Can’t We Rethink the Freeways We Have?

“Why do candidates in this town run for office on any issue other than traffic?” my husband asked above the roar of the 134.

“What candidates?” I asked. “Mayoral? Gubernatorial? City Council? Presidential?”

“Any of them,” he said, nosing into the exit lane. “Someone makes fixing traffic their absolute priority and they would rule this state.”

His comment was not exactly a non sequitur. We were heading into Hollywood from Glendale, and to do this by freeway, one must take the 134 west, get on the 170 then get off immediately and double back on what then becomes the 101 south--there is no other way to get on the 101 south from the 134. This is, of course, insane. Almost as insane as the fact that to get on the 405 south from the 101, one must enter a single, perilously narrow lane that hairpins from one freeway to another--the other day I was part of a mile-long line of fuming traffic creeping behind an SUV whose driver obviously thought that at any speed greater than 10 mph, the thing would flip.

And that’s just a few miles along one thoroughfare. Throughout Los Angeles, city and county, there are innumerable sites of gridlock, danger and just plain freeway weirdness, most of which is so easily correctable to the benefit of all. When, for example, will “they” ever fix the narrow onramp from the 110 north to the 101 north that jams traffic through the city practically 24/7? Maybe when some group stages a protest by walking on car roofs from 9th Street to Silver Lake Boulevard? Or how about the hard left one must make to merge from the 110 north to the 5? Or the inexplicable narrowing of the 5 to one lane that occurs in both directions just south of the 10? People I know go miles out of their way to avoid that bottleneck, thereby taking up rush-hour space on freeways that, technically, they shouldn’t even be on.

Anyone who runs for any office in this city, county and state knows that public condemnation of the state of L.A. traffic is mandatory, and for years we’ve heard about expanding “light rail” and bus corridors throughout Southern California, and about computer-aided “smart” freeways that are in the works. Meanwhile, riders have to sue the MTA to try to get a few more buses on the road, and we have a light rail line that ends just far enough away from the airport to prevent it from actually being functional in any meaningful way.

Of course we need more and better mass transit. Of course we should use whatever technology is available to make freeways smarter, trains faster, buses cleaner. But there are a lot of obstacles to such plans--financial, political and cultural. Everyone in L.A. wants more mass transit options, but no one wants the new tracks/construction/bus lanes in their neighborhood. Everyone in L.A. wants less traffic, but very few are willing to carpool.

Meanwhile, perhaps politicos should start smaller. Maybe someone should run for something on the platform that he or she will make the freeways that we have more sensible. Not fancier or smarter or even more numerous. Just more sensible. Exit ramps that are two lanes, and do not require centrifugal force to survive; freeways that do not narrow suddenly and are actually connected to those that intersect them. You know, the little things.

Mary McNamara can be reached at mary.mcnamara@latimes.com.