Things I was wrong about: FasTrak

Continuing my wildly popular yet rarely acclaimed series of Things I Was Wrong About, we now add to remote controls, GPS and butt heaters the FasTrak lane on the 110 freeway.

Years ago, I worked at a small (minded) agency in Orange County that had The Toll Roads. The agency is no longer around, but the Toll Roads are. To use them, you need a FasTrak transponder loaded up with cash credits from a credit card. Sensors on the freeway read it as you fly by and deduct the toll automatically.

This was all well and good for private toll roads, but when the city of L.A. decided to try it on the carpool lanes on the Harbor Freeway - 110 to you and me - I was against it.

My thinking was I'm a taxpayer, and damn it those lanes should be mine, dare I say all of ours, free of charge. It was just another instance of the man keeping me down. And by down I mean gridlocked.

But I should've known better to stand, or sit, between the city and a lucrative revenue stream.

It only took one instance of being late to a show at the Music Center because of traffic to get me thinking maybe I should give this FasTrak thing a try.

Here's what I discovered: the carpool lanes, now called Metro Express Lanes, totally rock. More importantly, they roll.

The price is based on time of day and how congested the freeway is. Most of the time, if I have two or more people in the car, there's no charge to use the lane. I set the transponder to one, two or three riders. And to keep me honest, they have cameras to check how many people are actually in my car if there's a dispute.

It's become like anything else I pay for by having money withdrawn automatically - once I bit the bullet, my wallet didn't even feel it.

Plus, with as much business and as many appointments and lunches that I have in L.A., it's paid for itself several times over in time saved.

Sure I feel the hostility from other drivers not in the express lanes, as they just sit with their cars idling, inhaling exhaust and working on their hand gestures.

But as I fly by, blasting E Street Radio and getting where I need to be on time, I'm in sort of a fugue state. I don't even notice them anymore.

I'll say it because it's true: I was wrong about using FasTrak.

If you feel the need for speed, velcro that little sucker to your windshield and get moving.

Up, up and away

There’s no shortage of complaints about the commute. And it doesn’t even matter where the commute is. If you live in the greater Los Angeles or Orange County area, you are, as we say in the driving biz, screwed.

When I worked recently in Santa Monica for a few months, it took almost an hour to get from the west side to the freeway at rush hour. We’re talking mere blocks. And then another hour to crawl home. Everyone has a commute-from-hell story.

It’s not as if there haven’t been solutions offered to relieve gridlock. Like the picture above from 1954. Yes, 1954.

A monorail system that rides over the center lane of the freeway. It follows the same route, and the property is city owned reducing the cost. Stations would be on a platform, visible, reducing crime.

Then there was the time in 1955 when Walt Disney offered to build a monorail system like the one at Disneyland from the beach to downtown L.A., fifteen miles of track for the then crazy price of free.

But L.A., being the forward thinking city it’s always been, decided to yield to the auto companies and not implement any form of mass transit beyond buses in order to drive up car sales. (Just a side note: years ago when there was a bus strike in L.A., the late comedian Steve Landesberg said it was the first time in history there was a strike of a non-existent industry.)

If you want the full story about it, watch Roger Rabbitt. It’s closer to the truth about public transportation than you think.

Anyway, I write this as I sit in my office in Orange County on Friday night, getting ready to make the drive north. I can see the 405 out my window, and trust me, even with all the lights it’s not very pretty.

The trick to making the ride bearable, or something close to it, is to arm yourself with a few things that can help distract from the congestion, and even make the trip go a little faster.

Which is why I have a nice car, E Street Radio and a carpool partner.