Before the 1920s LA used to have the largest interurban rail network in the world, it’s the original reason why the city sprawled and why the need for freeways was so great. In the 1920s there was a heated political battle over the future of the city, option one was the construction of a new central station located a Pershing square with and the conversion of the interurban network into rapid transit network similar to that of New York’s and Chicago’s. Option two was the construction of a new Union Station and the construction of the Arroyo Secco Parkway as the first leg of an expanding freeway network. The freeway network won. When the Collier-Burns Act was passed, CalTrans took over the construction and planning of the freeway network. This led to the life of car-dependency and the freeway network we have today.
It would have been better if option 1 was passed. That way if you were to get stuck in traffic, you can ride the subway to get to your destination as quickly as possible.
For God sake. That's all I hear. 'How it used to have.' We're talking about the here and now. Harping and gloating doesn't change things. Now everyone should know not to fuck things up. But that shouldn't change things that LA now starts at zero. Like it never had any system at all.
@@troysierra5228 I mean June 16th, LA will be opening its first piece of new rail infrastructure that isn’t a rebuild of a former Pacific Electric or Los Angeles Railway line, the regional connector. This means LA has rebuilt most of the trunk lines for the pacific electric and is now finally starting to create a better service than what used to be. UPDATE: how you get around the city by transit has completely changed, writing this on a train from the nice and cool beach into the toasty hot SGV
There are many major 7 or 9 lane streets where the buses get stuck in traffic because they refuse to build dedicated bus lanes. Santa Monica Blvd is one of them. Car drivers get upset when they see buses pass them so they fight any bus lanes. Even though bus lanes would get people to take the bus instead of take their car which would reduce traffic for other car drivers. It's a very low IQ city.
@@jerrymiller9039 What's the biggest Republican/Independent city in the US? San Antonio? Lots of traffic there too due to suburban sprawl. Nearly every US city faces this. Big and small, red and blue. From Madison Wisconsin to El Paso and from Charleston to San Diego. Poor land use, regressive property taxes, overly restrictive zoning, billion dollar big government agencies shoving highways down our main streets. Show me one US city that gets it right. If you're a conservative, which I'd venture to say that you are, you should rightfully be pissed at our insane development pattern experiment that is completely financially unsustainable. It relies on borrowing money to keep building roads to destroy more nature and farmland for more exurban neighborhoods that requires everyone to drive all of the time. Our cities are going broke because they are trying to perpetuate the growth of the suburbs when it was never financially solvent to do so in the first place.
@@mariusfacktor3597 I am an independent and libertarian. I don't care if someone chooses to live in a high density area but for people to be so incredibly bigoted and close minded that they can't even comprehend that there are many more options out there is disgusting and pathetic
@@jerrymiller9039 Right, so as a libertarian you should be upset with big government central planning highway agencies like the Federal Highway Administration and state DOTs. These agencies have bankrupted big and small cities all over the country by paying for new roads that these cities could never maintain for themselves. As such these cities are now dependent on the federal and state governments to bail them out every couple decades. From a libertarian standpoint, it's a horrible situation.
@mariusfacktor3597 the suburban ponzi scheme.. fiscally minded conservatives should support denser, transit oriented cities as they are actually more profitable in the long run, all else being equal.
It's like they take one step forward and two or three backwards. I've seen some projects with hundreds or thousands of parking spots a few blocks from their transit stations🤦🏾♀️ Plus the recent Culver City backtracking 🙄😭 That aside, great video. I had no idea Los Angeles was so large!! 500 miles?!
Doesn’t work when you invest equally in car centric projects at the same time. LA needs to wean people off cars. Slowly reduce new licenses given and ones that get renewed. Start with the most erratic drivers and work your way up until LA is mostly carless.
Great video! I wanted to make a few notes - You implied that the grid layout was a partial cause for car dependence. This is a common misunderstanding, and Alan Fisher has a video explaining it - I liked that you brought up how low density is a challenge factor when developing public transit, but I think you could have highlighted the causation more. Los Angeles's focus on car infrastructure is largely what enabled the sprawling low density development
If they want people to ride buses and metros, they need to keep them clean, kick off the homeless sleeping on them, and protect against crime on them. They were great when 1st put in but now, sadly no way would I take a metro anywhere.
