By Dennis Allard Santa Monica
I would like to point out weaknesses in David Pisarra’s logic (SMPD, Aug. 8, page 4) as to why we don't have better public transport in Los Angeles.
First, you can fit the entire Boston metropolitan area into the San Fernando Valley plus Pasadena. The commute distance from Queens to downtown Manhattan is a measly eight miles. And many of the cities cited by David that have good public transit also have a well-defined city center to and from which to commute.
Second, has David forgotten that we once had a regional transportation system called the Red Cars? Something must explain the demise of that wonderful system, the tracks of which continue to slowly disappear, buried under various condo and commercial real estate development.
Third, perhaps David neglected one factor: people like their cars and don't necessarily like hanging out on a bus with the rabble, especially in this age of cell phones where the non-manual-labor class can take their office and appointment books with them onto the highway.
Fourth, I am not sure where David gets the impression that our labor force all owns cars. Has David taken a look at who rides our bus system? And Los Angeles has one heck of a bus system.
These issues affect quality of life. My 89-year-old mom needs regular care now during the day. I cannot afford to put her in a local care facility due to the high rent those facilities must pay. One of the caregivers I hire to help my mom must commute, by bus, from central Los Angeles, over one hour each way. The other helper, fortunately, benefits from Rent Control so is able to still live in Santa Monica.
All this being said, history plays a role here. We have land, which, since the time of the Homestead Act, has been being chopped up into tinier and tinier rectangular grids of privately owned property, with little by way of social process to intervene with rational planning. Instead of the Champs-Elysees, we have Main Street with its narrow sidewalks, where some 1890s law makes it illegal to serve a beer outdoors. I blame this situation on both private enterprise that fosters ownership and rent as a means of generating wealth for a few, along with a puritanical obsequious religious public having little imagination or political willpower.
Fortunately, gas is no longer cheap. Will the blunt economics of the situation finally lead to a change in attitude?
We do have transit corridors which could, with correct planning, all have train and bus systems to feed a local grid of smaller shuttles. Good public transit is both conceptually possible and energy-wise a good idea. Why don't we extend the Tide Shuttle to cover Santa Monica so that to get from point A to point B, you never have to walk more than 10 minutes or wait more than 10 minutes for the next shuttle?
Ray Bradbury proposed a monorail system 50 years ago. The monorail company offered to put it in at no charge to the city. What happened with that? It is still a good idea. Add to that installing a lightweight elevated bicycle roadway above Santa Monica Boulevard from the Santa Monica Pier all the way to Hollywood. Cheap, effective, fast transportation for that short nine-mile commute. I'm a cyclist and am able to do that on bicycle now in 35 minutes. With an elevated bike road, it would be safe and anyone in half-decent shape could make that trip in about 45 minutes without breaking a sweat. Heck, we'd see a new surge in tandem and tri-bicycles with multiple people bike-pooling to work.
I would prefer to live in a society where real estate speculation does not deprive me of the liberty to be able to hire workers who live close to me. That would reduce traffic and increase the quality of life of everyone. True Libertarians will, of course, point out that I could move my mom and myself to a lower cost neighborhood. Libertarians like those are why we find ourselves in this current mess.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 10, 2006. Read the original PDF.