[ghuroo1]

why do people keep comparing LA to any other city in the world?

that's the same logic of: my life is a mess, but my neighbour's is worse, so I'm pretty alright.

I do think traffic is one of the main issues in our society because we still have the same mentality about cars as we had 50y ago (or more). They should never be a priority, we're a collective not a bunch of singulars, so investing in good public transportation and keeping private cars out of the main areas of interest should be the norm. This way of living messes up with our health and life quality.

Here in Lisbon, Portugal, people complaint everyday about traffic and how much time they spend on it..even public transportation is a mess because it's schedules and quantity aren't that good. Fortunately, 2 years ago, I switched to riding my bicycle for 50min (each way) everyday. The commute is by the river and there's no description for how better my life got. But I recognise we can't all do that, so at least we should invest in good public transports and keep cars out of the cities so we can just walk a little bit once we got out of the train, metro, bus, whatever or even bring our bicycles to make this easier.

We will always be as lazy as possible if we allow ourselves to drive the car everywhere.

Let's just stop thinking that the car are the solution for need, it should never be. Cars and highways mess up our health, nature, landscapes, life quality, noise, etc. etc.

(I was in Washington D.C. for 2 months and hell I was about to get crazy just from the noise of cars and for the incapacity of being able to roam freely by foot.. there were cars EVERYWHERE, huge roads everywhere. I honestly think that cities like that aren't made for people who live or work there.)