Where Should We Remove Freeways? [Archive]

PragmaticIdealist

June 11th, 2011, 02:49 AM

I think an important concept is, perhaps, being lost in this discussion. Freeways have helped destroy the historical rural-to-urban transects that naturally formed around train stations and trolley stops.

Some of these transects are still marginally intact, and, where they are, the freeways are appropriate in the natural and rural transect zones, and even in some of the sub-urban zones. But, we have to think on a much smaller and more human scale by re-establishing the transects within each pedestrian shed around extant and future public-transportation stations.

Each pedestrian shed of about a 1/2 mile radius should have a minimum of three transect zones. Bicycles and Neighborhood Electric Vehicles can expand that radius even further, requiring even more diversity. So, Transect-regulating plans should really guide where freeways fit a particular context, namely the more natural and rural zones, and where these types of thoroughfares don't fit. In much of Los Angeles, the problem is that we have lost the open spaces between these transects or urban villages. And, we need to do more to restore more of these rural (exurban) and natural zones with agriculture, open-space parks, and wilderness corridors, as well as with better-managed watersheds.

Naga_Solidus

June 11th, 2011, 04:16 AM

IMO, burial w/ public park covers in downtown cores is probably more feasible than outright removal.

PragmaticIdealist

June 11th, 2011, 01:14 PM

I just found a thread on this general topic in the Citytalk and Urban Issues forum: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1360275

klamedia

June 11th, 2011, 11:10 PM

The only realistic freeway that I feel could get the public behind it for its removal is the 2 stub in Eagle Rock- The Glendale Freeway. It already dumps an enormous amount of traffic onto Echo Park with nowhere to go and in addition its short and could easily be made an example of. Besides it was originally supposed to run all the way to Santa Monica taking Beverly Hills with it on its march towards the ocean more or less. The 2 is our best and brightest candidate.

PragmaticIdealist

June 12th, 2011, 01:58 PM

It should be noted that freeway removals have been proposed as part of the San Bernardino Sustainability Master Plan that is currently being developed. Areas identified include the below-grade portions of the 210 east of the 215, as well as the 215 south of Third Street and adjacent to the multimodal terminal whose first phase opens in 2013.

The latter instance would improve pedestrian connectivity around the proposed high-speed rail station by removing this community divider and barrier, thus improving development potential in the city center. The 215 currently has three overpasses in the area along with a set of two collector-distributor roads that have recently been added as part of the ongoing $800 million modernization, which is due to be completed in 2013.

Vaughan Davies, one of the principal organizers of the freeway cap parks in downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood, is leading teams from AECOM that are reconfiguring the San Bernardino city center. They acknowledge that the character of the 215 does not fit that proposed for the historic core. Converting the freeway to a boulevard in this area would essentially change the thoroughfare into another collector-distributor road with a series of intersections or roundabouts. Freeway-running express buses could still be given direct access to and from the multimodal terminal, but the traffic pattern of private cars and trucks would change into a self-healing network on the surface streets. That's really what a street grid provides. If one way in or out is blocked, it doesn't stop all the traffic from moving through the core because so many other options exist.

Freeways in urban environments are virtually guaranteed to come to a standstill because these thoroughfares funnel cars into a chute from which there is no easy escape when congestion forms.

PragmaticIdealist

June 12th, 2011, 02:06 PM

One of the co-benefits of freeway removals is the way that they can change the psychology of the motorist so that he or she sees cars as being used mainly for short-distance trips.

High-speed rail, airlines, and regional rail need to be the first choices for people making trips of more than 20-30 miles.

TribunusPlebis

June 13th, 2011, 02:12 AM

You guys are silly :)

:lol:

Kenni

June 13th, 2011, 04:31 AM

That would be a total collapse for the City.

I take the Green Line a few days a week to work because it's convenient from where I live. But I was trying to convince a co-worker who lives around Dodger Stadium to take Metro. We went online to find an adequate route, and it would've taken her almost 2 hours to get from there to El Segundo, when she lags in traffic for 45-1:10 in the freeways in bad traffic.

Distance is the factor in LA.

So, not until we have a massive Subway/LTR connection system would I even start to contemplate this idea.

pesto

June 13th, 2011, 05:14 PM

So aside from the billions of costs for removing the 10, the main problems would be what to do with the cars that used to go on it, what to do with intersecting cross-streets, the disruption for 10 years during removal, what to do with traffic from other freeways, the delay of work on other projects due to the money spent on the removal, and the inability of people to get to their jobs as well as before?

klamedia

June 13th, 2011, 06:33 PM

That would be a total collapse for the City.:lol::lol:

I take the Green Line a few days a week to work because it's convenient from where I live. But I was trying to convince a co-worker who lives around Dodger Stadium to take Metro. We went online to find an adequate route, and it would've taken her almost 2 hours to get from there to El Segundo, when she lags in traffic for 45-1:10 in the freeways in bad traffic.

Distance is the factor in LA.

So, not until we have a massive Subway/LTR connection system would I even start to contemplate this idea.:ohno::ohno:

And what is at the root of the problem of your friend who works near Dodger Stadium but assuming lives in El Segundo? Is it that we don't have a massive subway/LRT system where numerous lines span over 20 miles or is it that your friend has made poor choices in her live to work commute pattern? The latter seems to be a re-occuring problematic ethos for Angelenos who steadfastly continue to hold to a 1930's era ideal of Los Angeles....."The New City" model. Besides if there existed no "free" ways she would take the Green to the Blue to the Red with a short hop on a Dash bus to the adjacent neighborhood which takes about an hour and change because I used to take those same 3 trains from Silver Lake to LAX on a regular basis and the travel time was 1 hour 99% of the time. Many people in many cities around the world do this every day. But then again those people in those cities probably wouldn't deliberately live 14 miles away from they work without researching commute options outside of the car.
Typical Angelenos! They move to a transit poor area 30 miles from where they work and then cry that they live in a transit poor area and that's why they have to drive. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Kenni

June 14th, 2011, 06:07 AM

And what is at the root of the problem of your friend who works near Dodger Stadium but assuming lives in El Segundo? Is it that we don't have a massive subway/LRT system where numerous lines span over 20 miles or is it that your friend has made poor choices in her live to work commute pattern? The latter seems to be a re-occuring problematic ethos for Angelenos who steadfastly continue to hold to a 1930's era ideal of Los Angeles....."The New City" model. Besides if there existed no "free" ways she would take the Green to the Blue to the Red with a short hop on a Dash bus to the adjacent neighborhood which takes about an hour and change because I used to take those same 3 trains from Silver Lake to LAX on a regular basis and the travel time was 1 hour 99% of the time. Many people in many cities around the world do this every day. But then again those people in those cities probably wouldn't deliberately live 14 miles away from they work without researching commute options outside of the car.
Typical Angelenos! They move to a transit poor area 30 miles from where they work and then cry that they live in a transit poor area and that's why they have to drive. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

She lives near Dodger stadium, I think I said, we work in El Segundo. You have an absolutely valid point. Yes she could've thought about that when her parents bought their home, but that was 15-20ish years ago. So, that's when it's inconvenient to spend close to 2 hours to get to work in buses and rail versus the 45-1:10 she does in her car.

Rail is faster then buses, but unfortunately in our city rail came late, I was already settled where I am. So what do I do, sell my home to move closer to a Metro Rail station? Unfortunately right now we don't have a plurality of choices to make such a decision that will affect us daily, it's almost changing a lifestyle which we cannot change based on 17 years of Rail. New York City grew upon an already massive rail system which socially dictated the transportation habits of its citizens, it'll take yeeeears for us to get to that. And buses where never popular here, again, because of distance.

If you're one of the smart ones that has managed to wrestle the transportation issue with long distances, for example traveling from Echo Park to LAX daily, in LA that is just admirable. And if you're not one of those....it's mostly about convenience; it's convenient in New York, it is not convenient here,.....yet. Yet I try.

milquetoast

June 14th, 2011, 11:15 AM

Please, let's take into account the compact (by design) reality of destinations in New York as opposed to the spread out (by design) decisions we've made. New York just spent months cooped up in a stubborn winter- stubborn even by their standards. Los Angeles is not New York, or vice-versa. People here, by and large, are not going to stand for tight, compact living in this environment of open space and good weather, and even though more and more are going to rightfully hunger for centralized, elevated living with a doorman, the overwhelming majority are going to embrace the sfr. . Even if we started out with rail and stuck with it, I believe the majority of it would have been elevated by now, but we wouldn't have been able to extend it out as far as we needed to, or serve the spaces in between effectively. This area will always be a de-centralized urban mish mash, with multi-nodal centers surrounded by low-rise or single family residences, and that's the way we should be. Our geography is completely different from any East coast city.

PragmaticIdealist

June 14th, 2011, 03:06 PM

Employment uses are starting to return to city centers, and, I expect that many businesses will seek good transit connections for workplaces in the future. There are ways to also incentivize that outcome, too.

