In Search of Walkable L.A.: How Defunct Electric Railways Could be Southern California's Salvation
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- Опубликовано: 27 май 2024
- Do you ever think about the inflection point in US history where we stopped building streets and communities for people walking and accessing electrified rail, and started building streets for individuals driving their personal vehicles wherever and whenever they wanted? Well, I do!
Today's video is an exploration of the history of electrified rail (streetcars) in greater Los Angeles, including the Pacific Electric Railway (the "Red Cars" and the Los Angeles Railway (the "Yellow Cars"). Even though the last of the streetcars were ripped out by the middle of the 20th century, the urban form and street design remains, persistent , like a phantom limb that keeps reminding you what once was.
We'll explore great streetcar suburbs like Silver Lake, Larchmont Village, and Highland Park -- L.A. neighborhoods that still have intact urban fabric and are in higher demand than ever. We'll also look at places where the region is investing in modern rail to reconnect and leverage these great assets.
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Twitter: @nerd4cities
Instagram: @nerd4cities
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Other CityNerd Videos referenced:
- Humungous Parking Lots: • Enormous Parking Lots ...
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Resources:
- knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-k...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Ang...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Ang...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific...
- www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/wh...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subway_...
- www.metro.net/riding/schedule...
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Image Credits:
- Santa Ana streetcar By Not given - Courtesy of Orange County Archives, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- LA Traffic Video by William Sevilla from Pixabay
- Red Cars awaiting destruction By Unknown author - Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library [1], Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Hill Street 1910s By Unknown author - digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref..., Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (RUclips music library)
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Inquiries: nerd4cities@gmail.com
LA has the weather to be the most walkable place in the country, such a bummer we lost the streetcar network!
Los Angles is way to big for street cars. What they need is proper heavy rail with express service and redensification
LA has the weather to walk and bike all year round but wastes it to spend so much of people's lives in LA traffic lol
@@dudu5423 we had the most extensive streetcar network in the world and that was pre LRT
The Red Car network can be rebuilt! With BRT, as a treat.
I've been waiting for you to do a video about LA! Car free Angeleno here 👋🏼 I just visited the Southern California Railroad museum this past Sunday, so very fitting to see you do a video about our long gone streetcar network!
I just moved to LA from boston, and what I can say, is that this city is definitely fighting back in favor of urbanism. You see a lot more advocate groups for urbanism, yimbyism and bike lanes than you do in a lot of other cities. I could totally see this place becoming a great walkable city!
I'm in NYC looking to move into Boston. Great schools, walkable, safe, great jobs and growing.
Yeah, I agree. I'm from LA but I've lived abroad a lot. The bad new is that LA has a horrible foundation to build on with very spread out land use. The good news is that they seem to be making progress, and seeing good results with the progress
The city is so big vast and sprawling
Inshallah
This! The biggest things in our way are terrible transport and land use planning, largely thanks to the extremely fragmented municipal governments across the country and region. Especially in East and South LA, building good infra can be nearly impossible because a single road with ample capacity will cross between dozens of jurisdictions with different goals, DOTs, standards, and budgets. We really need a London-style regional government for these things, but good luck getting our notoriously corrupt politicians to agree to that. 😢
The City of Boise closed down a dense section of 8th Street to all motor vehicles during COVID, and now has decided to keep the street closed to vehicles permanently and repurpose the street to only pedestrians and bicycles. It's become very popular and is a very nice addition to the downtown.
This is one of the ways I think the COVID pandemic is really going to leave its mark, long term. In my city and in lots of others, streets were shut down (particularly in downtown areas) and even when things were loosened up after the lockdown, they kept the streets closed and people are out walking more. It’s nicer now.
How do the disabled, crippled, wheelchair-bound access the services in the area?
@@jmac3327 my mom is in a wheelchair so I can answer you. Exactly as everybody else.
@@starman6468 So how does she access the services? Do you carry her? Does she get out of the wheelchair and crawl along the sidewalk to the place she wants to visit because there is no traffic permitted?
@@jmac3327 you do realize that society doesn’t revolve around the exception, right?
los angeles was the first american home for me and my parents when we immigrated here 22 years ago - i've had the fortune to live in and visit many many cities since then, some of which (copenhagen, washington dc, beijing) are holy grails in the urban planning canon...but los angeles has drawn me back and kept me here. i could be moved to tears sometimes when i catch a whiff of a taco stand that i'm passing by or when i can navigate by my own mind alone the neighborhoods that have cradled me...
los angeles is beautiful in ways that transcend the planning decisions of an uninformed, malicious, and parochial oligarchy. it's a city that is insistently made by the people that live in it -- always in spirit even if not in physical form -- and as such there is a teeming community of people who are fighting every day to create the physical (and political) forms that resonate with the visions of livability they're already holding in their souls. i'm here practicing urban resilience not because los angeles is already a shining example of it but precisely because there's still so much we need to build together.
🥵
great comment
i feel a lot of what you are saying, having grown up in LA and lived in Tokyo. i am fighting for a brighter and better LA!
LA viewer here! I definitely think this city has a lot of potential to be a great urbanist city. One aspect that could greatly help is improving the bike network. In spite of how incoherent and frankly dangerous the current infrastructure is, I see so many people biking around here, which tells me the demand is there.
Yeah, I was surprised at the amount of biking I observed, just having read how lacking the infrastructure is. It should really be a great bike city with the weather and a lot of pretty good topography!
Agreed, I was in the Santa Monica area and there is actually a surprising amount of paint for bikes and even some bollard sections, but I personally don't want to cycle next to 2 lanes of 40mph traffic, and whenever you get to a stoplight, you have to merge into the center lane, and this makes me feel so unsafe. Also there are so many times where the cycle lane just just *stops*. Not sure what the solution is while keeping conflict between turning lanes and bike lanes down. But there is potential for sure, maybe shave down some of these grassy medians and add in some central median bike lanes, and you can save some water while you're at it.
@@chrisorr8601 And honestly, if they would allow biking on the sidewalks, I think that would help. Outside of DTLA, Hollywood, 3rd St Promenade and some other small areas, most sidewalks are generally empty... That's a ton of viable (and protected) biking lanes all over the city.
(Plus, from a safety aspect, a cyclist/pedestrian accident ends with a few bruises, maybe a broken bone; cyclist/car (or bus...), and you're lucky if its a broken bone.)
as a cyclist here, I see so many cyclists doing dangerous things! if there were more bike infrastructure, I know people would fill it. it's often faster than driving.
As a biker I can confirm I almost die every time I get on the road, we could definitely use better systems
I imagine an LA covered in trees with walkable roads. And no more 10 lane highways.
no no no, an 11th and 12th lane with END traffic FOR GOOD
Hey hey hey, at least we’re not Texas.
@@henrybrown6480 just trust me bro one more lane bro common bro DOT needs the funds bro.
@@BarnyWaterg8 It's hard to go wider. let's just start stacking lanes.
Be thankful you don't live in Houston with its freeways up to 20 lanes wide (they count their frontage roads as freeways). Or anywhere else in Texas for that matter 'cause if you have a congested 6, 8, or 10 lane freeway they're going to widen it to 20 lanes like they're planning on doing in Austin.
I'm an LA resident (currently living in Koreatown, previously lived in North Hollywood, Studio City, and Westwood) who doesn't own a car, so I get around the city via public transit and ride share apps. I've been wanting to learn more about the history of Los Angeles' electric rail system and urbanism in general, so I'm glad the RUclips algorithm recommended this video to me.
Public transit and walkability in LA is definitely challenging, especially when you need to traverse the city to get somewhere, but I agree that there are a lot of communities within the city proper that feel very walkable once you're there. I'm hopeful that the city will continue to develop transit that connects different areas of the city to reduce traffic and pollution and to make it easier to explore the city without a car.
Thank you for the informative content - you've earned a new subscriber!
