Recently, I went to visit a friend of mine who lived in a very nice neighborhood and indeed an upscale community. They have a wonderful and lovely home and are away from the hustle and bustle of urban life.

Yet once you leave the enclave you find yourself immediately stuck in traffic and it occurred to me that my good friend and his very expensive home was trapped in his own prison in a beautiful exclusive suburban neighborhood. Why? By choice of course, yet when he first moved there the traffic was not nearly as bad as it is today.

The traffic is so bad that it takes five to 10 minutes just to make a left turn onto the main road and you drive along and 15 mph or less in stop and go traffic until you reach a freeway. He is basically trapped in a beautiful home in a nice suburban neighborhood in a prison of his own choosing. So I ask you, if this is your dream to live in such a place; is that really the quality of life you seek and is that really your idea of making it.

The traffic in our nation is destroying our standard of living and it has happened due to this poor planning and understanding the multiplier effect of our inefficient ways in designing our cities. I mentioned this to a new acquaintance I had met at a local coffee shop in my friends area and he said; do you think you can do any better?

My answer was; Anybody could do better than this and if only a little bit of preplanning thought was given to the situation it could've been done much better. As I study the flows of civilization and transportation, moving people and the distribution of products and services throughout our society I think to myself; you're damn right I can do better. Please consider all this in 2006. Oh and Vote for Lance!