Highways in Europe almost never plow through city centers. Instead, the center is considered the destination, and the rural-to-urban transect is preserved that way. Fast traffic is kept away from the most urban areas through the use of ring roads and distributors.

The downtowns of Pasadena and Riverside are potentially good candidates for freeway removal, and Burbank might benefit from this treatment, too. If the Platinum Triangle in Anaheim achieves the urban form the area seeks, it also might work better with the Orange Crush reconfigured and with ARTIC integrated into a proper street grid. And, I imagine removing freeways along the L.A. River in downtown Long Beach would also help.

We have so many underperforming commercial corridors and city centers, and the diversion of traffic from surface streets to grade-separated highways is largely to blame. Managed congestion and slower speeds may be appropriate for and desirable in these more urban contexts.

The Westside, with its combination of an urban character and a relative lack of freeways, actually performs really well in terms of the general health of the corridors and the surrounding neighborhoods. The area just needs more transportation options and parking management and less subsidization of car ownership and use.

klamedia

June 14th, 2011, 07:00 PM

So, that's when it's inconvenient to spend close to 2 hours to get to work in buses and rail versus the 45-1:10 she does in her car.

Rail is faster then buses, but unfortunately in our city rail came late, I was already settled where I am. So what do I do, sell my home to move closer to a Metro Rail station? Unfortunately right now we don't have a plurality of choices to make such a decision that will affect us daily, it's almost changing a lifestyle which we cannot change based on 17 years of Rail. New York City grew upon an already massive rail system which socially dictated the transportation habits of its citizens, it'll take yeeeears for us to get to that. And buses where never popular here, again, because of distance.

If you're one of the smart ones that has managed to wrestle the transportation issue with long distances, for example traveling from Echo Park to LAX daily, in LA that is just admirable. And if you're not one of those....it's mostly about convenience; it's convenient in New York, it is not convenient here,.....yet. Yet I try.

This statement usually comes from people who have not lived in NYC or have a very idyllic Sex and the City purview of the place. NYC has the nations longest commute times and you'd know that if you had to take a train(s) from East Flatbush or Elmhurst into the city on a daily basis. Yet I never heard anyone say that they were going to buy a car to drive to work and why not? They did have that "free" subsidized parking space just waiting there for them. Or did they? The root of the problem is the continued accommodation of the car. Not the geography. Not the terrain. Not the climate. It's the mindset. It's this sense of entitlement that one should have the right to drive their own car and expect others to pay for it whether it be pollutants in the air or more oil wars to keep abundant fuel flowing and cheaply so. It's the Jeffersonian ideal of "ownership" and self-determination but even the people that he "owned" he never allowed them to be self-determined. It's a crock. It's a hoax. And unfortunately Los Angeles and the vast majority of this country is built atop this non-sustainable model of what it is to be an American.
User fee "free"ways, stop subsidizing parking at business and residential, mix uses and increase densities and we'll see how fast your friend finds a bus or train to work.

Kenni

June 14th, 2011, 08:40 PM

Yes, yes and yes, to everything. But it's a mistake to try to "newyorkanize" LA when it will not work the same here even if we had all their subways.

Also, going from one extreme to the other wont work. Period. And the point should not be to demonize cars, or freeways, whom by the way contributed enormously to the economic development of our country and launched it to THE super power. Europe got left behind, trolleys and all.

I think we are definitely on the right track, and a smart mix and match of our road infrastructure with future mass transit is the key.

(and yes, I've been to New York and rode from Long Island to Manhattan in their subway, which by the way if I remember correctly for that distance the ticket was around (give or take) $20.00, try selling that in LA)

pesto

June 15th, 2011, 06:05 PM

agree with Kenni; let's get balance and opportunities, not dictatorship by the "enlightened".

I love NY, but wouldn't want to live in a city that dense and oppressive. The High Line is a good example of what I mean since it is innovative and adds to the local area (a breath of air and greenery) but at the same time shocks you with how anyone can be excited over such a pathetically minimal exposure to nature.

Contrast this to many of the LA or Bay Area suburbs: you can be near mountain trails, streams, beaches, mountain and road biking, golf, tennis, etc., within 5 minutes. They WANT to be near these things while living in moderate density and within reach of occasional urban amenities.

I have to believe that this is a common desire in California since Steve Jobs just announced a new 12,000 person Apple campus in low-rises in Cupertino, rather than in an SF or SJ high-rise or near transit (instead, Apple uses shuttle buses from rail transit, as does HP, Oracle, Google, etc.). Endless elevator rides and subways is not what Californians are looking for. If they don't like the commute, they can move closer or find a job in SF. Your choice.

klamedia

June 15th, 2011, 07:29 PM

Let's not use "freedom" as a red herring here. We know what we're talking about and that is the continued subsistence of the private car. The wonderful things about LA such as its proximity to nature, it being bisected by an actual mountain range, its beaches, its amazing climate and so forth won't be ruined by a more aggressive approach towards mass transit and a deliberate shun of the car. Within this aggressive approach must be pillars to support and encourage the use of mass transit which of course comes at the expense of the private car and using it for needless short trips or even regular commute patterns. As you mentioned that Europe was "left behind" because of the initiation of America's Interstate Highway Act we will be left behind if we don't rescue ourselves from drowning in a sea of car congestion and mal-planned urban forms like strip malls and vast surface parking lots that don't contribute to the overall urban health of our city and were only designed with car usage in mind. And getting back on topic, "free"way removal will be yet another form of therapeutic exercise that will re-gain the health of a once more beautiful Los Angeles.

Kenni

June 15th, 2011, 08:25 PM

I think Klamedia can't drive. :lol:

JK Klams

I know you absolutely hate the car and the freeway, it was evident when we spoke that one time we met for the forumers meeting.

And I agree with everything you say, but I moderate it. We would not be what we are today if it weren't for the car and the freeway. Now that we are at this point, we have the luxury to mend what we can do better, not get rid of it completely.

Plus, a New Yorker can go out at 3AM and walk to find a local store if he craves Ben and Jerry's. LA is not made that way, I have to get in my car and find that store because of distance and because Metro doesn't run past 1Am (?)

PragmaticIdealist

June 15th, 2011, 10:55 PM

If a rural-to-urban transect is divided into six zones (T1-T6), T1-T3 are appropriate for expressways.

milquetoast

June 16th, 2011, 11:46 AM

Klams can't drive! That's funny! . Klams? You're still in that mode of forcibly removing one's freedom to engage in established ways in order to punish them into accepting a radical mandate! It's like the failure of diamond lanes. It's like installing toll booths onto former "free" modes of travel, only to choke the system as a result. . If I were still in Los Angeles ..... say I moved back. I would not take the bus. Why? Because I have other options. I can drive. I'll use the system laid out for me that is well established and paid for. You're trying to insist that the small subway and meak, little light rail lines are going to offer alternatives to these millions of drivers? We are decades away from that! . And I've got news for you: All those light rail lines will have to be removed and replaced with grade seperated heavy at some point in the future ... even if there is a breakthrough in automobile technology

klamedia

June 17th, 2011, 12:00 AM

Plus, a New Yorker can go out at 3AM and walk to find a local store if he craves Ben and Jerry's. LA is not made that way, I have to get in my car and find that store because of distance and because Metro doesn't run past 1Am (?)

Once again a completely "Sex And The City" view of NYC.

klamedia

June 17th, 2011, 12:05 AM

milquetoast

June 17th, 2011, 11:22 AM

Kenni

June 17th, 2011, 07:35 PM

Once again a completely "Sex And The City" view of NYC.

Wow, never thought of it that way. :nuts:

I speak from experience Klams, my friend where I stay when in NY lives on 42nd and Madison.

Your point of view for LA this time around is faulty at best.

klamedia

June 19th, 2011, 01:32 AM

klamedia

June 19th, 2011, 01:41 AM

Yeah, I did misspell meek. . I'm really not interested in half assed measures for my hometown. These "stents" that allow a little bit more flow are so temporary by nature and will have to be replaced eventually. What keeps them from replacement in lieu of more serious transportation is the fact that they're not being utilized as much as some have hoped. Can you imagine if what you had said came true and people started hopping on these Bredas like they do in Mumbai? Those teensy gages would melt like little baby melted cheese sliders at an August picnic in San Dimas! . Keep the freeways but use the right of ways as platforms for future technology- and don't make that mistake of killing what's established before you "transit" over to the new. . I'm gonna watch your spelling like a hawk!
I agree with you "milq". The capacity of some of our soon-to-be heavily rode lines
Will be insufficient. We can already see how overwhelmed those LRT lines are during special events like The Rose Bowl and Laker Parades. But over-capacity is something I'd love to have to tackle instead of meager ridership caused by continued subsidizing of driving whether you own a car or not.

