Near the rails but still on the road
Research casts doubt on the region's strategy of pushing transit-oriented residential projects to get people out of cars.
By Sharon Bernstein and Francisco Vara-Orta, Times Staff Writers
June 30, 2007
TV cameras in tow and champagne at the ready, a dozen of the county's most powerful civic leaders — including the mayor of Los Angeles, L.A. City Council members and county supervisors — touted the latest and glitziest new development in Hollywood: the planned W Hotel and apartments at the storied corner of Hollywood and Vine.
This project, they pledged at the groundbreaking earlier this year, would restore a sagging neighborhood while also minimizing traffic — an important promise in increasingly gridlocked Hollywood.
"People could live here and never use their cars," declared MTA Chief Executive Roger Snoble at the February event.
It's a vision expressed frequently by local government officials, who see building large mixed-use developments next to mass transit lines as a key solution for not just the region's traffic congestion but also its spread-out geography and reputation for being unfriendly to pedestrians.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-transit30jun30,0,4693321.story?page=1&coll=la-home-center
Research casts doubt on the region's strategy of pushing transit-oriented residential projects to get people out of cars.
By Sharon Bernstein and Francisco Vara-Orta, Times Staff Writers
June 30, 2007
TV cameras in tow and champagne at the ready, a dozen of the county's most powerful civic leaders — including the mayor of Los Angeles, L.A. City Council members and county supervisors — touted the latest and glitziest new development in Hollywood: the planned W Hotel and apartments at the storied corner of Hollywood and Vine.
This project, they pledged at the groundbreaking earlier this year, would restore a sagging neighborhood while also minimizing traffic — an important promise in increasingly gridlocked Hollywood.
"People could live here and never use their cars," declared MTA Chief Executive Roger Snoble at the February event.
It's a vision expressed frequently by local government officials, who see building large mixed-use developments next to mass transit lines as a key solution for not just the region's traffic congestion but also its spread-out geography and reputation for being unfriendly to pedestrians.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-transit30jun30,0,4693321.story?page=1&coll=la-home-center