Courtesy of Janeth Estevez and John Perry.

We spent a lot of time learning about each other’s favorite places around Los Angeles. Our conversations motivated us to actually investigate the places we had long been curious about. Since workdays were intended for one destination and never allowed the opportunity to explore the stops we passed along the way, we replaced the monotony of going to work with trips to places across the city, learning about the history of our communities, and having fun. Transit stopped being a line from point A to point B. If we wanted to get to point B, we could—and did—make stops along the way.

Transit became not just our means of getting around, but also our way of feeling connected with the outside world. Taking the train to work each morning offered wonderful views of the mountains, the gleaming downtown skyline, and the neighborhoods we passed through. Our fellow riders gave us a sense of the lives we shared the city with, its vitality and diversity. Major events—like protests or strikes or championship celebrations—have a way of spilling out into the transit system and bringing out a sense of shared identity and community.

Union Station took on a deep personal significance. Under its high-vaulted ceilings, we would meet up on our way to work or before venturing out to explore the city. We would pause to grab a coffee and admire the station’s golden hues and tranquil courtyards, or watch the trains rumble out of the yard. Then we would get swept up in the throngs of passengers rushing to their next train as we set out to find something we hadn’t seen before. For one of us—a transplant to LA—changing trains in Union Station was literally their first experience of Los Angeles, making it the natural starting point to take in as much of this new, unfamiliar, and exciting place as possible. As a Los Angeles native, the other was rooted in local tradition and culture, with limited experience beyond East L.A. Exploring the city together led to conversations about the urban changes and development of each neighborhood. And we would trade historical knowledge for the memories and nostalgia for what L.A once had been. We experienced the city through each other’s eyes and witnessed the lives of all the amazing people who contribute to L.A.’s essence.

A city this vast is too much to take in all at once; you can only wrap your mind around it by breaking it down into smaller pieces. For us, we broke it down along the transit lines, learning Los Angeles one route at a time.

We explored the different communities along the Gold Line, starting with Chinatown and Boyle Heights. It’s easy to recommend the beautiful and enchanting neighborhood in Chinatown, where the neon lights dance on reflective surfaces as you walk down the street. Or strolling through Boyle Heights on a weekend night, when the aroma of carne asada wafts from every corner taco stand. The more we explored, the further out we traveled, eventually finding hiking trails that offered an escape from the city, with tall shady trees stretching above your head and parakeets loudly chattering as they soar from one tree to the next.

Along the Blue Line through South Los Angeles, we found beautiful places and wonderful people. In Watts, while disappointed with the scaffolding covering Watts Towers, we found friends willing to talk to us about art in the community. A little further north we found the Alameda Swap Meet and El Faro Plaza, two large warehouse spaces bustling with Latino entrepreneurs and delicious scents from tacos to raspados. In these spaces we found people who showed us the true meaning of community and togetherness. If you have a creative spark in you, the friendly faces in Watts will take you in. And if you are looking for a lively space to watch a game and eat tasty food, the people in El Faro Plaza are there for a good time.

With the Red Line, we ventured past the Walk of Fame and through the Hollywood Hills. While known for impeccable homes, we found secluded streets with wide-open vantage points of the city and a neighborhood intended for pedestrians, with small walkways and staircases. It felt like stepping away from the city; our senses were tuned to the fragrant smells of flowers and fresh air, birds chirping, and dogs barking as we walked past. And even while we were standing in the center of the city, the sounds of cars and trucks were faint and barely noticeable.

Courtesy of Janeth Estevez and John Perry.

Riding the train at dawn is possibly the most peaceful way to encounter L.A. When the sun is rising over the east, you hear the city waking up. But even before that, you will find Latina women bundled up in scarves and sweaters already boarding buses and trains to move across town. They traverse the city as they travel from the Eastside to their housekeeping jobs on the Westside. Bundled all the way to the top of their heads, lugging large thermoses filled with coffee to drink and wake up as they move. These women would share stories about the large mansions they worked in. These large glamorous homes were meant to look untouched and pristine, and while they maintained these homes, these women would also have to keep an eye on the curious children who needed to be cared for. They would then take the transit system back home, where their work continued as mothers.

The pandemic has limited our movement and put a hold on our adventures. We can’t see new places or stumble upon old friends on our regular commute. The pandemic robbed us of the connection with the outside world that transit offered. We miss the community of people who used transit on a regular basis and were happy to share stories and chat. Now people limit their movement and faces sit behind masks as people protect themselves from the virus. Right now, the trains don’t feel like they have that love and energy we used to encounter, but we look forward to the day that everything begins to buzz with excitement again.

Courtesy of Janeth Estevez and John Perry.

We’ve long wanted to illustrate how transit can be an excellent means of seeing the city. As the pandemic dragged on, we finally conceived Transiting Los Angeles as a way to share the places that we’ve fallen in love with to inspire others to explore them as well. We think of our blog like a series of postcards: “Wish You Were Here.” Despite our different perspectives, transit has shaped a common understanding of our home. While we try to pick up the pieces of our lives amid all this uncertainty, it’s nice to remember that there are still wonderful places within reach. Los Angeles will be forever changed by the pandemic, but whatever comes next, transit will always take us where we need to go.

The post Where I Go<span class="colon">:</span> Transiting Los Angeles appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

The northern terminus of SMART, the new light rail system officially opening this weekend in the North Bay, is the Sonoma County Airport Station in Santa Rosa. But after my 8-year-old son and I disembarked from an Alaska Airlines flight, we learned that the airport is more than a mile away from the train.

We didn’t know how to bridge this transportation gap. My son wasn’t up for a long walk. There is as yet no shuttle from plane to train. The public bus that would take us in the train’s direction didn’t show up on time. Uber wasn’t picking up at the airport. My Lyft app kept crashing. And the four cabbies parked outside the airport all refused to take us, saying they didn’t want to give up their place in line for such a short, cheap trip.

The Bay Area is the richest large metropolitan region on the planet because of the ability of its people and institutions to connect with each other and the larger world. But if you need to make transit connections in the Bay Area, good luck.

Inspired by the soft launch of SMART—the 43-mile Sonoma and Marin County light rail has offered preview rides for months—I recently spent three days navigating the Bay Area without a car. And so I experienced beautiful rides on trains, ferries, subways, and buses. But I was also bewildered by the utter failure of a place that’s famous for integrating culture and technology to integrate its own infrastructure and transportation.

For all its global clout, the Bay Area remains, at the local level, a fragmented mess of nine counties, 101 municipalities, and hundreds of government districts.

“The counties grew up separately, and so we’re stuck with a mishmash of agencies and of transportation,” says Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council. “I don’t think this is sustainable anymore.”

