Workshop Looks to Sell L.A. on Streetcar

Thanks for the ticket offer. Look foward to being there. Loved the convenience of the Portland Streetcar. Would love to see something similar in Downtown. (Too bad we can’t replicate Portland’s “fareless square” concept also.)

I swear this sounds like a Simpsons episode?

I’m convinced that downtown LA is at the tipping point and a streetcar could be the catalyst that would make it a real urban neighborhood. Can you imagine LA with a real urban spine of high-density transit-oriented communities connected by the subway? Downtown, Koreatown, Hollywood and soon North Holllywood? All dense, walkable, bike-able, mixed income, connected to the regional transit system! Offering residents a truly new kind of urban living in stubbornly suburban LA. If the rest of the city is so scared of density these neighborhoods could provide real models for “green living” – with reduced VMT and GHG emissions and a healthier lifestyle that’s about walking and bikes. Streetcars are particularly interesting because they’re not really about transportation – they’re about focusing development and investment along a particular alignment so that you have a walkable, mixed use, high-density neighborhood. It’s about bringing the development (and pedestrians and riders) to transit, not the other way around. And about connecting to the regional transit system. We’ve got to get over the notion about moving people fast. That’s old school. It’s about slowing down, walking, seeing people you know on the street, live-work-play in the same neighborhood. Which is what is so great about downtown right now – people are way into that! It’s been so interesting to spend time down there.

Given gas prices and instability in the Middle East and global warming it’s really not going to be about moving around so much anymore. And who cares? Everybody’s sick of spending all that time in a car.

I think the whole transportation paradigm is changing. We’re getting back to the idea of land use as a transportation solution … Like in the old days.

it’s certainly a spring board moment for Downtowners! thanks Eric for access to a free pass… be well. -M

Gloria, this is a wonderful event for downtown LA. And, I hope I would have the chance to attend. But, if not, I would like to point out that the problem with LA transportation is not about “moving people fast”. I’d say LA has been focused on “moving cars fast”. We have to get away of this notion of adding street capacity, restricting on-street parking, etc… LA has to now focus on moving people and not cars. That means better use of alternative modes of traffic. And, about slowing people down, we need to add more on-street parking, getting rid of anti-gridlock (which also creates a natural buffer from the pedestrian and cars speeding at 50 mph!), widening sidewalks, etc.. Streetcars, light rail, bus service, increased DASH service are what LA needs to focus on. So, in essence, we need to “move people” and not “move cars”.

That old adage of “the more things change, the more they remain the same” seems to be playing out here. Unlike San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston, Los Angeles moved to rip out its rail system rather than to update it and the price is being paid daily. Unfortunately, I suspect the effort will, in historically Los Angeles fashion, become bogged down in repeated “studies”, the costs will become more prohibitive and nothing will happen. Finally, I have found it most amusing that saying that something is going to be re-studied is somehow seen as a progressive move. This has been Los Angeles until we see something different.

For another alternative for urban transit system in high-density areas, please visit www.prtstrategies.com.

Larry you are so right and I saw the whole process. And now that great system we once had is having to be rebuilt (there still is some rightaway from the old system)…everything old IS new again, if you are old enough to remember. I was on that last P-Car ride down Vermont.

One of the biggest safty problems I remember with DT streetcars was going to the boarding island in the street with cars and congestion all over. And we cannot do an elevated like in NY or Chicago.

Don Noyes-More, Editor in Chief, Downtown LA Life Magazine

Toronto still uses boarding islands in the street. I don’t believe they are necessarily a problem.

David-Kennedy

Toranto drivers vs. aggressive CA drivers?

I’ve been on most of the major light rail systems left in the US. As a kid I actually helped restore old DT streetcars @ the Orange Empire Train Museum in Perris, CA. The streetcar collection includes fully running streetcars from the 1890’s foreward. All the street cars are run on the weekends.

Don Noyes-More, Editor in Chief

Don, I polled my Toronto friends and family. They say Toronto drivers are way more aggressive. They say L.A. traffic is all about scale and volume. But, they find the drivers here better and more courteous.

Any city official or representative who would suggest that Personal Rapid Transit technology be utilized within the Downtown environment ought to be tarred and feathered and ridden on a rail to Las Vegas.

People who promote such elevated technologies have gizmo on the brain, are permanentaly stuck in Jetson-Land and do not have any knowledge or appreciation of urban or city design, street sensibility, architecture or history.

Yet when a condominium development is proposed down the street from their single family house in outer suburbia, they go bananas, draw up a petition and run to the local super market.