Get off my freeway
By Kevin Uhrich 02/12/2009
Every other election cycle, voters are asked to force either homeowners or everyday taxpayers to ante up for more and ostensibly better forms of mass transit or infrastructure repairs to clear the increasing congestion facing road-weary drivers.
Last November it was Measure R, which hikes the state sales tax by a half-cent in order to raise $40 billion over the next 30 years. All of that money is to go to a number of road construction and mass transit projects. Part of it is even earmarked to help build the tunnels that Caltrans and the MTA are hoping will finally connect the Long Beach (710) Freeway to the Foothill (210) Freeway in Pasadena, should that day some time far off in the unforeseeable future ever come.
Yes, lots of people will be put to work and many wonderful things will get done … probably … at some point … maybe. Let’s remember; this is Caltrans and the MTA we’re talking about here, neither of which has ever been much good at getting stuff done on time or on budget.
Given those track records, and how much our elected officials love wasting resources, it seems nothing’s really certain for anyone looking for relief from our ongoing traffic crisis. It’s a pretty safe bet that, just as those futuristic tunnels will not be built in the lifetime of anyone reading this column, nothing will be done to ease the burdens caused by the real culprits in nearly every traffic jam along the major arteries and traffic corridors in LA County: Trucks.
No, not the SUV bullies of the highway. As commuters will attest, it’s mainly the really big ones with “Don’t pass on the right” or “Left side, Sui-side” stickers pasted to their rear ends — 40-foot long, mud-flap-equipped trailers and 50-foot dual-hitch rigs, some so big and heavy that it takes a few moments for them to get rolling after coming to a full stop in a jam; so tall they look like a moving wall when crawling along while lined up end to end; so wide that they barely fit between the Botts’ Dots separating the lanes where the Ventura (101), the Golden State (5) and the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway (aka the 10) come together (some would say collide, now even on weekends) in downtown LA.
We all know those trucks have no business on LA freeways at the height of our various major rush hours, which these days blend into each other from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., then from noon to 3 p.m., and then again from 4 p.m. to about 8. Then, barring accidents, which invariably involve trucks, freeways radiating out of downtown are actually pretty clear between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., when all of those trucks should be rolling through town, but aren’t.
Hey, if you want to drive in LA, you have to know your windows of opportunity. And anyone who has ever driven here — including all the guys driving those big stinky trucks — knows this.
But apparently we’re really the only ones who need to be aware, because the almighty trucking industry won’t voluntarily adjust its schedules around us — the people paying the taxes, the tolls and most every other cost of making all this controlled chaos possible.
So what’s the answer? More lanes, at hundreds of millions of dollars per lane? Tolls, as some have suggested? If those tunnels are constructed underneath South Pasadena, how many people will be paying a $6 one-way toll? How many trucks, especially the hundreds of independents driving in and out of our neighborhoods each day, will shell out $15 one-way, as some policymakers are now suggesting?
Of course, all these ideas involve lots more spending of public money and lots more profit-taking by select private contractors, and you know what that means: We get screwed — again.
But apparently what our lawmakers are not much good at is recognizing that the simplest ideas are often the best, and in the case of the nightmare that is LA freeway traffic, the best possible relief would be simply imposing a limited but tightly enforced truck ban during all or some of our various rush hours.
Is it possible for some traffic expert to craft such a schedule? Is it possible for the powerful trucking industry, which helps move tons of freight each day from Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles to everywhere in the country, to actually share the road with us little guys?
Truck bans have been successful in certain limited situations around Southern California, particularly in keeping possibly harmful substances like nuclear waste and rocket fuel out of unsuspecting neighborhoods. But that only happens after great resistance from truckers.
Wouldn’t it be nice if an industry policed itself and didn’t have to be ordered to be good citizens?
Wouldn’t it be nice if the trucking industry, the Southland’s foremost smog generator, was for once part of the solution and not the central part of the problem when it came to unclogging LA’s freeways?
Sure it would. But don’t hold your breath. On second thought, do, because it’s likely truck traffic on area freeways will only get much worse before something — like maybe a ballot initiative — is actually done to get it under control.
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Large trucks must move 24/7 to ensure that you have food in your stores medicines in your hospitals and paper for your printer. How would you like it if you told you clog up the internet ( even though you provide a vital service) and can only use it during hours that non pro. people find conveient.
Trucks are not there just to make you angry but rather to deliver the goods that we all use. Any attempt to distrupt this very important flow of goods will only result in higher costs, more smog and a massive reduction in productivity in all industry's not just transportation. Think about all the people this idea would effect. Not just the drivers but all of the factory workers , warehousemen their support staff. The people who work in stores. construction workers getting their materials Lastly how about all the people who live near these bussiness and job sites who will have to listen to all that truck noise when they are trying to sleep. Leave logistics to experts and quit cutting off semi-trucks