After waiting 40 minutes at Sonoma County Airport, we called a new cab, which took us the 1.2 miles to the train station for $10. The new SMART trains might have been comfortable if they weren’t so jammed. My skinny son squeezed into a tiny spot between a seat and a bike rack. I stood in a mass of people near the front of the car. The first 43-mile segment of what promises to be a 70-mile train runs from the not-quite-airport station to downtown San Rafael. Given the distance and the length of the rides—more than an hour—the trains offer bathrooms and a café that sells wine. This is Sonoma after all.

The ride south took 90 minutes and offered a grittier view of Sonoma and Marin Counties—mobile home parks, big empty parking lots, old industrial properties (all of which could be used to build housing, but that’s another story)—as well as views of the Petaluma River, Mt. Tamalpais, and even Mt. Diablo.

The SMART train is eventually supposed to reach the Larkspur Ferry Terminal, from where it’s a 35-minute boat ride to San Francisco. But the first segment ends two miles short of the ferry. There’s a bike path to the terminal that’s walkable, and a bus station in San Rafael that can get you to the ferry, but that bus ride takes between 14 and 26 minutes. We wanted to get there faster and opted for an Uber.

The ferry, which left 10 minutes late, entered the bay next to San Quentin Prison; inmates waved at the boat. It was a clear day and so we enjoyed views of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges. Once at the Ferry Building, I kept my son happy with soft serve ice cream from Gott’s.

After two hours of interviews for other stories, we found ourselves at the BART Embarcadero Station in San Francisco, eager to get to the Oakland Airport and fly home. But the first six trains were too full to board. This wasn’t a surprise. BART is a system built for 60,000 riders that moves more than 400,000 daily. The system badly needs more and newer cars, better maintenance, governance that isn’t dominated by unions, and a second tunnel under the bay.

When the seventh train arrived, we couldn’t wait any longer, and pushed our way in. “That’s rude,” said one rider.

“We’re from L.A.,” I replied.

We made the flight, but with significant sticker shock. The six-station ride from San Francisco to Oakland’s Coliseum Station, from which a tram takes you into the airport, cost $10.20 each. Add that to my $11.50 ferry ticket (my son’s was $5.75), the $9 Uber ride to the ferry, the $11.50 one-way fare on SMART, and $10 for the airport cab ride, our journey was pushing $70.

In Los Angeles, I pay just $1.75 to board a Metro train, and all transfers are free for two hours. In the Bay Area, even public transit is pricey.

A couple of days later, I flew back to Oakland for another expensive and overcrowded BART ride, this one into San Francisco. After switching to the local Muni system, I arrived late to an appointment because of a train breakdown.

Later, I found myself at BART’s Powell Street station, needing to get to San Jose, a city that BART doesn’t quite reach (though an extension should be complete next year). I needed to take the Caltrain, but how to get there? BART and Caltrain share a station in Millbrae, but the schedules aren’t synchronized, meaning I could wait for 45 minutes. So, carrying luggage, I did a 25-minute walk to the Caltrain station at 4th and King, where I purchased a one-way $9.75 ticket to San Jose.

In San Jose, I disembarked at Diridon Station, which may have a bright future as northern terminus of high-speed rail. But for now, it is just another setting for connection frustration, as I waited a half-hour for a light rail train on Santa Clara County’s VTA system. I contemplated getting on ACE, a railway connecting San Jose with Stockton, but the limited schedule meant there was no return train until morning.

The next day, I needed to get to San Jose Airport, and so I took Caltrain to the Santa Clara Station, which is close to the airport and offers a VTA bus shuttle. But the bus driver refused to open the bus door for passengers for 15 minutes, even during a brief squall of rain. The station is only five minutes from the airport, but the shuttle took us on a meandering route that included a stop at San Jose’s pro soccer stadium.

Here’s what gets forgotten in this crazy quilt of disconnected systems: the people riding them. No wonder that for all the different transit offered in the Bay Area, a relatively small share of residents (less than one-third) actually use it.

If the Bay Area is ever going to resemble the design-savvy ecotopia it purports to be, it will need to get majorities of its people on its trains and buses. And that will require combining operations and linking schedules of these different systems. As any good Silicon Valley company knows, any service—from public transit to email—requires that the user have faith that the system will work, that it will be affordable, and that it won’t drop you off a mile from the next station, or be a half-hour late, or offer trains so full you can’t get on them.

Right now, using Bay Area transit makes you feel powerless. And that should be unacceptable in California’s most powerful region.

The post Connect the World? The Bay Area Can’t Even Connect Its Trains appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Yet there was the city’s mayor, the state’s governor, the national legislature’s leader, and the country’s interim president all at the metro’s inauguration—a half-year late, way over budget, and only a week before the opening ceremony for the 2016 Games.

Michel Temer, the interim president standing in while elected president Dilma Rousseff faces impeachment, had flown in just to make the landmark ride. He stood among smiling faces as the sleek subway glided over 10 miles of fresh track from the line’s previous terminus at Rio’s famed Ipanema beach to the western suburb of Barra da Tijuca, which houses the main Olympic Park and Athletes’ Village—though those facilities are a full eight miles away from the last stop.

As his train screeched into the station, a youth orchestra struck up “The Girl From Ipanema,” perhaps in reference to how that tall and tan and young and lovely girl no longer has to go on walking, but can hop on the metro instead. In the press scrum, I asked a reporter why we hadn’t been allowed to ride the metro, too. She suggested it was because of the risk of lefty journalists chanting “Fora Temer!” (“Out Temer!). Most Brazilians want new elections, and the political instability continues to be a preoccupation for Brazil and Olympic organizers.

Inside the airy Jardim Oceânico station, Temer, who Brazilians are quick to note bears a striking resemblance to Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, took to a podium and promised that Rio would show “what it’s capable of.” In turn, the mayor, in his trademark jeans and untucked work shirt, and the governor, still weak from a recent cancer treatment but seemingly determined to be part of the hoopla, also heaped praise on the project. Their common message: the $3 billion transit project will unify disparate parts of Rio, just as the Olympics would unify a divided Brazil.

You don’t have to have been a Brazil correspondent for three years to recognize that overstatement. Moreso than forging unity, the rail project seems like yet another marker of Rio’s controversial, overhyped, and ultimately underwhelming haul toward hosting the first ever Olympics in South America.

Sure, it’s easy to hate on the Olympics. Predicting the myriad of things that will go wrong is an established tradition of the Games, as much of a ritual as the torch-lighting ceremony. In much of the media, the competition is fierce for the most dire prediction, the most alarming headline, the most damning criticism of “the disaster that is Rio.” The Athlete’s Village is not up to spec (it wasn’t in Sochi or London either). The military has taken over airport screening (again, as happened in London). The environmental pollution is alarming (as it was in Beijing, which was called the most polluted games ever). The doomsayers came out in force before the 2014 World Cup too, but were proven wrong when the tournament went off largely without a hitch.

