Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Merge
On Friday, the day after a Washington-based highway lobbying group put five Southern California freeway intersections on its list of the top 15 bottlenecks in the country, I found myself doing about 5 mph on the Santa Monica Freeway.
I wanted to go from Santa Monica to Silver Lake. But 35 minutes after entering the freeway at Lincoln, I had only reached the 405 overpass. According to the American Highway Users Alliance, the 405-10 junction is the second-worst in the region. A handful of miles up the 405, where it meets the 101, now that’s a bottleneck. That persistent tangle of fenders and headlights took the big prize.
The report crowned it as the worst in the nation, a place where, according to the formula the group uses, more potentially productive hours go down the drain than anywhere else -- more than 27 million hours each year. Weep, Sherman Oaks: You are misery and futility and dismay, and at last we have the data to prove it.
OK, stop weeping. The report doesn’t actually say the intersection is the slowest in the nation, only that it’s slow and a lot of cars pass through it and that if you multiply the number of vehicles times the average daily delay you get a really big number. I became skeptical of the report when I found out the group opposes the Kyoto accord and lobbies against improved fuel-efficiency standards but for more highway construction. Adding lanes to freeways to fix gridlock is like getting a bigger pair of pants to cure obesity.
Still, there’s no doubt that we’ve gotten ourselves into quite a mess. By the time I reached Robertson Boulevard on my trek eastward last week, I had already exhausted many of the techniques available to the frustrated driver: the grunt and the moan, the beseeching look aimed toward heaven, the thump of the steering wheel with the fists.
And there’s not much reason to think that our case of freeway stasis will get better. Gargantuan new developments like the ones proposed for the Newhall Ranch and the Tejon Ranch will guarantee that thousands of commuters join us in the clogfest. As a species, middle-class Southern Californians remain allergic to mass transit. We find carpooling kind of icky too.
That leaves only one approach. If we can’t change freeway conditions, at least we can change the way we think about freeway conditions. Sure, traffic is stuck, but we don’t have to be stuck. Consider, if you will, a plan that encourages contentment even when traffic stands still.
Abandon all hope of reaching the destination. The problem isn’t on the freeway; it’s with our expectation that the freeway is supposed to get us someplace in a certain time. If we begin each trip with healthy doubt, not knowing whether we’ll be able to get where we want to go, we can avoid the tension that comes with feeling thwarted. It’s OK to have a mild preference for getting to work or keeping an appointment, but insisting on certain outcomes will only lead to unhappiness.
Embrace the experience. I’ve seen those advertisements for four-wheel-drive SUVs that promote driving as an adventure. If we could learn to define down the meaning of adventure, if we could discern the excitement in a 12-mile trip that takes an hour and 10 minutes, we would notice that every day was an adventure.
Love thy neighbor. We often hear that L.A. lacks a great public gathering space, a Times Square or a zocalo. But stalled traffic can bring us together. Notice that on the freeway you’re surrounded by people. Look! A man is eating a sandwich. Lettuce falls out from between the bread slices. A woman one lane over is wearing a tiara.
Slow down. We can learn to match our own pace with the prevailing speed outside instead of fighting it. Slow is good. When traffic comes to a halt, notice the wonderful stillness. Become one with the stillness.
Of course, if a traffic jam goes on for more than 15 minutes, you have to be some kind of saint for any of this stuff to work. In that case I recommend the grunt, the moan, the beseeching look toward heaven, the thump of the steering wheel.
