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LA Times: Near the rails but still on the road

2K views 1 reply 1 participant last post by  MarkR 
#1 ·
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
 
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#2 ·
I emailed the reporters who wrote this story and asked them if they tried to interview anyone with a better solution.

It's typical for journalists to write stories like this. I guess their point is, "Stop trying to solve congestion and transportation problems in L.A. We're much better off wasting time and money using our cars to get around, and polluting the air while we're at it."

Bastards.
 
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