Hi, I’m in Ktown too!
I’m not an Angelino, but I am a San Diegan and I think I speak for many when I say that I did not understand for the better part of my life (I’m in my 50’s) that car-centered city planning is not only not the ideal but damaging to communities. So channels like this and Not Just Bikes and City Beautiful and Armchair Urbanist have really helped open my eyes to the possibilities of human-centered public spaces. Southern California does have a long way to go, but many cities are making sincere efforts to move in the right direction. The San Diego Trolly just opened a grade-separated extension that connects the University of California San Diego to Downtown and bicycle infrastructure is going from minuscule to something-more-than-minuscule. Come on down and take a look sometime! Thank you for the great content!
So you understand the problem like many more people and you're old enough. Why have you NOT done anything to fix it ? The right time was 30 years ago.
@@teranova5566 how dare people not know everything you know when you know it!
If only more, older home owners would come to understand why people-centered infrastructured isn't about their narrow, self-centered, alarmist fictions about density, and more about re-creating and reclaiming space for people to live, act, and grow upon. A house is merely a roof to sleep under without the connections and amenities that make up a greater, well built living space.
I might go to UCSD so that’s promising
As a younger resident of SD, who just moved there recently, it took me a whole 3 years to realize we even had a rail line. I was pleasantly surprised. Areas along the beaches, like Del Mar, La Jolla, Encinitas are perfect examples of what SD should strive to. Hopefully, we can achieve that in our lifetimes.
The population density in LA isn't *too* bad, despite how massive and sprawling the region is. Several times the population density of, say, Phoenix. The biggest thing for me is that as you mentioned in this video, almost every street is too wide. They could, and probably should, put protected bike lanes and/or bus rapid transit on just about every major arterial while maintaining car access in both directions. Also, personal pet peeve, get rid of the palm trees and put in real shade trees! At least in the inland areas.
For non-arterial residential streets, they could be narrowed and can include more greenery, benches and recreation space.
It is a travesty how much I hate palm trees due to how prevalent and useless they are in LA. Would indeed love other trees!
@@bellairefondren7389 In many cases. It's a LOT of work though. Best done when utilities have to be replaced.
Good comment! Hey, by some (very cherry-picked) measures, LA is denser than NY!
@@CityNerd Haha that's true. Koreatown (~2.7sq mi) in LA is way denser than all of the outer boroughs in NYC!
Life-long Angeleno here. I love my city and all that it has offered me in my life, but I am now leaving in search of better urban living elsewhere. I recognize the biggest problems for urbanism in Los Angeles as being corruption, inflated construction costs for municipal works, and ignorance of the city’s history. I appreciate your channel very much, it is a wonderful educational resource to people everywhere.
No nunber reason is most people in us are opinonated .you dont have long term plan. Even in other country there still corruption but they infrastructure still good compare to us .exmple california high speed train
LA native here, great video and channel. There's something to be said about the fact that these kinds of neighborhoods are almost always more expensive to live in than other areas in the city. Gee, it's almost as if people actually WANT walkable neighborhoods with character and decent transit availability. Yet somehow the overwhelmingly dominant urban form in the US is still car centric sprawl. Unfortunately contemporary zoning laws don't actually allow supply and demand to play out and allow us to have the cities we actually want to live in. Hopefully that's starting to change more broadly.
LA native here who has yet to buy a car - biking around and taking public transit are my forms of protest against the car-centric culture here! Thank you for your work on this channel and spreading awareness!
I'm so old that I actually remember a lot of what you are describing about LARY and PERY. As a kid I often rode the red and yellow cars and later sadly saw that infamous stack of junked red cars in person.
Small correction though. The route of the Gold Line through So. Pasadena and Pasadena was the route of the mainline Santa Fe not the Pacific Electric. In the early 60s I was the only regular commuter on Santa Fe's Chicago Bound Chief passenger train, riding from Downtown L.A. to Pasadena. Porters loved to call out "Pasadena, Pasadena, all off for Pasadena." Since most passengers were going to Chicago and half of them would be getting on in Pasadena, they were pretty surprised to see me get up and off. The hand-written ticket was 27¢.
I had no idea that was even possible back in the day.
I didn't mean to imply that the route of the Gold Line was the same as the Pacific Electric (I think the PE was on Fair Oaks, and maybe Raymond too?). This is a great comment, though, I love the context!!
Was there enough time for dinner on the Chief?
What is your age
"Pasadena, Pasadena, all off for Pasadena."
Haha, that reminded me of "...train leaving on Track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc.... camonga."
If you remember the Red Cars you certainly remember that!
I'm a viewer in LA. I'm huge advocate for the expansion of the light rail out here.
I'd love to see more Light Metro in L.A. Way more bang for the buck than Light Rail. Copy Vancouver/Copenhagen and not San Francisco/San Jose.
San Fernando valley has light rail in progress. I’m praying it gets done
Same here! I’d give anything for the old street cars to return!
@@emmmily257a needs more housing and tod, and heavy rail metro is better for that
@@andrewr439 Actually 2 with one to convert the BRT G line (Orange) to rail (3 altogether). The Sepulveda Transit and the East San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor which are big game changers on how we look at our transportation infrastructure in the valley and spur development along the corridors.
LA viewer here! I am absolutely astounded to find out that ALL of my favorite places in the city are mixed use developments built along the street car lines! It really goes to show how much of an impact infrastructure can have on urban fabric! Its nearly a century later, crazy! Thanks for the great video
Thank you for connecting the historical dots in a way I had never quite recognized. As an LA-area native in SF, I'm so proud of Angelenos for taxing themselves to build transit. LA has a capacity for change that's sometimes under-appreciated. Many, many neighborhoods feel much more vital now than they did when I left in the late 1980s.
LA viewer here, I think it is a popular punching bag for the urban layout but I would also point out (1) LA has a much larger area than the more "urbanist" cities in the US and if you isolate it to the older city limits (i.e. downtown, south side, Hollywood) it's more on par with a more walkable/public transit oriented city and (2) while not great, LA is still like Manhattan compared to other sunbelt cities in Texas, Phoenix, San Diego, and most southeastern cities.
Agree -- most of LA proper (other than the San Fernando Valley) does not really remind you of a sun belt city at all.
@@CityNerd North Hollywood native here: while most of the Valley IS very post-war suburban (especially west of the 405), I’d argue the East/Southeast Valley (North Hollywood, Studio City, Toluca Lake, numerous parts of Burbank) is a very walkable area by comparison. Magnolia Blvd, Olive Ave, and San Fernando Blvd all in Burbank are super walkable and fun to spend to time in, and Ventura Blvd is probably my favorite street in the world to walk down. Tons of restaurants, shops, amenities, and it even has an iconic newsstand at Ventura/Laurel Canyon! Again, most of the North and West Valley are incredibly suburban, but as you said the old streetcar suburb portions right at the mouth of the Cahuenga Pass are very walkable. Not only that, North Hollywood is turning into the transportation hub of the SFV with the B Line (formerly Red Line) terminus at NoHo station, the G Line (fka Orange Line) BRT heading west to Woodland Hills and then to Chatsworth (extremely popular and useful line, buses are ALWAYS packed), and the upcoming NoHo-Pasadena BRT also planning to terminate at North Hollywood. Really cool to see, but it also makes sense to a degree because North Hollywood (fka Lankershim fka Toluca) was an independent farming municipality at the turn of the century and the intersection of Lankershim Blvd/Magnolia Blvd was a bustling downtown that eventually voted to annex themselves into Los Angeles for water access.
My initial impression of LA was it was the ultimate sunbelt city, but its actually way nicer than what it pioneered. Its kind of like a whole constellation of midsized cities instead of one giant city, where as the other sunbelt places I've been are endless suburbs around a small town.
