How to get Southern Californians out of our cars? Give us convenient, timely and reasonably priced transit lines, and fund them with higher gas taxes, parking fees and car-registration fees.
E-mail
Print
The tough economy has taken its toll on Altadena resident Efrain Rojas. The freelance graphic artist has put his car in storage to save money and now takes public transportation everywhere.
Well, almost everywhere.
"There's no practical way to get to West Los Angeles via public transit," Rojas, 37, told me. "The amount of time it takes, it's a soul-crushing experience. I've seen people literally break down and cry. So if I can avoid it, I don't even go there."
Yes, Southern California has a public-transit network. But is it anywhere close to what a region of nearly 22 million people requires to move workers, shoppers, visitors and others around an area of more than 45,000 square miles?
No way.
This is the third of a trio of columns on public transportation in the Southland. Last week, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told me he plans to follow up on my suggestions for boosting public-transit ridership.
Today I want to offer him and other local officials some ideas for improving bus and rail service over the short and long hauls. These aren't politically easy solutions, and they'd require significant compromises on the part of businesses and commuters.
But big problems require big solutions. So let's put some stuff on the table.
First of all, L.A. needs a world-class subway system — the sort of go-everywhere transit network found in places like New York, London and Tokyo. But we'll never get it. It's just too costly a proposition and would face too much opposition from self-serving (and well-lawyered) neighborhood interests.
So as a short-term fix for the region's miserable traffic congestion, let's supplement our existing rail lines with "virtual subways" on key surface roads during rush hours. For example, dedicate two lanes of Olympic Boulevard in both directions to create an east-west corridor for express, rapid and local buses — no cars allowed.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
- | single page
No comments:
Post a Comment