GETTING THERE FROM HERE-Having been "converted" to recognizing the growing support for an Eastside Light Rail Extension, I think that the Metro Board did the right thing by studying both the SR-60 and Washington Blvd. Alternatives (the latter would also identify an alternate north-south connection along Garfield Ave.). There is an increasing desire by the cities and residents along both routes to create a local project, but what they don't know WILL certainly hurt them.
First, there is the experience of the Westside that the Eastside will have to learn from, while the Westside will have to recognize that their home region is NOT the center of the universe. Having grown up in Long Beach, I assure you that there is life and suburban happiness east of the I-710 freeway.
In many ways, the Westside could learn a few things from the Eastside--in general, those smaller Eastside cities do not have the ability to routinely break Planning and Environmental Law the way the "liberal, pro-environment" City of LA routinely does to the suffering of its taxpaying residents:
1) As Westside Expo Line supporters and opponents alike have learned, there are all sorts of overdeveloping, sneaky rodents who will scamper out of the rocks in which they dwell and hide in order to suddenly deluge City Councilmembers in approving monster projects that break the law and will devastate the mobility that Expo Line supporters fought for.
In general, Culver City has had a pretty good pattern of limiting transit-adjacent overdevelopment, while Los Angeles and Santa Monica has had a tougher time convincing its political leadership that abusing "transit-adjacent development", "affordable housing" and "smart growth" is just breaking the law--the Expo Line was never supposed to be a vehicle to create an environmental/mobility nightmare.
Furthermore, the concept of "affordable housing" and "transit-oriented development" as truly-successful methods to reduce or limit car trips for students, seniors and low-wage workers has been lost in the sea of proclamations of political leaders and planners who claim to be helping the world while actually just helping a few political donors make a lot of money.
2) Open space and the suburban lifestyle--particularly for families with younger children--is both vital for human functioning, mental health and quality of life. As Joel Kotkin recently wrote, and which was printed in CityWatch (LINK: http://citywatchla.com/lead-stories-hidden/7901-california-and-the-progressives-war-on-suburbia), there is an agenda (usually by those proclaiming themselves to be "progressives") to shove everyone into small apartments and houses.
Yet TRUE progressives aren't into shoving anyone anywhere into anything. There are plenty of liberals and Democrats who decry overdevelopments such as the Casden/Sepulveda project, the Hines/Papermate project, the Hollywood Millennium project and the JMB project...and they're NOT complaining about large Downtown and urban infill projects.
Reclaiming Downtown and dilapidated areas of the City and County of LA is smart, creates jobs, and restores places for families to live and businesses to thrive. Yet waging war on single-family homes (which the City of L.A. is doing) makes no logical or moral sense...particularly since most of those in Planning and in political leadership roles themselves live in single-family homes.
The Eastside is both ripe for development yet should be extremely wary of those who would transform their neighborhoods into congested, closed-in overdevelopments in the name of progress--while developing east of the 710 freeway would give the western half of the county a break.
3) Most residents of LA County (especially Westsiders) have no clue or grip on the difference between commuter rail and MetroRail, but the MetroRail projects being considered have implications of Metrolink (commuter rail) to provide alternatives to freeway driving as well as to addressing more local commuting needs.
Which means that those using an extended Eastside Light Rail might wish to use it as an alternative to freeway driving, and to travel long distances.
Which means that the inability of the Eastside Light Rail Extension to share or link adjacently to Metrolink stations is a big problem.
Which means that insufficient parking for the Expo Line (paralleling and shadowing the I-10 freeway), Eastside Light Rail Line (paralleling and shadowing the SR-60 and I-5 freeways, depending on the route of the proposed Extension) and other planned rail lines could similarly be a big problem in meeting the needs of all those paying for, and longing to use, any of our MetroRail lines.
Boardmembers Diane DuBois and Don Knabe had an excellent motion (LINK: http://media.metro.net/board/Items/2014/11_november/20141113rbmitem12.1.pdf) to direct staff to study connections of the Eastside Light Extension line with the West Santa Ana Branch Project (which would connect Downtown LA with Orange County and the Southeast L.A. County Cities).
By extension of that well-placed logic, though, there are other connections between the future Eastside Light Rail Extension and the Metro Green Line (and also Metrolink) that are equally in need of linkage to create a logical, true rail network. Ditto with opportunities to get off the I-5 or other freeways for car commuters longing to switch to rail before reaching the megacongested Downtown area.
To conclude, the Eastside is ripe for transportation and planning initiatives that could offer both that portion of LA County, and the rest of LA County, countless mobility and economic benefits. That said, the Eastside does NOT want to repeat the mistakes of the Westside ... and, in the same line of thinking, the Westside could learn a few things from the Eastside about open space, the environment and quality of life.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected] He also does regular commentary on the MarkIsler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
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