Gridlock

The need for one-way streets in Los Angeles was demonstrated so clearly on Feb. 13, when the Harbor Freeway was tied up in both directions for more than 5 hours because of a police investigation of a fatal accident at Exposition Boulevard. It took thousands of motorists an extra two hours to get home because the nearby surface streets do not have restricted parking or synchronized signals.

When I was a member of the City Council of Los Angeles in 1947, the traffic engineer, Ralph T. Dorsey, suggested we make one-way streets out of Figueroa and Flower. Complaints by the local business owners prevented that change. The number of commuters has grown tremendously since then, however, and something must be done to reduce gridlock. We should have many more one-way streets now and there should be peak-hour parking restrictions on many of the north-south streets from Main to Western (Main, Broadway, Figueroa, Hoover, Vermont, Normandie, Western, etc.) and east-west streets from the Coliseum to 9th Street.

So much can be done to improve the flow of traffic in Los Angeles if the city engineer would implement common-sense strategies such as restricting parking during peak traffic hours on major east-west and north-south thoroughfares and synchronizing traffic signals.

KENNETH HAHN

Supervisor, Second District

Los Angeles County