Traffic Congestion

Re “L.A. Once Again Ranks as No. 1 in Traffic Congestion,” Nov. 17: I found your article interesting not because of the statistics it contained, but because it failed to make any mention of car pooling. Wake up, people! Southern California is up to its collective neck in people and automobiles. The car culture ain’t what it used to be.

The most practical solution, although it has been met with attitudes ranging from indifferent to hostile, is ride-sharing. Of course not everyone can carpool to work, but much of our commute traffic is made up of legions of office and factory workers who drive the same route, day after day, at predictable times. Southern Californians abhor the sacrifice of car pooling. It seems to me drivers are sacrificing a significant portion of their daily lives already in pursuit of this uniquely American “freedom.”

MATTHEW P. MACKENZIE

Temple City

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Al Martinez’s remarks on local transit and auto congestion (“Without a Vision or a Mule,” Nov. 14) are extraordinarily apt for the entire Westside of Los Angeles. I am lucky that I only live three miles from work. However, having to visit assorted construction sites requires that I drive each weekday, especially along Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards.

The good Supervisor [Zev] Yaroslavsky ought to be tarred and feathered and strapped to the side of an MTA bus until he wakes up and realizes the degree of long-term damage that his subway propositions will inflict on the future quality of life in this city.

JOHN CRANDELL

Westwood Village

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There appears to be a gag order in place that prevents any journalist from reporting how the Pacific Electric Railway was destroyed. The Red Cars were not “abandoned,” as many writers and oil-sponsored professors like to claim; the system was removed by incompetent, shortsighted, corrupt elected officials and the Division of Highways, at the request of the oil lobby. There’s no argument here; they were found guilty of “criminal conspiracy to monopolize ground transportation,” and it bears on today’s fiasco called the Bus Riders Union.

Does anybody at the Bus Riders Union want to compare amortized costs over the life of a subway car versus a bus? Or energy costs?

JON HARTMANN

Los Angeles