New L.A. Mayor Pushing Public Transit

[Kerrytravelers]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050727/ap_on_re_us/la_transit


New L.A. Mayor Pushing Public Transit

By TIM MOLLOY, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jul 27, 7:00 PM ET



LOS ANGELES - Getting drivers to take the train or bus has never been easy in this car-crazed city of endless freeways, where gridlock is so awful that rush-hour speeds average less than 30 mph.

The new mayor wants to change Los Angeles' car culture, though his push for mass transit comes in the same month of the London subway and bus bombings.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is starting small, asking Los Angeles residents to give up driving just one or two days a week. The theory is that getting a few more cars off the road would go a long way toward easing gridlock and air pollution that are the worst in the nation.

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As a Los Angeles county resident who often takes public transportaion over my CRV, let me say :applause:

[JDPriestly]

1. Hurrah, Villaraigosa

The Gold Line is a dream come true. Great not to have to fight traffic and with one transfer and one stop I'm right downtown. With a transfer and two stops I'm two blocks from the glorious, Los Angeles central public library. If you are ever in Los Angeles and you love books, be sure to visit our library -- on public transportation.

[Mister Mark]

3. the library is fantastic

It's one of the few things I like about L.A. It's almost hard to believe that a city not known for its intellectualism has such a magnificent central library.

Have you ever seen the downtown library in San Diego? :thumbsdown: What an embarrassment.

[kestrel91316]

6. And I hope you also know about the online catalog that lets you .........

have books from anywhere in the system shipped to your nearest branch? Is that SO COOL????

[kestrel91316]

5. Ditto .................

I didn't vote for the man, but I LOVE his emphasis on mass transit!! And I agree about the Central Library ........I took the Red Line from the Valley all the way downtown (including the Red Line Subway) just to see the remodeled Central Library one Sunday. It took and hour and I just relaxed and read the newspaper on the way. No parking hassles, no one-way street hassles.......it was FUN.

I am eagerly awaiting the new Orange Line dedicated busway in the Valley, due to open in Oct. They will have really nice landscaping, and a bike-plus-pedestrian divided path. So I can bike to Warner Center for a stroll around the mall and lunch. Finally, somewhere to ride a bike in LA other than Sepulveda Basin!!!

Keep it up, Antonio!

[marmar]

2. Good for hizzoner...

I'm quite impressed with Villaraigosa. I would abandon my car without hesitation if my city had decent public transit, but I live in the land of the Big 3 so it ain't never gonna happen. When you go to any big European city with their incredible mass transit systems and then come back home, it's just embarrasing.

:hide:

[kestrel91316]

7. I went to France in 2001, spent only 24 hours in Paris, and.......

just about cried at what I had to return to here in Lost Angeles.

And the fish in our grocery stores are so, well,.......DEAD. Ick.

[goclark]

11. Me too, very impressed!

[Kerrytravelers]

4. I live in Pasadena and about 1.5 blocks from the Gold Line.

It's a God send!

[enid602]

8. public transit

In addition to the 73 miles of intra-urban tracks already operating, MTA will complete another 23 miles this year in the form of the Eastside Gold Line Expansion and the Orange Line, which is actually a Curitiba, Brazil-style elevated express busway. They start construction of the Expo Line (going to the westside) next year. Metrolink (a five-county transit consortium, of which MTA is the principal partner) already operates 500+ miles of interurban commuter rail lines. Rail transit in LA is already big and getting better.

In contrast, Phoenix (where I live) has belatedly and begrudgingly approved the construction of a piddling light-rail system with no independent right of way, which will merely link downtown Phoenix with downtown Mesa, via trolleys that will go no faster than the buses they replace. Given a decade of uncontrolled suburban growth and a high concentration of trucks and SUV's (Gilbert, one of our growingest suburbs, recently dictated that all new homes must feature three-car garages), the Phoenix metropolitan area will blindly stumble into the peak oil era, and risks becoming an anachronism.

If you can believe it, one of our main civic outdoor celebrations takes place at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new freeway (and there have been several), attended by the mayor and governor. Children are allowed to ride their bikes on the new freeway that first day, and a good civic time is had by all. How sad.

[ochazuke]

9. What holds the future for L.A. mayor?

Can we expect that he'll run for governor or something someday?

[JDPriestly]

10. I hope so.

If he runs for governor, he can count on me to support him.

[NNguyenMD]

12. A mass transit system in the mold of the Washington DC subway would be a

godsend indeed. We're not talking anything nearly as complex as NYC subways, but if they could make the longterm investment into a subway system as clean and efficient as the one they've got running throughout the DC Metro area I'm telling you pollution and traffic will be things of the past.

The demand is there too if you're just willing to invest in the construction of it. Expanding busline in lieu of a subway/rail system being constructed would be an incredibly lasting legacy for Villaraigosa.