THE HEAT IS ON
here in the city of HELL ON WHEELS. Los Angeles is going to get hot in the summer of 07. And I can only watch and contemplate. The streets here are wild. Every inch of pavement is occupied by cars going to seemingly every other inch of L.A. Unlicenced vehicles are common and enjoy the anonymity of the balaclava. Cars are toys, weapons, prostheses and hearses.
It's hard to know where to start a discussion about transit in L.A. It is so unmanageable, as to be incorrigible. No one is in charge, or even thinking about the city's direction. The governors and mayors of Southern California cities just dispense budgets and manage relationships. And a massive city of gridlocked, single-occupant, sport utility vehicles burns up it's savings on gas and valet parking.
When it was only a question of 1970s smog affecting the health of Angelenos, they could accept it if they got to keep their cars. But now we know that the consequence of a city that depends of automobiles for even one mile trips to run errands. It's not morally correct. It has terrible consequences for the ecology of the planet. And it has quality of life costs for the people here who have to muddle through it.
The suburbs around greater Los Angeles are vast. From Valencia to Temecula, to Irvine and Anaheim and all the way up to Calabasas - developers are filling in every last canyon and draining the few stream that remain here. In their place are golf courses, strip malls and private communities. Every one drives their cars everywhere. I'm not aware of any check on this sytem of sprawl. But the developers who can offer a two-bedroom house in L.A. county for $400,000 will get water hookups out in the desert for the lawns of these spec-towns, served by Box stores. And all those cars are pouring onto already clogged freeways. California can't afford to build freeways at the rate developers throw up their Cosco mansions.
If someone in the L.A. city government would come out and say, we would like to see people ride bikes, skateboards and scooters. We want to see walkable communities and we will support them by responding to warnings about dangerous intersections for bikes and peds. But there is no response from the city when a pedestrian gets killed in a crosswalk. At most they will post a cop at the spot for a week to hand out tickets and make the city a little money. Until someone else gets smashed to pieces by a car. Then the cop comes back.
If there was the least boost from Mayor Villaraigosa, to talk about the kind of city want to build for the future. But there is nothing in the way of leadership. The L.A. city government *servants* ride around in Ford Expeditions with tinted glass, just like the gangsters who ride around in their domination wagons, looking for some reason to get into it with people, and then run them over or shoot them.
This sad phenomena will probably drag Los Angeles down economically. More and more the only affordable housing is in the counties 40 or 50 miles outside of LA city, and those commuting in will be bled out just paying for gas to run those government subsidized SUVs and trucks. It's the same form of cancer that is killing General Motors and Ford, the United States armed forces and the nation of Iraq. It is the greed of large corporations that have our government in their back pocket.
Wake up L.A. We're building our future in a hot, ungovernable third world city. Every time we fill up the car, we make a billionaire richer so he can buy more influence in Dick Cheney's office.