@@travisr3821 yeah pretty much the whole south east quarter of the valley (east of the 405 and south of Sherman Way) is pretty dense, walkable, and good public transportation. It's kind of more similar to Central LA than it is to the rest of the valley. Born & raised in Noho and probably wouldn't move elsewhere except for Hollywood, Ktown, or DTLA.
Just discovered your channel this morning with the Stroad V Stroad vid… and then this beauty on L.A. I’m a 48yo native Angeleno, and can verify that I can get down with the nerdiest when it comes to urban planning YT channels. Greater LA has everything anyone would ever want to examine when it comes to urban planning. While we are really a collection of many, many individual cities, the fact that our county shared the same namesake gives us a sense of one giant horribly beautiful communitropolis. We need to reimagine 80% of this city’s pedestro-friendliness, but the potential is there! Thanks for the love!
Glad you found my channel! I'll have a bit more LA content coming in the next few weeks, too, interspersed with other stuff.
This is one of my favorite videos you’ve done. As a former LA resident who primarily relied on transit and cycling, I think the city has come a long way in recent years, in part thanks to the good bones of some of these historic streetcar development patterns. Also, there is a special kind of schadenfreude you enjoy as a transit rider in a place where soul-crushing traffic jams are so central to the city’s modern identity.
LA native here. One thing that has improved in the last 10 years is the metro. I can't wait for the sepulveda line and the green line to finish so you can go from the west side to the valley and actually train it to the airport, respectively.
Yes me too the investment for the 28’ Olympics is coming along and looking promising
Yeah, I spent a bit of time exploring the Purple Line extension and Crenshaw. Not sure if I have a video idea for the footage, though. There's a lot coming online, though.
@@CityNerd The LAX line will be a godsend for my neglected community, because I'll finally have access to the rest of my city that isn't bogged down by the awful traffic. The fact that developers have been extremely aggressive over the past few years to buy up land by me and turn them into apartments by the stations just goes to show that I'm not the only one to see the potential.
They should have extended the green line to LAX. Even though I see the people mover a band-aid, hopefully it will be working soon.
@@lesliefranklin1870 Agree. I live in the valley and I would LOVE to go Red>Orange>Green instead of Red>Bus it in traffic to LAX
LA suburbanite here! Although I’m currently on the East Coast for college, my heart and passion is still at home!! Growing up with a dad who used the suburban Metrolink commuter train, it makes me really happy to see the general expansion of Metro and rebirth of LA. IMO it’s still the best city in the world in terms of opportunity, diversity, and livability (barring current CoL problems…) Can’t wait to see how Greater LA continues to grow and learn into more sustainable and equitable urbanism~
I also use the Metrolink to visit family in the SGV from Rialto and I love not being stuck on the 10 traffic heading west
my friend who is from LA moved to where i live during his childhood large in part due to his asthma - so unfortunately until emissions lower it is going to be kind of a struggle for many people in terms of livability. i will say as someone with asthma, i do still want to visit LA but i do not think it's possible for me to live there comfortably unfortunately (but if METRO continues their expansion, perhaps more people will ditch their cars :0)
I've lived in LA for around 5 years now. I moved here after having lived in various parts of Texas my whole life. The need to drive around to get almost anywhere within a reasonable amount of time is something I've been used to from growing up in Texas where everything is spread far apart and public transport is hardly existent. I lived near the Sunset and Hollywood intersection for a few years and grew fond of taking the metro to DTLA from time to time to avoid dealing with 101 highway traffic and the nightmare that can be finding parking. I live a 10 minute walk from Larchmont street now. My only wish is that more bike lanes were installed because riding a bike in LA can be dangerous with all the cars speeding past you. I wouldn't mind it either if that entire shopping district in Larchmont was closed off to vehicles altogether. There are plenty of surrounding streets cars can take as an alternative. I can keep dreaming. Sigh.
we can dream
I manage to get around LA by Subway and bus. I would truly welcome seeing rail transit make a big come back!
LA viewer here, I live in Highland Park, right off gold line! If you're ever back in town, I highly recommend walking around HP, its a lovely and vibrant community full of unique local culture. I've found that the people who live in LA who care about urbanism tend to make an effort to live near one of the lines. I suppose that is obvious and true for most places, but since Metro has such a (relatively) small area of coverage and completely misses some of LA's largest communities, your assessment of Angelino's prioritization of urbanism in the traditional sense is pretty much spot on. That said its getting better. Measure M has a lot of great new services for both light rail and BRT. I'm extremely optimistic about the prospect of living car free in LA in the future. Hopefully that future is sooner rather than later...
Thanks for the great content as usual. I loved the deep dive into what's left of LA's historic transit corridors, already looking forward to next week's video!
Highland Park is full of nimby's just as much as the rest of LA. There's York (sort of) and 2-3 blocks of Figueroa and everything else is basically single family. Car free los angeles starts with loosening zoning laws substantially.
I've live in Pasadena for ~12 years and STILL can't take a train to glendale - LA's metro plan is a joke. It should be about accessibility, not commercial opportunities.
Ay! I live in glassell Park and take the gold line into downtown to work every day. Weve got the best region of Los Angeles in my opinion. Equidistant from Glendale, Pasadena, and DTLA. I'm a little cheeses the video didn't give bigger praise to the NELA area.
I just moved to City West so I'm only 0.5 miles to 7th street Metro Center.
On nice weekends the Expo (E) Line is pretty busy especially with bike riders so there's not enough bike space on it, but at least you beat Saturday traffic.
I love walking around there!
I live in burbank and take the heavy rail line to DTLA on occasion, walk/bus everywhere else
I've pretty much never left the LA area my whole life except for a few short trips. The car based multi-nuclei geography of the city is definitely a challenge to overcome. It seems like every city in the county is just kinda doing it's own thing sometimes. I know the city is trying to improve transit before the Olympics in a few years, but even still it's going to be hard to change the fabric of places like the San Fernando Valley (which in itself has a greater population than Philadelphia and is extremely transit starved and decentralized). I think people here really want to do away with the car dependency, especially with things like parking requirement laws increasing housing prices, but it's gonna be a tough journey.
Decentralization of cities is the way to go actually, but maybe not what you think - for me (European) centralization means, that all companies/shops/... Are in one place that's usually considered the center of the city. This inherently creates some problems, because every mode of transportation reaches a limit at some point, and upgrading the systems can cost A LOT of money, that could also be spent otherwise (schools, health,...)
I think a lack of centralization isn't the problem of American cities, but density is. You can have several high density (walkable) zones throughout your city (thereby no central part), but because each of those zones is walkable, you alleviate a lot of traffic already.
If Los Angeles really does have many city centers as you claim it does, then can I recommend taking a leaf out of Tokyo's book?
@@jan-lukas Decentralization is exactly why we can't densify. Nimbys are opposed to density (for monetary, racist, classist reasons), and because things are controlled by the city governments their lobbying efforts against things they don't want work most of time. Hence why it is illegal to build dense mixed use development across the country despite it not being against state law or federal law.
Having more centralized planning can work out in different ways. Like zoning is centralized in Japan, but that just allowed people and developers to do what they want with way less push back. If I wanted to turn my single family home into a 6 story condo, there ain't nothing the neighbors couldn't stop me since you would have take it up with the feds. The same thing rings true for transit options. Nimbys don't want it, so we now have use centralized power to steamroll them.
Yeah, the San Fernando Valley is particularly tough. Didn't get there this time, but maybe next!
@@birdiewolf3497 Decentralized authority is certainly a problem (the problem, really, in LA), but what Jan was talking about is decentralized population distribution
L.A. resident and frequent viewer. As someone that lived in London for a year, I really miss the public transit, walkability, and cycle accommodations.
Born and raised in LA, learned so much about my hometown. Thank you!
It's impressive how much footage you got for this video. Not that I don't love the google Earth imagery, but it really ups the quality.
