Traffic sucks, but this could make it better

While reading the newspaper (latimes.com constitutes a newspaper for me now), I came across an article about a $3 billion study that suggested building a 4.5-mile long tunnel under South Pasadena to connect the Long Beach (710) Freeway to the Pasadena (210) Freeway.

First thought: "Are they crazy?"

Second thought: "When are they going to start?"

I mean, let's face it, traffic sucks. That semi-Downtown/semi-San Gabriel Valley area is particularly bad.

Of course earthquakes are another thing people think of whenever it comes to building a tunnel, or anything for that matter, underground in Los Angeles. Well, Japan has tunnels. They have survived earthquakes. Plenty of earthquakes actually. And as the article points out, engineers actually think it'd be safer in the tunnel during an earthquake than it'd be on one of Los Angeles' freeways.

Finally, I just think it'd be great to do something big in Los Angeles. We are always thinking small. Add a carpool lane here, make reversable lanes, put in left-turn signals. A tunnel would be something huge. But its impact could be even huger, sorry bigger.