Edward Humes See full article at http://lat.ms/1RMu91t
Noel Massie’s days are dominated by two things: trucks and minutes. He has too many of one, too little of the other — the defining struggle between traffic and time that bedevils America’s goods-movement industry, not to mention everyone else trying to get from here to there every day…….There are solutions that won’t break the bank and don’t involve big construction projects……
- Pay your own way End the gas tax and replace it with congestion pricing……..
- Forget 9 to 5 This is a no brainer….
- Convert car pool lanes The diamond lanes are a failure. Fewer than 9% of commuters car pool….
- Walk to school
The city of Los Angeles recently calculated that half of all trips in the metropolitan area are under three miles — easy walking or biking distance. Yet 84% of those short trips are made in cars, including school drop offs. In 1969, just under half of American children walked or biked to school. By 2009, the walkers and bikers had dropped to 13%. (How does Cupertino stack up to this?) Because the school bell coincides with rush hour, the generational shift away from walking and biking to class adds to traffic at the worst possible time of day. With P.E. credits as incentives for kids, and with parent volunteers as safety monitors, bike and walking paths could improve our health, our air and our traffic jams.
Edward Humes’s latest book is “Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation.”
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