The war on traffic.

THE visitor to Los Angeles had a look that mixed amazement, bemusement, fatigue, disgust and more than a bit of relief.

She had just gotten off the San Diego Freeway--and noted, with a touch of admiration: "I don't know how you people do it."

Frankly, we don't either. There is traffic and then there is the 405. It is the ultimate caricature of L.A. at its worst, a roadway littered with missed appointments and late deliveries and a melding of crankiness and acceptance that my visitor was just getting a--small taste of.

But we all know that. The question is whether anything can be done about the 405 and the other notorious stretches of Southern California freeway before most of us are too old to drive.

First, the good news. There are well-meaning folks in government and business who are trying to make a difference. One such effort is a coalition called Mobility 21. It's led by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Automobile Club of Southern California and was formed two years ago in the hopes of having all the big players speak in one voice on the region's transportation mess.

George Kieffer, the chamber's chairman, and Roger Snoble, the MTA's chief executive, were in our offices the other day to make a pitch for Mobility 21 and its efforts to convince Washington lawmakers that more federal transit fhnds need to be spent here. The group, which will be holding its third annual transportation summit this week, has a list of 10 "traffic busters" it will be pushing for.

The list includes carpool lanes for portions of the 405 and 5 freeways; traffic and safety upgrades along the Alameda Corridor East rail line; extending the Metro Gold Line from Pasadena to Montclair; and the early stages of connecting the Metro Green Line to LAX.

Price tag: $8.6 billion. That may sound like a lot but it's just a fraction of the billions more needed just to keep up with Southern California's growth.

And the sad truth is we're nowhere near getting even that.

Kieffer and Snoble, both well-meaning guys, described the dance that's involved in seeing these projects through. Since most everything is funded with federal money, it starts with reaching a local consensus, then trying to convince the California delegation, then trying to convince the committee honchos then getting the money authorized, then appropriated. Slip up at any point and you move to the end of the line.

Oh, and there's politics too--and with a Republican Congress and White House ruling the roost, Democratic-leaning L.A. is not exactly a priority.

I wish Mobility 21 the best of luck, but you and I know the real way to shake up the area's transportation system--the one approach that could be expeditiously financed and help the freeways open up.

Don't make all the lanes free.

Establish a tollway system for dedicated lanes where the price of travel would be dictated, minute by minute, by how much congestion there happens to be. The more clogged up the free lanes are, the more you have to pony up on the tollways. The less congestion, the less payout. Traveling these roads, which would be funded through bond financing and not the whims of Washington, would run you anywhere from a buck or two on up.

The technology is here. The need is here. And perhaps most important, the other available options have been exhausted. There is, of course, one big impediment toward making this happen and we'll try to tackle that next week.

Mark Lacter is editor of the Business Journal.