Amid all the finger-wagging, it’s no wonder 60 percent of Brazilians believe the Olympics will do more harm than good—a far cry from 2009, when the bid was supported by 89 percent of the population.

But it’s still hard not to be cynical over the self-congratulatory glad-handing on full display during the inauguration of the new metro line. And perhaps the troubles surrounding this heralded project help explain the downbeat mood in Brazil right now. It’s just another of the scores of big promises made that have failed to come to fruition.

Built over six years by as many as 10,000 workers at any given time, Rio’s new Linha 4 line claims to be the largest modern urban infrastructure project in Latin America—a dubious claim, given it’s just 10 miles of track with five stations. It was originally targeted to open in January 2016, but construction repeatedly threatened to halt amid funding shortages from the cash-strapped state government, whose economic woes reflect the recession that rattled Brazil in recent years. Costs ran over. The federal government was forced to step in with an emergency aid package. The length of the line was halved. An investigation into contracts-related bribery was opened. And after all that, the line will only be open to Olympic ticket holders until September—so much for connecting the people.

Then there are questions about who this new metro will really serve when it opens later this fall. In contrast to public transportation projects in U.S. cities that are attacked for skirting wealthier neighborhoods exercising their NIMBY vetoes, the expensive metro expansion in Rio is being criticized for routing into more affluent neighborhoods at the expense of poorer ones. And it’s not even clear that the wealthy residents will take the metro. One transportation expert involved in the planning of Linha 4, Marcus Quintella at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, explained to me that changes to the original design, including the scratching of planned parking near the line’s final stop, mean that these more affluent residents may opt to stay in their cars.

Officials tend to sweep aside such criticisms. At an earlier metro station unveiling, I spoke with Rio’s state secretary of transportation Rodrigo Vieira, who was in charge of finishing the $3 billion legacy project. He said costs were on par with transportation projects elsewhere in the world. He also countered that the line connects people of all classes, including a new stop just outside the city’s largest favela and service that better connects poorer residents to the wealthy neighborhoods where many take service jobs. The upgrades will cut a commuter’s ride by up to two hours, meaning people “will have more time to be with their families, to work, to have pleasure, to live.”

“Of course it’s not cheap,” he added, “But it’s a way to change the lives and change the city.”

As we spoke, trains rumbled through the station conducting test rides, seats still covered in plastic wrap. The station itself was still unfinished: equipment needed to be installed at the ticketing counter, an emergency closet lacked its fire hose, and the ceiling-mounted security camera boxes had yet to be equipped with actual cameras. Vieira brushed off these concerns too.

“We will operate with all the security and safety that the Rio de Janeiro subway is known for all over the world,” he said, though it isn’t clear that the small metro system has any reputation outside Brazil, and the city’s not exactly known for safety.

The statement stands in contrast to a feeling of insecurity that seems to be permeating Rio right now. After the inauguration ceremony, I rode the newly inaugurated metro back to Ipanema with Mateus Araujo, the conductor of the youth orchestra that had played “The Girl From Ipanema.” He said they would likely use the new line during the Olympics to perform at venues around the city, but he was concerned about safety. He’s been robbed at gunpoint twice over the past two years, and kids in his orchestra sometimes miss practice because it’s not safe to leave their homes in favelas riven by gang violence and police reprisals.

It’s not limited to poorer neighborhoods either. To maintain security during the Olympics, some 85,000 military and police personnel have descended upon the city. Helmet-wearing commandos patrol the beaches and streets with their fingers ready on the trigger. Despite this, a gang was filmed last week pulling a man from his car and emptying his pockets within blocks of the governor’s palace. Tellingly, the government of France has issued an advisory to tourists suggesting they have a banknote ready to appease potential attackers, suggesting that in Brazil security is not a matter of avoiding robbery, but coping with it. The arrest of 12 suspects in an ISIS-pledged terrorist cell also did nothing to quell a city already on edge.

For residents and tourists alike, the first concern isn’t even about where the metro goes, but about getting there safely in the first place.

In this way, the Linha 4 line seems to underscore Brazil’s tendency to put the cart before the horse. Looking back, it’s clear that the 2009 host bid was made amid the hype of the country’s future prospects, but with no real plans for how to accomplish everything the investment promised to bring.

The city’s crime is down, but serious safety concerns remain because thousands of extra security units aren’t enough to combat deep-rooted violence. The bay remains horribly polluted with raw sewage because pledged water treatment infrastructure never appeared. Foreign capital is coming in, but won’t necessarily turn the tide of an economic crisis.

The new metro tracks were laid, but the city will remain disjointed.

Perhaps the best one can say is that at least the train runs. Given the country’s unexpected downturn and political upheaval, it is arguably a feat that Rio accomplished what it did. Sure, it’s disappointing—but maybe it was doomed to be.

The train will run, the Games will go on, and the country will likely get a boost. But will Brazilians be more united after their Olympic moment?

The post Even “The Girl From Ipanema” Can’t Save Rio’s Olympic Train appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

I wish I could report that my own life is better now that I ride the brand-new Metro Expo Line extension to work in Santa Monica. And I wish I could validate all the triumphant talk of the great metropolis of Los Angeles becoming a fabulous train town again, with the restoration of a vital rail link between its city center and the Pacific.

But I’m a rail commuter in Southern California now, so I no longer have time for fairy tales.

Or much of anything else.

Perhaps I expected too much. For four long years, I’ve commuted between the San Gabriel Valley and Santa Monica—always at least an hour each way, often 90 minutes or more—while dreaming of the day when the Expo Line would extend to downtown Santa Monica and my commute, and with it my life, would change for the better.

That day arrived two weeks ago, and immediately my dreams were dashed. I had been ready for the hiccups and kinks of a new line, and I had been warned that the trains would be slower and crowded until Metro could add enough cars and drivers for full service.

But I was unprepared for just how slow—and painful—a commute via light rail could be.

On my first day—the fourth day of service on the new line—I dropped off my two younger boys at preschool and drove five minutes to a Gold Line station in Pasadena, parked, and walked three minutes to the train. I was happy and eager for the new routine.

Then I waited 20 minutes for a train to arrive—the wait is supposed to be less than 10 minutes at that hour. And the train moved slowly—it took more than 40 minutes to reach Union Station downtown (the train schedule says it should take 30).

