S David Freeman.

Yea- Freedman introduced several important fixes the LADWP, he laid off several employees and cut expenses, the unions whined but the mayor was Republican and the councilman felt that they had no choice because of the debt load the dept was running.

The best move he made was sticking the the general plan, thats estimated the amount of population the city proper would have then aquiring the power to match it before useage.

The plan went under fire in the early 90's when the population was declining (riots, earthquakes) but the dept stuck to it and acquired 50% ownership in two Utah coal power plants. Had a private firm been in change the plants would have never been bought and Enron would have the city shut down literally.

Freeman before he left had a solar program in place and wanted to create local gas power plants. I guess it would be powered with LNG. I don't think the plan went anywhere.

You mean to say there are parts of L.A. that have not been paved over yet? If highways, byways, overpasses, and concrete were the answer to traffic problems, then L.A. would be heaven on earth. I drove in L.A. as far back as 1977; it was hell on earth then and it dominated by freeways even then. You say it's gotten horrible in the last few years? Try the last 40 years.

Maybe Brown is stopping new construction because he knows how futile that is. Denver, where I live, just spent billions on a new, improved interstate system through downtown. Yeh, things are just rosy there now and all problems are solved. To their credit, they have been doing a fairly good job expanding their light rail which does, in fact, make it easier to get to and from downtown and will be even better in the future.

If you want to build a transit system that is utilized it is counterproductive to make auto travel easier simultaneously. As far as burning fuel stuck in traffic goes, this can and will be solved by the widespread implemenation of hybrid vehicles with start/stop mode.

Taking the long view, at some point you just have to stop building more and "better" roads. All you do is create a hopeless treadmill. Besides, we're supposed to be running out of oil. And your solution is to create more demand for oil.

And why are you complaining about Arnold. So, he's not really all that green is he. You should be happy. Arnold's solution to global warming is to build the hydrogen highway. Please!! And he would be traveling that hydrogen highway with his Hummer yet. Yes, you should be happy. Arnold is not the hard core, left wing environmentalist you seem to detest so much.

Your solution to the hole L.A. and much of the rest of the country is in is to build a bigger hole. With taxpayer money, of course, even though you are mister conservative.

I think there is a basic conflict between having a great or even good mass transit system and a road system which has lots of excess capacity. As soon as the transit system starts to meaningfully take the load off the road system, then people tend to gravitate back to the road system. Let those who choose to do so, drive through hell every day, but provide them an alternative.