PHOTOS of 1910 era Santa Monica and circa 1950 Venice: http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/vsline.htm
The plan by Westside City Councilman Bill Rosendahl to fund a subway by raising the sales tax one half cent has infuriated the “Daily News”. Not only do they object based on higher taxes, but they also throw in resentment:
” So while the San Fernando Valley and other transit-starved parts of the region make do with inadequate bus lines, the tony Westside would get the Cadillac of public transportation in a Wilshire Corridor subway to the beach.”
That’s right. The rich and snotty people who live near the beach would somehow have de-luxe transportation paid for by taxing foreigners living in Calabasas and Northridge.
So let’s not raise the sales tax. Let’s repeal Proposition #13 and raise commerical and property taxes to where they should be so we can have a state wide solution to traffic problems.
The next time my NJ based parents visit me in Van Nuys, and my brother and his family in Marina Del Rey, I’m going to remind them that it’s unfair that little Ricky has a subway while I just have an Orange Busway. We’ll have that talk as we speed along the 405 and the 10, unencumbered by traffic.
Here in Van Nuys 
Slightlysack said:
Also, the primary users of the Wilshire subway will be Central Americans in Westlake and Koreatown going to work as janitors in office towers in Century City and Westwood. (That’s who’s using the Wilshire Boulevard “Rapid” bus these days, anyway.) Sounds “tony” to me!
1) This is not true. Yes, such people will be users, but not “primary” users. If you think I’m lyin’, just go on the Red Line any morning. What do you see: yes, janitors, nannies and security guards. But also students, housewives, hipsters, senior citizens, tourists (lots of tourists) and downtown office workers. That damn Red Line is about the only place in our ghettoized city where the classes mix together, and God bless it.
2) Even if this were true, it’s a good thing, because it will get crappy, smog belching cars off the street (that’s all low-income people can afford). This helps with smog and traffic. Or, if you want to argue that those people don’t have cars, they ride the bus, it also gets people out of buses, which ALSO helps with smog and traffic. It’s a win-win.
After the subway down Wilshire is built, there are only two more subway projects that make any sense: a subway all the down Vermont Avenue to Century, and an extension of Red Line in North Hollywood to Burbank, maybe Glendale. Plus the Downtown Connector, but that’s pretty short. Any other rail projects can be done above ground.
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JZY wrote: “Bleek is not the entire picture, but I do subscribe to that without a visionary plan, the future woes will not be akin to celluloid scenarios of deathly apocalypse – just living hell.”
The problem is not that we don’t have a plan. We’ll have a plan, but people will come out of the woodwork to crap all over it.
L.A.’s unlucky because we tend to absorb a disproportionate share of the country’s and the world’s snivelers. Angelenos have two complaints: one is about everything that is going wrong right now, and the other is complaining about anyone who changes the way things are.
L.A. recently hired a new planning director from San Diego. That city has had its share of troubles, but San Diego’s planning is something to admire in amazement.
San Diego manages to build almost self-contained cities near Trolley stations, and even their bus-only transit centers have amenities like airports. You can get almost everything done if you live near a Trolley station.
San Diego not only had the vision, but made sure to follow through with its plans.
The planner is not going to see the same results in L.A. The City Council is not going to get behind her, and every council member pays its local homeowners’ associations deference. So whatever plans she may have, she has to try it in a district with civically indifferent communities.
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An unprecedented urban renewal vision (yeah, despite its former bad connotations) is actually overdue. One that will not only encompass extending the transit network, but also new urban center development, zoning change and open spaces. Piece meal designs are needed and they will always be there fighting that familiar myriad of local political and economic obstructions, but a bold move is what’s been long missing. It is clearer than ever that this big town of ours is so flawed fundamentally.
Therefore, I would be more reserved about this town becoming more like Brooklyn, if without radical changes. For one, that NY Borough has already been on the move to transform itself since 7 years ago (amid the recently publicized F.O.G. designs). Second, the beauty of Brooklyn is more multi-layered historically; far higher density, diversity of urban architecture and their compactness, excellent old parks, long waterfront, diverse and integrated (although not always historically) demography, ambitious (not just lively) art scenes and cultural institutions, AND the unbeatable proximity to that great, enviable neighbor, Manhattan. The different charm of Park Slope, Brooklyn Hts, the “hip” Wiiliamsburgh and Carrol Garden, DUMBO, Red Hook and so on can be so easily appreciated simply because they are so walkable. On the contrary, meager urban amenities of our low density “neighborhoods” in fact appear to be far more anemic than the borough. The majority of our blocks are NOT great for walking but for parking. A flat and vast megalopolis born out of Sim-City approach is now trapped, finding it hard not to step on itself or implode.
