Like, doing something about the 405
On a Friday six weeks ago I was sitting in what has become an almost comical caricature of LA traffic snarls -- Sunset Blvd and the 405 -- and I came up with a simple idea to help the situation: remove a single “no turn on red” sign. This one limitation was preventing the smooth flow of traffic coming off the 405 south, causing dangerous backups onto the freeway itself and forcing a light to stop traffic on Sunset more regularly than necessary.
I wrote up a simple proposal with a diagram and sent it off to our newly elected mayor, Eric Garcetti. The next morning, on a Saturday, he responded with, "I'm on it." Then Sunday morning, I got an email from our local city councilman, Mike Bonin, saying he'd heard from Eric, and he was digging in.
Today, just six weeks later, I heard back from Mike. He and Eric worked with three city and state agencies, LADOT, LA Metro and CalTrans, and over the next two weeks, they are implementing my suggestion and taking it further: they're restriping lanes and changing the timing of lights.
I don't know for sure if it will work, but it’s a start!