Readers React: Traffic planning and high-density development

To the editor: Good column, good analysis, wrong culprit.Yes, high-density living is all the rage, bringing higher-density traffic. (“Congestion isn’t just a Westside problem anymore,” Jan. 7)

But developers will develop wherever they can, that’s what they do. They get to build it and then walk away with their profits.

The problem is our city planners and traffic departments allow them to stuff more and more living units into the same space without forcing the addition of more lanes of traffic.

Shouldn’t handling the traffic that follows the dwelling unit be part of the cost of the project? And if this is not feasible, shouldn’t the project be denied?

We want to live as near our workplace as we can afford, and get from point A to point B with a minimum of cost, time, and hassle. But city officials then appoint traffic department heads whose job apparently is to harass us until we drive someplace else. They euphemistically call it “traffic calming” but it is really “driver irritation.”

Why do we all put up with this? When will we elect officials who start doing what we need and want?

Harry Pope, Long Beach

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