PLATFORM : Quake Recovery

Digging out of the rubble will require creativity and leadership. It’s time for bold approaches and new ideas. Here are two:

To reduce traffic congestion, why not, for a time, make the buses, trains and subways free? “It won’t work,” the critics will say. “You’ll never get Southern Californians out of their cars.” Wrong. Watch how quickly we’ll leave our cars behind after we’ve had two or three frustrating weeks of spending four hours on what is normally a one- or two-hour commute. By establishing express routes on heavily traveled arteries such as the 10 and the 14, and by running extra buses, the MTA can make shared commuting a reasonable alternative. The dollars that will be “lost” in fares will pale in comparison with the hundreds of millions the economy is losing to congestion and lost productivity.

And, to restore Southern California’s social order, why not hire and train unemployed youth to help rebuild? Why not give some of South-Central’s and the Eastside’s long-term unemployed the opportunity to learn a trade? Such a program would rebuild the region’s infrastructure and strengthen our most precious resource--underdeveloped human capital.