Readers Offer Speedy, Safe Ways to Ease Traffic Woes

Dear Readers:

Several people have written over the past months with general suggestions and comments on improving the transportation system in Southern California. This week, Street Smart presents some of these ideas:

Gene Kindschi of Seal Beach wrote with a plan to transform the freeways into a mass transit system. Cars essentially would be banned from parking anywhere, replaced by an extensive bus network. He writes:

“Limit parking everywhere to two hours during the day and four hours after 6 p.m. and on weekends. This would allow shoppers, salesmen, deliverymen and tourists to drive around during the day. Everyone else would use public transportation to commute. They could not drive because they could not park. Encourage reporting of violators and make the fines substantial. Express buses would run from freeway interchange to interchange. Local buses would pick up passengers at each interchange. Local bus routes would be no farther than a mile apart so that no one would have to walk far.

“The buses would be self-supporting because they would be full. At least 75% of the traffic would be buses and trucks, and it would move freely even during rush hours. Use methanol buses, and the air pollution would be greatly decreased.

“This system will work only if the transportation system is good. It will require plenty of buses so that they run frequently, are on time, and are inexpensive to ride.

“It would be difficult to sell this to the public because they are so in love with their cars. However, they must be convinced that they would spend less time and money commuting. This is the only answer to the problem, and the sooner it is done, the better off we all will be.”

C. David Culbertson of Monarch Beach found many traffic ideas during a two-week stay in Europe that he liked. He writes:

“We could learn a lot from the German and Swiss transportation systems. They are superior to ours in every respect.

“The autobahn is a delight to drive on. The drivers actually pay attention to their driving. No speed limit. No marked police cars. You get a ticket for passing on the right, being in a left lane and not passing, or for going too slow. Insurance is mandatory. You can’t get insurance unless you have your car safety inspected, and safety inspections are required every 12 months.

“Surface streets are similar and have strictly enforced speed limits. Signal lights indicate when they are about to turn green, so that a driver can be prepared to move forward as soon as the light changes.”

Culbertson also wrote that he was surprised to discover that pedestrians traveled below street level in some cities to shops and businesses through tunnel networks. He thought that it reduced their chances of being hit. He also noted that the only traffic jam he ever saw in Europe was in a small village where someone had installed a signal.

“This was the only situation that reminded me of back home in Orange County. One moral is that traffic signals often hinder rather than help traffic flow. We have far too many traffic signals in Orange County already. Traffic signals should not be used to try to save businesses which were poorly located to begin with. Tax money should be spent to separate pedestrian and auto traffic, not for more traffic signals.”

Douglas Evans of San Juan Capistrano suggests a system to make people more accountable for their actions on the highways--and therefore, better and safer drivers. He advocates replacing the private insurance system with one that would levy huge traffic fines, to cover the costs of injuries, prosecution and increased enforcement. He writes:

“For example, in the case of drunk driving, hypothetically suppose that it is known that drunk drivers cause 20,000 collisions per year, with an average settlement of $15,000 per accident. The average fee for such violations would be roughly $3,000, to pay drunk-driving claims. Prosecution costs could be added in. The fine could be greater for repeat offenders.

“Such a system would give people a self-serving reason to drive much more efficiently, and collisions and bad driving would drop according to their true costs. Best of all, this is a fair system. As it is now, we all shell out huge sums of money to insurance companies, lawyers, hospitals and auto repair companies. Yet we have little money to pay police, who have the power to act swiftly to prevent or curb the deviant behavior (that) creates these high costs. We should let the full cost of bad driving be swiftly and fully borne by bad drivers.”