Garcetti's $1 million traffic idea

At last a little outside-the-box thinking in this dullest of mayoral campaigns. It came during last night's hour-long debate when City Councilman Eric Garcetti suggested offering a $1 million prize to anyone who could offer the best solutions to L.A.'s traffic problems (I'm told he would raise the money privately). His idea comes from Netflix, which offered $1 million for anyone devising an improved algorithm for recommending movies to subscribers. Certainly Google has no shortage of software engineers who can take the city's formidable system of sensors and develop novel suggestions that have yet to be tried - and which might actually work. Not that Garcetti's idea stands much of a chance among the neanderthals at City Hall who would question the need to pay $1 million to some techie when in, oh, 83 years or so the city can extend its skeletal subway system to Westwood! But at least Garcetti brought it up, and at least it will stir a bit of interest. Perhaps there's still time for substantive debate about issues that really matter.