The Next L.A. / Reinventing Our Future : Transportation : This is no ordinary SigAlert. Now, even wild and far-fetched solutions seem possible.

Though long the target of ridicule, Angelenos have been willing to sit in smog-choked traffic for the privilege of living in Southern California. Maybe it was the beach house with floor-to-ceiling picture windows. Or the cabin up in the mountains that made the commute bearable.

But it was a choice. A decision we all made living in a land where congestion is so renowned that a traffic reporter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Now we sit in traffic because the roads are broken. Some of us drive three hours to get to work because we must.

In a region where 79% drive alone to work, the far-fetched has become probable: Thousands of passengers flock to commuter rail trains, dozens hop buses, and scores try what they had once resoundingly scorned--car pools.

In Santa Clarita, traveling less than 10 miles around battered Interstate 5 takes motorists up to two hours during rush hour. Not surprisingly, ridership on the Santa Clarita commuter train line reached more than 20,000--a twentyfold increase over pre-quake days.

From Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena on down, transportation officials hailed the development as a signal that Angelenos would embrace mass transit and car pools. Get real. We won’t snub freeways until mass transit is as convenient as driving. Or until driving is so awful that the freedom it affords us no longer means much.

Now is the time to reassess the transportation system, to shore up mass transit so people might actually stay aboard. To re-think roads so they carry more than the usual flow of single-passenger cars. To re-configure the workplace so people don’t have to drive there. Can we design it all better? Can we stomach the change?

No doubt it would be painful. If trains and buses were fast and comfortable and ran with great frequency to places near where we needed to be, would we ride? Yes, particularly if it was no longer easy to drive. There is not one solution, but there may well be a combination of approaches.

We would have to pose powerful incentives for staying off congested roads during rush hours. Just as a telephone company charges higher rates for peak-hour calls, motorists could be charged a fee for driving during rush hour. Special devices on your dashboard could log the time of day that you drive, and whether you had chosen a congested thoroughfare. This way, a San Joaquin Valley farmer driving on a country road at 5 p.m. would not be penalized. But those of us who braved the Harbor Freeway would be.

Or we could make it inconvenient to drive by eliminating free parking. In one study, researchers found that providing free parking induces more travel than offering free gasoline. If shopping malls, libraries and schools charged for parking, for instance, would you drive there? If your employer offered you free parking or its equivalent amount in cash, which would you take?

Perhaps we need to introduce another mode of transportation. A jitney, for instance, would offer the main perk of a car--going door-to-door--combined with the benefit of carrying several passengers. It could be cheaper than a taxi, more convenient than a train or bus. Sure, a jet pack would be better but that’s decades away.

The other solution would be to reduce the numbers of us who have to wend our way to work. If we telecommuted from our homes or neighborhood workstations, we could diminish the crowds on our freeways.

The Northridge earthquake showed us that freeways have become our Achilles heel. If we had more options in the Santa Clarita and the northern San Fernando valleys, motorists would not face the devastating commutes to and from the workplace that will be typical for months, drives around downed freeways that take nearly as many hours as the workday itself.

Today, normally punctual workers clock in hours late. Oranges, Brussels sprouts and tons of other cargo trucked on the major north/south artery--Interstate 5--become mired in hopeless traffic jams.

When the quake snapped portions of six thoroughfares as though they were matchsticks, our one-hour commutes became morning-long ordeals, suburban nightmares. No longer can we simply turn on the ignition, flip on the radio, rev the engine and weave into crowds of commuters on the road.

Instead, we are forced to map out elaborate strategies for the normal commute, calculating traffic flow on mountain roads versus city streets. The wrenching blow to the roadways immediately rippled through our lives: We set alarm clocks four hours earlier, page through want ads for extra baby-sitting help, snap at spouses and scold children.

Now we must ask: Can we do any better? This is no ordinary Sig Alert.