By Frank Muller Santa Monica
Nowhere is it more evident than Los Angeles whence groping through the fog on how to deal with increasing road traffic somewhat exacerbated by the irreversible growth of 9 to 5-service jobs at the expense of three-shifts-a-day manufacturing jobs, cause single focus solutions such as Mr. (Darrell) Clarke’s “Less cars, more bus use” (letters, Aug. 3).
Miles of travel may not be eradicated, as decentralization of such fixed civic infrastructures as courthouses, hospitals, universities, high schools which consume the rather fixed variable of increased traffic due to population growth follows the natural course of reflexibility, rather than necessity.
What we have to devise is a way to completely remove time of travel. As we have seen complete lanes of traffic eliminated during morning, and evening rush hours by “buses only lanes” still not encouraging drivers to commute the list of solutions narrows to one.
Considering that two heads of households must now work to make ends meet, the necessity of staggering service occupations into day, swing and graveyard shifts can be appreciated!
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 8, 2007. Read the original PDF.