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Francis DellaVecchia on Transportation

No Current Discernable Cohesive Policy

[::] L.A. needs planned system unique to our geography and our people
- Return to being an innovator and world leader in transportation.
- Retool aerospace industry to develop efficient transportation systems
- Broad approach to improve all facets of transportation.
- The nation’s first "smart highway" system will be built in Los Angeles.

If there is a method to the madness that is our city's transportation system, I have yet to discover it. We have freeways clogged with traffic. The streets are in horrible disrepair. Our subway doesn't even connect downtown with the airport. Buses are a bad joke we play on our low income citizens. Our light rail system is the deadliest in the country. The MTA tower and the billions wasted on the subway stand as testament to the L.A. adage, "Build it, and who cares if they come, because the developers will make a bundle of money."

Not Too Late To Save It

Los Angeles, like many world centers, is in danger of choking itself out of its own future. Endless commuter hours lost in traffic gradually eat away at our productivity, what's left of our precious free time, and eventually our social fabric. However, this is not inevitable. Los Angeles, with its unique problems of geography and industry, is actually perfectly suited to be the center of transportation thought for the 21st century.

Use What We've Got

We know we need to tackle the dual problems of a massive decentralized geography, and information age careers that rarely entail merely commuting from a suburb to an urban center. Our latest solution was to throw a nineteenth century train at this twenty-first century problem. Instead, we should reincarnate our long dead aerospace industry as the new flexible transportation industry. Los Angeles should be the incubator for ideas such as smart highways, and new technologies that may allow for highly individualized, pollution free, rapid travel. We need to create the atmosphere that encourages this sort of thinking. That atmosphere begins by refuting the accepted notion that mass transit will not work in Los Angeles. Below is a possible sample panel for a web cast on transportation.

Head of MTA MTA Board Member Bus Riders Union Rep. Bus Rider Carpool driver Solo driver Light Rail commuter Subway commuter Road maintenance worker Urban planner.