Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Villaraigosa's Thoughts on LA's Transit System


For those who were not able to attend Mobility 21 you probably missed the keynote speech from Mayor Villaraigosa.

The Huffington Post is reporting about his thoughts.

You can read it and his thoughts on the transportation system in Los Angeles here.

My only beef with Villaraigosa's vision is that he too easily expresses his politics in his thoughts. High Speed Rail will def. be a big project for Southern California....wait...all of California in the next decade, but the Subway to the Sea? Calling Subway to the Sea one of the most important transportation projects in California...is a bit premature.

Off the top of my head I can think of several as equally important or more important infrastructure projects that should rank ahead of the Subway to the Sea. Increasing capacity for the Ports to increase international trade for example. Regional connectors and electric vehicle/hydrogen infrastructure.

Thoughts, ideas, opinions?

2 comments:

Spencer said...

I find myself shockingly in agreement with two points of his.

First, the completion of the subway to Santa Monica is a huge deal simply because in LA we tend not to complete projects but even mores so, this will provide a fast and constant means of transportation spanning from the westside to downtown.

Second, Los Angeles is always slowest to move so maybe it is best that we start working on the high speed rail first so we can finish on time :-p

Spencer said...

PS The regional connector is a must and should be moved up the list. It's just another of our incomplete works.