Item 37 - EIR No. 2020-03 and GPA No.2020-06 Santa Ana General Plan Update

Home Browse Search

Orozco, Norma From: Aaron Senese <aaronlsenese@gmail.com> Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2021 11:28 AM To: eComment Subject: December 7th meeting: the future of upgraded transit along Bristol Categories: Correspondence To the council of the City of Santa Ana My name's Aaron and I'm a resident of DTSA. It's recently come to my attention that the General Plan for Santa Ana will soon be under review. Given that the mayor and a number of council members have expressed a desire to increase the utilization of mass transit within the city, I believe there's one thing we have to bear in mind; The opportunity cost of driving versus riding mass transit must be adjusted. In more simple terms; the quality of our mass transit service determines how likely someone is to choose mass transit for their trip. Frequency, speed and accessibility are all key factors in this - factors that a distributed bus network alone cannot solve. It isn't just advisable but absolutely necessary for our council to explore, study and support higher capacity for our most frequently used routes - both ih the interest of ridership and improving the lives of those of us like me who must take mass transit and have no other choice. Since the long-term plan for the section of Bristol St. running through Santa Ana is being considered in the General Plan, I'd like to focus on route 53, which runs past locations like South Coast Plaza, the Outlets and Angels' Stadium - some very important magnet locations which draw a large number of trips by car already. The 53 already runs local and express versions of the route and, with some limited changes to major intersections along Bristol St. and the repainting of lanes, it would be possible to run existing vehicles in center running lanes, allowing express busses to run quickly and unimpeded between major stops. If stoplight prioritization for these busses was included in the upgrade, they could run seamlessly - almost as if they had their own dedicated right of way. To put it bluntly; the cost of this would be two lanes on Bristol street - one in each direction. This cost is, of course, the elephant in the room for anyone who commutes as part of their living. However, automotive traffic is a complex issue, and this upgrade has potential benefits for drivers. First; more people using transit along Bristol means more trips up and down the street by car are removed. Put simply, a single person using their car can be imagined to take up nearly the length of a city bus due to the size of their car and the leeway in front and behind the car - and that's per -person if someone is driving alone. Imagine the passenger count of a single bus, now imagine each of these had their own bus. That's the basic reality of road traffic. Each bus worth of passengers is twenty or more busses worth of space freed up for other drivers who need or really want to drive. Second; less lanes can mean less conflict between cars. Merging slows traffic down, this is part of the reason that Bristol has limited intersections and it's also why two -lanes of traffic can have more throughput than three. There's also the fact that express and local busses will no longer be encountering each other and attempting an overtake.