There I had to switch to the subway to go three stops to pick up the new Expo Line. But the switch was mismanaged by a Metro staffer who inexplicably packed two subway cars with people—while refusing to let anyone onto two relatively empty cars. That train left, stranding hundreds of us for another 10 minutes before another subway arrived and we were allowed to board.

The switch to the new Expo Line at the Metro Center station for the third leg of my trip was smooth. But the Expo Line was painfully slow. Metro had advertised a 48-minute ride, but it took more than an hour. The track runs down the middle of streets—and the train stops for traffic lights at some intersections. In Santa Monica, after a six-block walk, I arrived at work two and a half hours after I had reached the Pasadena station—25 miles away. In that same time, I could have flown to Las Vegas, played the airport slots, and flown home, jackpot in hand.

The return trip was even more frustrating. I waited another 20 minutes to board and depart on a train from the downtown Santa Monica station. Once on board, a fellow passenger started screaming how much Jesus loved me (even as I wondered if the transit gods had forsaken me).

35 mins after leaving work, 21 mins after arrival at station, Expo Line departs. But fellow rider yells that Jesus loves me, so all good

— Joe Mathews (@joemmathews) May 23, 2016

I opened my laptop, something I can’t do in my car, and got some work done with the aid of my office’s mobile hotspot. Yes, it’s BYO wifi. My attempt to conduct a phone interview failed (the train was too loud). And after about 45 minutes of typing with my computer on my legs while sitting on one of the train’s hard plastic chairs, my back started to hurt.

As I boarded the Gold Line, I had been in transit for nearly two hours. I needed to go to the bathroom, but no such luck. Metro trains, not exactly designed with multi-hour voyages in mind, don’t have bathrooms. And I couldn’t work on the Gold Line—the two-car train was so full it had no open seats.

I had allowed myself two and a half hours to return to Pasadena, grab my car and pick up the boys at preschool by 5:45 p.m. It wasn’t enough. Metro’s very affordable $1.75 fare—less than a buck an hour!—had become a $31.75 trip, with the $30 preschool fine for late pickup. I had spent nearly five hours commuting—and just four and a half hours at work. Yes, our car culture isn’t sustainable—but neither is public transit like this.

539p train arrive. total round trip commute today 4 hrs 50 mins. I was in office for 4 hours, 30 minutes. I can't afford to Go Metro.

— Joe Mathews (@joemmathews) May 24, 2016

There were things I liked about the ride. I loved the walks on either end. The city looks beautiful from the various bridges along the new Expo route. And I liked the fact that I bumped into three people I know.

But the ride was simply too slow, and the experience too rough, to be comfortable. I did the same commute two more days—and things were smoother and faster, but the round trip still took me four hours. And all that time on the train took a physical toll—I felt sore at night.

I also felt frustrated—at California’s underwhelming ambition. Over and over in this state, from our famously frugal governor to our tax-phobic voters, we tend to choose the cheaper, easier path rather than the better, arguably necessary, one. For this vital east-west axis, Metro and local governments didn’t have to create a relatively cheap and slow light-rail line that stops at traffic lights. They could have built a proper subway-style line to whisk people efficiently over greater distances. That would have better served their cities, and attracted more riders (There were 12,000 Expo Line rides on the seven new stations my first day—as many people as board the New York subway every three minutes). But that would have cost a lot more money, and it would have been nearly impossible to get political support and funding.

Complaining about such things is politically incorrect these days. Dogmatic transit cheerleaders responded to my disappointed first-ride tweets with taunts that I should live closer to work, which seems an odd rallying cry for people championing public transit investments, and a fairly elitist one too when you consider the cost of living anywhere near Santa Monica.

I’m not giving up on rail altogether. As more train cars are added, waits for trains should shorten and riding should become a little more comfortable. But I’ll continue complaining until officials speed up the Expo Line—for starters, by adding technology that will change traffic lights so that trains don’t have to stop and by closing redundant stations (USC has three stations very close together).

And, now that I’m experiencing the need for improvements firsthand, I’m very glad that Metro is planning a November ballot measure that would raise sales taxes to cover $120 billion in transportation projects, including all kinds of expansions and upgrades of train and bus lines.

When I drove to work one day later last week, the commute was still miserable—two-and-a-half hours round-trip. But that was much faster than it had been on Metro. And my body felt fresher and I got to listen to the radio.

Which is better—car or rail? Both are awful, just in different ways. I console myself in knowing that now at least I can pick my poison.

The post Don’t Believe the L.A. Transit Hype appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

That was the question Henry George sought to answer for California in his famous 1868 essay, “What the Railroad Will Bring Us,” on the eve of the transcontinental railroad’s completion. The renowned political economist’s vision—that the railroad would help make California a global giant of business and trade—was so prescient, it was taught in California schools well into the 20th century.

Now the question is timely again for Californians, as Metro in Los Angeles County opens two new light rail connections—one through the San Gabriel Valley this Saturday, the other connecting downtown L.A. to a station four blocks from the beach in Santa Monica on May 20.

That Southern California, of all places, is leading the way in building new rail links (and there will be many more new lines, funded by local sales taxes, opening in the years ahead) suggests we have entered a new era of California transit. It also raises questions about the rest of the state

Will the Bay Area further develop its expensive and union-plagued BART system, including adding a second tunnel under the bay? Will San Francisco ever revamp its embarrassingly slow and dirty MUNI system? How can San Diego best expand its trolleys, and Sacramento its light rail? Can the Inland Empire, the 13th largest metropolitan area in America, raise its transit game? And when will greater Fresno, more than one million people and growing, realize it’s a major American city in need of a real urban transit system?

For now, progress outside L.A. is slow. Maybe that’s because as we consider the possibilities, Californians are asking questions the wrong way. Journalists, environmentalists, and other boring people obsess over the math—what new rail lines might cost us in dollars or what they might save us in traffic or car trips. That’s a losing game—traffic is driven by large, hard-to-predict trends—in the nature of work and technology, in telecommuting patterns, in immigration levels, in the aging of the population, and in the price of gas.

The smarter, more inspiring question about transit projects is George’s old one: What new things do these new rail lines bring us? Do they connect us to places and events in powerful new ways? Do the trains provide comfort and reliability? Is riding the rail a compelling experience in itself that it changes us?

For me, these questions are urgent and personal. I spend as many as four hours a day commuting by car. But the new rail lines could change my life. I live five blocks from the Metro Gold Line, which is opening its 11-mile extension through the San Gabriel Valley to Azusa this weekend. And my office is in Santa Monica, seven blocks from the terminus of the Expo line extension that opens in May.

What might the light-rail bring me? The promise of a healthier, more productive, and more fun routine.