I think that "Comfort, Speed, Safety" motto inside the Pacific Electric logo says it all! If our modern public transit systems focused on those three issues instead of being built and operated strictly to get someone else to drive less on "your" highway then we'd be all set!
When we do build transit systems nowadays it's practically always for somebody else, not "us" whatever we think the "us" is. That's not my view, and not the view of most people watching this, but it certainly is the view of the majority of the general public. If we keep building transit systems to con all of our poor people into using them and never plan to actually ride transit ourselves then transit will forever stay crappy and no one will want to ride it!
We need to invest in proper transit! "Comfort, Speed, Safety"! 100 years later, that's still what people need in transit! Not whatever it is that our transit planners are doing!
Inspiring stuff!
I love this viewpoint!
You've got a point there. If I was designing a transit line I would definitely design it to take me to the places I wanted to go to.
I have this crazy idea for the Bay Area. Basically, there's a region called the tri-valley that as I understand it extends from Walnut Creek to Livermore. BART connects to Walnut Creek and Dublin/Pleasanton, but when they tried to run an extension out to San Ramon several years back, a bunch of oil money NIMBYs killed it because it would bring in poor people, which pisses me off so goddamn much. My dream for the region would therefore be to have a light rail line that started at the Martinez Amtrak station, then stopped in Vine Hill, Pacheco, Pleasant Hill, Contra Costa Centre, north Walnut Creek, south Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville, north San Ramon, south San Ramon, Dublin, and Pleasanton, and ended in Livermore. Maybe the north end could even extend over the bridge to Benicia and Vallejo, since BART doesn't see fit to connect that far north.
It would do so much for the livability of this whole area.
@@teuast Oh no! Please don’t start with this! I’ve been fantasizing about this rail link since forever! I don’t need to go down that rabbit hole again!
There’s an old rail ROW that has been “railbanked” (what a scam that railbanking is!) that covers this exact route. And it was clear that we need this link since the beginning because BART had it on their “fantasy” maps from day one. In a sane Bay Area this would have already been built!
But we have all those wonderful NIMBYs that oppose electric rail on “environmental” grounds, so yeah… Good times!
This is so true! It can often feel like the design is for the downtrodden (or, those who can't own/drive a car). I think there's a kind of separatism and dehumanization that comes from car dependent infrastructure. Whenever I drive, it's so easy to think that all the other cars on the road are just obstacles rather than real people. Having ridden public transport more this past year, I've grown to appreciate the human aspect of it. Whenever I ride, I see real people and get to occasionally talk with them. You see a lot more walks of life.
I moved to Los Angeles in 1989 from the Greater Boston area, having grown up in Lincoln, Nebraska before that. Especially during lockdown I've been striving to ride my bike more. The Metro Expo rail line created a wonderful bike path near where I live. It's handy for biking to Santa Monica to the west of where I live and USC/Exposition Park to the east.
The bike paths built around waterways have been handy as well. The Ballona Creek path running between Culver City and Marina Del Rey gets a lot of use and feeds right into the beach paths (which are probably the most popular for recreation/tourists). During lockdown I made expeditions to the Los Angeles River paths running between Burbank and Silver Lake -- breaking for downtown Los Angeles with all sorts of talk about continuing a bike path through there -- then resuming south of downtown at Vernon and flowing all the way to Long Beach. There are also bike paths along Rio Hondo and the San Gabriel River. That one runs from Azusa to Seal Beach for around 30 miles and is astounding -- and gets a fair amount of use.
The city has an open streets event which has resumed after lockdown called CicLAvia which closes down major streets four Sundays a year, allowing the community to casually reclaim parts of the city for just biking & strolling. It's been a wonderful way to reconnect with the city and people since we're more exposed not being trapped in our cars.
Another LA area viewer. I think you nailed it when you pointed out that LA has these oases of walkability in the middle of a desert of car-oriented dystopia. A decade ago I lived in Pasadena for years without a car and it was fantastic. Now I live in South Redondo Beach and I own a car but I’ve only put six tanks of gas in it in the last 18 months. So if you live in the right place in LA, which is typically insanely expensive, then you can have an enjoyable car-light, by NA standards, life.
I’m an LA viewer! I’ve never owned a car and I only travel by bike or train. It’s difficult at times but we’re definitely out there and we definitely feel the city fighting back every time I want to go somewhere. The only reason I’m even here is because our union is local only. I’m actually surprised there wasn’t as much crowds while you were here you must have surveyed the trains during San Diego comic con that’s usually when there’s less congestion. In my opinion the train system has a lot of work ahead not only in terms of accessibility or accessing such a stretched out city, but just the speed and frequency that carts come and go it’s about 18-25 minute waits especially the Redline. Some of its due to the construction but more than ever I feel the metro becoming less and less dependable than it’s ever been. Now whenever I go get my bike serviced in Pasadena- instead of taking the Redline> Union Station> Gold Line. I just bypass all the redline waiting and bike down the LaRiver headed to Chinatown and you can hop on the Lincoln/Cypress and immediately be on the Gold Line! I’d really love to see an LA be fully connected one day where one could access Glendale and Pasadena and more of West Hollywood area. It would be a great incentive for people when going out for drinks or not having to crowd the streets with more Ubers and cars. Hope to see you around these parts and thank you for your videos and hitting all the spots in LA transit!
Thanks for the comment! I'm excited about the rail expansions that are underway but yeah, it's still nowhere near enough!
You should make a YT channel about it. BTW: I wonder how much money you save that way!
Pasadena viewer here, love your videos ! La is in a process of being salvaged, might take decades but there’s a general trend. The street view Timelapse pictures of arts district can give you an idea of 10 years of progress.
A lot will depend on who your next Mayor is...vote people!
LA viewer here! I think you did a good job researching everything here. I know you've taken a lot of pot shots at LA in the past, and couldn't resist a few here in this video (and the title), but could I sense just a little surprise from you on how walkable much of LA is? There's a lot of work for LA to do, and there are parts of LA that feel pretty far from salvageable, especially as you get farther out into places largely developed post-WWII, like the SF Valley. But I'm optimistic given all the money the public is willing to throw at building out the transit network, with LA having the largest investment commitment towards public transit than any American city right now by far, with $120 BILLION in funding approved over 40 years through a voter-approved tax measure, Measure M. And like your video's thesis argues: the skeletal shape is in many ways already there from the streetcar era.
By the way, many in LA already get by without a car largely okay. When I was in grad school at UCLA, I lived a few miles away and didn't own a car for years. Took the bus (there was a rapid route that was just as fast as taking a car), and the local neighborhood I lived in was very walkable with all the necessities in walking distance. If I wanted to go farther afield, then I would either take transit (if something convenient was available), carpool (if that was feasible), or if all else failed take an Uber. Uber costs didn't add up anywhere near to what the cost having a car would've been. Unfortunately, I now work in essentially a suburban office park where public transit is not really feasible for my commute, and so I had to get a car :(
I think it’s underappreciated and probably not well-known that LA has the largest transit infrastructure program in the United States thanks to Measure M. It’s false this narrative that the city is not taking major efforts in terms of public transit, when it’s transition to rail is probably the most dramatic of any city for the last 30 years. 1992 seems a long time ago, but not in terms of infrastructure age. Considering nearly all of LA’s metro rails started from 1992 to today is quite impressive, even if it’s still not enough to be completely dependable. And there are many projects under proposal as well that make me drool and envious how much is going on in LA>
Cities aren’t like human beings that rapidly grow and pretty much develop a stable state of being for the end of its life. They don’’t die. So they’re incredibly adaptable and the only constant is that of change and evolution. And LA has had more changes in form than Madonna.
