Ray Bradbury wrote an editorial in the L.A. Times this week hoping to restart the debate for a monorail system in Los Angeles. In his assessment the traffic is five years away from total gridlock. The city’s slow and costly effort to develop an underground subway system has had a history of funding and infrastructural problems. The creation of a light rail, which includes low emission “trains” that can travel along streets, has been in various stages of development since 2001.
I don’t know how the monorail Bradbury envisions differs from the light rail. The system he describes in Toronto is actually a series of streetcars, not so different from what we have in San Francisco. The Seattle Monorail is a specialty rail connecting only a local mall to the Space Needle. And it is currently closed for repairs. If Bradbury’s point is that we need to create a quiet, low-emission and fast people-moving system, then light rail sounds like a compromise to me.
I have to wonder, though, if an expansive and reliable light rail will can survive in L.A. As a Los Angelino I remember the perennial criticism of my fellow residents. The same criticism Steve Martin took it to its inevitable conclusion in L.A. Story when he turned on the ignition and drove 15 feet to his next door neighbor’s house for a visit. We hate to get out of our cars! I’d love to see a transportation system fix the detriments of traffic, but can they actually erase the attitudes caused by suburban sprawl?
Comments
A viable mass transit system in a city like Los Angeles that serves everyone would have to be massive... way beyond the scale of the light rail lines they have in service now. Monorails just wouldn't be cost effective enough to cover the critical mass of area before people started using it.
Actually, I think people will demand decent mass transit in southern California as soon as 1) gas prices/taxes rise, and 2) we implement congestion fees and tolls on our busiest freeways. Economic self-interest may yet pierce the seemingly-impenetrable car culture of my home.
As a sidenote, I was always embarassed that the German city in which I lived for a year, Erfurt, had less than a tenth of the population of LA and yet easily thrice as many light rail stops. Of course, Erfurt reached its zenith well before the automobile was even first dreamt, whereas LA came into its own just as cars were becoming accessible to the average middle class American. It may still be a hopeless transportation cause. But, I must say, I built a pretty tight subway system there in SimCity 4, so I'm keeping the faith.
I'm also reminded of Beverly Hills' opposition to a Rodeo Drive subway stop. Cheaply getting folks from downtown to the tony neighborhood was viewed as a bad thing.
What can't be dismissed in this discussion is the fact that there is "white" LA in the West, and then the rest of it. In a metropolis where residents tried to split into three pieces a few years ago, can there be enough political will built up to build a massive system?
Beverly Hills is it's own upper class animal, Greg, but do you really think that the racial breakup in LA the force preventing an innovative public transportation system?
During the Mayoral election last year transporation was a major issue. (At least it was on the Campaign I was a part of.) And the westside has some of the worst traffic. So what is to stop some of those people from talking to Rep. Waxman and seeing if they could solve a local problem using federal funds?