One things very clear about Dr. Newman’s presentation the other day was his strong warning about continuing to sink billions into an automobile infrastructure scheme that had no future and carried with it enormous costs.

There was a great graph Dr. Newman showed – total highway lanes miles vs. driver delay. Driver delay had NO CORRELATION, whatsoever, with highway lane miles. That is to say, building more road space does not reduce driver delay, at all.

Yet, we continue to wave an idiotic flag around every time a transportation bill or proposition is in front of us that says, “Reduce congestion, fund more roadways!”.

This talk cemented my opinion about the future of the L.A. area: we don’t get it; we’re going to turn in to rich eco-ghettos and poor mad-max suburbs; and, all the money that we could save while simultaneously making things better will get squandered on car pool lanes and freeway resurfacing.

I see Los Angeles as being at a crossroads right now. With the passage of Measure R and 1A, we have the potential to turn this city into a much more transit-friendly city than it currently is. Unfortunately, the success of these projects is also going to depend on the amount of state and federal funding we get, which is why it’s so important that Congress and Obama get this stimulus package right.

But I have to say that I am still feeling optimistic in general. Think about how long people in L.A. have been trying to get rail lines and subway in this city. I saw a YouTube video from the 1960′s trying to convince people to vote for a measure that would fund a rail rapid transit network. And in the last 19 years, our city has gone from having zero metro rail to having the blue line, the red line, the purple line, the green line, the gold line and the orange line. With a new rail line opening this year (gold east) and next year (expo I). If we can get a similar number of rail projects done in a similar amount of time, I’d say L.A. has a good chance of getting to the “resiliant” status that other cities (Manhattan, Paris, D.C., London) have already achieved.