We should have know the San Diego Freeway would become evil when ...

We should have known the San Diego Freeway would become evil when ...

by Garrison Frost

The last time I spent a great deal of time on the San Diego Freeway was back in the late 1980s when I was attending UCLA as an undergraduate. Although I lived on campus, I still found myself shuttling back and forth to my more long-term home in the South Bay on a regular basis. Because I had an array of secret routes to call upon, even during rush hour this trip rarely took more than 30 minutes. Ah, but that was just a dream. Now I commute on the 405 every day, and 30 minutes seems like a dream to me now. Now if I do it in an hour, I consider it a personal victory. An hour and a half is normal, and at least once a week, the one-way drive is two hours.

I'm certainly not the only person to notice. Perhaps because the San Diego Freeway used to be the golden boy of Los Angeles freeways, now one hears from every quarter about its problems. Caltrans is trying to widen it to make carpool lanes. The governor mentioned it in his State of the State address. Newspapers are calling for improvement. There's talk of a bond issue.

How did this rapid decline in the state of the San Diego Freeway happen? Or better, when did it happen? Looking back now, I realize the huge number of signs that I missed along the way, clues that my beloved 405 had gone to the dark side. Of course hindsight is always 20-20.

Really, we should have known the San Diego Freeway would become evil when ...

... the first plans for Playa Vista were unveiled.
... it became clear the passenger traffic at LAX was going beyond all original estimates.
... home prices in the South Bay and Westside went nuts.
... IKEA opened a store in Carson.
... people started buying cars that qualified as farm equipment on tax forms.
... the first giant illuminated billboard went up.
... Metrorail didn't install a north-south train along the coast.
... they installed all those traffic lights on Vista del Mar.
... the Green Line stopped short of the airport.
... traffic reporters invented the name "South Bay curve" for easy reference.
... not a single improvement was made to the freeway for 30 years.
... a sailboat trip from Redondo Beach to Malibu could be completed faster than a drive between the same two locations.
... it became clear the new 105 freeway was bringing more cars to the 405 than it was taking away.
... busy movie and television studios opened in both Manhattan Beach and El Segundo.

(April 18, 2006)