Kenni

June 20th, 2011, 08:00 PM

42nd and Madison?! Midtown?! Of course this person has access to the optimum that NYC has to offer, it's like living on a tv show. One of the most touristed neighborhoods in the worldis your example of regular living in the city?! NYC is also Queens, Staten Island Brooklyn and The Bronx. The transportation,retail amenities, dining, entertainment are so much more in abundance in Midtown than say in Bayside or Elmhurst (where an"avg" New Yorker would live). That's as silly of me living in Hollywood or Downtown and assuming that folks living in Northridge or Sylmar have access to the same things that I do.
My argument is that people who have to commute 45 minutes to an hour and a half(sometimes 2 trains and a bus) into Midtown and Lower Manhattan on a daily basis do so because of a deliberate limit put on transportation options, yet we applaud NY for its transit patronage. There is really no reason to try to re-invent the wheel. If we want higher transit ridership we must limit private car options. Let me add that these options may be limited naturally by the market. But a limitation on parking accommodation, cheap fuel or non-user fee "free"ways is going to have to occur. And gladly it looks like it will occur.

:lol: Why is living in Manhattan like living on a tv show? You persist on that, which means you obviously get your comparisons from the shows you watch.

But again and back to your header. Conversely, why would NY remove all its freeways to implement what works in Manhattan? Why would LA? Yes we applaud NY but they have been doing it since 1900, and yet they still need freeways along with their massive, well connected, "applaudable" public transportation system.

http://www.truck-drivers-money-saving-tips.com/image-files/idling_traffic_2010.07.22_new_york_city_578x313.jpg

Can you imagine removing some/all our freeways? :lol: We would have to make room for more freight cars (more accidents) because perishable goods would spoil in trucks making their way on well manicured surface streets to the markets, restaurants etc. Making sure that on their way they don't hit bikers on our new expanded Biker Lanes and kiddies going to school.

Are you ready to pay more for your tomatoes and lettuce, goods from Asia, Europe and Latin America?

We are fine with our freeway grid, my thing is not to get rid of some, but to improve on what we have, focus on not building more freeways but on building more subways and LTR's from now on.

Isn't that what we're doing?

http://0.tqn.com/d/gocalifornia/1/0/q/A/3/la-map-fwy-names.jpg

KingNick

June 21st, 2011, 12:46 AM

[...]Can you imagine removing some/all our freeways? :lol: We would have to make room for more freight cars (more accidents) because perishable goods would spoil in trucks making their way on well manicured surface streets to the markets, restaurants etc. Making sure that on their way they don't hit bikers on our new expanded Biker Lanes and kiddies going to school.

Are you ready to pay more for your tomatoes and lettuce, goods from Asia, Europe and Latin America?[...]

That is bizarre. All trucks have to leave the freeway eventually. Just because they are forced to do so 10 miles earlier is not gonna make the prices go thru the roof. That's like a ten thousandth part of the entire transportation distance.

klamedia

June 21st, 2011, 03:39 AM

:lol: Why is living in Manhattan like living on a tv show? You persist on that, which means you obviously get your comparisons from the shows you watch.

But again and back to your header. Conversely, why would NY remove all its freeways to implement what works in Manhattan? Why would LA? Yes we applaud NY but they have been doing it since 1900, and yet they still need freeways along with their massive, well connected, "applaudable" public transportation system.

http://www.truck-drivers-money-saving-tips.com/image-files/idling_traffic_2010.07.22_new_york_city_578x313.jpg

Can you imagine removing some/all our freeways? :lol: We would have to make room for more freight cars (more accidents) because perishable goods would spoil in trucks making their way on well manicured surface streets to the markets, restaurants etc. Making sure that on their way they don't hit bikers on our new expanded Biker Lanes and kiddies going to school.

Are you ready to pay more for your tomatoes and lettuce, goods from Asia, Europe and Latin America?

We are fine with our freeway grid, my thing is not to get rid of some, but to improve on what we have, focus on not building more freeways but on building more subways and LTR's from now on.

Isn't that what we're doing?

http://0.tqn.com/d/gocalifornia/1/0/q/A/3/la-map-fwy-names.jpg

I'm not sure that we are in disagreement or if we were ever disagreeing. I took issue with your hyper-fantasization of NYC. Anyway this debate is clearly in the 14th round so let's put it to rest.
I'm not for removing all freeways knucklehead. But stubs and unfinished ones can be reverted back to parkways and large beautiful avenues. Once again the silly 2 stub should be our first major experiment in freeway removal in LA. Then on to the 90.

Kenni

June 21st, 2011, 06:46 AM

^^ The difference is I wouldn't remove a thing, just make it better.

That is bizarre. All trucks have to leave the freeway eventually. Just because they are forced to do so 10 miles earlier is not gonna make the prices go thru the roof. That's like a ten thousandth part of the entire transportation distance.

In LA, if you want to take surface streets to cover deliveries, you might as well shoot your foot. If LA was smaller then maybe. But delivering produce and goods from the Port Of Los Angeles to Simi Valley, to West LA, Downtown, South Bay, Santa Monica etc....you need highways/freeways. KingNick, "Your not in Kansas any more". :D

klamedia

June 21st, 2011, 09:22 PM

Your argument is LA County which is the metropolitan area not the City of LA. So by those standards any metropolitan area would be hassle to deliver goods not just Los Angeles. If you were talking about delivering goods in SF I'm assuming that you would mean all of the Bay Area...am I correct? "Nick" people in LA refer to the entire metropolitan area as the "city" many times eventhough there exists other municipalities in that generalization. It becomes even more frustrating when they begin to compare the entirety of LA County to other cities in the US. It's the equivalent of calling Long Island NYC or Oakland SF.

slipperydog

June 22nd, 2011, 03:17 AM

Just checking in. This thread is absurd. Peace.

klamedia

June 22nd, 2011, 03:36 AM

Check out and goodbye!

KingNick

June 22nd, 2011, 12:00 PM

^^ The difference is I wouldn't remove a thing, just make it better.

In LA, if you want to take surface streets to cover deliveries, you might as well shoot your foot. If LA was smaller then maybe. But delivering produce and goods from the Port Of Los Angeles to Simi Valley, to West LA, Downtown, South Bay, Santa Monica etc....you need highways/freeways. KingNick, "Your not in Kansas any more". :D

Instead of shooting yourself in the feet you can also walk on them, because not too rare walking speed is the only speed on freeways around LA.

And I never said, I'd remove all freeways. Those having a bypass function should remain, otherwise you also got all the through traffic in the city.

Kenni

June 22nd, 2011, 06:25 PM

Anyways, the answer for me is NO.

PragmaticIdealist

June 22nd, 2011, 07:28 PM

The following images show how removing about six to ten blocks of the 215 freeway could improve the functioning of a street grid, especially within the pedestrian shed of a high-speed rail station where a premium is placed on walkability.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pragmaticidealist/5847209986/" title="Proposed Alignment and Station Location in the City Center of San Bernardino by zIDEAz, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5146/5847209986_a314a9110b_z.jpg" width="640" height="292" alt="Proposed Alignment and Station Location in the City Center of San Bernardino"></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pragmaticidealist/5497528334/" title="California High-Speed Rail Approach to the San Bernardino Multimodal Terminal by zIDEAz, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/5497528334_fa050f01cd.jpg" width="500" height="384" alt="California High-Speed Rail Approach to the San Bernardino Multimodal Terminal"></a>

The most urban places (city centers; high-speed rail ped. sheds; R.C.D. destinations; etc.) are where the character of a grade-separated freeway should change to a surface street in order to make the traffic move more slowly but also more smoothly and to improve pedestrian, cyclist, and N.E.V. connectivity.

milquetoast

June 23rd, 2011, 07:11 AM

Just checking in. This thread is absurd. Peace. Why .. is it absurd?

Suburbanist

June 24th, 2011, 11:40 PM

PragmaticIdealist, with due respect the first part of your nickname is lacking on your arguments.

You seem to completely miss the point about the concept of road network. You can't just tear down a bunch of yards or a couple miles of a freeway in the middle of a through route or a bypass, reduce its lane width and just pray and hope it will all be ok in the end.

Highway removal only have a marginal chance of working when they are stubs, or when you re-route it elsewhere and clear the old alignment. Some of the proposals shown on the websites you link are just completely out of reality, like removing I-10 withing Tucson without re-routing it. It would be the equivalent of proposing that freight corridors from CA to the Midwest were converted into light rail and tramlines within urban areas of LA Metro, never mind a 1.2 mile long double-stack hazmat-loaded train crossing a "livable" boulevard with children playing next a mammoth-sized train. You would kill logistics.

You should look to Europe, where I currently live, to see that even countries that don't have many urban freeways like Netherlands or Italy still have a consistent network of connected freeways in which you can travel large distances on a dedicated infrastructure. Many cities in Europe haven't build freeways crossing the downtown, but all respectable countries have a fast network, using ring-roads and bypasses to avoid urbanized areas. But even when city growth encompassed the freeway network, nobody is talking about severing a network like cutting off I-10 in San Bernardino. Cities without good road infrastructure like Rome or Dublin suffer heavily with congestion and high delivery costs within their urban area.

Despite all the jams and constrained capacity, to provide the same level of mobility (e.g., to guarantee that the, on a combined metro area, people would be able to travel to the same places with the same average expected travel time) massively removing freeways in LA Metro, you'd need a trillion-dollar worth transit program. You know, even when congested, freeways still provide some competitive advantage because the use of cars addresses well the problem of last mile in a speed that is unmatched by anything else, and where costs are the greatest to provide high-frequency, high-speed transit.

