Los Angeles Marathon

What if Los Angeles motorists were trapped in the most anguishing, intense and maze-like traffic gridlock in the city’s history? But it happened on a Sunday, when media attention was directed elsewhere, and local radio was on a relaxed schedule with no traffic reporters?

That’s no “what if.” The gridlock trapped and divided the city of Los Angeles for many long hours for a poorly publicized marathon.

I’ve read enough to know the sponsors wish to turn the run into a yearly event. If so, next year’s top priority must be traffic control.

I don’t think most people were aware of the long marathon route that virtually cut east, west, south and north traffic into streams of U-turns at blocked-off intersections in all directions.

To return from the Crenshaw District to West Los Angeles that afternoon, a 2 1/2-hour odyssey, found me frantically driving through residential alleys in unknown parts of the city, trying to be slower and more cautious than the delivery vans and 16-wheelers I saw trapped in the same serpentine search for an escape path to the other side of the runners. Eventually, I drove inland to Main Street, then south to Slauson.

The day after the marathon, I couldn’t find one word about this monumental mess of traffic that to me resembled mice similarly trapped in a maze in probing every dead-end.

In contrast, what a wonderful job was done by the 1984 Olympics becomes even more evident.

RUFUS BAKER

Santa Monica