Bleek is not the entire picture, but I do subscribe to that without a visionary plan, the future woes will not be akin to celluloid scenarios of deathly apocalypse – just living hell.
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There is not even a question whether Los Angeles on the Westside deserves or needs a subway. Of course it does. The entire bulk of the entertainment industry has moved towards the beach, and the most desirable and expensive areas are all in the cleaner air districts. The power players are going to demand a subway, even if some of the riders are not the powerful ones. The downtown boosters are going to want to connect the beach to the central financial and development areas around City Hall and Staples center. LAX is going to need a way to get people to and from downtown quicker if this city is to remain competitive. If LA fails to build a subway, not only from the downtown to the Beach, but from the Antelope Valley to LAX and Long Beach, we will forfeit our economic growth and “progress” and become a dying metropolis.
I predict that these so called neighborhood councils are not going to stop the major demographic tides that are sweeping into the Southland. We are growing enormously, mostly from immigration, and our so-called suburban city is logically adopting to density, high rise apartments, mixed use development and public transportation. Despite our love of cars and picket fenced cottages with rose gardens, we are now living in a region that will look more like Brooklyn than Montecito in the years to come.
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Learning to live with congestion is key. The Wilshire subway isn’t gonna take any cars off the street (principle of triple convergence–y’all in the Valley will see it in a few months after the initial 101 congestion relief from the Orange Line), but it will provide an alternative means of traversing an extremely congested corridor.
Ultimately, I hope congestion leads to the development of more walkable neighborhoods such that people don’t need to use motorized transportation–be it cars, buses, or trains–to get around. I have my disagreements with the New Urbanists, but on one thing they’re dead on: virtually everything built between 1960 and 1990 is extremely pedestrian-unfriendly.
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It boggles the mind to think that grown adults with college educations are writing those editorials. And even a lot of folks in the Valley now think that expanding the Red Line is not such a bad idea, even if it’s not running in the Valley.
The silliness is when it says the Valley is being short-changed. There’s a reason why transit service in the Valley is weak: LOW RIDERSHIP. If you want more bus service in the Valley, ride what you have now and pump up the ridership figures. You don’t have to give up your car. You only have to board, even if you are riding for just a few blocks.
Why would West L.A. deserve a subway? The bus routes between downtown L.A. and the Westside, just five or six of them, carry as many people as every bus line in the Valley. Yes, just a handful of bus lines do the work of the buses in an entire region.
It’s not like you can just add more buses to absorb the ridership. During rush hours, these buses already operate about every 2-3 minutes. (When I mean every 2-3 minutes, I mean MTA schedules enough buses to maintain a theoretical service that has buses showing up at a stop 2-3 minutes apart. In reality, you could wait 10-15 minutes, or even more, and have 5 or 6 buses arrive at the same time. These are factors beyond MTA’s control.) They also already have limited-stop service (it’s like Rapid without the red buses).
In this case, why would the Red Line do well in the Westside? Because a subway can move so many more people more efficiently than a bus. Also, Wilshire is not close to any parallel freeways, and a pair of tunnels will ultimately be cheaper than an eight-lane freeway. Will drivers give up their cars? Not completely, but precedent shows that they have rode transit, with what rail exists now. And, not building a subway doesn’t mean the 10 freeway or any other street gets widened.
Subways are very expensive, but there are no more cheap solutions to traffic congestion. You want to add or widen a highway? Be prepared to pay, and pay big. Otherwise, learn to not only live with traffic congestion, but love it.
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Slightly Slack-
Yes, there is so much more insanity to the Daily News that I could not fit it into one post. You’re right, the Valley reactionaries fought the electric rail idea, just as they bitterly opposed the Red Line subway. They also have some chutzpah calling the Westsiders NIMBY’s for fearing an influx of poor people. Calabasas and West Hills are phobia central for fear of public transportation and the Venice area would probably welcome it.
A half cent tax? How about a 25 cent tax on a gallon of gasoline or would that crimp the SUV drivers (who lease their Cadillac Escalades for $700 a month) too much?
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Left out of that editorial, of course, was the fact that the Valley similarly resisted the Red Line in the ’80s and ’90s, which is why it ends only in North Hollywood.
Also, the primary users of the Wilshire subway will be Central Americans in Westlake and Koreatown going to work as janitors in office towers in Century City and Westwood. (That’s who’s using the Wilshire Boulevard “Rapid” bus these days, anyway.) Sounds “tony” to me!
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