Connecting the Dots
blogdowntown
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Ever since the car was invented, folks have been trying to come up with ways to get around Downtown without one.
Often those ideas have taken the form of elaborate schemes. In 1922, a Chicago engineer proposed double-decking Broadway, placing truck and streetcar traffic underground while building a set of elevated moving sidewalks to whisk pedestrians along at a brisk three miles-per hour.
While that idea doesn’t appear to have ever come close to being built, the Downtown People Mover project of the 1970’s very nearly did. The line was intended to connect Union Station and outlying parking garages to the city center and Bunker Hill redevelopment, allowing fewer autos to enter the central city itself.
Elevated walkways did get built, though without the automated movement of the earlier plan.
Both projects would have acted to connect Downtown to itself, allowing easier movement between shops and offices. Today, residents too are thrown into that mix. The circulator mantle has been lifted onto two projects: the Downtown streetcar and Metro’s Regional Connector. Both are moving forward, but both are a long way from accepting their first passengers.
In the meantime, those who live and work Downtown still have to answer the question of how to connect the dots and get between the different hubs of activity that have taken shape during the central city’s revitalization.
Downtown may look compact when viewed on a map, but ask someone who has trudged across it on a hot day and they will certainly tell you that the journey is longer than it looks.
Metro’s Regional Connector is primarily intended to ease passenger traffic through Downtown, but the nearly $1-billion light rail project would also create three new station locations and offer a new option to those whose paths would cross it.
The project was originally proposed to Downtown as an above-ground line, but strong public sentiment during the community outreach process convinced the transit agency to study an option that would keep trains entirely separated from other road users.
A Draft Environmental Impact Report should be released in the next month, and the project is projected to be up and running by 2019. That timeline could be sped up if Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa receives federal funding for his 30/10 initiative, a plan to condense three decades of rail projects into just one.
The Downtown streetcar, by contrast, is aimed directly at this idea of urban circulation. When a group of Downtown stakeholders visited Portland in 2008, advocates there described the streetcar as a “walk extender,” a tool that allows any point along the line to be just down the block from any other. That’s a powerful concept for a place like Downtown, where residents are often content to stick to their own little neighborhood and rarely wander into other parts of the central city.
A favorite project for Councilman Jose Huizar, the Downtown streetcar effort has made tremendous progress since that Portland trip. Even so, what made the news this week was talk of a line that won’t hit its wished for opening date. According to the Downtown News, Huizar told the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum this month that he doesn’t expect to see an opening in 2014.
That’s not news to Dennis Allen, the director of the non-profit set up to build the streetcar. He says that the unknowns have always made it impossible to say exactly when the project would be complete. “Tell me when we’re going to have all the money,” he says. “Tell me when we’re going to have real preliminary design.”
Short-Term Solutions Stymied
In the meantime, short-term mobility fixes have had a rough go over the past few years. The city’s Department of Transportation this month implemented cuts to three DASH bus lines Downtown and raised fares on those that remain. A late-night holiday DASH shuttle offered a taste of entertainment-oriented transit service during the 2008 Christmas season, but the extra hours failed to return the following year when private-sector money could not again be found to pay for them.
That same year the city implemented new rules intended to create a short-trip cab culture in Downtown and Hollywood, but few residents can be seen hailing cabs as they walk down the street two years later.
Pedicabs offer a potential solution more geared to short trips than the airport-run-loving taxis, but thus far city rules have kept the pedal-powered transport sidelined. Guidelines to govern the vehicles’ operation made their way to the Transportation committee in June of last year only to disappear again into the bowels of the Department of Transportation after an outcry that the rules were crafted in such a way as to doom the service to failure. It is unclear when revised rules might return for further discussion or possible implementation.
Signs of Hope
Still, there are reasons to be hopeful that Downtown could soon be an easier place to navigate. While the funding crunch for government projects appears unlikely to loosen any time soon, little bits of funding are still being spent to study neighborhood mobility and the problems of last-mile connectivity.
More importantly, attitudes toward transit and the pedestrian lifestyle are growing increasingly positive. That should eventually lead to a shift in funding priorities. There are even signs that the private sector may be ready to venture into the fray. Upstart LAXcarshare is tentatively entering the shared-vehicle void left by Zipcar’s 2008 withdrawal from the Downtown market. The new company has three locations Downtown, with 4th and Main being the first to truly target the resident population.
In the end, no one solution can answer the mobility question. A properly functioning Downtown will take cars, buses, taxis, trains, streetcars, bikes and pedestrians.
Daveed Kapoor on August 23, 2010, at 09:16AM – #1
We have bus lines in place that connect all of downtown. the 18 runs through downtown along 6th. the 60 goes up santa fe, along 7th up fig to sunset, over to grand, down flower then back on 7th. the 66 along olympic. the countless buses that run up and down broadway, hill, spring, main. These bus lines cover nearly every block in Downtown and connect to greater los angeles. Downtown is transit rich. The problem with the buses is frequency. Buses need to run 24/7 with no wait more than 5mins during the day, and max 10mins at night. instead of the big loud clunker buses MTA should use more smaller buses.
Eric Richardson (@blogdowntown) on August 23, 2010, at 09:30AM – #2
Daveed: To use those smaller buses, it would seem that you would need to redesign how Metro operates through Downtown to have the lines be local instead of just legs of long distance routes where you would want the extra size. Metro's been trying to do that for a long time without much change showing up on the streets.
patrick manpous on August 24, 2010, at 07:11AM – #3
just curious... why does this have to be a "streetcar"? can't we get the same benefits by running a Dash bus on the same route as the proposed Streetcar? Does the Streetcar have some benefit that I'm not aware of? It will still have to wait at red lights like regular traffic so it won't be any faster.... I've heard the vintage argument but what happens after the novelty wears off?