The fuss about "losing connection with the rural countryside" is moot IMO. You could keep "unconnected" even living only on subway, streetcar and high-speed train mobility-style one. Indeed, it appears to me that urban dwellers relying on life without cars are much less prone to venture out on state or national parks and the likes, or just go to a random place in Owen or Imperial valleys, as their concept of mobility is based on the ability to reach somewhere by tracks, and tracks don't go to remote places, not even in Europe (not saying Europe is better, just that many pro-transit American colleagues idealize - pun intended - the realities of European transportation where cars account for more than 65% of all passenger*miles transportation in all Western Europe countries but Vatican and Monaco). Their concept of "connecting with nature" is going to a urban park, not to a remote wilderness spot or Death Valley.

Your proposals would mean, when you factor money, trapping the residents within a much shorter radius of their place of residence, unless they are willing to fork expensive rapid transit fares. By the way, fast (60mph+) surface rail bisects neighborhoods with far more impact than freeways.

==========================

In any case, a symptom of why freeway removal is of limited usefulness is that the same limited examples are repeated over, and over, and over again like they were part of a huge trend: a downtown stub in Seoul, leading to a former industrial area that outlived its industrial activity, the Embarcadero freeway, a never completed project in San Francisco, the West Side Highway, a very sub-standard project to begin with, and that is pretty much about it.

Suburbanist

June 24th, 2011, 11:46 PM

If a rural-to-urban transect is divided into six zones (T1-T6), T1-T3 are appropriate for expressways.

You need through routes even in any case. The worst of worlds is one in which at every city an Interstate-standard road "degrades" itself into a local avenue and all through traffic, trucks and cars, has to back up on 30mph boulevards, severely congesting your urban area (and, without a bypass routing, there is just no other solution unless you want to severely reduce the commerce and flow of people between cities, something akin to return the country to 1880).

Just think of the equivalent in terms of rails: what it the proposed HSR-CA were to run as tramways within the urban area of the San Joaquin cities? Then bye, bye fast SFO-LAX rail travel, welcome to service slower-than-Amtrak (at least freight railways cut through cities, at expense of cutting many of them in 2 halves).

desertpunk

June 25th, 2011, 02:49 AM

Just remove the Glendora curve of the 210. :)

PragmaticIdealist

June 25th, 2011, 03:30 AM

Kenni

June 25th, 2011, 07:00 AM

There are real-world case studies of highway removals in San Francisco, New York, Paris, etc. Ample evidence exists that traffic distributes better with a grid than with a freeway cutting through a city center. Motorists get trapped in freeway congestion because there are so few interchanges, as opposed to surface streets with slower design speeds and more possible routes. Think, for example, about which system would be preferable if driving eventually becomes automated.

There are even a few places (Chino Hills, etc.) in southern California where freeways become boulevards without any detrimental effect.

As an alternative to signalized intersections, roundabouts are good in that they can ensure slow but continuous circulation that can, therefore, limit air-pollution from idling traffic.

Obviously, a chicken-and-egg relationship exists between transportation infrastructure and land-development patterns, so a program of removing freeways will, over time, change land use and urban form to support more centralization.

Ah, but the difference my friend between San Francisco, New York and Paris etc, is that they have way fewer automobiles that circulate in that wonderful grid versus Los Angeles.

And Chino Hills is a very inadequate example of functional LA traffic by numbers.

Let's, for a spare second, transplant LA's automobile population to those cities and their grid,.........total and chaotic collapse.

LA County has more cars than the entire country of Russia. And on those numbers, we do ok.

Again, another example of how "their status" does not work for LA. Therefore our solutions have to be different. That's why I stick to not touching what we have, but improve on them, and build more rail to compliment them.

milquetoast

June 25th, 2011, 08:58 AM

That's some grid! . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/Fullscreencapture6242011115145PM.jpg

pesto

June 25th, 2011, 06:38 PM

milquetoast

June 27th, 2011, 01:49 PM

That's what I say! The world's largest example of mass cooperation! And here Klams wants everyone to ride the bus- tsk, for shame!

klamedia

June 29th, 2011, 12:00 AM

Ah, but the difference my friend between San Francisco, New York and Paris etc, is that they have way fewer automobiles that circulate in that wonderful grid versus Los Angeles.

And Chino Hills is a very inadequate example of functional LA traffic by numbers.

Let's, for a spare second, transplant LA's automobile population to those cities and their grid,.........total and chaotic collapse.

LA County has more cars than the entire country of Russia. And on those numbers, we do ok.

Again, another example of how "their status" does not work for LA. Therefore our solutions have to be different. That's why I stick to not touching what we have, but improve on them, and build more rail to compliment them.
This is getting really old!

You are incorrectly comparing the Los Angeles metropolitan area with cities on an urban blog, a place where we should know the difference! Keep doing it. And I'll continue to call out anyone who does this everytime! It's unacceptable to try and prove your point by comparing the 1400+ sq miles of LA metro area with 49 sq miles of a hilly earthquake prone peninsula which has evolved into Santa Barbara lite.

LA has more cars than Russia? I'm a little skeptical but may I see your sources?

The number of automobiles shouldn't be a problem if the roadways are designed to transport all of them adequately. We would only need to continue to widen our roadways to adequately handle more automobiles (which could be done) but that doesn't seem to be entirely the will of the people. We seem to be trending towards a more mass transit, pedestrian-type of community plan. So therefore since these two concepts (greater accessibility for automobiles vs new urbanism) find it very hard to coexist one of the concepts is going to have to suffer. Either we continue to accommodate the auto with wider streets, more freeway lanes and more car spaces or continue trending towards the concepts of new urbanism which are green space, calmer streets, mixed use, pedestrian friendly roads and avenues and more of a reliance upon mass transit.

Rail Claimore

June 29th, 2011, 03:34 AM

Given rough guestimates based on vehicles per capita in different countries and different US states, I'm willing to bet that greater LA has more total motor vehicles than any other urban area in the world, NY and Tokyo included.

klamedia

June 29th, 2011, 07:06 PM

I'm inclined to think that LA does not have the most vehicles per person in the world(it may). Cars still cost money and LA has the largest disparity between rich and poor in the North America. Just casually perusing the net I've already found that Portugal or Luxembourg has more cars per person than the US. I'll continue researching this. I mean LA doesn't even have the largest freeway network in the US.

kevi

June 30th, 2011, 12:48 AM

PragmaticIdealist

June 30th, 2011, 11:21 AM

I didn't want to discuss this any more, but if your stat about LA having more cars than Russia is accurate, we should fall on our knees and thank God for our freeways everyday. Moscow has an enormous rail transit system and still traffic far worse than anywhere in the US.

The rail-transit system has no effect on automobile traffic because of the phenomenon of induced demand.

Number of cars doesn't tell you anything, either. Take Vehicle Miles Traveled and divide that figure by the total number of highway and surface-street miles weighted by population and employment density.

pesto

June 30th, 2011, 07:03 PM

klamedia

June 30th, 2011, 10:20 PM

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tra_mot_veh-transportation-motor-vehicles

That took 2 seconds.

Stop misleading people.

:bash: Dumbass! Do you really wanna use a chart that is so pathetically flawed as this one is that says that the US has 765 cars per 100 people? Each American owns more than 7 cars including babies? Germany is not listed neither is France. What year is this for? Decade? Century? Perhaps you should take more than 2 seconds in the future when gathering and reviewing your data. Meanwhile.....I'm still researching.

Kenni

July 1st, 2011, 01:14 AM

One thing for Klam: if Russia has 140M people and 124 vehicles per 100; and if LA has the US average of 765 and 18M people; then Russia seems to have somewhat more total vehicles. But these are quick estimates and who knows how comparable the numbers are.

It still looks like the LA freeway system is doing an amazing job of moving traffic.

That may be true now, but for a long time LA County had more passenger vehicles than Russia. Emporis.com still says it does. But I have read that by 2003 that had changed. The comparison is still used to dramatize how many vehicles we have here in LA.

Rail Claimore

July 1st, 2011, 02:08 AM

:bash: Dumbass! Do you really wanna use a chart that is so pathetically flawed as this one is that says that the US has 765 cars per 100 people? Each American owns more than 7 cars including babies? Germany is not listed neither is France. What year is this for? Decade? Century? Perhaps you should take more than 2 seconds in the future when gathering and reviewing your data. Meanwhile.....I'm still researching.

Here's a link to a map showing vehicles per capita by country.

http://chartsbin.com/view/1114

It's pretty well known everywhere that the US has the highest vehicle ownership rate of any sizable country in the world. I'm aware of an article that Forbes published that had Portugal ranking #1 with the US as #2, but the difference wasn't significant.

I hypothesized that greater Los Angeles has more total vehicles (not per capita) than any urban area in the world, given car ownership rates in the US (and California is above the national average among states).

