O.C. in Need of Better Means for Clean Air
The Air Quality Management District has been taking a lot of heat lately, but it must be admitted that its “transportation control measures” are extremely effective in reducing freeway traffic.
With only a few of the planned measures implemented (diamond lanes and forced car-pooling, for instance), many thousands of cars have been removed from our freeways every day. Given a couple of more years to implement the rest of its policies, such as parking restrictions, the AQMD will no doubt eliminate most of the remaining traffic. People without jobs don’t drive to work. Empty factories have no sales force on the road, make no shipments and need no deliveries. Ghost towns have no traffic or smog problems.
In under four years, the AQMD has driven more jobs from Orange County than smog did in 50 years. The AQMD is doing such a fine job with its traffic control measures that we no longer have a smog problem in Orange County, we have an AQMD problem.
I’ll bet the AQMD will be a lot harder to get rid of than smog ever was.
BILL WARD, Costa Mesa
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