Riding the trains to work could take 90 minutes, with two changes between lines, but that’s no different than driving takes me many days. If the trains are on time, the commute will be more predictable than it is now. And so I’ll start riding the trains with the following hopes. I hope I’ll get more exercise from the extra walking to get to the stations. I hope I’ll be able to read and get work done in transit. And I hope that, as I don’t have to spend as much time in the evening working, I can sleep more and spend more time with my family.

On weekends, I want to ride the new Gold Line to the east with my three train-crazy boys, and explore places near the new stations. Tops on my list are playtime at the Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area and Friday nights at the Family Festival on Myrtle Avenue in Monrovia. I could even see an old-school date night for surf-and-turf at the Derby (the horse players restaurant once owned by Seabiscuit jockey George Woolf) if the owners were to grant me and other rail riders a special exemption from the dress code.

This is what the light rail could bring us. The Gold Line extension could make Azusa Pacific, an ambitious Christian university at the end of the new line, a bigger factor in civic life here. It should allow more people to discover, or re-discover, the enchiladas at La Tolteca in Azusa, the Justice Brothers Racing Museum in Duarte, the old movie theater (now a 12-plex) in Monrovia, and the Santa Anita Park race track, and the 626 Night Market in Arcadia.

The Expo Line could be even more transformational. It’ll get you to the beach or the Santa Monica Pier without a car. The delicious Japantown along Sawtelle Boulevard, a spot to be avoided if you drive, should see a surge in customers with the nearby Pico/Sepulveda stop. And more people will find their ways to art shows and studies at the Bergamot Station arts complex, which has its own stop on the new line.

Of course, none of this is guaranteed. Metro needs to make sure the trains are safe, reliable—and, most of all, fun. The new Gold Line cars looked great in a recent preview, with big windows and comfortable seating. And on the Expo Line, those trains better have strong Wi-Fi and maybe tables for us working commuters.

I’m most excited about the surprises that these new rail lines—and other lines under construction—will bring us in the future. What new communities, new downtowns (the city of Duarte sure needs one), new businesses, and new friendships might emerge of which we can’t conceive? What new ideas might come from, say, a doctor riding to her job at the City of Hope meeting a Caltech computer scientist on a Gold Line train?

Re-reading “What The Railroad Will Bring Us,” I was struck by how George, even in making grand predictions about California’s future, underestimated the cultural and economic impact of the railroad. Yes, he correctly saw San Diego becoming a vital second city of California. And he was right that the Bay Area would become a future global capital of commerce.

But he never once mentioned Los Angeles. It was unimaginable then that such a small town could become our greatest city, now featuring the best public transit in the state.

The post How Riding the Rails Can Change Cities and Lives appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

That was the focused message of Phillip Washington, the new CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), before a standing-room-only audience a Zócalo/Metro event at the Plaza on Olvera Street.

Washington, who came to Los Angeles three and a half months ago after years of heading Denver’s Regional Transportation District, spoke passionately about the need for Los Angeles to finish the build-out of its transportation infrastructure under Measure R—and for the country as a whole to devote far more attention and money to infrastructure.

To that end, he said Metro needed to leverage its assets and existing funding, and use more tools to complete projects faster. He mentioned in particular public-private partnerships, sometimes called P3s, in which private companies invest money upfront, assume the risks of the project, and are paid back over time. He noted that this approach could accelerate projects in L.A., and had been crucial to a rail project to connect Denver’s downtown and airport.

Washington also said he was starting up an Office of Extraordinary Innovation at Metro that would be “tasked with taking on and attacking the toughest transportation challenges in the region and implementing solutions.” He suggested the office could look at everything from automated or sensor-controlled cars to pods that could move individuals.

In response to a question from the evening’s moderator, NBC 4 reporter and News Conference host Conan Nolan (who declared himself a proud rider of public transit), Washington mentioned the half-century-long battle over what to do about the final extension of the 710 Freeway as one thorny challenge that could benefit from innovative thinking.

Innovation and flexibility in financing are more than goals—they are necessities, he argued, given the lack of financial commitment to infrastructure in the U.S. “We have to be innovative in the transportation industry now, because we’re not getting all the money we need,” he said.

Washington added that while Los Angeles County taxpayers had shown their commitment to infrastructure by voting for Measure R’s taxes and projects in 2008 (he pointed to Measure R when asked why he’d taken the job), Congress has repeatedly failed to pass legislation to maintain and rebuild the country’s aging roads, bridges, and other infrastructure. “Our infrastructure forefathers are turning over in our graves right now,” he said. “Because we have not taken care of the assets they have left us.”

He said that a commitment to infrastructure had to go beyond transportation to community building. He said that Metro had begun a pilot to look at property it owns within one-and-a-half miles of train stations or bus lines, with the goal of connecting those spaces to those communities. He also expressed concern about changes in cities that are pushing poorer people out of city centers, which can add to transportation costs as service must be built further and further out.

Pressed by Nolan on whether Metro fares should rise, Washington said, “our fares are some of the cheapest in this country” and quickly added that Metro also has “a very high percentage of low-income riders—I think it’s about 75 percent.”

Washington touched on dozens of topics in responses to Nolan and audience questions. Among other things, he indicated he supports the state’s high-speed rail project.

Asked by Nolan which of the five Metro rail projects currently under construction was a “game changer,” he mentioned the Regional Connector because it can connect existing lines and “open up economic development”; he suggested he was looking for ways to accelerate its scheduled completion.

In response to two audience members who complained about how security and sheriff’s deputies treat riders on the Blue Line, Washington said he had hired a new security chief at Metro and asked him to assess security throughout the entire system. He described security as one of several ways— including cleaner buses and rail cars, on-time buses, and technology—of “enhancing the customer experience” and convincing more people to use Metro.

In response to an audience question about the balance of bus and rail projects in a successor measure to Measure R on the 2016 ballot, he said Metro had asked local governments to prioritize projects by September 1. He said Metro has 2,300 projects it’s currently evaluating, worth a total of $250 billion.

Washington also praised the city of Los Angeles’ new Mobility Plan because it calls for more “balance” between different modes of transportation. Washington said that “we’re not going to get everybody out of their cars” but “we can hope for less driving.”

“This is an auto-centric country,” he added. “When you go to some places here in America, it’s like the Wild West. You pulled up on your horse, strapped your horse to the pole.” But in the long term, we should “wean ourselves” off the automobile.

When Nolan asked how he should be evaluated, Washington said he should be judged on whether Metro is completing projects on time and on budget, on the safety of the Metro system, and whether he is developing the workforce so there are more people properly trained and qualified to build infrastructure for the country’s needs.

Said Washington, “Years from now, I hope that our grandchildren will say of us, ‘That generation left us some great infrastructure that we need to take care of.’”