The only two urban areas that could have a fleet size larger than that of Los Angeles are New York and Tokyo, because they are the only urban areas in the developed world that are significantly larger than LA. New York's per capita statistics cannot be as high as LA's because New York City, which has over 1/3 of the urban area's population, is the only jurisdiction in the US where more than half of all households do not own a vehicle. If we assume that statistic, then it's reasonable to assume that most car-owning households in NYC have one vehicle, with a small percentage having 2 or 3. That would give NYC about 300 vehicles per 1000 people. If we assume that the rest of the urban area has roughly the US average of 750 vehicles per 1000 people, then that's about 10.5 million vehicles for 14 million people, plus about 2.5 million in NYC, totaling 13 million vehicles for a metro area of 22 million people. That's about 590 vehicles per 1000 people, which seems about right for the most transit-oriented US urban area if the US as a whole is about 750 per 1000.

Los Angeles' urban area, home to 18 million people, would have to have a vehicle:population ratio of 720 vehicles per 1000 people to simply equal New York. California as of 2009 had 840 vehicles per 1000 people as a whole.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/2009_fotw573.html

I doubt Los Angeles is significantly different from the state norm given that it's home to about half the state's population, but let's say ownership rates are lower because of lower incomes and give the area a ratio of 800:1000. That would be 14.4 million vehicles, 1.4 million more than my estimate for metropolitan New York. And the NY figure is generous given that New Jersey is the second largest population center of the region and has a ratio of only 690:1000, and the ratio in Northern NJ is probably lower than that. My guess is that the real difference between NY and LA is at least 2 million vehicles.

In fact, there were 7.5 million registered vehicles as of 2008 in Los Angeles County alone (Source (http://www.laalmanac.com/transport/tr02.htm)) which contains a little more than half of the population of the metro area. So it's not at all inconceivable that the other 4 counties (Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura) have at least 7 million total registered vehicles amongst themselves, if not significantly more.

Now the only question left is whether LA has more total vehicles than greater Tokyo, an urban area of about 35 million people. Japan as a whole has a vehicle:person ratio of 593:1000. If Tokyo was exactly the Japanese average, that would be 20.1 million vehicles. But Tokyo is the most urban, crowded, transit-oriented, and expensive place to live in in Japan, where you have to show proof of a place to park in order to register a vehicle, so I doubt the ratio is that high. If we assume that Tokyo has an equal number of motor vehicles as Los Angeles, 14.4 million, then the ratio would be 423:1000, about 70% the ratio of the country as a whole. I'm doubtful it's that high.

Here are statistics of vehicles per capita by prefecture in Japan:

http://stats-japan.com/t/kiji/10786

The prefectures that comprise Greater Tokyo are Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba.

Tokyo 3,853,148
Kanagawa 3,495,229
Saitama 3,429,701
Chiba 3,007,261

Total: 13,785,339

Based on these calculations, Los Angeles has more total motor vehicles than any urban area in the world, with Tokyo at #2 and New York at #3. And I doubt any other urban area even approaches 10 million total registered vehicles.

desertpunk

July 1st, 2011, 02:23 AM

Los Angeles County had 7,500,000 registered vehicles as of Dec. 31 2008. (http://www.laalmanac.com/transport/tr02.htm) Not even 1 per person. Outlying areas probably have more cars per person but not that many more. So what's the point here? Vehicle ownership and insurance costs in the US are higher or lower than those abroad? I'm guessing the former. These comparisons are meaningless.

.

klamedia

July 1st, 2011, 04:31 AM

Are we using registered passenger vehicles or ALL vehicles? Are trucks included? Wouldn't having the busiest port in the nation skew the vehicle numbers?

klamedia

July 1st, 2011, 04:34 AM

If we assume that statistic, then it's reasonable to assume that most car-owning households in NYC have one vehicle, with a small percentage having 2 or 3. That would give NYC about 300 vehicles per 1000 people. If we assume that the rest of the urban area has roughly the US average of 750 vehicles per 1000 people, then that's about 10.5 million vehicles for 14 million people, plus about 2.5 million in NYC, totaling 13 million vehicles for a metro area of 22 million people. That's about 590 vehicles per 1000 people, which seems about right for the most transit-oriented US urban area if the US as a whole is about 750 per 1000.

Could you spoon feed this equation to me?

Kenni

July 1st, 2011, 11:49 PM

Are we using registered passenger vehicles or ALL vehicles? Are trucks included? Wouldn't having the busiest port in the nation skew the vehicle numbers?

I focused on passenger vehicles.

milquetoast

July 2nd, 2011, 09:54 AM

I have read before that Los Angeles is the largest vehicular urban sprawl in the world. Between 12 and 14 million use the freeway net every day or so, and it is this sizeable network that allows other cities in the country to acheive worse congestion and/or rush hour traffic! . When you look at the infrastructure of something like Tokyo, you may think that the sheer number of people would allow for higher numbers of vehicles, but then you remember that Tokyo still holds onto streets that are hundreds of years old and weren't designed for modern traffic. Greater Tokyo is sizeable enough, but, like New York, is designed for mass transit. New York is too compact to hold that amount of traffic, but has a worse problem with congestion than Los Angeles. . WE WIN AGAIN!! http://serve.mysmiley.net/adult/hump.gif (http://www.mysmiley.net)

klamedia

July 2nd, 2011, 08:51 PM

Are we comparing Greater LA with the municipal boundaries of NYC again? NYC Metro area is much more sprawlier than LA's and it's really LA's metro area that is the densest.

Urban Area Population Land km Land m Densitykm Densitym
1 New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT UA 17,799,861 8683.2 3352.6 2049.9 5309.3
2 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA UA 11,789,487 4319.9 1667.9 2729.1 7068.3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas

milquetoast

July 3rd, 2011, 10:15 AM

I think I made my point extravagantly clear :)

Westsidelife

July 3rd, 2011, 12:45 PM

Wherever we can, although I'd start by building as many freeway caps as possible. The 110 through Downtown is just awful. It effectively kills the urban contiguity that would otherwise exist between Downtown and Santa Monica.

klamedia

July 3rd, 2011, 07:34 PM

Agreed!

milquetoast

July 4th, 2011, 04:23 AM

The 110 through Downtown is just awful. It effectively kills the urban contiguity that would otherwise exist between Downtown and Santa Monica.

Are you favoring the Westside over the Valley? Should the Hollywood move on through the slot with the 110 starting at the 10 instead? Are you saying the 110 provides a physical boundary that keeps people from taking the 10 into downtown? Isn't that stretch of the 110 responsible for depositing everyone from Santa Monica into downtown? Are you saying the Red Line can handle ALL the traffic from the Valley?

LosAngelesSportsFan

July 6th, 2011, 12:37 AM

no i think he is saying cap the damn freeways anywhere we can so that they dont ruin the urban fabric of the city.

if i had to prioritize caps...

1) 110 in Downtown LA for so many obvious reasons.
2) 101 in Downtown . see above
3) 101 in Hollywood. it would extend the revitalization efforts.

milquetoast

July 6th, 2011, 07:41 AM

If you're talking about creating at level structures or "caps" over the freeways when they are sub terr then that's a whole lot of money. I've always envisioned a 110 through downtown with towers on both sides regardless of the lowrise planning of City West and I'm holding to it! The 101 through the Slot is cheaper but I always worry about water seepage.

Int Cities&Scrapers

July 8th, 2011, 03:28 PM

Nix cars on the 710 and make a rapid bus line in the middle and the outersegment just for trucks going to LBC

klamedia

July 9th, 2011, 07:37 PM

List of U.S. cities with most households without a car

1. New York City, New York 55.7%
2. Newark, New Jersey 44.17%
3. Jersey City, New Jersey 40.67%
4. Washington, D.C. 36.93%
5. Hartford, Connecticut 36.14%
6. Baltimore, Maryland 35.89%
7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 35.74%
8. Boston, Massachusetts 34.91%
9. Buffalo, New York 31.42%
10. New Haven, Connecticut 29.74%
11. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 29.45%
12. Paterson, New Jersey 29.32%
13. Chicago, Illinois 28.85%
14. San Francisco, California 28.56%
15. Cambridge, Massachusetts 27.72%
16. New Orleans, Louisiana 27.32%
17. Yonkers, New York 27.05%
18. Miami, Florida 26.71%
19. Syracuse, New York 26.56%
20. Rochester, New York 25.32%
21. Elizabeth, New Jersey 25.21%
22. St. Louis, Missouri 25.17%
23. Cleveland, Ohio 24.57%
24. Bridgeport, Connecticut 23.77%
25. Atlanta, Georgia 23.58%
26. Cincinnati, Ohio 23.37%
27. Providence, Rhode Island 22.92%
28. Springfield, Massachusetts 22.52%
29. Detroit, Michigan 21.9%
30. Richmond, Virginia 21.63%
31. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 21.36%
32. East Los Angeles, California 21.24%
33. Louisville, Kentucky 20.47%
34. Dayton, Ohio 19.97%
35. Minneapolis, Minnesota 19.7%
36. Oakland, California 19.62%
37. Waterbury, Connecticut 19.46%
38. Gary, Indiana 19.37
39. Honolulu, Hawaii 19.36%
40. Allentown, Pennsylvania 18.84%
41. Erie, Pennsylvania 18.2%
42. Worcester, Massachusetts 18.11%
43. Savannah, Georgia 17.64%
44. Lowell, Massachusetts 17.05%
45. Berkeley, California 17.01%
46. Norfolk, Virginia 17.01%
47. St. Paul, Minnesota 16.83%
48. Birmingham, Alabama 16.77%
49. Los Angeles, California 16.53%
50. Seattle, Washington 16.32%

Does carless households in these cities reflect a robust and efficient transit system or the inability to own, purchase and maintain a car? Does car ownership in turn reflect a poor transit system or the affluence of a community? Where's green Portland?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_most_households_without_a_car

Kenni

July 10th, 2011, 03:21 AM

East LA is a City? :)

dachacon

July 11th, 2011, 03:01 AM

^^
unofficially :)

pesto

July 11th, 2011, 08:59 PM

East LA is a City? :)

No. But what the heck.

