CARMAGEDDON !

Los Angeles, California

It's here, and will the world stop? For those of you living out of the Los Angeles basin (or east of Fairfax, as the current joke goes), Carmageddon is the word, reputedly first used by Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky (though there is a computer game by the same name) to describe the anticipated chaos of this weekend's closure of the 405 freeway.

Now, the 405 freeway was called the San Diego Freeway when I was growing up and freeways all had names and off ramps had no numbers (actually, I find the off ramp numbers quite helpful, especially when navigating to somewhere new, worrying that I might have gone too far, and not trusting my navigation system as she led me astray once in an appalling fashion). Anyway, the ol' 405 was cut through Sepulveda pass way back when, and it used to be a lot less congested than other freeways in the area, but no more. All of our freeways are clogged with cars, most of which have one person in them, and that would be the driver. And, more and more people keep pouring into Los Angeles. They are young. They are hip. And they ALL want to work in the industry. Don't get me started as I've covered this sufficiently in a previous post entitled The One-Year Anniversary of Neighborhood Chaos (and available here for a very small cost).

Here are the two big preguntas about this weekend's closure: Will it be a chaotic nightmare beyond all imagining? Will they get it reopened Monday morning on schedule? Will it solve the problem? Ok, I know, that's three questions. I threw in the middle one for the fun of it. But the big question as discussed on my local NPR station which broadcasts from Pasadena (an area that shouldn't be affected by Carmageddon anyway, so why are they getting involved, I ask you?), is the latter one: Will it solve the problem? They are adding additional lanes, including a car-pool lane (once called a diamond lane, I suppose for it's preciousness?). Will more people double up in their cars in order to take advantage of this? Doubt it.

I did come up with a solution to this some time back. I thought that we could solve the problem of traffic in Los Angeles, if everyone who was born in a different state had to return to that state. That's it. Simple. When I mentioned this to a friend of mine, she protested that she and her husband (New York) would have to leave California, in that case. "Well," I said. "I have to make sacrifices as well. My mother (Ohio) has to leave. And Billy (Minnesota) has to leave." She wanted to know what I wanted to do with people who were born in other countries. I didn't have to ponder that. I kinda sorta like the multi-culturalism of Los Angeles, especially as reflected in the Latin-American origins of California. And I don't want to appear ethnocentric. So, basically, they all get to stay. "But," she said. "This would be something a totalitarian government might do!" I had a ready reply. "Sweetie, this isn't about politics. It's about traffic . . !"

We used to really love our cars here in Los Angeles. At least before they became movable containers of anger, angst, and anxiety (the real Triple A club of motoring). I have carried on a pretty good relationship with most of the cars I have driven, since learning to drive in my dad's Alfa Romeo. In fact, I got on quite well with that first car, much to my dad's dismay. You see, my much-older sister wasn't much of a driver, and didn't learn to drive a manual shift. So, my dad decided he was going to teach me to drive in his manual-shift, red, convertible, Italian import. Guess whose car I wanted to take to the beach on Saturdays when I got my license the day after my sixteenth birthday? An Aristotelian tragedy, that! I piled girlfriends into it (it had a shelf backseat), and motored through Malibu canyon as often as I could wheedle the loan of it. This was an experience so memorable, that the first car I bought with my own cash was a brand-new, white, convertible VW bug. My third in a long succession of all German automobiles, and probably my favorite to date. But I digress . . .

So, Carmageddon. This weekend. How will it all end? Gridlocked misery or trumped-up doom-prophesying, much like the anticipated hell of the '84 Los Angeles Olympics (which turned out to flow perfectly in all manner of ways including southland traffic)? But, just in case, we are sticking around our neighborhood, as advised, for the duration. A little gardening, a little cooking, a little hanging out by the pool. As I always say, when the cosmic trafficmeister hands you a lemon, it's always smart to spike some lemonade. Thank you for reading my blog. Vaya con huevos!