The post Where the Buses are Clean and Safe and the Trains are On-Time appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

While there’s no single way to get and keep Angelenos in housing that doesn’t eat up the entirety of their income, one often-overlooked part of the solution may be transportation. Ling joined Tony Salazar, president of West Coast operations for developer McCormack Baron Salazar, Calvin Hollis, Metro managing executive officer for countywide planning & development, and L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin to discuss how a city’s transit projects—its rail lines, buses, bike lanes, and more—can connect people to jobs, boost housing supply, and make city living less expensive.

From the start, the evening’s moderator, Curbed LA editor Adrian Glick Kudler, said it’s not a given that transit can make housing more affordable. The conventional assumption, in fact, is that it does the opposite: projects like a new rail line spark commercial activity and attract higher-income people to move into housing near its stops. This can benefit neighborhoods by reducing crime and increasing amenities, but often disrupts long-standing communities. Families that have lived in these neighborhoods for years are pushed out, and don’t share in the benefits of their safer and livelier neighborhoods.

So what are the concrete steps that can be taken to give Angelenos access to as many transit options as possible without pricing them out and forcing them to move to more remote parts of the city? How do we get public transportation to the people who need it most?

The answers came from two perspectives: the policy side (Bonin and Hollis) and the developer side (Salazar and Ling). As Bonin pointed out, people who live in rent-controlled and other forms of affordable housing are statistically much more likely to use public transportation, so discussion focused largely on both the big- and small-scale steps that both government and private builders could take not only to bolster transportation projects, but also keep housing costs down in general.

Hollis made the case that Metro has drastically increased its commitment to protecting affordable housing for Los Angeles residents in recent years. In light of a new directive from Mayor Garcetti to raise the percentage of affordable housing units developed on MTA-owned property, he said that Metro is collaborating more with communities and the city’s real estate department to address neighborhood needs—efforts that help set a model for how city transportation authorities need to more fully integrate themselves into city planning and operations.

“In the past, we would have been agnostic about what appears on a development site” once it was made available through Metro work, he said. “What we’ve been asked to do now is to think about Metro more broadly as a property owner. … It’s a start toward Metro being part of a solution for providing affordable housing.”

Salazar wasn’t entirely convinced by promises about more affordable housing, though. “From a developer’s perspective, the company policy discussion that goes on—it’s been going on for a long time,” he said. “All those cranes downtown? They aren’t building affordable housing. How do you place people in relation to their jobs? Either you place them close, or you make it easier for them to get there. We haven’t done either.”

Salazar’s big issue was lack of density. He argued that the city’s foremost concern is simply making sure there’s enough room to accommodate everyone in Los Angeles’ ballooning population. “The issue is that we aren’t building enough housing anywhere to accommodate the population in Southern California, let alone affordable housing,” he said. “We need to build vertical. We can’t afford to build horizontal anymore.”

He advocated for much taller buildings in commercial areas, saying that “density for me is not a four-story building, it’s a 25-story building.” He mentioned riding the city’s trains on mornings with people who commuted to downtown L.A. from as far as Riverside. “To alleviate the housing problem that we all have, you have to build some units,” he said. “What’s the alternative?”

Density was a contested issue, however, and raised both cheers and grumbles from the crowd whenever panelists talked about building up commercial areas based around transit hubs.

“I think the challenge is that out transportation planning is not coordinated with our land use planning,” Ling said. “Metro has done a great job building out a rail system, but it has no control over what the various cities in L.A. County can do to take advantage of the areas around these stops. So what can they do to encourage cities to create more density around these spots?”

She favors the idea of constructing four-story buildings. With such small increases, she said, “you probably wouldn’t feel it,” but it could make a big difference in accommodating people. Same for the small additions to homes known as “granny flats”: somewhere around 20 percent of single family homes already have them in Los Angeles, she said, so the city should figure out ways to help them be built legally, so that they can be “habitable and safe.”

But how do you please everyone? Kudler made the point that L.A. has a long “legacy of single family home ownership,” and while many young people in the city embrace increased density and public transportation, there are also huge portions of the population who want to protect their spacious neighborhoods—and certainly don’t want a rail line going through.

Bonin, more than anyone, understood the difficulty of meeting the needs of different neighborhoods and residents. He acknowledged that L.A. has plenty of problems—and that gentrification has occurred around some transportation areas.

“There’s a moral and economic necessity to build affordable housing,” he said. “In L.A., we’re losing our opportunities for those who live in the middle class. It’s not sustainable. Can transit help? Left to its own devices, I’d say no.” But with a sustained push from the city, from government, developers, and communities, he argued, “I’d say yes.”

The post Does a Transit Boom Have to Lead to a Real Estate Bubble? appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

You’re about to eat some of the “food I love in this city, especially this part of town,” said Cabral. “This part of town” was the section of the San Gabriel Valley from Pasadena to Monterey Park served by Metro’s 260 bus line, which begins in Altadena and terminates in Compton. Cabral, who grew up in East L.A., graduated from high school in Alhambra and attended Pasadena City College, knows the area’s food and public transit intimately. He said that after he turned 21, he frequented Lucky Baldwins for after-class drinks.

The group would be eating the pub’s “very traditional” fish and chips (made from Icelandic cod) as well as Craftsman Poppyfields Pale Ale. Lucky Baldwins general manager Jaime Brokken told the group that the restaurant and Craftsman, a local Pasadena brewery, had been teamed up since the pub opened in 1996. Cabral called the Poppyfields a “crispy, food-friendly beer,” and participants agreed.

Carrrah Flahive praised the batter on the fried fish and explained that she lives near Lucky Baldwins and had been coming here since college. Less familiar to Flahive was the coming bus journey; Flahive said she does not take Metro often. Fellow participants revealed a range of experiences with Metro’s system. A number of them had ridden years ago but not recently. Others generally stick to the train. TAP cards in hand, the group headed south along Fair Oaks Avenue and South Atlantic Boulevard on the regularly scheduled 260 bus, sitting amongst their fellow Angelenos (some of whom were napping) making their way around town in ample air conditioning.

About a half hour later, the tour disembarked in the heart of Monterey Park, amidst strip malls where every business was advertised in both English and Chinese characters. The destination was Tokyo Fried Chicken Co. (122 South Atlantic Boulevard), where American Southern meets traditional Japanese cuisine.

As the group feasted on truffle butter edamame, fried drumsticks, curry creamed corn, chicken rice, yuzu lemonade, and fried drumsticks doused in house-made ponzu and spicy ponzu sauces, Cabral explained that the plastic gloves next to everyone’s place setting were there because Japanese fried chicken, karaage, is typically served in small pieces and meant to be eaten with chopsticks. The gloves were there to keep hands from getting greasy (or burned by the piping hot chicken).

