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Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority went after business' by labeling buses formerly marked "P" and "M" with such snappy names as "The Freeway Flyer" and "The Zephyr." They carry signs for the benefit of frazzled motorists: "Quiet, please. Our passengers are resting." Says a company official: "Same bus. You just snap a little life into the system and people will buy." To the Moon. The penalty for failing to snap life into the nation's public transportation is to see many U.S. cities share the fate of Los Angeles. The rail commuter system that once operated 6,200 electric trains daily over 1,061 miles of track was a hit-and-run victim of cars. Since then, at a cost of $1.6 billion, the city has built 271 miles of freeways and 266 miles of expressways to accommodate some 2,000,000 motorists—and is furiously working on 107 more. But, says Edward T. Telford, engineer in charge of construction, "it will be years before we can catch up to the need"— if we ever can." Taken as a composite, the Los Angeles commuter reels off some 39,330,000 miles a day just going to and from his job, the equivalent of 165 trips to the moon and back. Each day he generates 5.6 billion cu. ft. of auto smog that has created a new problem for the city. If a car stalls for two minutes on a Los Angeles freeway, at least 30 minutes is needed to untangle the traffic jam. Says Sam Taylor, boss of the Los Angeles traffic department: "We talk casually about moving a man to the moon and back; yet we can't move the man to work and back so he can build the missile to take the man to the moon and back."
One Egg Basket. Behind the nation's commuter problem lies a woeful lack of public planning. Many new roads, good in themselves, have been built to dump autos on the city without providing tie-ins with transit systems that could ease downtown traffic congestion. By failing to coordinate Boston's new half-billion-dollar express-road system with the city's ailing Metropolitan Transit Authority, officials left no feeder roads where the M.T.A. could pick up passengers, helped accelerate the M.T.A. decline. Railroad lines and rapid-transit systems, which can often complement each other, frequently compete with each other — and the auto — be cause of lack of central planning.