The struggle among local elected officials over the Regional Transportation Plan brings to mind an observation by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, chief of Naval operations in the 1970s. He noted that every CNO operates a Navy of ships built by his predecessor, and builds ships to be used by his successor.

Local government is like that. City council members and county supervisors in Southern California oversee the streets, parks and public buildings approved by prior panels, and will bind their successors to the infrastructure created in current times. And therein lies the rub.

The long-range benefit of each city and county is sometimes served by decisions that are painful in the present. Local officials are elected, re-elected and cheered by an electorate focused on short-term gratification. True leaders make wise decisions and still keep the trust of their constituents.

The Regional Transportation Plan of the Southern California Association of Governments, the long-range blueprint required by federal and state law, calls for the wisest and most visionary qualities demanded of local elected officials on any regional problem of this generation of leadership.

Elected officials of the early 1900s grappled with water supply and elected officials of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s wrestled with regional air quality. Now, the city council members and county supervisors of six Southern California counties must make monumental decisions on the mobility of the region through the year 2020.

I term the decisions “monumental” because there are no easy fixes. There is only so much money. And the solutions of mobility must respond to the severe tests of federal air quality standards.

The population of the region will grow by staggering dimensions in the next two decades, by 7 million people. That’s the population of two mega-cities the size of Chicago dumped onto the present freeway and rail system! Add to this the fact that jobs and housing are growing in separate sub-regions that are not well served by the connectors now in place, and you are confronted with a gridlock of immense proportions.

The business community is threatened on several fronts. Not only will it become increasingly difficult to attract the right kind of employees to the job site, but it will become harder and harder to move goods into a region of gridlocked commuters. You see, we have built a transportation system for passengers (mostly in single-occupant vehicles) and not for the movement of goods. This thinking must be changed radically.

The Regional Transportation Plan for 2020 must be completed in the next few months and the decisions must come from outside the list of familiar solutions. The challenge is not answered simply by more freeways, more rail, more buses or more carpool lanes.

Most of the $81 billion in expected transportation funds is already committed to near-term projects, or will be needed to maintain and operate the present network of freeways and transit systems.

The solutions will have to:

– Emphasize the movement of goods and freight, perhaps with dedicated roadways (Displacing commuters!).

– Address the emerging job/housing corridors, such as the linkage of Orange and Riverside counties.

– Put the good of the region ahead of cities and even counties (can Los Angeles County weigh its expensive rail appetite and cost-crazy bus system against the larger mobility needs of the region?).

– Complete the existing freeway system gaps and increase toll roads.

– Give priority to maintenance and operation of the current systems over the creation of new systems.

The long-range transportation challenge gores the sacred oxen of every city and every county. It demands a new paradigm of mobility thinking, and will test the ability of our elected leaders to lead.

But just as elected officials of earlier decades showed regional vision in attacking the gigantic problems of water supply and air quality, today’s officials can prove their stature by rising to the emerging mobility crisis.

They can, and they must. The alternative of a paralyzing gridlock for the region is unthinkable.

Judy Mikels is a Ventura County supervisor and president of the Southern California Association of Governments