THE FREEWAYS (C)1989 Alan M. Schwartz The persistent and ever escalating tragedy of Los Angeles and Orange County is the intractable freeway imbroglio compromising the local lotus eaters' way of life each morning, lunchtime, and evening. Millions of dollars have been spent hiring consultants to do power lunches, exploring the philosophical implications attendant to putting five pounds of sand in a three pound bag. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to lay concrete and spin concrete through the air; to move dirt and replace it with concrete; to remove existing concrete and replace it with new concrete. The Great Freeway Moguls, czars and overlords holding our lives in their hands, gently squeezing to extract only the most ethereal green financial balm to further their own lusts for power and ascendancy, were scared right down to the foundations of their convertible debentures when during the Olympics they found out that the freeway system could work properly. They immediately took steps to put an end to it. The three secrets of creating a freeway system that almost never jams have now been exposed for all to see: 1)Build the ultimate freeway system. This is expensive if you are getting in at the ground floor, but LA already has one lying around. It should not cost much to admit it exists, say a billion or so in special gasoline taxes. 2)Set the speed limit at around 70 mph. LA has the best of all possible worlds. With cars cruising at 70 mph and the speed limit set at 55 mph, revenues extracted by courts and insurance companies are only limited by the cops' ability to write tickets. As the judicial system overloads we will need new courthouses and judges. The higher overhead requires more cops and speeding tickets, which then overload the system. It does have a nice symmetry, doesn't it? 3)Stand back. There is no revenue or even graft to be obtained by this pathway, so we launch into Plan B. Plan B: Really screw up the freeway system, bilk the taxpayers out of maximum dollars with taxes and bond issues, and screw up the freeways even worse: 1)Maintain a system of infinitely recursive freeway reconstruction. Have you ever driven on a freeway that did not have a lane closed for maintenance/repair/improvement? When did you last see even one worker sitting among the shovels, dirt and equipment? The LA freeway could handle 33% more cars at rush hour if it ever had its capacity freed for use. 2)Terminate the flow of traffic. At the start of rush hour when the dense traffic is still pulling 65 to 70 mph, have a cop enter the freeway and drop things to a sedate 50 mph. The shockwave so created will propagate, and within fifteen minutes the piquant excellence of 5 mph stop-and-go driving will obtain for miles. The cop then gets off the freeway, and for the next five hours nobody can understand why traffic is so screwed up without there being an accident. Ha Ha! 3)Privatize Lane One. A four lane freeway once had four lanes. Social engineers immediately realized that only privation and hardship make the population malleable. Lane One was christened the Commuter Lane, reserved for cops and limousines and the rare car with two or more drivers. By reducing the capacity of the freeways by 25% they started rush hour fifteen minutes earlier and prolonged it by almost an hour. 4)Lane Peek-a-boo. Merge the rightmost lane and make it disappear. Make a new lane appear on the left or the right, it makes no difference, as long as it also disappears. Example: Get on 210 South at Pomona in the extreme left hand lane. By the time you get down to 60 East you are in the rightmost lane without suffering that annoying thump-thump sound of your tires being shredded by the broken lane markers. 5)Hire more consultants to do more studies. What point is there in going through parts (1) to (4) unless we spread a little money, eh? Besides, things could be worse, just wait. The next time you are stuck in traffic on a hot summer day, your windows wide open and your heater set to "broil" as you try to keep your radiator from blasting off to the moon, dashboard lights going red as your engine oil carbonizes, your transmission grinds to iron filings, and your tires melt in place, the kids screaming and puking the back seat, look to your right at the two cops parked on the shoulder, having a conversation, backing up traffic from San Pedro to Santa Monica. Give them a big smile, a wave of the hand and a "Good job, Officers!" After all, they might be CalTrans workers who have three out of four lanes reserved for lunch.