Although the state of California is recognized as being environmentally enlightened, it faces its own urban planning challenges. The city of Los Angeles is faced with one of the most daunting environmental challenges in recent history. Urban sprawl has resulted in a massive transportation crisis, which finds itself unable to meet larger environmental goals, such as the mitigation of carbon emissions. “Los Angelization” is a term referring to the massive growth of L.A. suburbs since the end of the Second World War. The city now covers approximately 498.3 square miles, meaning that a resident of one suburb needing to commute to another could potentially be sitting in traffic for up to 44 miles. This is no small feat, considering the population of local L.A. alone is almost 3.5 million. In rush hour, commuters may be looking at hours of traffic. This is one of the reasons why L.A. has been nicknamed the “city of smog”, referring to the dense brown haze of vehicle emissions looming perpetually over the valley. The city has been dubbed one of the most polluted in the country.
City of Los Angeles Local Population and Housing Profile
L.A. one of the most polluted U.S. cities
When looked at through the lens of urban planning, the need for a massive shift in transportation methods becomes apparent. Existing transportation methods in are not conducive to denser lifestyles and thus are encouraging sprawl. There are multiple proposals for how to deal with sprawl in lieu of a transportation crisis, almost all of which require regional conglomeration. Although the city has already taken initiatives in this regard, (i.e. command and control policies which mandate the use of vehicles with high emissions efficiencies), the suburbs of L.A. have yet to be integrated into any kind of reliable mass transit system. It is arguable that this would be the key to solving the issue of urban sprawl in Los Angeles, a city so heavily dependent on private vehicular transport.
A Los Angeles resident writes an article about "Los Angelization"
An outline of Sprawl Impacts in Los Angeles
Since the city covers such a large area, local initiatives aimed at developing sustainable public transportation are deemed necessary. The city is already naturally divided into locales. Thus, the creation of “districts”, which could retain control over local transportation, would not be difficult. Depending on what makes most sense in these individual areas, the potential “districts” of Downtown, Eastside, Northeast, South, Harbor, Hollywood, Wilshire, Westside, San Fernando and Crescenta can issue their own regional plans. Whereas bike and pedestrian planning might make more sense in the downtown area, light rail and bus rapid transit might be more sensible solutions for districts with less density. The elimination of parking spaces in certain areas of downtown and in Hollywood is also a surefire way of drastically reducing the amount of traffic into these areas.
Public transportation can be seen as the only possible remedy for urban sprawl. Since Californians may fear the expense of infrastructure creation, it makes sense for Los Angeles to integrate a better transportation method into its existing infrastructure, and then follow with more intense efforts. The idea is to first work at containing planning to specific areas so that no one area of Los Angeles is required to initiate a costly plan that it may not be able to afford. By setting agendas, yet leaving the specifics up to locales, the L.A. region can ensure each transportation “district” is employing methods that make sense to their locality. This will lessen the overwhelming burden of the city to solve all transportation problems, and can result in an eventual cohesive effort among “districts” to ensure denser development.
Its great that you said better alternative transportation is needed to fix the problem, but what specific alternatives would you recommend. I haven't been to L.A. but it seems that the sprawl is primarily suburban, which means larges tracks of land and single family houses on them. What type of alternative transportation would you recommend to getting these people out of their cars early and taking public transit. According to the letter you referenced in your blog, people wouldn't take buses because its considered low class, and using any other model of transportation would require much more cooperation among localities than would likely come of your solution to this problem by giving districts the responsibilities of planning themselves.
ReplyDelete