For the past 19 years, Los Angeles has had the worst traffic congestion in the nation.
It will continue to get worse before it gets better, unless we change our way of thinking.
Subsequently, we have the choice of moving Los Angeles forward into the 21st century with a new and efficient mass transit system or continuing to go backward with the same old methods that created this unbearable gridlock?
Albert Einstein wisely observed, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Correspondingly, if more buses, light rail and subways are supposed to be the answer to our traffic problems, then we've certainly been asking the wrong questions.
More of the Same-Old Same-Old
The mantra of “Getting motorists out of their cars and into public transportation” is not a traffic plan.
Instead, it's a hopeless and irresponsible wish.
Quite simply, owning a personal car is tantamount to owning a personal home. It is part of living out the great American Dream. Thus, nobody should ever be discouraged or denied from pursuing and fulfilling this personal aspiration.
But why is it that virtually every solution our transportation officials bring forth to supposedly reduce gridlock is based upon negatively impacting 95 percent of L.A.’s commuters who drive a car?
This Is Not Complicated
Do they not understand that a great majority of the public transportation riders are only doing so until they’ve saved enough money to buy a car or are old enough to get a driver's license? Then, they will drive a personal car, which will continue adding to the already gridlocked traffic.
Nonetheless, instead of thinking anew, the traffic experts insist on following the same old routine of buying bigger buses and building more light rail tracks to further impact street level traffic. Their theory is that by rewarding the fewest commuters while punishing the majority, L.A.’s motorists eventually will tire of being stuck in gridlock in the privacy of their own cars and will instead opt to ride a public bus with total strangers in the same gridlock.
This ill-conceived reasoning defies understanding human nature's natural instinct toward personal independence and freedom of mobility, which is the very foundation and promise for “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Here's an axiom that the experts refuse to acknowledge: More passengers will give up riding public transportation and start driving a personal car before more motorists will give up their personal car and start riding pubic transportation.
Not Even Logical
As a result, it makes no sense for government to continue spending more money on counter-productive public transportation that will only create more gridlock for the vast majority of L.A.’s commuters.
Furthermore, if existing public transportation is so efficient, why do nearly 70 percent of our gasoline taxes and another 1 percent of our local sales taxes go toward subsidizing mass transit, yet these same systems continue to lose billions of dollars each year?
And if public transportation is so much better than driving a personal car, why aren't our elected officials riding the bus every day like they keep telling everyone else to do?
New Solutions and New Opportunities
We cannot continue on this downward spiral of wasting more tax dollars on the same old lumbering buses, unsightly light rail and depressing subways that are in stark contrast to L.A.’s fast-paced, image conscious and forward-thinking lifestyle.
Everyone knows that there are no quick fixes or simple solutions to our traffic woes. However, common sense dictates that we need to start thinking smarter, planning better and being more productive than ever before by coming forth with new solutions for new times.
Norman Y. Mineta, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, who served in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, rightly declared: “Congestion is not a scientific mystery. Nor is it an uncontrollable force. Congestion results from poor policy choices and a failure to separate solutions that are effective from those that are not.”
Getting on Top of our Traffic Problems
The time has come to truly get on top of our traffic congestion by building an ultra-modern monorail system above our public streets and freeways. Make no mistake; elevated monorails will effectively reduce street level gridlock so that all motorists and mass transit riders can move more quickly and efficiently. Plus, a quick, quiet and passenger-friendly monorail will be the best incentive to get today's motorists out of their personal cars and into public transportation.
Furthermore, a new and efficient monorail system will fluidly mobilize our citizenry so that we can all spend more time being productive in our chosen careers while devoting more quality time with our families and friends.
A more relevant factor is that building a monorail system will cost about one-third of a subway and take about one-fourth the time to complete.
The notion of spending more than $5 billion in today's money for an underground subway that will not be completed for another 20 to 30 years should not even be offered for consideration in Metro's alternative analysis.
Onward and Upward
If Los Angeles is going to become a truly progressive city in this new century, then we need to move onward and upward and resurrect John F. Kennedy’s visionary dictum of nearly a half-century ago: “It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won.”
We must never forget that future generations are depending upon us to make the right decisions for their best interests, just as previous generations did in our behalf.
And the right decision is a sleek-moving and environment-friendly monorail system built above traffic to effectively interconnect L.A.’s vast landscape of communities that will make commuting a pleasure instead of misery.
So, let’s look up and not down; move forward and not backward; work together and not in opposition.
Let’s think anew and get Los Angeles on the move again by having the best traffic conditions in the nation instead of the worst. www.wilshiremonorail.com
