Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.



FIRST PERSON/OPINION

By John Joss

Laguna traffic has always been chaotic, with no one seemingly in charge or possessing a vision of how traffic should flow. You’d think that after 40+ years and millions of visitors they’d have it figured out by now. You’d be waaaay wrong.

Consider only the primary entrance/exit at Hwy 68. This entrance/exit is about 200 yards from a traffic light at Laureles Grade, but estimates by the CHP (interviewed by me earlier this year) indicate that it will take at least five years to put in the 200 yards of asphalt on the Laguna Seca property that would go far to relieve the entire mess, permitting eastbound traffic to Salinas to exit on the light while westbound traffic to Monterey could leave from the present road. This would feed relief back all the way to the track, where the exits are typically choked for an hour or more (much more) on the ‘big’ day, Sunday.

Five years!

In addition to freeing up the heavy exit traffic, it would also greatly reduce the cost of hiring CHP and Sheriff officers to manage the flow manually, which would in all probability offset the cost of the 200 yards of asphalt.

Five years!

From the great musical “My Fair Lady” (all together, now):
“Why is thinking something people never do?
Why is logic never even tried?
Fixing up their hair is all they ever do.
Why don’t they fix up … the mess that’s inside.”