A Lesson Learned From the Monorail

The Times had a nice editorial (March 21) about the traffic situation in Phoenix. It seems that part of the people there want a lot more freeways and a lot more of them do not want any more. We have a remarkable mess in Los Angeles and Orange counties and it could very easily have been avoided.

I worked at Disneyland for a few years along about the time the cute little monorail from the hotel over to the park was put together. It has been doing its job right along since it started. At the time it got going, word was passed around that the Alweg company from Sweden would like to put in a similar rail line all over L.A. and Orange counties--at no cost to the taxpayers! They would take care of the financing and after it was operating, the fares would pay the whole cost.

The whole idea got swept under the carpet before the news ever got around to the public. The gasoline companies, the tire companies, the automobile dealers and the bus builders sort of all got together and solved the whole problem.

Since then, the auto companies have been rolling in surplus money, buying up land all over this area and investing in buildings and resorts. The nearest officeholders can come to making a good transportation system is to dig through a really dangerous natural gas area for that subway to the northwest.

An overhead monorail would not pollute the air as it is now. This proposed line would not absorb all of the people who travel on our freeways, but it would no doubt cut car traffic down to half.

NORMAN COOKE

Fullerton