A Letter From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

National gridlock, the subject of this week's cover story, is a problem for individual travelers and large companies alike. With 18,000 U.S. employees, Time Inc. suffers along with many other firms from the snarls on roadways and runways that bring the nation ever closer to the ultimate jam-up. Gridlock costs billions of dollars in lost productivity, plus plenty of vein-popping frustration. The combination of close confinement, noise and often heat can turn a clogged encounter of the transportation kind into a waking nightmare.

That feeling struck TIME Correspondent Thomas McCarroll the day he set out for a luncheon interview with William Simon at the financier's summer home on Long Island. It took McCarroll 75 minutes just to get off Manhattan Island. Then he found himself on an expressway covered with what seemed like "a million cars. By the time I reached Simon's home, he couldn't do the interview," says McCarroll. "I apologized profusely, blamed the traffic and apologized some more." Simon rescheduled the interview, but McCarroll's useless round trip, which should have taken four hours, consumed more than seven.

Sometimes the shoe pinches the other foot. New York Governor Mario Cuomo was almost an hour late for a lunch with TIME's editors because his car was caught in Manhattan traffic. His aides could do little other than telephone from the vehicle. Car phones are especially popular in Los Angeles, where many of TIME's ad-sales executives have installed them. Says Los Angeles Division Manager Steve Seabolt: "When you call and say, 'I'm on the freeway,' people know just what you mean."

Like other workers, TIME staffers constantly seek small victories in their everyday travel. TIME Washington Correspondent Gisela Bolte, who reported much of this week's story, avoids the capital's rush hours when commuting by auto from suburban McLean, Va. Says she: "I go in late and come home late." Associate Editor Stephen Koepp, the story's writer, usually sets his alarm clock for 5:15 a.m. on days when he must fly, so that he can arrive at one of New York City's airports in time for flights that depart by 7 a.m., before runways clog. That strategy allowed him to arrive in Los Angeles three hours before a meeting in Palm Springs. He rented a car and hit the crowded freeways. He missed the meeting by two hours.