Out of Control

You're probably not surprised to see LA join cities like Austin, Atlanta, Houston, Portland, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Francisco, where traffic congestion has recently topped residents' gripe list:

Growing traffic jams and rising gang violence top Los Angeles residents' lists of concerns — beating out global warming and even terrorism, a survey released today says.

On a scale of one to 10 — with 10 being the worst — respondents rated traffic congestion a 7.7, edging out threat of gang violence at 7.6, according to the survey.

Angelenos considered the local issues a greater threat than even global warming, terrorism, race relations, and access to health care and housing.

"Clearly, traffic is No. 1 because it's an issue that impacts everybody every day and gangs because it's a public-safety issue," said Fernando Guerra, director of the Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, which conducted the random survey of about 1,400 residents.

"It's (also) the one area where I don't think the Los Angeles Police Department and the city have had great success."

More here.

Related: Griping about Grilock

Related: In this LA Times op-ed, Sam and I explain how to untangle gridlock.