Between bites, participant Ira Klein said that while everything was delicious, it was the citrus-based ponzu sauce on the chicken that was his “killer discovery” of the day so far.

For Joni Yung, it was the truffle-flavored edamame. “I wanted to take that bowl with me,” she said. “That was the biggest surprise for me, because I’ve never had that combination before.”

And then it was back on the bus and heading north a few stops away to Ba Le (1426 South Atlantic Boulevard) in Alhambra, a no-nonsense Vietnamese bánh mì shop whose one nod to pretension was the Eiffel Tower silhouette featured in the lettering above the storefront.

“This place is really close to my heart because I’ve been coming here probably for 15 years,” said Cabral, who has never written about Ba Le because he didn’t want people finding it. He said that in high school, he would head there after school and “stuff myself with $2 bánh mì” made with homemade bread, mayonnaise, and charcuterie. “Not many places make their own mayonnaise,” said Cabral. “It’s pretty hardcore.”

Bánh mì have become a hot item today, with trucks across the city peddling more effete versions. At Ba Le, the sandwiches are a bit more expensive than they used to be (now they’ll run a hungry high school student $3-$3.50), but the place remains “really old-school,” said Cabral.

Participants enjoyed an assortment of sandwiches with meatball, barbecued pork, barbecued beef, and cold cut fillings along with passion fruit juice. One participant was overheard saying that if she were ever going to give up meat, she wouldn’t give up the pork at Ba Le.

“I love the fresh sandwiches and bread here,” said Liza Tucker, who was not only eating her first Ba Le bánh mì, but was also riding the bus in L.A. for the very first time. “It was quite comfortable, it was cool enough, and I rather enjoyed it,” she said.

“This is such a fun way to get to know L.A.,” said Joanne Kim, who lives in Koreatown. “I don’t come out to the SGV very often. This was such an eye-opener for me.” She was already plotting a return trip.

And then it was back to the welcomed air conditioning of the 260 and the final destination of the afternoon—dessert at Blockheads Shavery (61 South Fair Oaks Avenue) in Pasadena. Down a small alley off a main drag in Old Town, this location of Blockheads opened four months ago, joining West L.A. and Alhambra stores.

“We chose this place for dessert because this is a unique creation,” said Cabral. “It’s not quite ice cream and not quite Hawaiian-style shave ice. It’s its own thing.”

Blockheads owner Evan Lew called it “snow cream,” and explained that all Blockheads’ ices and toppings are made from scratch, and detailed how delicate shavings of ice are carved off blocks to form light, fluffy, snow-like shavings. Participants enjoyed original (lightly sweetened milk), green tea, black sesame, chocolate malt, and cantaloupe flavors of ice topped with everything from cereal and cookies & cream to lychee and mochi.

Participants agreed that they couldn’t eat another bite, but that they would be back to the places they had been—and on the bus, too.

“I loved riding the bus. It puts you more in contact with what’s going on, and it gets you out of your silo in the car,” said Diego Guerrero, who grew up riding Metro but hadn’t been on public transportation recently. He said that he appreciated the “holistic” nature of the tour. “It’s not just about food or Metro,” he said, but about “pushing your boundaries of what you believe to be the city of L.A.”

The post From England to Taiwan and Beyond in One Afternoon appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

An intrepid, multigenerational crowd of hungry Angelenos—many clad in matching blue “Tour de Food” T-shirts—gathered on the sidewalk in front of Hamburguesas Punta Cabras (633 South Spring Street) in downtown’s historic core to kick off their Saturday afternoon. Leading the tour was East L.A. native Javier Cabral (also known as “The Glutster”), who explained that he grew up riding Metro, and when he became a professional food writer at the tender age of 16, one of the ways he discovered new restaurants was from the bus window. He was hoping to impart a bit of that experience to tour participants over the course of the afternoon.

Cabral said that the concept behind Hamburguesas Punta Cabras is a fast-casual, Mexican-American hamburger joint. “It’s like your childhood nostalgic favorite burger, at a similar price point but very high quality,” he said. Alongside hamburgers, turkey burgers, black bean veggie burgers, and fries, Hamburguesas Punta Cabras serve “dirty fries” with a chorizo gravy (as well as cilantro, tomato, onion, and a dressing that tastes like Thousand Island), a nod to poutine by co-chef/owner Daniel Snukal, who grew up in Canada.

Snukal’s partner, Josh Gil, invited the crowd to help themselves, and then explained why he and Snukal left fine dining to open taco and burger joints (their other restaurant is Tacos Punta Cabras in Santa Monica). “Chefs who do fine dining are married to their stoves,” he said. “We’d rather have time with our families.”

Tour participant David Marek, who described himself and his girlfriend as “very passionate Metro riders,” called the burger “fantastic. It’s really juicy, and kind of like a play on the Southern California burger.”

Another tour participant, Megan Wintermantel, lauded the uniqueness of the dirty fries, a melding of flavors she hadn’t experienced before.

After enjoying their burgers, fries, and sodas, the group headed up to 6th Street to catch the 720. It wasn’t a chartered bus—so Tour de Food participants rode with other Angelenos going about their business. It was the first bus ride for one baby (accompanied by his parents) and the first bus ride in over a decade for another participant. A number of people said that while they had taken the bus regularly when they lived in different parts of the world—Hong Kong, France, the Bay Area—they did not take it often in Los Angeles.

At the next stop, Cabral said that he feels the Rapid 720 is “an underrated commute run.” Many of the immigrant workers at restaurants in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and the Miracle Mile live further east; if you ride the 720 late at night, you’ll see many a dishwasher and line cook sleeping on their rides home to places like Koreatown and Boyle Heights.

Standing in front of a Miracle Mile strip mall, Cabral introduced Jinya Ramen Bar (5168 Wilshire Boulevard). Ramen, he said, is finally getting the respect it deserves in L.A. “It’s only a matter of time until it’s as synonymous with Japanese food as sushi,” he said. Cabral added that tour participants would be enjoying ramen alongside iced green matcha tea. He said that the cool tea is refreshing when paired with the hot, rich soup, and likened it to drinking a Mexican Coke with tacos or beer with a burger.

As everyone slurped up bowls of tonkotsu black ramen, Jinya employee Tracy Nguyen explained that the name comes from the black garlic oil that is added to the rich pork broth, along with thin noodles, pork chashu (which is similar to pork belly), and a soft-boiled egg. A number of tour participants called the egg a highlight of the day’s eats.

