Skip to Content
Streetsblog Los Angeles home
Log In
Car Culture

The Windshield Perspective, Same As It Ever Was

12:36 PM PDT on June 9, 2008

us59_trench_traffic_jam_1962.jpg

From the way back machine comes this remarkable essay, "The Last Traffic Jam," about the blind spots that plague the motoring mentality. The anonymous author, writing for Time Magazine in 1947, delivers observations about road rage and the endemic violence of driving that still apply today.

The most striking passage, perhaps, is the writer's take on the futility of adding capacity for cars:

...though postwar motorists were gradually becominghorn-blowing neurotics with tendencies toward drinking, cat-kicking andwife-beating, there were few who did not believe that the traffic evilwould soon be corrected. This enormous delusion has been a part of U.S.folklore since the day of the linen duster, driving goggles and thehigh tonneau.

Congress and state legislatures had appropriated millions to build superhighways on which speeders could kill themselves at higher speeds. Thetraffic light, the yellow line, the parking lot, the parking meter, theunderground garage, the one-way street, the motorcycle cop and thetraffic ticket had all blossomed amid the monoxide fumes -- and traffichad gone right on getting thicker and noisier year by year.

Sixty years later, the notion that we can build our way out of congestion persists. But as parts of the country like northern Virginia bump up against the limits of that mentality, the author's metaphorical last traffic jam -- which I take to mean the moment when the absurdity of expanding roadways becomes impossible to refute -- may well be within sight.

Photo of U.S. 59 in 1962: TexasFreeway.com

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog Los Angeles

Metro September 2023 Board Committee Round-Up: C Line, 91 Freeway Widening, and More

Transit ridership and freeway funding are up. $14 million for MicroTransit was postponed. South Bay C Line extension draws both controversy and support. Law enforcement, Taylor Swift, bus lanes, and more!

September 23, 2023

Input Meetings Starting This Weekend for Ballona Creek “Finish the Creek” Extension Study

Learn more and give your ideas for extending the Ballona Creek bike/walk path upstream through Culver City and into Mid-City Los Angeles

September 21, 2023

Guest Opinion: Metro Should Treat Walk and Bike Projects with the Respect They Deserve

Prioritizing true first mile/last mile infrastructure isn’t somehow optional; it’s how your customers get to and from the transit stations.

September 21, 2023
See all posts