I grew up in venice and Santa Monica, and absolutely loved this video, there are so many buildings you pointed out that I didn’t even realize were old transit stations. I really hope LA can be saved
I live in LA and am very passionate about the urbanism past, present, and future. Wish you got to experience the LA River and the urbanism (or lack thereof) around it. I try to bike as often as I can to my destinations (I'm in Highland Park), but the car is still king and bike lanes will often unceremoniously end and dump you dangerously in the middle of traffic with no direction of where to go. We need more bike infrastructure and more importantly a network of it, so people can use it to get places. The LA River path is a great example of a separated bike path, but the connections to/from it are really horrible. It should be a backbone of a more bikeable LA.
Is the LA River bike path still overrun by homeless encampments?
@@danieldaniels7571 Pretty much all of LA is now, even out in Sherman Oaks. They are moving in the wrong direction.
@@sleddy01 that's what I thought. It's a dirty reality of non-car infastructure and separated bike paths that urbanist videos like to pretend doesn't exist. It's not as bad where I live in Phoenix as what I've seen in LA, but still an issue.
No longer based in LA but was born & raised in the greater LA metro (Long Beach to be exact). I would love for you to explore LB’s transit/walkability as it’s considered to be one of the best (though by LA standards) in the area.
Also in terms of people moving there from out of town/state, it’s either for the entertainment industry, people of color who grew up in non-diverse areas wanting to be around more people like them, or a lifelong fantasy of LA as depicted from media. Many come from places with worse transit than us so they probably think it’s better but also there’s still a negative stigma about transit about homeless people or creepers being the ones who mostly use it.
Many places are improving walkability & there are hopes with all the transit plans before the Olympics that it’ll be a bit better. But it will def still be a long way to go. I will say though that living in Long Beach as an adult after living abroad, my husband & I were able to successfully be & remain a one-car household & utilize public transit whenever we could!
Yeah, Long Beach will have to be on my list for the next time. A lot of the Red Car network existed down there, and I think they have some good remnants of the infrastructure too. Thanks for the comment!
@@CityNerd there are quite a few! The old right of way existed not far from where I'm currently renting from. Some of it was converted to parks, some to oddly angled lots, etc. Would have been cool to see the line restored though
@CityNerd current Long Beach resident here. I imagine the folks who watch your videos are the type to avoid LA at all costs! I did not have much of a choice, but I agree that LB has some great areas. Downtown and Belmont Shore are great. It’s definitely interesting in contrast to our neighbors in Orange Country right next door.
I lived in Long Beach when they opened the Blue Line Metro to downtown LA and remember my family being excited then not using it until much later when my sister and I would take the Metro to downtown LA and usually take the Red Line to Hollywood
A section of the old red line has been turned into a foot path that runs southeast from the corner of 10th & grand to Colorado Lagoon.
There’s a bike path along the entire coastline from Downtown to Peninsula and it extends pretty far into the eastern half of the city as well as along the Los Angeles River on the west side.
Our only rail service is the blue line from downtown but Long Beach transit has regular service throughout most of the city and is generally clean and safe.
Looking forward to your video on our city!
LA viewer here, I’m actually moving to a new neighborhood soon solely because of my desire for more walkable living. I really dislike feeling so disconnected and yearn for more of a community-oriented environment. I hope we can work on making this a reality for more neighborhoods in LA! we have so much potential.
Which neighborhood did you go to? Did you end up liking it better?
While I don't currently live in the area, I did grow up in Pasadena and spent a few months in Highland Park and my high school years in South Pasadena. Having advocated for some of these projects in the 1980s before moving on including what was the Blue Line and the Gold Line (forget what letters they have now) it is great to see that LA has made some progress. Having just visited in March you can see that there has been a lot of progress made throughout the region and hopefully that trend will continue.
OC viewer here, so happy to see the laguna hills mall (5:22) make an appearance in this video! This dead and ugly mall is currently being redeveloped into a massive mixed use retail, office, and housing project that will have 1500 apartments and become a center of walkability in an otherwise car hellscape. I drive by it to get to work and am so excited seeing it become something useful
Yeah I had to Google for awhile to find a mall that was obviously under redevelopment in satellite view!
LA viewer here. Thanks for your extensive coverage of these historical routes. While we obviously have a long way to go, the recent focus on transit projects had given me a glimmer of hope that at least we’re headed in the right direction. With how they just blundered the greenfield Sixth Street Viaduct, however, now I’m not too sure.
Yeah, I wanted to get over and check out the viaduct on this trip and just couldn't fit it in.
It also has sidewalks everywhere so that’s a bonus. It’s interesting to see how differently LA and San Diego are laid out because it really shows without even knowing when both cities really started booming.
I grew up in West Los Angeles. I was riding my bike at age 9 and hit by a car. I was not seriously hurt and went onto my best lifetime job at age 11 as a newspaper delivery boy. It was great watching the video and seeing how the old neighborhoods have added so much outdoor dining, probably since the pandemic. Some of the cycling routes have not changed much since many years ago when I would ride to Seal Beach from Irwindale in the San Gabriel Valley. You didn't get a pic of the new Viaduct that crosses Los Angeles rail yards east of downtown, somewhat of a disappointment in that the bike lanes are not really protected from 4 lanes of traffic (after spending 660 million)!
Did you know there were many small funiculars (hillevators) going up steep inclines for some of the larger homes? I have also seen the hillevators in old Puerto Vallarta, Mexico but none were operating. Angel's Flight in downtown is operating again!
I do miss all that LA has to offer but don't miss the carcentric attitudes that hold a tight reign on the region. At my age I don't have the time for the incremental changes taking place there so I enjoy going to Europe and greatly enjoy a somewhat more car free environment, using public transit and not driving.
I grew up in West LA, too. Went to Clover Avenue Elementary. And I delivered the Herald Examiner! We went everywhere by bicycle back when I was a kid. I loved that aspect of West LA Life.
I recently watched a video about the Dingbat multifamily buildings (that are of course now illegal to build) It was very interesting how they came about to boost urban density, and they did a really great job.
5 over 1s are the new Dingbat.
@@mitchbart4225 Modern apartment buildings are ugly boxes placed amidst a sea of asphalt with zero attention paid to the weather, geography or architectural culture of the area. Cookie-cutter construction.
@@Phafanapolis the history of vernacular architecture seems to be all about inexpensive cookie cutter construction from shotgun houses, to dingbats, to ranch homes, and X over ones.
I watched that video too. It was unexpectedly engaging. It's really stupid that they're illegal to build now considering how in demand the old ones are.j
LA viewer here! The city is being salvaged but we need heavy rail.
LA viewer here. I live in the Melrose District (near Fairfax). I love the channel and always want to see our urban landscape transformed for better pedestrian and bike riding. I walk everyday about 1-2 miles to the gym and walk to restaurants and grocery and drug stores. We just approved a city measure HLA which is putting into place a grand master plan to transform the city for safer streets, increased pedestrian walkways, and protected bike and bus lanes. It’s gonna take a while. The city is only getting better.
Native angeleno here. I love the channel-it helps me dream. Slowly but surely Los Angeles evolves. There were no subways when I was a kid. No bike lanes either.
LA viewer here!
LA viewer! I live near an expo line stop. There's a lot of development happening around expo line stops on the westside so hopefully that will result in more and more walkable neighborhoods all long the line and convince the city to spend the money to fully grade separate the line, the most infuriating part of riding the Expo line is areas where the train waits at traffic lights for cars to cross.
Yeah, I saw a lot of that development on my trip out to Santa Monica! Very encouraging.
I’ve taken the Expo Line before and while its nice, it could definitely improve with a dedicated right of way and express tracks to have local and express service to make the trip from Santa Monica to DTLA competitive with Uber/Lyft while serving areas that the express bus skips since it goes on the 10.
The opposite isn't great either- that they didn't just keep it elevated the whole way is aggravating.