Then it was back on the bus, heading east for a mid-afternoon treat: milk-flavor ice cream at Honeymee (3377 Wilshire Boulevard)—a soft serve stand that wouldn’t look out of place at the beach but is located in a mall in the heart of Koreatown.

As he struggled to figure out how to eat a waffle cone filled with ice cream and topped with honeycomb, Tim Lawson said that in his 25 years in Los Angeles, he had been on the bus about five times—but was enjoying the rides as well as the food. “I don’t really eat pork, and I don’t really eat ice cream,” he said, “but I’m making an exception today.”

Other tour participants enjoyed ice cream sandwiches on sweet buns and ice cream topped with honey or chocolate sauce and sea salt. As the sun came out, they agreed that it was a refreshing (if decadent) stop.

Tour participants Anne Croucier and Nadine Bailly were impressed by the quality and quantity of the food, as well as their experiences on the bus, which they don’t ride frequently in Los Angeles. They said that they’d met a man on the bus who, hearing they were on a food tour, gave them a list of his recommended downtown restaurants. “He was so cool!” said Croucier.

The group hopped back on the 720 and headed east to MacArthur Park, passing by street vendors selling corn, mango, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, and more. But their destination was Mama’s Hot Tamales (2124 West 7th Street), where pupusas were flying off a griddle outside and platters with assorted tamales and pineapple, tamarind, and jamaica aguas frescas were waiting for them inside the colorful cafe.

Cabral called Mama’s “kind of an institution in its own right.” In the 1990s, he explained, street vending briefly became legal in Los Angeles—but only within MacArthur Park. It didn’t last, but the vendors stayed on, and Mama’s helps them out by renting out its kitchen to vendors and others by the hour.

Mama’s employee Norma Lopez told the group that her family made Salvadoran candy in Mama’s kitchen and became “kind of like her students.” Now, they run the cafe. It’s “a prime example of how this place helps out the community,” she said.

Cabral then offered up what he said might be the most important nugget for everyone to take away from the afternoon regarding tamales: If you’re eating just one, the proper form is to call it a “tamal” rather than a “tamale.”

But that wasn’t the only thing participants had learned.

“I really liked going to places I might not know about,” said tour participant Julia Archer as she finished up her tamales. “I don’t usually ride the bus, so I don’t have that view of the city. This was a great way to experience it.” She said that the tour allowed her to see “how connected the city actually is by bus lines—how quickly you can get from one point to the other and see so many different communities within a single bus line.”

Lawrence Li, who had brought his parents along for the tour, concurred. “Sometimes we whiz by all these neighborhoods that have these rich places,” he said. “It’s nice to be shown what’s inside, and it’s great to step off the bus and enjoy the neighborhoods for what they’re able to offer.”

The post Is the 720 L.A.’s Most Delicious Bus Line? appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Automobile Magazine editor-in-chief Mike Floyd, the evening’s moderator, offered a preview of what was to come by explaining how each panelist had gotten to the downtown L.A. venue: One person walked, one took the bus, one mapped out the side streets, and another drove—and got caught in traffic.

That alone proves that cars and car culture are not dead. But the landscape is shifting. “It’s harder to notice it happening in L.A.,” said Drexel University Center for Mobilities Research and Policy director Mimi Sheller. But a national and global transition is taking place. Fewer young people are driving cars and getting licenses. Since 2004—well before the recession—the total vehicle miles traveled has dropped. Congestion, pollution, and other changes “are going to lead to new legal and regulatory frameworks that will put pressure on car culture as we know it,” said Sheller.

DUB Magazine founder Myles Kovacs said that he thinks millennials are car-averse not because of the environment but because of financial issues—they’ve seen their parents struggling with car payments and gas—and because of shifts in technology and culture. They don’t need cars to drive to friends’ houses when they can talk online instead. They don’t want to be like their parents. And they’re less independent than previous generations.

But there still is enthusiasm for cars out there. Petersen Automotive Museum executive director Terry Karges said that the Forza Motorsport driving game has 43 million Xbox subscribers and 200,000 to 300,000 players at any given time of day. And people around Los Angeles continue to get together around the cars they own and love, whether they’re Porsches or Ferraris or British cars. You also still have people buying basic, functional cars, he said. But “a Camry isn’t necessarily something you would join a club to adore,” he said.

Most people I know who aren’t car people just want to get back and forth to work with the least amount of fuss possible, said Floyd. Is that attitude going to take over?

Sheller said that as digital companies—such as Google and Apple—move into transportation, “it’s no longer about selling cars, it’s about selling mobility services.” She said that it’s possible to imagine a future where vehicle time is sold like minutes on a cell phone plan—and those minutes are combined with transportation options that include walking, biking, and public transit.

Architect Deborah Murphy, founder of Los Angeles Walks, said that shared cars mean fewer parking spaces and fewer surface parking lots. She added that technology is changing not just cars but how people exercise these options. An app can tell you how long a trip will take by foot or on the bus, how much it will cost on Lyft, and how many calories you’ll burn by bike.

But technology won’t change everything. A particular car matches a particular lifestyle, said Kovacs. It’s about belonging to a group of like-minded people with the same car and the same dream.

Regardless, said Murphy, “everybody’s a pedestrian”—even if you’re just walking from your car to your office. And Los Angeles, she said, is in the midst of a huge investment in infrastructure thanks to Measure R, a sales tax that funds highways, rail lines, and the bus system.

However, cars still have a certain appeal. Kovacs said he got into cars “for the ladies,” and that car culture will exist “until people stop paying attention” to the colors and customization.

“My joy and my freedom is getting in my car and taking a drive,” added Karges. “My best moments are on the 101 or Highway 1 going up the coast.”

However, said Murphy, getting out of a car allows for more human connections. People can talk while walking or riding bicycles. They can meet people. You don’t get that in a car.

In the audience question-and-answer session, the panelists were asked to look ahead. How do we weigh what we need today against what we should build for the future?

Sheller said that we are currently locked into an infrastructure that was built under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. But the question isn’t just whether we want to rebuild roads and bridges; it’s whether we want to invest more creatively, and about how technology will disrupt existing systems. Future roads may require not just paving but installing sensors, for instance.

How quickly is the autonomous car coming?

“I don’t think we have any idea of what cars are going to be in 20 years or even 10 years, the way things are working right now,” said Karges.

Floyd added that the obstacles to autonomous cars include both the millions of cars currently on the road and liability issues that Kovacs had mentioned earlier in the evening.

What is the current state of car culture in Southern California?

Kovacs said that while the popularity of organized car shows is waning, people are coming together informally for cruises, meets, and “car and coffee” experiences. Cars remain a social experience—but that experience is changing.

The post The Car Is Not Dead appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.