Traffic, Explained

Councilman Eric Garcetti once explained to a group of people that traffic is a sign, a good sign. A sign of a strong economy. If there was no economy, people wouldn't be traveling to their jobs, thus causing traffic.

Today in the print edition (and in the blog yesterday), LA Times' Road Sage, Steve Hymon, backs that theory up. He shows two different maps: one of population density and another of job density.

"The maps together show that a lot of the jobs and the people are concentrated in different places. Thus, people have to drive to get where they're going." And that's one big reason why we have traffic.

Photo by 4x4jeepchick via Flickr