A lot of the safety issues are caused by low ridership; if they built more transit, more people would use it and crime would go down. It’s like being in the city walking at night. More densely populated and trafficked neighborhoods are safer to walk around in, presumably because there are more witnesses and deterrents to crimes. Walking around is always safer when there are more people around, and taking transit is the same
Exactly. Detroit's grid is perfectly suited for all three residential densities. Most blocks are a little under 3 acres, so they easily fit 20-30 single family homes, 60-75 townhouses, or a mixed-use mid rise with 200 residential units. Before its decline, Detroit had a population density of over 13,000/mi². Even with losing 2/3rds of its population, Detroit’s density is still higher than in Sacramento, Denver, Austin, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Dallas, and Salt Lake City. Portland, Oregon is roughly the same size as Detroit, yet has nearly 1,000 people less per square mile. It's perfect for a renaissance, and it's happening now.
Public transportation isn't safe in Los Angeles right now. Crime is out of control. People get mugged and assaulted on public transit. Los Angeles is literally a post apocalypse dystopia right out of the movies.
![Why American Cities Are Removing Their Highways [Documentary]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yvRVirzMis0/mqdefault.jpg)
![Why American Cities Are Removing Their Highways [Documentary]](/img/tr.png)
Before the 1920s LA used to have the largest interurban rail network in the world, it’s the original reason why the city sprawled and why the need for freeways was so great. In the 1920s there was a heated political battle over the future of the city, option one was the construction of a new central station located a Pershing square with and the conversion of the interurban network into rapid transit network similar to that of New York’s and Chicago’s. Option two was the construction of a new Union Station and the construction of the Arroyo Secco Parkway as the first leg of an expanding freeway network. The freeway network won. When the Collier-Burns Act was passed, CalTrans took over the construction and planning of the freeway network. This led to the life of car-dependency and the freeway network we have today.
It would have been better if option 1 was passed. That way if you were to get stuck in traffic, you can ride the subway to get to your destination as quickly as possible.
For God sake. That's all I hear. 'How it used to have.' We're talking about the here and now. Harping and gloating doesn't change things. Now everyone should know not to fuck things up. But that shouldn't change things that LA now starts at zero. Like it never had any system at all.
@@troysierra5228 I mean June 16th, LA will be opening its first piece of new rail infrastructure that isn’t a rebuild of a former Pacific Electric or Los Angeles Railway line, the regional connector. This means LA has rebuilt most of the trunk lines for the pacific electric and is now finally starting to create a better service than what used to be.
UPDATE: how you get around the city by transit has completely changed, writing this on a train from the nice and cool beach into the toasty hot SGV
Also the plot of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”
There are many major 7 or 9 lane streets where the buses get stuck in traffic because they refuse to build dedicated bus lanes. Santa Monica Blvd is one of them. Car drivers get upset when they see buses pass them so they fight any bus lanes. Even though bus lanes would get people to take the bus instead of take their car which would reduce traffic for other car drivers. It's a very low IQ city.
Agreed it is a democrat run hellhole
@@jerrymiller9039 What's the biggest Republican/Independent city in the US? San Antonio? Lots of traffic there too due to suburban sprawl. Nearly every US city faces this. Big and small, red and blue. From Madison Wisconsin to El Paso and from Charleston to San Diego. Poor land use, regressive property taxes, overly restrictive zoning, billion dollar big government agencies shoving highways down our main streets. Show me one US city that gets it right.
If you're a conservative, which I'd venture to say that you are, you should rightfully be pissed at our insane development pattern experiment that is completely financially unsustainable. It relies on borrowing money to keep building roads to destroy more nature and farmland for more exurban neighborhoods that requires everyone to drive all of the time. Our cities are going broke because they are trying to perpetuate the growth of the suburbs when it was never financially solvent to do so in the first place.
