I spend a lot of time comparing Los Angeles to the great cities of the world when it comes to transportation planning, infrastructure and enforcement. I end up saying things such as, "Portland is the nation's bike capital," or "New York has painted over 200 miles of bike lanes" or even "Wow, it sure would be great to live in Long Beach." But maybe, just maybe, I sometimes can't see the forest for the trees.
The following video, which has been making the round on transit sites having first appeared at The Overhead Wire, then Great City, then Human Transit was compiled to tweak Atlanta for it's lousy rail growth and future planning. However, when you look at the rail maps at the six cities it profiled, Los Angeles stacks up pretty well to any city and is way ahead of Dallas, Denver, Seattle or Atlanta. Of course, these maps assume that Metro is going to meet its Measure R timelines. It doesn't assume that they'll all be done in the next ten years as the Mayor promises.
Of course, just having a transit network by itself doesn't guarantee the elevation of Los Angeles from where we are to a world class city. Because we live in a time of unparalleled growth and planning for
major transit projects throughout the county; if we don't blow the opportunity to promote
multi-modalism and pact development, we all may be able to tell our
children's children that we were the people that helped Los Angeles
change from the Car Culture Capital of America to one of the world's
great cities.
