Downtown: Urban Life vs. the Automobile
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — My normal routine each day is to read the California, Business, and Sports sections of the LA Times. Leaving some sections out means I sometimes miss stories like the one that ran Monday titled "Give Up the Suburb? Yes. Give Up the Car? No Way".
People are moving downtown, all right. But this is L.A. So they're bringing their cars with them.
And now local officials, who just a few years ago stopped requiring developers to build parking spaces in most loft buildings, are scrambling to accommodate automobiles
Don on December 30, 2004, at 11:02PM – #1
I think that these people need to learn to walk or ride the bus.
Sam on January 24, 2006, at 08:30AM – #2
Don, Which people? The ones who don't have time to walk, and who cannot show up to work/school in workout clothes? Or the people who live in buildings where taking the bus would mean even more time and money then taking a car would? The DASH doesn't pick up from everywhere, for example, if you live at The Orsini the DASH only comes by on weekends. Not exactly convenient. Walk. That's hilarious. Suggest that to the law students who must arrive at SC dressed profesionally and ready to imitate real life business situations. I'm sure showing up sweating, smelling like exhaust, with clothing NOT befitting a professional, would be totally worth the effort to please you. Even this guy writing the article says he took the bus to a recreational event. That's different than doing it on a daily basis. I'm willing to bet most of the people who take the bus wish to god they were in a position to drive. I don't know who "these people" are that you were reffering to, but I doubt their choice of transportation has anything to do with not having "learned" to walk or ride the bus.
Eric Richardson (@blogdowntown) on January 24, 2006, at 11:01AM – #3
Sam: You're jumping into the discussion just a bit late here. :) I promise you that Don's comment had much less seriousness than you put into your reply.
The bigger picture is that if you want to use transit you don't live at the Orsini. It was built in a fairly isolated location that doesn't have the service available to it. But if you do want to use transit, there are plenty of other places to live that have great accessibility to SC. That decision becomes part of the overall matrix that determines how you live.
I don't have a car, so living somewhere that's not transit-accessible wouldn't make sense for me. I value not having a car and it just so happens that I'm very pleased with the housing options that gives me. I certainly don't "wish to god [I was] in a position to drive."