@@mariusfacktor3597 I am an independent and libertarian. I don't care if someone chooses to live in a high density area but for people to be so incredibly bigoted and close minded that they can't even comprehend that there are many more options out there is disgusting and pathetic
@@jerrymiller9039 Right, so as a libertarian you should be upset with big government central planning highway agencies like the Federal Highway Administration and state DOTs. These agencies have bankrupted big and small cities all over the country by paying for new roads that these cities could never maintain for themselves. As such these cities are now dependent on the federal and state governments to bail them out every couple decades. From a libertarian standpoint, it's a horrible situation.
@mariusfacktor3597 the suburban ponzi scheme.. fiscally minded conservatives should support denser, transit oriented cities as they are actually more profitable in the long run, all else being equal.
It's like they take one step forward and two or three backwards. I've seen some projects with hundreds or thousands of parking spots a few blocks from their transit stations🤦🏾♀️ Plus the recent Culver City backtracking 🙄😭
That aside, great video. I had no idea Los Angeles was so large!! 500 miles?!
I dont know how this channel has so few subs and views
Mindless propaganda
Because reality is a thing
@@jerrymiller9039 my man had a few beers and came back🤣
THE PACIFIC ELECTRIC AND LARY WAS RIPPED OUT !! THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE THIS PROBLEM NOW !!!!!!!!!
Doesn’t work when you invest equally in car centric projects at the same time. LA needs to wean people off cars. Slowly reduce new licenses given and ones that get renewed. Start with the most erratic drivers and work your way up until LA is mostly carless.
Yes
Metro is spending 10Bn on freeway improvements to widen freeways in SoCal. Imagine if they spent that money on bus lanes and bike lanes instead?
Great video! I wanted to make a few notes
- You implied that the grid layout was a partial cause for car dependence. This is a common misunderstanding, and Alan Fisher has a video explaining it
- I liked that you brought up how low density is a challenge factor when developing public transit, but I think you could have highlighted the causation more. Los Angeles's focus on car infrastructure is largely what enabled the sprawling low density development
Sir you have the correlation backwards. It’s not car dependent because it’s spread out. It’s spread out because it’s car dependent.
Under rated channel
If they want people to ride buses and metros, they need to keep them clean, kick off the homeless sleeping on them, and protect against crime on them. They were great when 1st put in but now, sadly no way would I take a metro anywhere.
A lot of the safety issues are caused by low ridership; if they built more transit, more people would use it and crime would go down. It’s like being in the city walking at night. More densely populated and trafficked neighborhoods are safer to walk around in, presumably because there are more witnesses and deterrents to crimes. Walking around is always safer when there are more people around, and taking transit is the same
The transit system is quite second hand
Grid street designs are better than European street designs, it all depends on how the grids are designed
Exactly. Detroit's grid is perfectly suited for all three residential densities. Most blocks are a little under 3 acres, so they easily fit 20-30 single family homes, 60-75 townhouses, or a mixed-use mid rise with 200 residential units. Before its decline, Detroit had a population density of over 13,000/mi². Even with losing 2/3rds of its population, Detroit’s density is still higher than in Sacramento, Denver, Austin, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Dallas, and Salt Lake City. Portland, Oregon is roughly the same size as Detroit, yet has nearly 1,000 people less per square mile. It's perfect for a renaissance, and it's happening now.
Great video! 👍
This background music gives me nostalgic Minecraft vibes.
This background music sounds like Dying Light
Public transportation isn't safe in Los Angeles right now. Crime is out of control. People get mugged and assaulted on public transit. Los Angeles is literally a post apocalypse dystopia right out of the movies.
Can Los Angeles save itself from utterly forgettable architecture?
LA doesn't have a low population density
Cars are more convenient by far
No they are not you son of a wh-re. They ruin big cities by creating tons of traffic. Trains is what makes cities convenient.
Bruh this is so easily disprovable.
@@bruhbutwhytho okay so disprove it. I live in a rural area where there is no public transport to speak of. What is better than cars?
@@jerrymiller9039 build better public transportation, also most people don't live in rural areas.
@@bruhbutwhytho most people don't live in places with public transport either but thanks for proving my point