Candidates overlook traffic issue
It's been candidates gone wild here in Southern California in recent days, as some of those aspiring to be the next president have been jetting in and out of the region in preparation for Tuesday's big primary.
The key word there: jetting. These aren't folks who have to worry about traffic.
You would think that something affecting millions of voting Americans would top the list of talking points for every one of the candidates. Yet most of those stumping for the nation's highest office have offered little more than platitudes: When it comes to transportation, they're basically for it.
What could a president of the United States really do to improve your commute?
The question resonates in Southern California, the longtime champion of primal-scream traffic. In recent years, the issue has been pretty much left up to local and state pols and their ever-shrinking pots of money.
If you can read this while driving today, then you know what a great job they've done.
But there was a day when getting around town was a presidential concern. It reached its nexus in 1956 when President Eisenhower, still irked over a slow cross-country drive decades earlier, signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act.
At the time, Ike promised that the new roads would bring "greater convenience, greater happiness and greater standards of living" to Americans. There are about 47,000 miles of freeways today, with 2,456 miles of them in California. The feds paid for the bulk of those, and it's hard to imagine a bill that was more transformative -- both for better and worse.
The interstates made long-distance travel easy, divided some cities, united others, shifted freight from the rails to the roads and made it possible to live farther from work. They have been praised as an economic boon, criticized as an environmental nightmare and everything in between.
In short, the interstates changed the American landscape.
Where they stand
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have indicated that they want more mass transit. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain have said little on the topic, although Romney has said he wants to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to lessen dependence on foreign oil.
And Rep. Ron Paul? Well, he likes home schooling -- which, I suppose, could diminish the number of school buses on the road.
