LETTERS

Re “Westside driving: 10 miles in 60 minutes,” June 21

It is reassuring to know that Los Angeles transportation officials have spent years collecting traffic data at hundreds of gridlocked Westside intersections. As a commuter, I too have been collecting data. Driving east from Santa Monica to Sepulveda Boulevard is slow on weekdays from 3:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. On rare occasions, it is not.

How can the city properly analyze traffic patterns when frustrated motorists are trying different methods and routes to keep their appointments and sanity? While we wait for a solution, I have a crazy idea. The city evidently has the budget to park radar cops daily on Sunset, San Vicente and Washington boulevards. Let’s get these guys off their seats and into intersections where they can do something useful for the community.

If traffic is flowing, let them go back to the easy-pickin’ radar tickets.

Brian Schuman

Pacific Palisades

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The current fad of providing “opportunities” for children by driving them to soccer games and gymnastics classes is the cause of the afternoon Westside traffic that is driving parents crazy. These opportunities turn into afternoons spent in the back seat of a car.

Instead, stay home. Read books, sew, kick a ball down the sidewalk or build cool mud cities in the backyard. It is not until kids are bored that they even begin to formulate inventive means of amusing themselves and engaging their talents.

Peter Yates

Culver City

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The Times doesn’t cite the main reason for the now-unbearable traffic on the Westside: over-development. The relentless building boom on the Westside over the last decade has made the quality of life here almost unbearable.

Many Westsiders know that City Councilman Jack Weiss is partly to blame for the current state of affairs. He is incapable of saying no to a developer. Thankfully, the voters let him know how we felt about him, and he lost his last election bid.

Unfortunately, his tragic legacy of ruining the Westside will live on.

Laurie Trainor

Los Angeles