Traffic Problem: Who’s to Blame?

Some years ago, then-Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown said there would come a time when California would “strangle in its own traffic juices.” Unfortunately, his prediction has come true.

Highways 5 and 405, the county’s main arteries have become at times nothing but gigantic parking lots. Surface streets that are now 40 to 50 years old cannot begin to handle the number of vehicles using them daily. Public transportation is inadequate.

Where does the fault lie? It is partly in the stubbornness of the average driver who refuses to join a car pool or to support better public transportation. How any of us have seen cars all around us with just one occupant--the driver? In this instance, we have carried the vaunted American independent spirit to an extreme.

Others say the fault lies with greedy auto and tire manufacturers who conspired to buy up and do away with public rail systems so that they could substitute buses. I myself recall working on a proposal in Los Angeles County that would have provided a six-corridor, high-speed rail system in exchange for a half-cent boost in the sales tax. Voters turned it down by a 2-to-1 margin.

Despite this, all one has to do is turn on the TV to see commercials for any number of cars, as if it were some God-given right that everyone have a car. Invariably, the commercial will show that manufacturer’s product zipping along a completely empty road. Pray tell, where are those roads?

No doubt things will get worse before they get better. Let us hope that no calamity compels us to take to our cars to try and get away. We haven’t got a chance.

RAY KOVITZ

Mission Viejo