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.