I had jury duty this A.M. The County of L.A. in their infinite wisdom decreed I must go to the Beverly Hills court, which is 17.4 miles according to Yahoo Maps rather than Van Nuys court, a mere 4 miles drive.

Reporting time was 8:45 AM. I left Van Nuys at 7:15. By 8:15 I’d gone 9 miles. Worse, the canyon route I was starting to creep up was bumper to bumper the entire way. I called the court on my cell phone and said, hey, I can’t possibly make it on time because of traffic and rescheduled for next week.

I’ve got a home office so I’m rarely if ever in morning rush hour traffic. Sue says this kind of traffic is normal. Her 6 mile drive to work on surface streets can take an hour.

Traffic like this may be "normal" for L.A. but it’s dysfunctional. A city this traffic-clogged is approaching terminal gridlock. Oh, everyone says they’re doing something to fix it, and traffic is a top concern in voter polls. Yet, traffic continues to get constantly worse, never better.

A city can’t function this way. One day it will simply stop functioning.

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