A modest Proposal
Thread started by
Creative Thing at 07.24.07 - 9:17 pm
The following article was published in Sunday's Opinion section of the L.A. Times.
It doesn't seem very realistic to me, politics and King Car, you know. But what a great idea eh?
No cars on Wilshire
An above-ground rail line to the ocean, along with bike lanes and a few buses, would ease L.A. traffic immeasurably.
•••
Published July 22, 2007 by LA Times
By Michael Balter
An above-ground rail line to the ocean, along with bike lanes and a few buses, would ease L.A. traffic immeasurably.
Forget the "subway to the sea." It is a dramatic and radical idea to relieve traffic congestion on the Westside, but extending the Wilshire Boulevard Purple Line from its current terminus at Western Avenue to Santa Monica probably won't happen.
An even more dramatic and radical idea -- and one that wouldn't cost $5 billion and take at least 10 years to complete -- would be to turn Wilshire Boulevard into a car-free, rapid-transit, bicycle-friendly transportation artery. How?
First, ban all automobiles from the entire 15-mile length of the boulevard. Second, beginning at its Western Avenue station, bring the Metro Rail to street level and run it to and from the sea on two sets of rails in the center of Wilshire, which has four or more lanes down its entire length and is thus wide enough to accommodate the route. Third, create bus lanes running east and west for riders who want to make more frequent stops, leaving express service to the Metro Rail. Fourth, install protected bicycle lanes in each direction at the edges of the boulevard and provide inexpensive, self-service rent-a-bike stations every 300 yards (as in Paris) so riders can pick up a bike anywhere on Wilshire and drop it off where they like.
There are some practical problems. Overpasses or underpasses might have to be built at key intersections to channel cross traffic. Side-street access to some parking structures would have to be created. And the possible mini-congestion caused by cars forced to turn around on smaller streets that dead-end at Wilshire would have to be handled. Still, compared with the estimated cost of building a subway -- more than $300 million a mile -- solving these problems would be inexpensive. And because a lot of the Metro Rail infrastructure already exists, the price tag of bringing it above ground and extending it to the sea would be at the low end of the $30 million to $70 million a mile currently estimated for street-level light rail.
The remaking of Wilshire Boulevard should not take place in a vacuum. The Exposition Line from downtown to Santa Monica must be built, Olympic and Pico boulevards should be turned into one-way streets, and every major street should be fitted with bike lanes.
In "Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals," social critic Paul Goodman proposed banning all private cars from Manhattan, a proposal far more ambitious than keeping them off one thoroughfare in Los Angeles. He even suggested that a candidate for mayor run on such a platform. "The candidate would lose on the first try," Goodman wrote, "because he would be considered radical and irresponsibly adventurous; but he would win the second time around, when people had had the chance to think the matter through and see that it made sense."
Freeing Wilshire Boulevard of cars makes perfect sense.
Michael Balter, a former Angeleno, is a Paris-based journalist.
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Im sure many Angeleno's would see this as more egregious an idea than that of Swift. I on the otherhand like it even more, the micks are too stringy for my tastes.
franz07.24.07 - 9:35 pm
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Okay, in this article, taking over Wilshire for riding bikes and taking public transit on the length of Wilshire would certainly be a large beureaucratic undertaking, enormous and, many would say, undoable. But, given the impass at constructing "C"ubways out to the west side--along with the enormous expense, the idea seems plausible. We are supposed to be living in a democratic society, with the will of the people at hand.
So, yeah. Let's do this.
I've heard other ideas of above-ground bikeways with built-in tail winds.
It's not really 'a modest proposal.' It's not like were gonna be eating babies.....
So, yeah.....this isn't really irony. This isn't satire, in the sense of Swift's work.
p.s. I am a lit nerd and a bike juggernaut.
tern07.24.07 - 11:27 pm
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There are council people that love bikes......
above ground monorail would be really cool = )
FROM THE EAST TO THE BEACH part II
redridinghood07.24.07 - 11:58 pm
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It's heartening to see that so many people spotted the problem with the title. Literacy is not dead! (It just sucks now.)
I think that part of the problem with this guy's idea is that, like so many armchair urban planners, he wants too much of a good thing.
It's not enough for him that an above-ground light rail line be built on Wilshire and that east-west car traffic be displaced; he has to make it a totally car-free zone except at what he calls "key" intersections--which would, if he had his way, require expensive and disruptive construction of overpasses and underpasses. Why? Why not allow cross traffic at all or most major cross streets to proceed across at controlled intersections, as with the Blue Line?
Sure, having signals at intersections and requiring the train to stop from time to time for cross traffic means that conventional above-ground light rail is not quite as fast as a subway that never has to stop (or a grade-separated surface level line with no traffic signals), but it's still a lot faster and more reliable than any bus. And isn't that the whole point? And wouldn't that be a far, far easier sell?
I won't even get into the whole rent-a-bike thing.
Others have already pointed out that it's basically a solution in search of a problem. People don't shun bicycle transportation in LA because they don't have access to bikes; they shun it because LA is a sprawling metropolis with (despite the great weather) a profoundly bike-hostile layout and infrastructure.
So there. Eat Irish babies.
PC07.25.07 - 3:23 am
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ayw and the thing is, trains are scheduled,and run along a certain route, with a little foresight somehting like the strobes emergency vehicles have to activate lights could be installed on the trains, and, if planned correctly, the trains would almost never have to stop, cross traffic would, it might be a bit rough at first, but it would work out.
FuzzBeast07.25.07 - 5:09 am
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it makes a great ideal scenario.... but... aint no way that the businesses along Wilshire would put up with having car traffic taken away. they would all fight this idea tooth and nail. the argument that rail would bring them more foot traffic would only work if the entire city was connected by rail and LA's car-loving uber majority didnt have another place to run to get goods.
Roadblock07.25.07 - 9:43 am
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Not only that, but the car owners who LIVE on Wilshire would probably want a word with you as well. Throw valley commuters filling the office buildings, UCLA and the VA in the mix and you have a grade A clusterfuck.
4th street? THAT'S doable, and if nearby parking was put in for the residents, people would probably WANT to live there.
Samhain07.25.07 - 2:56 pm
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I used to live at Wilshire right by the El Rey and totally wished for the Redline to come through.... I think the apartment dwellers would appreciate it.... but the money interests would have it their way... and get it.
Roadblock07.25.07 - 3:19 pm
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You coming to Portland, Samhain?
PC07.25.07 - 3:49 pm
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