Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Back to the Future

In other election news, LA area voters approved a ballot measure to tax themselves for more transit. A map of the future

A myth about LA is that was the first major US city to grow up around the automobile. Actually it was the first major city to grow up around the streetcar, instead of around walking, which was how cities grew prior to that. Then they got rid of all the streetcars and rail generally and added urban highways everywhere. LA suffers from the too-dense-but-not-quite-dense-enough problem (overall it's a very dense city, but with a kind of uniform density that is a bit difficult from a transportation perspective). As is always the case, no matter how this stuff is sold, it probably won't make life better for people who take the urban highways, it'll just give more options to people who want them, and will (if allowed) transform the city into something different.