3rd Generation Los Angeleno here. You made some excellent observations about the old Yellow and Red lines being repurposed, and that is true. The greenbelt in Hermosa and Manhattan Beach is a wonderful example. Sadly, your comment at the end rings the truest: Los Angeles transit is a generational project. It will take many years to get back to even close to what the old Los Angeles had - last-mile transit to your home. The new Metro doesn't provide last mile connectivity (the picture of the steps in Silverlake - is perfect) in most areas it serves, underpinning your comment about the car park and ride locations everywhere. When you get off the Metro, you still have to get home. Los Angeles transit planners continue to struggle with this obvious fact. Los Angeles and the surrounding areas are "drunk on cars" and will be for a long time. My hope is that more TRUE protected bike lanes, with the advent of electric bikes, will have an impact on car reduction one day. Thanks for taking the time to pull this together, I enjoyed the entire video. Well done, full of detail, and clearly lots of research. Thank you.
I lived for years in LA in undergrad/grad school without a car. It was great. LA is a very underrated non-car city. My favorite thing to do was to pick up a pizza in westwood and laugh at all the cars stuck in traffic as I walked the pizza home down westwood Blvd
Honestly, LA gives me some hope. LA is the only city in the US that seems to be building huge, real transit infrastructure projects. They are spending a lot and building rails. Its going to take a long time to get where they are going, but they are also moving in the right direction faster than any other US city I can think of.
One other impacts of the streetcar is that you still have some interesting urban fabric remaining really far out. Both Redlands and Riverside have surprisingly decent "downtowns" bones if only people could get to them without cars.
@@nmpls yes the arrow line coming up soon to Redlands would be great for me to visit and work since I live by the Rialto Metro-link station and not use my car. Once it starts my car can take a break since I also go to CSUSB and use the SBX to get there.
Measure M local funding
@@qjtvaddict ...is LA County only.
@@nmpls I live in Riverside which I think could have something like a Chicago style El, if only somebody would pick up the billions it would cost.
I live in Culver City and the build out of the Metro allows our household to have 1 car instead of 2. We use it as much as possible, and hope to eventually get rid of our car completely! LA is a great city for public transit - our weather also means you can comfortably take it year round. The old adage of "nobody walks in LA" is becoming less true all the time!
Yeah, there was a lot more walking and biking than I expected to see!
L.A.-native, TX-resident. Love this video.
LA based viewer here. I live in silver lake, for the reasons you mention. This part of town is quite walkable. I used to take the red line to hollywood and vine, my commute was 10 minute walk + 7 minute train ride. I absolutely loved it.
LA resident here, grew up in the suburbs. I always associated having a car with freedom because I never experienced the freedom of not needing one. Now I'm an urbanist/transit nerd, something fascinating about how the systems work. Keep up the great work!
🚆Choo Choo! 🚆
Yeah, I'd love to see your take on the system they had in the Portland, Oregon to Eugene, OR area 100 years ago. In many ways it was more extensive than the one in LA, as the populations served were much lower. No way would they build stations now in the locations they did back then.
My grad school research (years ago) on the Portland system was actually a big inspiration for this video! But I didn't really study the interurbans much.
@@CityNerd As a new Portland resident, Id love more videos on the city - what it gets right and wrong, especially cycling infrastructure and zoning
@@zefreak Same and same here
I have a video idea top ten stroads that would be good to convert to light rail lines
Love this idea.
I've lived in Chicago, NYC, SF, and now I'm in Highland Park LA, so I know what LA is missing. Such a shame! I'm constantly pushing for public transit/bikability/walkability. Fortunately, I can take the Gold Line up to a shuttle to JPL where I work. What I think LA really needs is a huge expansion to the slowly growing LRT but also since LA is so multi-polar, we need a few super high-speed express trains between the major centers. The LRT is getting to a place where it's okay going from Highland Park to Pasadena but going from Pasadena to Long Beach is a non-starter. Imagine high-speed express trains between Pasadena, DTLA, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Long Beach, the airport, etc!
I’m from Los Angeles!! Born and Raised and hoping to increase the walkable city movement! And voluntarily car free 🎉
Watching from Pasadena. I think you're right that there are some good bones, though it can feel somewhat hopeless living here. The traffic makes walking a loud and smelly experience. They reduced the lanes in Old Town/Collorado Blvd during the pandemic and I thought it made the area more pleasant. If only they kept it or made it a pedestrian only zone...
The city of Pasadena has been trying to build up more protected bike lanes and improve walkability, but resistance from car culture folks is high. Personally I walk around town a lot, but biking is too dangerous for where I want to go.
I could see this kind of video becoming a "Rate My City" format in which you evaluate the city of a commenter, subscriber, patron, etc. and point out what it's doing well and what it's not in terms of urbanism. I know that I personally have a lot of passion about this topic but often don't know how to translate that into actual suggestions for improving my own city, and I suspect that other people are the same way. A more focused look at a single city might help us/me learn how to do that better.
I've lived in LA for 5 years, been in West Hollywood for the last year or so, and haven't had a car since last December. It's super walkable where I live (multiple grocery stores, couple pet stores, restaurants and bars, couple movie theaters, etc), but it can be a pain to get to certain areas (i.e. the Valley). One thing to bring up is the bus system, which is pretty great. They're typically clean and the Transit app works great with up to date info on bus arrivals. Compared to cars, you do need to account for longer trips but not having to deal with the stress of driving in traffic makes it worth it in my opinion.
LA based viewer here. Well done. I live in Venice because, you guessed it, walkability.
I was born in SoCal and when I learned to drive, there were still remnants of Pacific Electric tracks in my area in the early 1980s. They’re long gone now.
I left SoCal for NorCal in 1994 to work at a startup which eventually sent me to work in Paris. But it was soon clear that SF Muni was and is a mess, BART too. I got there just as the old Boeing cars were being replaced by the overweight Breda cars and left just before they are being replaced with the lighter Siemens cars. All that money in the Breda cars wasted as they didn’t serve their projected lifespan and caused a lot of street and building foundation damage.
In Paris, I was blown away as a suburban kid that I didn’t need a car and loved being able to explore a city and region without the need or cost of a car.
Now since 2015 I’m in NYC. NO CAR.
And given the political climate I’m eyeing moving back to France, specifically Bordeaux.
I’ve had it with the useful idiots voting against deploying modern infrastructure in the US as “communism”. I don’t have enough time to wait around for the country to implode, wake up, and start over with sane people running things instead of grifting demagogues wanting to watch Rome burn again.
It’s time to move on.
AnsaldoBreda ? 😅🤨 The company that has left a global trail, with failures and rusting stock !
europe is pretty screwed over the next few years
Grew up in Glendale, watching now from Northern Virginia! For as much as LA relies on freeways for everything, it still feels more walkable than all of NoVa besides Arlington/Alexandria along the metro lines. Weather definitely plays a part but I'd mostly attribute it to the aggregation of varied retail spaces along the former electric railway streets you identified. DC has some areas that are nicer to walk around than a Brand Blvd or Colorado Blvd, like M St in Georgetown and 14th St, but even while they have fewer lanes, they can often be harder to traverse (e.g. no protected bike lanes, small sidewalks). Plus, LA just has a lot more of these retail-heavy corridors, even if they are diluted with parking lots. All that said I do *not* miss the long drives to the nearest metro station in LA.
LA (Torrance) viewer here. I started watching *because* I recently moved here and was shocked at how bad the urban planning was, and wanted to learn more about how it could be better.
LA born and raised. i grew up in Huntington Park (THAT Huntington) an inner ring, streetcar suburb and this is a topic i have with coworkers more often than id like to admit. its frustrating because they love talking about how they prefer their distant car oriented suburbs but spend a ton of their time in these parts of the city or are looking at buying properties near some of the "upcoming" ones.
Great video! Indeed, the idea of fully replicating the services we used to build is def one we should avoid!
Yeah, I cut a whole section where I talked about legacy lines in SF, Philly, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc. It was all too much
My wife and I are taking a car-free trip to SoCal this fall. We’re spending a night in Culver City, right by the Expo Line, before taking the Surfliner down to SD. I love LA and am excited to stay in Culver City - the changes to Culver Blvd that you highlighted in the video are incredible. I can’t wait to experience it in person!
