Planning for Congestion It’s been nearly 20 years since former Gov. Gray Davis stood in suburban eastern Los Angeles County at the opening ceremony for a six-mile stretch of the Foothill Freeway [1], where he declared that the state no longer would build new freeways. “Mr. Davis used today’s ribbon-cutting ceremony on a broiling, smoggy afternoon to underscore this fundamental shift, saying that the primacy of the automobile in transportation planning was over,” the New York Times reported [2]. “While the state will be spending much more money on transportation in coming years, Mr. Davis, a Democrat, said it would be mostly for mass transit like trains and buses.”