowly implement it project by project at a time.
AB: So something that I don't know how much you heard about the interview that I did with Hassan Ikrata, but one of the things that he told me that really stuck with me was: If we acknowledge that some of the freeways that we built were a mistake, is that a mistake that we can correct? Or is it one that we'll have to live with for the rest of our lives?" Do you have an answer for that? Have we done enough to really repair the harm that was caused?
GD: I don't think that we've done enough to correct some of the things that were created. And that's why now you see at the state and the federal level some programs to revert those harms. And in many parts of the country we are looking at, are there freeways that are not needed, or are there freeways or highways that can be repurposed? Or how can we make those communities whole by creating more parks, but maybe reconnecting those communities? That's going to take a lot of money. I think it's very difficult to basically say, okay, we're going to shut down a freeway and we're going to make it go away. Our interstates carry anywhere from 300 to 400,000 vehicles per day, which means more than 300 and 400,000 people per day. And our state routes in the urban part of town carry 100 to 200,000 vehicles and people per day. You can't just shut it down without causing another harm. I think there is plenty of opportunity to look at our highways and our freeways to see what can we do to make them better. I wouldn't jump at basically saying we're going to close a freeway down without looking at what harm that would cause in the movement of people and also to our economy.
AB: So the federal government and the state government are making all of this money available for projects that would remove a freeway, maybe put a lid on one or a freeway to boulevard kind of concept. Do you see a place in San Diego where you think that would work and that would be a success?
GD: There have some areas that have been brought up by communities, by elected officials. I can give you some examples. For example, the I-5 splitting the downtown area and the Barrio Logan area. So say from the I-5 from downtown to National City, that's an area that could be looked at. The 94 is another area that was brought up by communities in the past between downtown and, say, the 805. The 163, how it splits Balboa Park. But I have to say 163 is one of the most beautiful highways that we have here. It's a historic highway also. So we need to be very careful about anything that we do on 163.
AB: So you're talking about what exactly like putting a lid over these freeways or removing them altogether or converting them to a boulevard?
GD: I think in most of these we're talking about probably cap parks or caps, freeway caps, putting lids to create green space or other usable space. I think it would be very difficult to remove any of these freeways because of what I mentioned earlier, the number of people and goods that they move. Where would that movement of people and goods go? They would go to the other freeways. And right now I think that maybe as the transportation system evolves and transit plays a bigger part in moving people, then maybe we can talk about, can we repurpose some of the right of way? I think completely eliminating a freeway will be tough, but maybe yeah, maybe reducing the number of lanes is a possibility, but in a future where there is an option to keep moving those people and those goods.
AB: So I think you mentioned at some point the freeway lids are very expensive. Tell me about why me as not an engineer, but think like just build something over it from an engineering perspective, what makes those types of projects so expensive? And is there any way to sort of, I don't know, make them cheaper?
GD: So in engineering, anything that goes above or below cost a lot of money. So structures and tunnels are very, very expensive. Just the nature of the equipment that you need, the materials that you need to make that happen, it raises the cost significantly from building things just on the ground. So that's why you see always every effort possible in the past to avoid tunneling or going over.
AB: Have you ever thought or tell me why this would be so hard? Putting housing over a freeway or office space, something if you could offset the infrastructure capital costs with some type of revenue generating use. Is that a concept that you see any hope in, or has it been done somewhere where you feel like that's a case study that we could point to, to show we could do it here too?
GD: Yeah, I don't think we have a lot of cases that we can bring up from here, but I think in other parts of the world you can see examples of that. Again, it's just a balancing act of cost also. Right, because building housing on top of a freeway, also because of the structural cost, it costs money, but it has been done in other parts of the world and it can be done. So, yeah, definitely that's a possibility.
AB: This talk of freeway removal — and I don't know if you saw the news about Senator Scott Weiner asking Caltrans in District Four to examine removing the Central Freeway in San Francisco, which was already partially removed after the 89 earthquake, but he's asking for freeway removal there. We've got the Reconnecting Communities grants. When you hear this discussion, what goes through your mind? Is it something that you — does it make you nervous? Does it make you excited? I mean, tell me about your response to this conversation that many people are having.
GD: Yeah, so I'm not familiar with the details of the District Four example that you brought up, but when this comes up, I always try to look at the glass half full and try to figure out how can we implement something like that here? Right. And what does it mean? But for that, a lot of what we do in transportation is not one agency making a decision. And particularly when you're trying to compete for funds, you're much better off when everybody's in alignment. So that's why we rely on our partners here in San Diego with Sandeg, but also with the cities that are impacted by the areas that we will be looking at and making sure that they agree that that's an area where we want to look at something like this. So I get excited when I see these things because I see great opportunities. And when you look at the I Five in the area that I mentioned, in the downtown area, it could look a lot better than it does, and so could 94. Some of our older freeways were built without esthetic treatments, without consideration for how to best move people from one side of the freeway to the other. So I get excited when I see these things. I get nervous if we talk about let's shut down a freeway without really analyzing or looking at what that means, but I think it's thought provoking and it's good to have those discussions.
AB: Still ahead, Dallarda shares how Caltrans has evolved in its understanding of induced demand — the principle that adding lanes to our freeways does not reduce congestion… but does increase driving.
