Los Angeles Marathon

It would be most interesting to learn where the Los Angeles Police Department spokesman got his information that the marathon caused “scarcely any disruption to traffic flow.”

He obviously didn’t talk to the traffic officers on duty at, say, Santa Monica and Vine, or Sunset and Crescent Heights, nor to the hundreds of drivers who were trapped in the West Hollywood area. It was chaos. I imagine similar scenes occurred at other sections of the route as the runners started streaming by.

Didn’t it occur to the planners that the whole city was not going to come to a halt because there was a marathon going on? A great many people still had to get to and from work, and to and from business and social appointments. What were they supposed to do?

I left Santa Monica and La Cienega at 10:30 a.m. and reached my destination (Wilton and Sunset, 4 1/2 miles away) at 12:45 p.m. In between, I, and hundreds like me, tried every way to get up and around the route, only to find that if you went far enough west to be beyond the route, the only roads north were the canyons going through to the Valley.

A great deal of aggravation and inconvenience could have been avoided if Highland Avenue had been left open so that there was access to the Hollywood Freeway. This would have enabled people to get out of the area, and would have allowed those who needed to get inside the marathon route circle to do so.

If the city wants to repeat this event next year, then those in charge must realize that not everyone wants, or is able, to put their lives on hold for three or four hours, and a route should be planned through or around which people can get if they need to.

SHEILA KHALLADEH

Los Angeles