California's Most Important Traffic Jam

Perhaps the most important part of Barack Obama's Southern California trip, in my view, was not hearing the perspectives of a nervous public, or checking out battery technology in Pomona, or using the bully pulpit to speak to the nation on the Tonight Show. It's that he got stuck in traffic.

He got caught in traffic on the 110. He bantered with Jay Leno. And he sought to reassure people worried about the sagging economy and the spiraling national debt.

President Obama ended a two-day swing through Southern California on Thursday, a trip that exposed him to both celebrity and everyday struggles. Like many people navigating the freeways at midday, he was briefly tied up in traffic, his motorcade wheezing along at 10 mph as he made his way from west of downtown Los Angeles to Burbank. But he also got to trade quips on "The Tonight Show" with Leno, mixing a sober assessment of the AIG bonus scandal with details about his life inside the White House.

Traffic has actually improved in the LA area over the last six months, at least in peak hours with less workers traveling. But it remains incredibly difficult to move for large chunks of the daytime, which decreases productivity and causes harmful and unnecessary carbon emissions. Los Angeles' transit infrastructure has been abysmal for so long that few remember how it was built, along streetcar lines. Increased revenue from Measure R can spark a transit revival, with a subway to the sea, a Green Line to LAX, and increased light rail and bus service throughout the region, but that will take years if not decades, especially without federal aid. And this goes back to the need for smart growth solutions to reduce the need for highway travel for work.

Clearly, the status quo is unsustainable. Just ask the guy in the motorcade stuck on the 110 last Thursday.

Frazzled

An accident on the main east-west freeway serving Los Angeles turned the Westside into a parking lot today. It took me about an hour and a half for what is normally a half-hour commute. What a mess. Tell me again about how funding for mass transit just isn't practical. There actually is funding through Measure R for increased transit services and proposed light rail into Santa Monica, which should roll in right around the time I retire.

Heard on the radio that Eric Holder was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and on a 17 to 2 vote with 6 Republicans voting in favor. So much for bloodying the nose of the Obama Administration, Mr. Rove. That wasn't gaining any traction, as the economy is paramount on everyone's mind.

More as I collect myself.

...Here's the story. A head-on collision from a wrong-way driver kills two. I'm not even sure how you would be able to go the wrong way on the Eastbound 10 unless you turned around while on the freeway. Sounds like a terrible accident. This is also a brief for how brittle our infrastructure systems are, closing that freeway paralyzed the Westside this morning.

LA Transit Ridership At An All-Time High

People have a funny way of adapting. They know that the oil companies are as far from committed to lowering gas prices as possible, so they'll look to lower the cost of commuting rather than search for useless answers to drop gas prices like offshore drilling, which would do absolutely nothing. The Metrolink rail system in LA isn't perfect and doesn't work for everyone, but people are making it work more than ever before.

Commuter rail ridership broke an all-time record this week, and Caltrans reported a dip in freeway traffic as commuters across California struggled with record gas prices.

Metrolink recorded its highest number of riders in a single day ever Tuesday - 50,232 - a 15.6% increase over the same amount of business last year on June 17. Metro Rail ridership last month shot up 6 percent over May 2007, said Dave Sotero, a Metro spokesman.

Meanwhile, Caltrans officials said today that traffic on California freeways dropped 1.5% compared with last year - or the equivalent of a billion fewer miles traveled, said spokesman Derrick Alatorre.

Just that miniscule drop is the difference between gridlock and a relatively smooth ride. Not to mention the fact that hundreds of thousands of gallons of gas are being saved. Between all that and not having to be constantly confronted by idiots driving while holding their cell phones, the LA commuting story is a little less bleak.

This is all happening under a BROKEN transit system. Imagine what could happen with a little investment.

Traffic As A Quality-of-Life Issue

Barack Obama has been increasingly discussing transit issues in his speeches, name-checking particular mass transit solutions depending on what city he's in. Bill Richardson was actually the best candidate on this during the primaries, and his endorsement has maybe been a catalyst here. But I hope it's more like what Ezra Klein says, that Obama may be divining voter concerns.

How long till traffic becomes a voting issue? Americans spend more time in it every year. They get heart attacks from it. And now, with gas prices well above $100 -- and racing skyward still -- how long till road rage, till driving, till a life spent in the car and a paycheck spent at the pump, become voting issues? Arguably, gas prices are already there. But no politicians has figured out how to do anything with that save promise lower gas prices. But we're not going to lower gas prices. And discontent will only become more intense. Someday, some politician is going to figure out what to do with that, and my hunch in the word "transit" will be a big part of it.

I think Obama has the potential to be that candidate, mainly because he has served inner-city constituents in the Illinois State Senate, who use mass transit often out of financial necessity. It's just easier to recognize the potential of mass transit if your personal environment has it on display.

Living in California, I know well that traffic is a unifying issue. It's the easiest way to break the ice in a conversation with strangers. And Ezra's right, politicians haven't done much to ease concerns about it. Out here it's been all about adding infrastructure to roads, with carpool lanes and additional freeways. From an environmental and just a practical perspective this is the wrong way to go about it. Eisenhower understood the value of transportation issues when he embarked upon the interstate highway system. We need a 21st-century packet of transit options, including light rail, high-speed rail, subways, and express bus services. The rising gas prices just increase pressure on politicians to get something done.

Obama is at least showing an attentiveness to this issue, and that's a big step.