In any event, the real point is that LA is built for cars and that they do a great job of moving people compared to NY or other cities. Even my wife, who won't touch subways otherwise, takes them in NY at rush-hour since traffic comes to a dead stop pretty much everywhere.

And, no, this does not mean we should stop building subways in the LA core area.

tanzirian

July 11th, 2011, 09:43 PM

Removing freeways will accomplish nothing...only make matters much worse. But that shouldn't be an impediment to developing better public transport...extend the subway, reinstate the streetcars, and and keep the freeways.

milquetoast

July 12th, 2011, 11:39 AM

I always say .... if you can get one third of the cars off the freeways and those people onto other forms of transportation- then that's fine with me. . These freeway corridors are verrrry important to L. A. in that they are paid for and owned by the City, I presume, and everyone is extremely familiar with their position and they can be utilized for future modes of transportation- like Monorails :) Most business congregates along the freeways and when newer types of transport utilize these corridors those business zones will still be there and there won't be any civic planning shock. The City has grown up around these corridors and eliminating them in favor of God knows what (more housing?) would be ineffective. . As to more subway construction- I wish! I can't stand these at level small gage light rail projects. This ain't Portland. Now, when the argument goes to the old iconic Red Car Lines and people talk about how extensive or effective they were, the mix with the automobiles in the 50's was starting to become strained, as the freeway system was coming on and the number, and most especially, the performance of these automobiles was incompatible with the rail traffic sharing the same streets. Even today the LRT's are intersecting with pedestrians and vehicular traffic in ways seen and unforeseen. . Think Villaraigosa can suck on that Washington teet a little more and give us the subterranean funding this City deserves? (There's no more money)

klamedia

July 12th, 2011, 07:18 PM

In any event, the real point is that LA is built for cars and that they do a great job of moving people compared to NY or other cities.
Yeah LA was built for cars........streetcars.
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q138/tmaxx6/streetcar.jpg
LA was a big city in the 20's and 30's before car usage was very high per family and during The Great Depression when car ownership fell drastically. Most people used the extensive streetcar system that covered the region. LA as other cities including NYC and Chicago was modified for the automobile age. Because the streetcar system was privately owned and not part of the public trust it was vulnerable to the trends of the day and eventually lost money and passengers and shut down. It was put under primarily by the extensive Eisenhower Interstate Highway System which it couldn't compete. Ironically the "small government" people have sold their souls to the highway and oil bloc who were originally part of the largest government takeover of individual mobility and urban form in the history of man. But what have we come to expect from home schooled (the world was created in 6 days) small government advocates who feel that driving on freeways built by BIG government is somehow not the ultimate in hypocrisy.

klamedia

July 12th, 2011, 07:27 PM

[/RIGHT] [B] Think Villaraigosa can suck on that Washington teet a little more and give us the subterranean funding this City deserves? (There's no more money)

There's plenty $$$. It's about where your priorities lay and where you think the $$$ should be spent. When folks on talk radio speak about no more handouts because we don't have anymore $$$ they are specifically talking about the imagined welfare queen driving a Cadillac or the "illegal" pumping out babies as if she were on a assembly line. They are not talking of the billions spent over the decades on wars and nation building. Nor are they speaking of all of the corporations on "corporate" welfare. Basically these people with their rebel flag are still fighting the Civil War. The South should have never been re-admitted back into the Union. Not a group I would think that you would associate yourself with "milq".

milquetoast

July 13th, 2011, 04:15 AM

Listen, I was spanking people over on North American and giving them a free education on things like the entitlement culture as opposed to a culture based on rewarding the merits of hard work and entrepreneurship- until the Progressive board banned me there. I don't want to get into what your opinion is on something you don't have the background for knowing- like people my age who actually knew a better quality America that had no bearing on origin or race, but character. I don't think that the removal of freeways should include an ethics lesson on wealth re-distribution simply because I've been successful in not getting myself banned on a Liberal board ... so far. . When you look at the money involved with advertising on television it seem every 2nd commercial is for cars. They're not going anywhere. I don't see commercials for 2011 Streetcars! The Streetcars also don't mesh very well with the National investment of the Interstate system! Also, there's no more money :) . So there, NYAA!

tanzirian

July 13th, 2011, 07:01 AM

I've got nothing against freeways - in fact I rely on freeways a lot on a daily basis - but alternate forms of transport are essential for any growing major city. Subways are essential but LA is so spread out that by themselves they cannot constitute an effective form of transport for most people. That's why streetcars are also needed.

I was born in a city which is perhaps 10 x 15 miles, with population a little less than that of greater LA, where only a small percentage of people own cars, and there are no subways or streetcars. To get from one end to another takes perhaps 3-5 hours during daytime. While I don't expect LA to approximate those times in my lifetime, nonetheless it is an example of what can happen without a good metro.

klamedia

July 15th, 2011, 06:54 PM

HILARIOUS!!
<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xlLZ4RWyyAw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

hoosier

July 16th, 2011, 01:31 AM

LA doesn't have an overbuilt freeway network. It is appropriate for its size.

All that needs to be done is maintain the network while directing all transportation capacity upgrades to rail.

pesto

July 18th, 2011, 05:36 PM

LA doesn't have an overbuilt freeway network. It is appropriate for its size.

All that needs to be done is maintain the network while directing all transportation capacity upgrades to rail.

hoosier: we finally agree! Of course, there are some minor adjustments for bottlenecks, re-designs and obvious connectors. Maybe some removals as well. But freeways in metro areas are clogged and need serious relief from masstransit.

In fact, they also need money from HSR, which is an attempt to fix a problem that doesn't exist: crowding and congestion on flights and car travel between the Bay and LA.

klamedia

July 18th, 2011, 05:59 PM

$$ to do what? Make them wider? Surely that's not what you are suggesting.

slipperydog

July 18th, 2011, 09:02 PM

$$ to do what? Make them wider? Surely that's not what you are suggesting.

Re-paving. Safer on/off-ramps. Creating car-pool lanes. Lots of stuff can be done to make freeways better.

PragmaticIdealist

July 19th, 2011, 08:12 AM

Ugh.

Freeways result in: retail leakage; a loss of community cohesion; jobs-housing imbalances that produce a lack of affordable housing and a lack of high-paying jobs; socioeconomic segregation; the loss of agricultural land and wilderness; the loss of heritage buildings; urban disinvestment; inhibition of economic growth; and, the more obvious suspects (traffic congestion; air pollution; oil dependency; long commutes that produce a loss of productivity; etc.).

PragmaticIdealist

July 19th, 2011, 08:18 AM

Converting existing freeway lanes to car-pool and HOT lanes is good. But, building more lanes only results in more congestion through the phenomenon of induced demand that we've identified and understood since the 1950's.

Widening freeways is ALWAYS a waste of taxpayer dollars, but it does help those pro-oil, pro-car, and pro-highway interests that benefit from getting people to drive more.

pesto

July 19th, 2011, 05:07 PM

$$ to do what? Make them wider? Surely that's not what you are suggesting.

klam: you're right, that's not what I'm suggesting. I just expressed it very poorly. What I meant was the HSR money should be diverted to local mass transit projects, NOT to local freeways.

But, of course, there always be needs for repair, local improvements, etc.

PragmaticIdealist

July 20th, 2011, 07:46 AM

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/07/one-405-adjacent-resident-wishes-it-were-like-this-all-the-time.html

But in her opinion, the event was not an inconvenience but a delight. She watched bicyclists roll down Sunset. Neighbors came out and talked to each other, and the stress of traffic was absent.
"Its like we live in a small town today," she said. "Its amazing; I love it. I wish it were like this all the time.... Let's just have this once a month."

PragmaticIdealist

July 20th, 2011, 07:54 AM

So what you're saying is that Mid City needs the volume of the Santa Monica Freeway interacting with all the aforementioned intersections and districts, neighborhoods ..... for the sake of organic development .... in the hopes that true civic progress and density will be the result- regardless of the short term armageddon?
Don't you mean carmageddon?