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AB: We're back with the rest of my interview with Gustavo Dallarda, director of Caltrans District 11. Induced demand, or induced travel, is a well observed phenomenon in freeway projects. Add a lane to a freeway and traffic might speed up for a couple years. But those faster speeds create more demand for driving, and soon enough, congestion returns. Caltrans was rather late to accept this reality. So I asked him: When did he first hear about it? And how should we apply it to our plans for the future of our freeways?
GD: This is a concept that started resonating in the last maybe decade when I started at Caltrans. And we would look at transportation projects, we would look at level of service analysis, right. Trying to maximize the level of service, making sure and by level of service, I mean having freeways or intersections operate without congestion and delay. And now we don't do that anymore. Now we focus on what are the VMT impacts of a freeway right? And trying to make sure that we are not increasing VMT with any capacity, increasing project that we're doing. And if we are, then how can we mitigate for it? So how can we avoid first and then if we can't avoid, then how can we mitigate? There's definitely been an evolution in how we consider our projects and the impacts that our projects or the benefits that our projects generate. And induced demand is a reality that when you increase capacity, you get more people to basically utilize that capacity and it gets filled quickly. And also when you look at some of our freeways during the peak period, you basically see this traffic at stop and go. Right? And the normal answer is why don't you add more lanes? Well, we already have ten lanes on some of our freeways. How many more lanes do you want us to add? And then once you add those lanes, you're just going to create a bigger parking lot because that capacity increase has very short term benefit.
What we need to focus on now is developing a system of express lanes within our freeways. Lanes that can be managed through pricing, through dynamic pricing, much like the I 15 express lanes are managed. And that's what we need to start looking at, creating a freeway within our freeway where you can have a guaranteed trip that is not going to be in congestion. And you can guarantee that trip by pricing it, by adding transit services, bus rapid transit services to it, and by encouraging Carpooling, maybe discounting the pricing for the people that are Carpooling. Those are the things that we need to look at to reduce VMT. It does mean that to develop that network, in some cases we might be able to get by converting some lanes into express lanes, but in some cases we may have to add a lane. And if we do then we need to try to consider minimizing the impacts from adding that lane. Can we utilize maybe a shoulder and put a lane where that shoulder is? And if we can't, because of engineering considerations, then in some limited locations, we may have to add a lane. But whereas 30 years ago, maybe by default you would go at expanding the freeway and adding capacity, that really nowadays should be the last recourse. The first thing you should look at is how can you get more people moving with what you already have.
AB: Is VMT going up? Has it been trending up?
GD: I think that during the pandemic, obviously, I would say 2020, 2021 were outliers. I think traffic is getting back to where it was pre-pandemic in 2019. So although I don't have the latest number on VMT, I would probably tell you that, yeah, it'll continue going up.
AB: Isn't that a problem?
GD: Absolutely. And that's why we need to invest in infrastructure that encourages people to leave their car behind. Look, when I travel back home where I was born, or when I travel where my wife is from, in Europe, we hardly drive. It's not because we don't like driving, but it's because in some cases, transit is a better option than driving less of a headache. You don't need to worry about parking, you don't need to worry about congestion and things like that. And the transit provides you a better option. I think we need to get to a point where here you have a choice, and if you want to still drive, you can still drive. But if you want to take transit, it's not going to take you two or three times longer than driving. That is not a good sign for a developed country or a developed region.
AB: There's this saying that I heard, I think it was on Twitter a while ago, and I can't remember who said it, but it's really stuck in my mind. And it's sort of like a guiding principle that this person felt is useful when we're talking about planning a transportation network for the future, where we envision fewer cars. And the saying is, build for the number of cars you want, not the number of cars you have. Have you ever heard this before? And do you think that that principle is a useful exercise to think about how many cars do we want and let's just plan for that?
GD: I think that's a simplistic way of looking at this. I think what we need to plan for is that the fact that people need to move from one place to the other, and that's what we need to accommodate, and how can we keep moving people more efficiently and in ways that don't harm the environment. I don't think that we want to focus on the number of cars. Population is increasing and people's needs to move are going to continue. The need to move goods is going to continue and we need to continue accommodating that as society evolves. But how can we do that without causing more irreparable harm to the environment?
AB: A brief update. This interview was recorded late last year. And just last week, Gustavo Dallarda announced his retirement.
GD: It's been a privilege and an honor to serve the people of California during the last 32 years. I want to thank you all for your continued support during these years, and then also for the continued support for all the civil servants out there that are working for our citizens and for the state. So thank you everyone.
AB: Our thanks go out to Gustavo Dallarda for making himself available. Congratulations on your retirement. Freeway Exit is produced by me, Andrew Bowen, and edited by Brooke Ruth. Thank you so much to everyone who has left us a rating or a review in their podcast app. These really do help us reach new audiences. And if you can believe it, it wasn't until last week that I actually started reading some of the reviews. And they're so nice that I thought I'd share one. User SD-VSF writes on Apple Podcasts: "I am SO grateful that Andrew Bowen and KPBS put together this series. It has history, it has informed perspective, and it has human interest. If we're even luckier, it'll shift the balance of the debate going forward." You know it's every journalist's dream to have their reporting lead to real change. And I'm going to put out a special request to all your listeners. Obviously share this podcast with your friends and family. But share it with your elected officials, too! Mayors, city council members, state legislators… they need to hear these stories more than anyone. So why not send them a quick email and recommend the podcast? Thanks in advance… and thanks for listening.
