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Originally Posted by edluva
^citywatch, you are incomprehensiby dense on so many levels, it astonishes me how difficult it is for you to understand (or how easily it is for you to misunderstand) what i'm trying to convey when so many other people have no problem. It's not even a result of you disagreeing with me, it's a matter of your comprehension abilities.
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What you're trying to convey is mostly pseudo intellectual gibberish, a case of someone talking out of both sides of his mouth. Someone more in touch with fantasy-----an LA blessed with fantastic rail transit!! an LA blessed with fantastic, supremely influential zoning codes!!!-----than non idyllic reality.
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1. noone is ruling out cars. we're saying cars are limiting, both in terms of traffic, in infrastructre, and in pollution, if everyone has no choice but to drive. Everybody who drives takes up roughly what, 6 x 14 feet of space on the street, meaning more traffic for fewer people - since virtually everybody drives here, everybody takes up 6 x 14 feet of street-space making congestion disproportionately bad for the population here. And to make things worse, when they get to their destination, that car does not disappear - it needs room for storage.
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Cars are limiting? No fooling, Sherlock holmes!
That's similar to the revelation that:
Ppl who love shopping but who don't have a lot of money (& never had) by the time they're 65 years old is limiting. Duh!
Ppl who want to get into Harvard or Yale but who are always flunking on the SAT is limiting. Wow!
Ppl who want to be a super model but who are fugly & obese is limiting. Jeezz!
Ppl who want to play for the NBA but who are 5'4" is limiting. OMG!
And don't tell me the solution is something like: Old ppl who love to buy things but are on a fixed income need to win the Lottery----or rob the nearest liquor store.
Tell me instead they're gonna have to learn to be realistic about their life (& budget) & therefore can't go out & spend $$ on everything in sight.
Tell me instead that the ppl who don't have the aptitude to do well on the SAT had better consider the option of enrolling in a trade-technical school. Tell me that the ppl who are fugly & obese, after going on a strict diet, need to consider working behind the scenes of the fashion industry. Tell me that the ppl who are 5'4", if they insist on being a professional athlete, have to fine tune their skills in golf.
You've said that LA is never gonna be a city like NYC, a town built around rail lines for generations. OK, so don't get fixated on (& unhappy about) the reality that ppl in LA love their cars & ppl in NYC love their subways, & that the issue of transit----along with zoning laws----is the only reality that counts.
Applying yammering intellectualism to this matter ends up an exercise in futility, not much better than saying nothing.
There's a relative of mine who's into environmentalism, fighting global warming & an idealized vision of LA with modern transit. She's the one who resisted my suggestion over a yr ago that we try to carpool more frequently. Moreover, she's since chosen to move even farther away from where she works, forcing her to spend more time & a greater distance commuting. She's also since mentioned that she's considered buying a gas hog SUV to replace her current smaller car.
In the past she's grumbled about LA's dependence on fwys & many ppl's apathy towards using transit.
On two occasions I've suggested she meet me in Hollywood or Pasadena by using the red line or gold line. On one of those 2 instances she was in DT visiting a friend, on the other she was in DT delivering papers to a law firm (or brokerage---forget exactly what it was). In both cases she said she was pressed for time, had too much cash (or credit cards) in her purse to feel safe, & said that driving off in her car immediately after getting together with me was something she was accustomed to.
It would be the height of gall for someone like her (& you too, edluva?) to be sarcastic about those ppl who stress the importance of ideas (& policies, projs & programs) that are realistic & reasonable.
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So your theory that LA is a "renegade", "doing things differently" is juvenile and idiotic on the above merits, because the difference between your theory and mine is mine is based on logic. Yours is emotional bullshit.
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You're putting words in my mouth. I never said LA is a renegade. But, yep, I will admit that it has done things differently----and I say that with a vague sense of neither approval nor disapproval. But isn't that actually a good thing? After all, haven't you felt sarcastic about ppl using concepts like "Times Square" & applying them to new devlpt in DTLA, or a city like LA?
BTW, did I mention that DTLA started falling apart a looong time ago, way before the Red cars were totally dismantled, way before all our fwys were built, way before they had become very congested?
Oh, so there are OTHER things----beyond transit & zoning!!----that haven't helped LA?! To believe otherwise is emotional bullshit.
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2. The only reason we need to give consideration to automobiles is because we're stuck with this reality - there's no alternative as of yet.
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And the alternative you're dreaming about may arrive around the time you've long since stopped posting here regularly, or have lost interest in this forum. Who knows what the internet will be like at that date in the future? Will SSP still even exist?
Maybe by then you will have moved to another city. Maybe by then you'll be in a nursing home, too groggy to be sitting in front of a computer.
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Then all our prosperity (all our pretty shiny things) doesn't flow to suburbs where garages are not required. In this way, the city can compete with suburbs for "pretty shiny things", and we need not worry idiotically about telephone wires. The source of the ugliness is solved - money (ie "pretty shiny things) flows in, not out.
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Again, that alternative ain't gonna happen anytime soon. So what do we do in the meantime? Complain that Beverly Hills looks like a glitzier version of Mission viejo? Complain about LA Live? Complain about current zoning laws & assume they have more power than NIMBYism & NIMBYites?
Oh, & allow me to repeat: DTLA started falling apart a looong time ago, way before the Red cars were totally dismantled, way before all our fwys were built, way before they had become very congested.
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And you do realize that WDCH did not go up for a decade because its parking garage sapped all the initial funding, don't you? Or did you somehow miss that point?
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Wow, you're so well informed! So much so you don't even know that Disney's parking garage was funded to provide space for ppl visiting
not just the concert hall but nearby govt bldgs too, the courts in particular.
The monies for the underground garage came from local govt sources & would not have been used if only those attending events at the concert hall had access to it. Even if not one cent had been spent on all those parking spaces, actual construction of Disney Hall still would have been delayed cuz fundraising for it had stalled, or wasn't aggressive enough in the mid 1990s. And it faced the same challenge that's delayed groundbreaking on the new federal court bldg 3 blocks to the east: the original estimated price of construction had been way too optimistic.
And this is directed at ppl in general who gripe about projs like LA Live. If they feel that way, fine. Many projs rarely are perfect, many have a variety of flubs. And to each his own.
However, what annoys me is when these same ppl say absolutely nothing about, for instance, the grotty old bldgs directly across Olympic Blvd, north of LA Live, or on the other side of the fwy. I guess in their world, the lame aspects of new devlpts like LA Live deserve all the attention while the ton of old crapitude that's still quite visible throughout south pk & DT overall----gaps & deadzones included-----deserves a free pass, or should be complained about only by others (me, for example).
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