Image from Picnics Inc
The sad trickle of liquid from mustard packets along with an empty bag of Buddig deli meat lay scattered under the highway overpass, remains of a slapdash lunch for the itinerant eater. The pavement above displays saltines and grapes on a plaid picnic blanket curling in the wind. These picnickers, mimicking their ant companions, swarm with an obsessive hunger--a hunger for asphalt.
The uncurbable appetite for pavement sparked the great HOV revolt of the 1970s. When Caltrans restricted existing lanes on the Santa Monica Freeway to carpools, Maoists of the middle class brandished radiator grills to demand their bread of life not be robbed from starving wheels.
Caltrans administrators, in fear for their bureaucratic lives, promised from then on to only create carpool lanes when freeways were widened.
Billions are now being spent to complete the HOV lane system throughout L.A. county, while a recent study shows they are often no faster than lanes where people go solo.
The next fight is over congestion pricing--charging drivers to use express lanes during peak times. Not having them has cost the county federal grant money for transit projects.
The revolutionary avant-garde fighting for motorist rights is the California Automobile Association. "Freeways must be free! Car drivers have too long been oppressed! We need more lanes not less! Create double decker freeways if we must!"
Mmmm, double decker freeways. That sounds delicious. Pass the mayonnaise.
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