As a daily commuter of L.A.’s sprawling freeways—in particular, the horrendous 101-405 interchange—I am no stranger to, or proponent of, our inefficient, myopic, absurdly aggravating system of mass transit. Given an affordable, prompt and convenient alternative—as Munich’s interlocking lattice of S and U-bahns, busses, and trams—I would gladly renounce my car. Developing this infrastructure in even one American metropolis, much less the number required to dent our disproportionate energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions, would require an intense and sustained application of organized political power. It is precisely the sort program progressives should embrace, because no neat, cheap, or painless solutions exist to the long historical trends that spawned these positively reinforcing crises.
It is especially important, then, to resist the temptation of the easy fix, the apparent panacea that upon reflection, reveals itself as a cul-de-sac. One of these came up in the recent, heated discussion surrounding the reinstitution of a 55 MPH national speed limit. This discussion was striking for its evincing of a common pitfall of progressive thinking: overestimation of the effectiveness and desirability of the "for your own good" legislative mandate.
That a decrease in average highway speed to 55 MPH would save gas is as indisputable as the necessity of actually saving that gas. The fundamental question, rather, is how society should go about it. If implemented well, a mandate should entail a thorough investigation of foreseeable problems, devisement an initial set of rules to regulate them, equitable enforcement of those rules, and subsequent refinement based on unforeseen complications. Of course, such mandates are seldom implemented with this level of care; an "undesirable" behavior is proscribed, only to be selectively and capriciously controlled, breeding resentment and derivative problems that a sclerotic and gridlocked legislative process is, too often, powerless to remediate.
For quintessential examples of this pattern, one need only look at how freeway speed limits are openly flouted by the majority of drivers without consequence; or the irredeemable and catastrophic failure of drug prohibition. If law is merely a formal codification of social convention--of the rules society has adopted to regulate itself--what legitimacy does it have if it contravenes this will as expressed in the daily choices and open contempt of substantial proportions of the citizenry?
Overly restrictive absolute maximum speed laws—of which this 55 MPH proposal is a subset—should be supplanted by the "basic" speed laws of surface streets: flexible statutes stating that drivers should never proceed faster than is "reasonable and prudent" for the conditions, and requiring, in turn, that the traffic speeds be surveyed periodically, and limits be pegged at the 85th percentile. Much could be done to educate people about how their behavior affects themselves and others, and to illustrate the tangible benefits of altering it. Facing expensive gas and the portent of a global climate crisis, the necessary incentives are already in place, and could be further strengthened by viable public transportation. Given better information and, crucially, better alternatives, vastly more people will make the right decision. In stark contrast to exogenous dictates, this approach brings distributed intelligence to bear on the problem. It allows aggregate traffic behavior to re-equilibrate with evolving individual preferences and contextual judgments--thereby avoiding the bitterness that would otherwise accompany simply telling people what they can't do, and the costs of enforcing these untenable restrictions.
Now, that is good politics—and the way forward.