A Free Flow of Ideas to Ease L.A. Travel

The “experts” The Times enlisted for ideas on significantly reducing present and future road traffic (Opinion, April 17) omitted the simplest idea possible, namely make all urban mass transit free. This would quickly reduce the volume of cars on streets and freeways by at least 10%. The economic and health savings because of major reductions in commuting times and pollution should compensate for the less-than-half-percent increase in sales and business taxes needed to compensate for the lost fares.

Who knows, if we can succeed on such a simple plan, a future Democratic Congress and president might adopt the approach nationwide and fund it by the federal government. This would dramatically reduce our nation’s “subsidy” to radical Arab oil interests and cut our annual expenses and angst on terrorism to boot.

Sid Turkish

Beverly Hills

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Make major streets one way. Make all such major streets “no parking” from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Greatly restrict right and left turns from those major streets. The traffic backs up on all those heavily traveled streets minutes after 9 a.m. when parking is allowed. Why so badly jam-up traffic for so few people to park? These simple and cheap measures would pick up several extra lanes. Then better coordinate the signals so that traffic flows more freely. All of this could be done within weeks, not the many years to build rail lines.

Richard S. LeVine

Los Angeles

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Portland and Eugene, Ore., have significant numbers of bicycle commuters without benefit of the mild weather Southern Californians enjoy. In many areas of L.A., it is far easier and faster to ride a bicycle than to drive a vehicle. Not only do you gain valuable exercise, you remove one more vehicle from the road. As a dedicated bicyclist I am always amused that my 215-pound body is readily transported at speeds up to 24 mph on a 32-pound city bike, yet when I look over the sea of oversized Hummers, SUVs and pickup trucks piled up at intersections I usually notice a single driver, weighing 150 pounds, driving 6,000 pounds of metal. As Thoreau said, “simplify.”

David Hill

Murrieta

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The single greatest disaster inflicted on L.A. surface streets is the use of the left-hand turn lane. This is a system that by design can never move more than about 40% of traffic, perhaps 10% to 20% on left arrows, at any moment in time. Traffic is concentrated in “platoons,” further aggravating congestion.

The traffic circle system by design moves 100% of traffic 100% of the time. Three lanes and a left-turn lane would be more than equally served by two lanes and a three-lane traffic circle. The continuing expansion of this left-lane disaster and under-utilization of the traffic circle will undoubtedly be noted by future archeologists, as we note the odd absence of the wheel in Pre-Columbian American civilizations.

Clayton Dunn

Palos Verdes Estates

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How about a different approach to the payment of tolls for use of the public transportation system. Let’s have both the employer and the employee pay a few-cents-per-mile toll each day for each mile over 10 that separates the home of the employee and the place of employment. That money would be used to improve streets and freeways, purchase buses and create a larger subway network. This toll would encourage creation of jobs near homes and homes near jobs. I am constantly amazed with the idea that just because someone finds a job and a home many miles apart, the general public is supposed to spend billions of dollars to improve/enlarge streets and freeways.

James T. Humberd

Burbank