The three co-chairs of the community based MTA/Universal Project Community Working Group penned an opinion piece skewering the planned NBC Universal development on an MTA Parking Lot near Universal Studios.  The authors tick off a laundry list of reasons to oppose the project, but there’s one that should catch the eye of Streetsblog readers:

Thomas has said that the public should pay for a crucial infrastructure
improvement that would remove commuter traffic from residential
streets: a 101-to-134-Freeway interchange that could cost taxpayers
hundreds of millions of dollars. If there’s one thing Thomas and GE
should have learned from the events of the past month, the public is in
no mood to subsidize any more corporate giants.

Now let’s be clear, this project is planned for land that is currently an MTA parking lot.  Before a project of this size moves forward, it ought to have a serious plan, with measurable goals, on how it’s going to move people to the site without relying on the automobile.  To  just call it "’smart growth, green growth and transit-oriented development at its height,” and be relying on cars to move people to the point where you want a publicly built highway project that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars belies any claim that can be made that this is a Transit Oriented Development.

Photo: Hokiefacs/Flickr