Scott Mercer on August 24, 2010, at 08:45AM – #4
Patrick:
Yes, the streetcar has some benefit you are not aware of.
As proved in Portland, Seattle and Salt Lake City, the streetcar drives development. Like in downtown, Portland had a derelict district of old industrial buildings, the Pearl District, that was transformed from useless old buildings into a walkable, livable neighborhood. Here, we don't need to build more buildings really, just do more renovation on old ones. We have done some already, but many more are still sitting empty above street level. Devlopers will build and invest money because they know the streetcar is there for the long haul. A bus route can be changed at a whim at any time. (Most of the MTA bus routes would not be cancelled, but in recent years some have been moved from one street to another, and that is likely to happen again at some point.)
The streetcar can be a tourist attraction in itself, similar to Angels' Flight. AF provides a transit function, but it is an attraction in its own right. The streetcar could be the same even if the cars are not replica vintage style but modern looking. In these transit debates, it always seems to me that people forget to think of the tourist market, which is silly since tourism is one of our top economic drivers in Los Angeles County. Many tourists that come here are from cities with strong mass transit options including trams (aka streetcars) and would take to one here like a fish to water.
But also it could help tourists get around Downtown easily. If it connects major nodes of activity: the Music Center, Chinatown, LA Live, South Park, Broadway, Financial District, the Library. Yes, a bus can do that but the streetcar provides a higher visibility mode.
Another thought is the idea of LA's rich streetcar heritage, (1890-1963) with the PE and LA Railways, which we would be invoking by returning an actual streetcar to the streets of Downtown.
So, increased property taxes, increased tourist dollars, increased sales taxes. Sounds like a win/win.
Guest on August 24, 2010, at 04:38PM – #5
Development in the Central City Area will not continue without a unified vision for downtown. There is no street beautification plan, no parking plan, and worst of all no City sponsored commitment to business recruitment. I love the new museum, but its not going to save downtown. The fact that the area is divided between two Council Districts has only made the situation worse. A single Downtown Council District will bring stability to the future of Downtown. When A private developer, or even the Federal Government makes a large investment in an area, they want guarantees. Guarantees that their investment won't be wasted. They want assurance that the community will grow around and prop up their their investment. Downtown has been Gerrymandered to the point that the community is unrecognizable. If you think there is a plan for downtown, ask yourself why Broadway still looks the way it does after decades of talk. And further, why is the Pershing Square Garage being sacrificed to pay the City's bills. It is profitable and paid for.....
Ran on August 26, 2010, at 07:28AM – #6
I feel that the volume of public parking lots in downtown L.A. eagerly invites the very problem that Mr. Richardson addresses in this article. If the problem of the car in downtown L.A. is to be fully addressed, I feel that the proliferation of public parking lots should be a significant concern.
For what it is worth, I recently completed an nearly exhaustive survey of downtown's public parking lots. Although an area omitted from the vast survey (the lower south-east corner (below Olympic and east of San Pedro) contained a handful of parking lots, the remaining area was the rest of downtown surrounded by the four freeways: 5, 10, 101 and 110. This approximately 6.5 square-mile area possesses a staggering 258 public parking lots. This figure does not take into account the hundreds of private parking lots and structures. For the two-week project (which had me out every weekday to visit each and every one of those 258 lots), I also interviewed the attendants as well as took no fewer than two photos (often three or four) of each lot.
Having spent so much time on the tarmacs of these oft-filled waste-lands, I can attest to how it feels to have "trudged across [downtown] on a hot day." The paucity of trees, the vast open lots of black tar absorbing the sun's heat only to release it after the sun has gone down and the tens of thousands of private motor vehicles that such lots persuade—all conspire to contribute to the discomfiting heat of downtown Los Angeles, not to mention the lack of a unified vision.
To understand how the wild and unregulated growth has resulted in the tangle that is downtown today, I would suggest reading the 1980s L.A. Times (which are also in book form, "L.A. Follies") as well as the L.A. Downtown News columns (done much later) by Sam Hall Kaplan; Robert M. Fogelson's "The Fragmented Metropolis"; David Rief's Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World"; and—providing one can find a copy—Morrow Mayo's Los Angeles. All of these titles provide a rich history of Los Angeles real estate-driven "growth" that has resulted in the problems that hinder downtown from achieving any significant progress.
Bert Green (@bgfa) on August 29, 2010, at 01:07AM – #7
To all those who bemoan the lack of a unified plan, and the excessive amount of parking lots, I would like to point out that despite these realities, downtown is growing, thriving, even. Why is that, especially considering we are in the middle of a terrible recession? It's also why the cost of parking is so low compared to other cities.
Personally, I use Metro and DASH to get around downtown quite easily. It's harder at night, but it's also not too far to walk to most places.
Guest on September 01, 2010, at 08:09AM – #8
Bert, the cost of parking is not low compared to other cities that actually WANT to attract shoppers and tourists. This is a redevelopment zone. Santa Monica-2 hours free,Pasadena-validation available, Santa Barbara, 75 minutes free, discount available for handicap (yes they pay). Even in Europe- Lucerne Switzerland, 3 public garages $1-hour, (available parking coordinated with digital signs). In contrast downtown has done NOTHING to manage parking with the goal of creating access for shoppers and tourists. That is because the current parking lots are being protected as a legitimate business model. Why hasn't anybody challenged them? Also, has anybody sent a letter to Sacramento requesting changes to our Vehicle code. Handicap placards should not be used in "short-term" metered parking spaces all day. And yes downtown has grown, and some areas are better than they were 10 years ago, but that is despite the lack of a unified vision for downtown. You are trying to build an ice sculpture in the middle of a forest fire. We need a single Council District and a Neighborhood Council with a broader vision for downtown. And who says "bemoaning"?