PragmaticIdealist

July 20th, 2011, 07:57 AM

btw, the closing of the 405 next month should give us an interesting taste of what life without freeways would be like.What's everyone's post-closure assessment?

klamedia

July 20th, 2011, 05:13 PM

The ardent pro-transit faction of the MTA got to prove its grand thesis which 10 years ago this would have never had happened. The best way to get Angelenos out of their cars and continue the dialogue of the need to lessen the emphasis on the car is to put into practice. What has been shown is that the sky did not fall when the 405 shutdown in fact folks just found other ways to commute or refrained from what we all know contributes to a significant amount of traffic and that is "needless trips by car". The experiment will be done once again next year and then the beginning of tolls along the 110 and 10. After that is a success then tolls on all carpool lanes which could become the largest contiguous tolling system in the country. Next raise the passenger level of carpool lanes from 2 or 3 to 4. Continue pushing American Fast Forward and get these transit projects built and voila the emergence of a balanced transit system while you slept. So needless to say that the shutdown of the 405 works well with the end result of getting people out of their cars. From all of the independent PSA's that talked about the 405 shutdown you couldn't help but walk away with the nagging question of "why do we need to drive so much?"

pesto

July 20th, 2011, 06:17 PM

"We see things not as they are, but as we are." You can assume that whatever happened during Carmageddon, the transit crowd would have said it proves that LA is over-dependent on cars. The only tune they know.

But once again, don't confuse IMPROVING MASS TRANSIT with HARMING AUTO TRANSIT. The former helps the city; the latter worsens it.

PragmaticIdealist

July 20th, 2011, 09:47 PM

Auto transit is not necessarily bad. The problems happen when people are able to use the roadways without paying for their full costs and when those roadways are designed for long-distance travel and fast speeds.

Neighborhood Electric Vehicles that are limited in their speed and range are perfectly welcome in the city just as grade-separated expressways are welcome in the countryside.

slipperydog

July 21st, 2011, 01:16 AM

What has been shown is that the sky did not fall when the 405 shutdown in fact folks just found other ways to commute or refrained from what we all know contributes to a significant amount of traffic and that is "needless trips by car".

From all of the independent PSA's that talked about the 405 shutdown you couldn't help but walk away with the nagging question of "why do we need to drive so much?"

People stayed off the highways last weekend because they were specifically instructed/encouraged to. That's not real life though; people were able to plan ahead months in advance for this specific weekend, and made a point to avoid long-distance travel. As for why people "drive so much", they drive because they like to engage in activities that aren't within a three-block radius of their home. That's not hard to understand.

State of the Union

July 21st, 2011, 08:36 AM

Anyone who thinks that Angelenos and LA Politicians would buy into removing a freeway in the car culture capital of America(and quite possibly, the world) is down right mad.

Yes, we have measure R so we are getting a nice new Rail System, but don't push it.

PragmaticIdealist

July 21st, 2011, 09:56 AM

Does anyone think being the "car culture capital" is a good thing?

milquetoast

July 21st, 2011, 12:51 PM

Does anyone think being the "car culture capital" is a good thing? http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/Fullscreencapture76201120413AM.jpg CAHUENGA PASS . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/Fullscreencapture76201121052AM.jpg SCRIVENER'S. http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/EXM-N-12509-0011.jpgJALOPYJOURNAL . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/caranddrivercom.jpg CARANDDRIVER . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/isteveblogspotcom.jpg ISTEVE.BLOGSPOT.COM . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/thesupercarsorg.jpg THESUPERCARS.ORG . . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/listsoplenty.jpg LISTSOPLENTY . WHY, YES! :)

desertpunk

July 21st, 2011, 04:55 PM

^^

You forgot one: ;)

http://thegeneralmonk.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/1949-delahaye-175-s-saoutchik-roadster-01.jpg
thegeneralmonk (http://thegeneralmonk.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/1949-delahaye-175-saoutchik-roadster/)

klamedia

July 21st, 2011, 09:22 PM

Excluding The Beverly Hillbillies shot, those pics could be from anywhere.

klamedia

July 21st, 2011, 09:24 PM

Your car culture identity is coming to an end and it scares the shit out of you. How else will you now retain a sense of false exclusivity and prop up your shallowness. The 405 closure did more in a very short period of time to continue to move the conversation in the direction of transit and questioning the ills of car culture than any sales tax could.
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q138/tmaxx6/labeyondcars.jpg
The end of car culture is nigh!!:banana::banana:

klamedia

July 21st, 2011, 09:37 PM

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q138/tmaxx6/kidswashingcar.jpg
Gee this proves that car culture still lives!!!!! And it isn't even in black and white!!!!:lol::lol:

slipperydog

July 21st, 2011, 09:42 PM

Your car culture identity is coming to an end and it scares the shit out of you. How else will you now retain a sense of false exclusivity and prop up your shallowness.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SJVxADWT4Ug/TgIsk1fKRpI/AAAAAAAABIc/6jSVcemlrGE/s1600/not_sure_if_serious.jpg

milquetoast

July 22nd, 2011, 10:43 AM

Excluding The Beverly Hillbillies shot, those pics could be from anywhere. http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/Fullscreencapture76201120413AM-1.jpg Let's see, the Cahuenga Pass, from 1924? . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/Fullscreencapture76201121052AM-1.jpg Scrivener's Drive in, Hollywood, 1958? . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/EXM-N-12509-0011-1.jpg Fund raiser car wash, Alpha Phi, USC, 1959 . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/caranddrivercom-1.jpg Life Guard station 20, between Will Rogers and Venice . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/isteveblogspotcom-1.jpg Promotional picture for article on exotic car design in Southern California . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/thesupercarsorg-1.jpg Shot of my ex Wife exiting my former, her current, residence. . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/1949-delahaye-175-s-saoutchik-roadster-01.jpg And, thanks to D-Punk, a shot of a 1949 Delahaye 175 S Saoutchik Roadster, an entry in The Concours D'Elegance at Pebble Beach. . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/in_n_out_willys.jpg . CYCLIST SLAPPED AT SOUTHLAND DRIVE THRU CROWD OF ANGELENOS GATHERS AS MAN ASSERTS HIS RIGHT TO ORDER FOOD- FROM A BIKE! . SILVER LAKE - An angry, young man on an ultra light racing bike caused a ruckus at a large gathering of In-N-Out foodies Friday as he pulled up to the "drive thru" and attempted to order from the menu. From his bike! . "I didn't know what was happening!", said Debbie Lipshitz, as she sat under the characteristically red umbrellas outside, "All I know is that this Man was screaming at traffic and before anyone knew it, he peddles up to the sign and expects to order from his bicycle! It was the most amazing thing I've seen in months!" . Lipshitz was not alone in her outrage that someone on a bicycle could ignore the classic traditions and mores of a culture so ingrained into the minds and hearts of Southern California. Something had to be done. . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/Fullscreencapture7222011123451AM.jpg Debbie Lipshitz was visibly shaken at the sight of someone actually using a bicycle, instead of a car, at a "drive thru." . Before the Man, known to the locals as "The Crazy Man who Yells at Cars", could receive his order, he was pounced on by an estimated one hundred patrons of the In-N-Out franchise on Sunset at Reservoir. . "This guy is out on Sunset just yelling his head off at the traffic, saying that the end is near for cars everywhere", said Jose Avilar. "Just crazy, crazy things! And then he has the nerve to just go up to the window and order without wheels, man? Where's he think he's at, huh? Disneyland?" . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%203/Fullscreencapture7222011123654AM.jpg Mobile shot of the crowd afterward. . Police arrived just in time to pull the antagonist from the rightfully heated mob and transported him to Children's Hospital, where it was sure he would have waited hours before anyone noticed he wasn't a child. He was rolled next door to Hollywood Presbyterian but no one thought he was Presbyterian, so he was walked over to Kaiser Permanente later tonight. He is still in critical condition and remains ridiculous!

klamedia

July 22nd, 2011, 05:12 PM

It's obvious that you are still dealing in a Yorty vision of Los Angeles, circa 1950. If that story were actually true, today everyone in that crowd who harassed the make-believe cyclist would be facing criminal charges!! LA continues to evolve (slowly)away from cars. Read Below:

klamedia

July 22nd, 2011, 05:15 PM

Bicyclist harassment outlawed by Los Angeles City Council
New law makes it a crime for drivers to threaten cyclists verbally or physically.
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q138/tmaxx6/cyclistdowntown.jpg
Downtown L.A. bicyclist

A bicyclist pedals through downtown Los Angeles after the City Council passed a pioneering law to protect cyclists from harassment by motorists that backers described as the toughest of its kind in the nation.

By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times

July 21, 2011
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday passed a pioneering new law intended to protect bicyclists from harassment by motorists.

The ordinance, which backers described as the toughest of its kind in the nation, makes it a crime for drivers to threaten cyclists verbally or physically, and allows victims of harassment to sue in civil court without waiting for the city to press criminal charges.