Come visit us in Hillcrest, North Park, South Park, Mid-city in San Diego. Routes 120, 215, 10, 7, and 11 are your friend!
Sounds like a great trip! Yeah, I could've definitely spent more time in Culver City -- good looking restaurant scene and a little food hall/market, too.
@@nevomagnezi9668 That’s the plan! We didn’t get enough time in any of those neighborhoods on our last visit, so we’re looking forward to exploring them a bit more. The beer scene alone made North Park a must for me.
@@CityNerd It’s been wild watching them transform their downtown area over the past few years. By LA standards, it seems like a walker’s paradise. Should be a fun visit!
I do this with my wife from LA to Tucson. I love car free travel.
I’m from Europe, and as I first approached Urbanism I was bombarded with content that said some slightly different version of “Europe good, USA evil”, but honestly I feel like watching this channel I’m learning that for all the things the USA have gotten wrong over the past century, most cities still have some bright spots that can make you hope for a better future, and that not all Europe is the paradise some channels make it out to be. As someone who wants to live a car free life and doesn’t even yet have a driver’s license I feel like some US cities are to me more attractive than my hometown Rome. Even LA, which is one of the few cities in the world comparable to Rome in terms of car traffic, has some developments that Rome can only dream of
Proud Angeleno here! (living in DTLA). Love your channel and love this look what what we are doing right (and what more we could be doing).
I don't think "Is it fixable?" is that much of a sensible question for North America. Trying to fix it as much as possible is the only sane course of action for both ecological and social reasons, and everything is ultimately fixable, at least in the very long run. The real question is how painful it's going to have to be.
So in other words it’s not fixable lol
Answer: _very_ painful. To un-fuck suburbia and post-WW2 construction then lots of what has been built is going to have to be razed and rebuilt completely differently. Many poor people will be displaced (boo hoo), many rich will be made more wealthy and many big box retailers and massive parking lots removed.
In other words, they're not fixable. We'll need to raze and regenerate the suburbs instead and to do that will require a second Civil War which only the Nationalist right wants.
I fully agree that disaster scenarios are the most likely, but I don't think scenarios that involve "bulldozing everything" make any sense. In what scenario does that actually make the rich richer? It's a tremendous waste of money, and obviously people who are fine with the current suburban model don't want that outcome anyway. For people who want to change or do away with the suburbs... well it's still a tremendous waste of money and immediately creates a bunch of problems (where do those people go?), while not immediately solving any of them, it just creates huge patches of wasteland - about the only thing worse than car-dependent suburbia.
The suburbs are certainly not salvageable without some bulldozing - you need layouts and infrastructure that make sense and are efficient, so you need to add connections, change or improve infrastructure, make things walkable, etc. But suburban lots are typically large and mostly empty; you can build many connections without destroying buildings, and in many cases you could double or triple density by only adding onto the lot and not destroying existing housing until you actually need to. And for densifying further, bulldozing whole developments make no sense; you bulldoze as plans come up to actually build something else there.
The nightmare scenario is everything staying the same.
Such a good question to ask! Cant wait for just one more lane to be added to the I5!
I’m surprised he didn’t film any freeways even for a snarky comment!
I am an LA based viewer... and you are hilarious! (and informative. Thanks for existing.)
LA native here and I love your videos. I really LA brings back a sort of streetcar system. Hope LA Metro can build up also the new Crenshaw line just opened I seen a picture of the same street 100 years apart from 1922 to 2022 good to know there's a rail line serving the community again
LA viewer here and very avid watcher of the channel! I've struggled with how inaccessible LA is from the moment I got here 11 years ago, and to be honest, I think you were preeeetty charitable in your impressions of LA!
I've done the commuting thing (one hour each way, five days a week pre-covid) and now I'm fortunate enough to live walking distance from my office, so I like to think I've experience a pretty broad range of what LA has to offer. I've lived in Westwood, Palms/Culver City, and Echo Park and although Echo Park was the most "walkable" (relatively, that is), the stretches of Sunset you covered are still depressingly car-centric, completely dominated by loud, wide, fast Sunset Boulevard. I don't know what the solution is though other than to just start taking infrastructure away from cars.
I think part of the problem is that LA is so suburb-heavy (and for a city we have an annoying amount of the American ethos that associates cars with identity) that we get an enormous amount of people commuting into the city neighborhoods that have no other options since public transit here is pretty rough. Although that dynamic sucks and I'd like to see it change, I can also see how it's not entirely fair to just reallocate that infrastructure since there's a lot of folks who can't necessarily afford housing close to where they work. I'm very lucky to be able to do so (rent though, definitely no buy).
So... absent some major shift in the City Council, or maybe a tremendous gas crisis that doesn't just get bailed out by the federal government, I'm not 100% convinced that LA is "salvageable" in its current form. I just don't think that there is a collective will among the people, or leadership among our city executives. Although I'll likely be here for a few more years I'm always sort of plotting my exit strategy.
Would love to hear more LA content though (good and bad)! There's an insane amount of layers to unpack here! :)
You've only lived here for 11 years. Most of the metro light rail and subway lines have existed for only the last 15 years.
I've lived here all my life, born and raised. I can still remember living in this metro when there was absolutely no public rail transit--at all. It was such a novelty when I was in 5th grade and rode the brand new Metrolink (San Bernardino line), line from our San Gabriel Valley city to downtown LA's Union Station in the mid 1990s.
And LA metro has only really built out it's light rail and subway rail lines in the last 20 years.
For comparisons sake, the NYC conurbation has around 22 million people. The Los Angeles conurbation has 18 million people. They're almost the same size population wise across the metropolitan area. However NYC has near 100 years of having built out its subway/ public rail transportation infrastructure.
LA has some catching up to do, especially considering how extensive and spread out its land area is (though it has not one thing less to see or do than NYC).
Consider the progress though--from having no public rail in 1990 to today. Today the Los Angeles metropolitan area has the 3rd most extensive public rail network in the country (behind only NYC and Chicago thus far) considering LA Metro subway, light rail, and Metrolink commuter rail lines.
So not perfect obviously, but there are plans for more lines and extensions of existing lines in the works--more so than most U.S. cities.
Also converting streets and highways to other uses might be tempting, but it would be wise to consider the consequences of where this happens. NYC for instance has bad street and road logistics accessibility for its retail and businesses, due to outdated and early adopter builds making traffic there horrible even with the most extensively used public transportation system in the country. In fact NYC has been ranked to have the worst traffic in the country, even outranking LA in this metric several years. And I've seen it in NYC, and NYC is insanely loud all around, more so than LA. The one thing NYC has improved upon is bike lane accessibility. It's also poured millions into upgrading old decrepit stations (much of it with federal funding which until recently LA was not getting as much of).
LA doesn't have many of these issues yet because most of its stations are fairly new (and built on newer designs making use of a metro system layout that is less confusing).
I would say just give LA time--its made great strides in a short amount of time. Building out new habits though takes time as does building out its rail network.
I live in LA! Great job covering the city. It's hard to explain the makeup of LA but what you showed encapsulates it well!
Yeah, you had a clip of my town, Sierra Madre. Sierra Madre was the end of a red car line, and the place people came to hike up Mount Wilson. (They still do, just drive now -- although Metro has a shuttle service that you can take from the nearby Gold Line station in Pasadena.) Our downtown is a quintessential trolly car suburb, and because of its smaller streets, is a lot more pedestrian-friendly than some bigger surrounding cities. One of the great recent additions that builds on our historic land use pattern is the conversion of street parking to outdoor dining. This was down temporarily because of Covid, but many of these outdoor dining areas are now being permanently converted. Amazing that we managed to live without a few parking spaces.
LA resident here. It's blowing my mind that all the places around here people generally describe as "nice" have this shared history. Great video.
