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As anyone who travels by car in Los Angeles can tell you, traffic can be a real pain in the ass. Just try getting from the Valley to Santa Monica in under an hour or from Santa Monica to Downtown without several tense moments and feelings of complete hopelessness, and you'll know what we mean.
And God forbid if there is ever even a minor fender bender. The whole thing just grinds to a halt on both sides. Why people feel compelled to slow down and see an accident we still don't really understand. In short, the freeway system in Los Angeles is a mess and no one seems to have an idea how to fix it. That is, until now.
Ray Bradbury, noted author of "The Martian Chronicles", "Fahrenheit 451" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes" has the answer in his recent piece for the Los Angeles Times. He wants Los Angeles to build a monorail system.
His comments and observations are very interesting and hopefully will spark debate and lead to action on this type of project. Really, anything that will help with the traffic problem is welcome. Sometimes the more radical idea ends up being the right solution.
Maybe a monorail system is the way to go? But no matter what changes are proposed or how radical they seem, at some point, as Mr. Bradbury points out in his piece, the traffic on the freeways is just going to come to a grinding halt from too many cars and not enough room for them. On that day, it might be too late to fix it. Why not start making plans to fix it now? And maybe those plans should include a monorail.