Its passage comes one day after a 63-year-old bicyclist was struck and killed by a car on a downtown street — an incident that bicycle advocates say underscores the dangers cyclists face.

The new law is the latest bicycle-friendly measure to hit L.A., where an increasingly vocal community of activists has been calling for more protections.

Several of them showed up at City Hall on Wednesday to share stories of harassment; they described motorists who threw objects, shouted insults and tried to run them off the road.

As the number of cyclists on L.A. streets has swelled — local census data from 2008 show that about 13,000 commute to work on bikes, a 48% increase over the last eight years — so too have conflicts between motorists and bicyclists. Some motorists have accused cyclists of flouting traffic laws, while cyclists have complained that they are treated like second-class citizens.

The new law allows cyclists to sue in civil court and collect up to three times their damages, plus attorney's fees. Ross Hirsch, a lawyer who helped craft the law, said the potential for high compensation will make attorneys more likely to take on cyclists as clients.

Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists, said no other city offers bicyclists an equivalent civil recourse. "It's a groundbreaking move," he said.

L.A. lawmakers have garnered national attention with several bike-friendly measures in the last two years.

In 2011, the Los Angeles Police Department convened a bicycle task force and launched new training that acquaints officers with laws that protect cyclists, including traffic codes that relate to bicycle lanes and rights of way. And earlier this year, the city passed an ambitious new bicycle master plan that calls for the paving of more than 200 miles of new bicycle routes every five years.

City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who championed that plan and wrote the new anti-harassment law, said, "It's about time cyclists have rights."

He became an advocate for the community in 2008 after two cyclists pedaling on a curvy road in his Brentwood district were seriously injured when a driver slammed on his brakes in front of them. The motorist, physician Christopher Thompson, was convicted of numerous charges, including assault with a deadly weapon.

At the state level, legislators are considering a law that would require drivers to give cyclists at least 3 feet of space while passing. Senate Bill 910 is cosponsored by the city of Los Angeles, and it has won the support of local politicians, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who recently launched a "Give Me Three!" safety campaign.

Villaraigosa knows how dangerous riding a bicycle can be. Last summer, he bruised his head and shattered his elbow when he was jolted off his bike by a turning taxicab.

klamedia

July 22nd, 2011, 05:28 PM

This would have never even been considered under your Sam Yorty vision of LA......'the times they are a chuggin'

Art Walk crash investigation continues; petition launched to close streets

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q138/tmaxx6/artwalkdeath.jpg
Artwalk-vigil Los Angeles police are still investigating an accident last week in downtown Los Angeles in which a car careened onto a sidewalk, killing a baby.

"We're not there yet but we're preparing a case for review by the district attorney," said Det. Felix Padilla, the lead LAPD investigator in the case. "We expect to have this ready probably sometime next week."

The crash occurred about 9 p.m. Thursday during downtown’s Art Walk, a monthly event where local businesses and art studios stay open late into the night. The events are growing in popularity and attracting bigger and bigger crowds.

At last week's Art Walk, a 2002 Cadillac DeVille driven by a 22-year-old Inglewood man jumped the curb near the corner of Spring and 4th streets and went onto a packed sidewalk. The car sheared off a parking meter and plowed into a group of people, including Montebello residents Jimmy and Natasha Vasquez and their 2-month-old son, Marcello, who was being pushed in a stroller.

Marcello suffered major injuries, with his head possibly hitting concrete after his stroller was "pushed and whacked" by the car, LAPD Sgt. Jeffrey Siggers said. Doctors at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center pronounced him dead the next morning.

It appeared that the driver, who did not have a driver's license, lost control of the vehicle while he was attempting to parallel park, investigators told The Times shortly after the accident. On Tuesday, Padilla said the driver had not been given a machine test for sobriety because officers at the scene decided "that he did not display any signs of being intoxicated." The unidentified man was released.

Investigators are currently testing the car for mechanical problems, Padilla said. Once the police wrap up the investigation, the district attorney’s office will decide what charges to file, if any.

In the meantime, Marcello’s death has spurred one Spring Street artist to create a petition asking the city to keep the area free from cars on Art Walk nights.

Victor Wilde, whose studio, The Brutique, occupies a corner space in a building on 5th and Spring, said he has long been concerned that there simply isn’t enough space for both regular car traffic and the booming crowds.

"It has gotten completely out of hand," Wilde said. "I'm from New York and I’ve never experienced something like Art Walk is now. You go out on the sidewalk and it feels like you are just getting sent down a river because there are so many people -– it's like a raging rapid. Something needs to be done, if it keeps up like this, another tragedy could happen, so why not take cars out of the mix?"

Wilde said about 200 people had signed his online petition by Tuesday afternoon.

milquetoast

July 23rd, 2011, 09:10 AM

slipperydog

July 23rd, 2011, 06:07 PM

Cyclists have rights? I didn't know cyclists have rights! . And if a squirrel hops in front of my car and I slam on my brakes and watch gleefully as two cyclists rear-end me like the above exampleTHAT'S MY FAULT? That doesn't make sense. . I see them from time to time up here too- cyclist who think they are cars and/or belong on the street in between cars because they think they can either keep up or at least stay out of the way .. but I likes ta drive FAST! Annnd, I must say I have clipped a cyclist or two in my time- well, just with my side mirrors :) (Hey! I have deadlines!) . NOTE: I contacted the Vasquez's about Marcello as soon as I read about it a some days ago and they appreciated my sentiment.

Agreed. Cyclists need to stay on the sidewalk if there is not enough room on the street for both themselves and regular traffic. I was driving up Veteran the other day, and some jackoff is riding his bike on the street. Suddenly he comes up to a line of parked cars and instead of braking, darts in front of regular traffic, makes the car in front of me slam on his brakes. As parked cars were lined up the entire street, he made everyone slow down to 15 mph behind him and essentially created a traffic jam. Why these cyclists think they're equal parties to cars is beyond me. Please just use the damn sidewalks people.

PragmaticIdealist

July 24th, 2011, 03:48 AM

Cycling is illegal on sidewalks.

pesto

July 24th, 2011, 05:31 PM

klamedia

July 24th, 2011, 07:52 PM

Intimidating a cyclist could have dire consequences since she/he is operating a vehicle and that could cause the cyclist to have an accident assuming that they are cycling on a street. If you can ever remember riding a bike, it's not that difficult to fall of a bike. Insulting a pedestrian(following your logic) I guess could make someone collapse out of fear? Run into oncoming traffic? Shit in their pants? Compare apples to apples not oranges to a pair of red Manolo Blahnik pumps.

hoosier

July 24th, 2011, 10:38 PM

It's now a crime to insult a bicyclist? "Watch how you drive, nitwit?"

First of all, sounds unconstitutional; you can't insult a bicyclist but you can insult pedestrians, bus riders or car driver? Second, sounds like more political correctness (talk like I talk or don't talk at all). Third, sounds like politicians offering special legislation to one group, to the exclusion of the majority. Toss in costs of enforcement and very doubtful enforceability and you capture most of what is wrong with politics these days.

Figures you and slipmutt would bitch about this.

Protecting people from assholes in a 3000 lb killing machine is a GOOD THING whether your warped worldview likes it or not. The majority don't need protection- THEY ARE THE MAJORITY. LA has been dominated by the car for the last sixty years and some balance is FINALLY being created in transportation and all you do is bitch.

You are no better than a white man who feels repressed now that coloreds have equal rights under the law.

slipperydog

July 25th, 2011, 03:11 AM

Cycling is illegal on sidewalks.

Is that everywhere? I see it all the time in my neighborhood.

klamedia

July 25th, 2011, 07:38 PM

Figures you and slipmutt would bitch about this.

Protecting people from assholes in a 3000 lb killing machine is a GOOD THING whether your warped worldview likes it or not. The majority don't need protection- THEY ARE THE MAJORITY. LA has been dominated by the car for the last sixty years and some balance is FINALLY being created in transportation and all you do is bitch.

You are no better than a white man who feels repressed now that coloreds have equal rights under the law.
This is nothing less than tried and true tea bag logic which immediately discounts it to be illogical. If these people were truly LIEbertarians they would celebrate in the rights of the individual cyclist being protected. But Libertarian logic is faulty at best in that Rand Paul who extols as "one of them" would question the validity of the 1964 Federal Civil Rights Act that trumped state laws that discriminated and circumcised individual liberty on the basis of color. The truth about Libertarians and Tea Baggers running around talking about individual liberty is that they believe individual liberty applies only to certain individuals. Slavery would have never ended if left up to Libertarians because 'we can't encroach upon state rights even if the state encroaches on individual rights'. Go figure! On their mantel where a picture of MLK should sit a man who fought and died for individual liberty and civil rights is instead a picture of Ronald Reagan. Could you imagine Tea Baggers instead of dressing up like iconic images of our "Founding Fathers" (whom many were slaveholders and worked against civil liberties) instead re-enacting the Montgomery Bus Boycott and dressing up like MLK and Rosa Parks? Or for that matter Susan B. Anthony?

James 3:12: "My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."