I'm from LA and have been patiently waiting for some LA focused content. Absolutely worth the wait, thank you 🙂
I love your viewpoint and your sense of humor. Keep up the good posts. I grew up in LA as the Pacific Electric was on life support. After years of only lame bus service, a line was built from downtown to Redondo Beach. Passengers had to exit at a stop and take a shuttle to the airport because there was no direct line. Those all-wise planners thought there would be more traffic from downtown to Redondo Beach than to LAX. I hope things have improved, although I don't hold much hope for LA, where the car is still a golden idol. Meanwhile, I will watch from afar in Portland, Oregon.
LA viewer here. Every week I learn about a new rail/transit infrastructure project that we used to have. The transit history is remarkable, if not the reality.
Not an LA viewer, but I did grow up there. I knew that LA used to have a streetcar network, but I never put it together that all my favorite neighborhoods were streetcar suburbs!
Another Los Angeles Native here. As a kid, I grew up near DTLA but slowly moved to South Bay Area. Actually live basically near the new LAX Line which I have anticipating for years now. When I found out we have a Rail system (Pacific Electric Old Red Car) that rivals that of New York and I was a bit bummed because I always wondered why certain roads had road tracks that went nowhere. I actually worked in San Pedro while going to college and that was one of the only running Red Car left (Port of LA Waterfront Red Car). I think there is still an at-grade crossing on Front St. The incentive from the government back to build a freeway network and car lobbyists really hit West Coast Hard. Almost every little city in LA County has "Market Street" that is lovely and walkable but isn't easy to get to without a car or bus.
Interesting! I'm not from the US and I didn't think I'd ever want to visit LA as it seemed like an urban sprawl car-centric hellhole to be honest, but you've shown a lot of charming streets and neighbourhoods that might make me want to visit some day after all :)
I'm a New Yorker who doesn't drive and felt this way for a long time. I finally visited LA in 2019 and the way I managed it was by planning each day around a particular area, taking an Uber to that neighborhood, and then hoofing it all day until I got an Uber back to where I was staying. The thing that got me about LA is how many places ARE technically walkable (sidewalks, actual streets rather than stroads though definitely too wide), and yet Angelenos just...don't. We were often walking on what felt like deserted streets in the heart of LA because locals do their business then get back in the car to drive up the block. If they can break that mindset, LA has a TON of potential.
@@SNeaker328 Good to know! It's unfortunate that the locals don't take advantage of what they have. I suppose driving is accommodated so much that people build their habits around it, even where it isn't necessary. Was your visit worth it in the end?
LA viewer here! Born and raised in the Palm Springs area and a Swedish dual citizen. My experiences in Sweden have definitely shaped how I feel about urbanism. Love your channel!
LA based, always wondered why the metro doesn’t go all the way to the beach, and now I learn that we had streetcars in Venice and Santa Monica!!
I remember them building the expo line when I was in middle school. It was originally gonna be along Olympic, but the nimbys made it so it runs along Colorado during the Santa Monica portion of it. Just a lil history 😉
LA viewer here! Maybe not everyone’s priority, but urbanism is definitely a high priority for me. The Metro has got great plans to expand the subways/light rails, but still definitely struggle to get an edge as the city budgets drag their feet. I’m looking forward to seeing it grow over the next couple decades! :)
Would love to see you do a video on their future plans someday, love your vids!
Angeleno here... I must like urbanism videos because the algos keep serving up gems like this one
If one didn't grow up in Los Angeles in the 1940s and 50s, it's impossible to appreciate how much quality of life has been lost since then. The points made in this video about the effect of car culture on street life is certainly true. But it goes far beyond that impact. Sixty years ago L.A. drivers were not aggressive, overtly hostile to anyone who delayed them, self-entitled to risk the lives of others and their own to get where they want to go at all costs. The transformation from public transportation to millions of closed, individual automobiles, seemingly has elevated the importance of the individual over the public good, which plays out in myriad destructive ways.
I was already going to ask for this sort of video for cities before this one got made, I swear. I live in Denver and it barely ever comes up in any of the top 10s. It would be nice to get an overview from you on various cities... the good, the bad, the low hanging fruit, the big opportunities, anything that's coming up that's good/bad. I personally care most about Denver but I'd be interested in it for any city.
LA-based urbanist here! Send help!!!!
LA viewer here originally from boston. LA is so fixable and it would be SO worth it. Most of my LA friends are not disinterested in the problem, just learned helpless
LA resident and huge urbanism nerd here! 🙋♂️
Gave up my car almost 10 years ago (yes, it’s possible), and the city has a growing urbanism movement (mostly among millennials and younger).
Another LA viewer and follower here in DTLA. Thanks for the video and really interesting to trace the current most walkable corridors to the original transit network but I suppose it makes sense. There is certainly progress being made overall from an urbanism standpoint and a bit of a revival of urban living. I, for one, look forward to the opening of the regional connector which will help improve trip length and minimize transfers while especially serving us well here in Little Tokyo/Arts District.
I notice that most/all of these areas already had decent transit either past or present. Do you think there's any future in redeveloping car-dependent suburbia that's relatively close to potential rail corridors? I feel like with streets being pretty immutable, the exclusionairy street layouts with lots of dead ends and very few connections both between neighborhoods and to the main thoroughfares look like they pose quite a challenge.
Thankfully the areas CityNerd talked about in the video are on a grid and don't have Florida's problem of cul-de-sacs literally everywhere. LA, the cities in the SoCal, and/or LA county could work with NGOs to develop affordable housing or create a corporation that directly hires construction workers to build affordable housing near transit, both present and future.
The trick for cul-de-sacs is to make them into bike/ped shortcuts by just extending multiuse paths from the end of 1 to the next road. This makes a sort of squiggly grid for quiet bikes & pedestrians (well some people talk loudly), but keeps the very hostile to car travel layout that was the origin of cul-de-sac nonsense in the first place. You would then need to place transit connections in such a way as to be a convient distance by bike/foot using the shortcut network for as much of the area as possible while minimizing bulldozing of existing houses. (Because thats expensive and unpopular)
The key to excellent transit is having a large network where each mode feeds the others. Just look at the road network to understand this, parking spaces, small roads, large arterials, and highways feed eachother seemlessly so its effortless to have your GPS find an easy route from Maine to California if you want to drive it. Doing the same with transit would be a nightmare in the US right now. (Excluding flying as a form of transit, which i doubt anyone thinks it is)
I might have to do a trip to Vancouver to help answer this question!
Most of LA, even the suburban areas are built on a grid. Very few cul de sacs unlike places like Texas.
@@jasonreed7522 culs-de-sacs point to an interesting conundrum of wanting traffic calming in one's own neighborhood but unimpeded travel elsewhere
Fellow LA view here! I live around 30 miles east of downtown LA in the City of Walnut. The interesting thing about this neighborhood is the implementation of horse trails throughout the city. They serve multiple purposes, as I see pedestrians, bikers, and horses all use this interconnected trail system. Though it is just a dirt path, I find it much safer than using the bike gutters when commuting to college. Makes me believe that other neighborhoods could mimic this system.
The real challenge for LA is the upcoming 2028 Olympics, which will be hosted in LA. Even now, the city is desperately and rapidly improving and building infrastructure to prepare for the mass influx of tourists. The path LA will choose to develop this infrastructure will truly push LA to its limits and will ultimately decide its future.
Also, as a mechanical engineering student, perhaps my career will dabble in developing this infrasture. Would be awesome to implement pedestrian-friendly designs!
There are LA people watching your videos. We love our walkable neighborhoods. And yes, all are developed around Yellow Car, Red Card, and steam railroad stations, stops, and lines - and they reach across the entire basin north-south from Ventura to San Juan Capistrono, and east-west from Santa Monica to Redlands and Riverside. And here in West Hollywood, we can not wait for a line to open under our streets.