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Bus themed solutions would definitely be an improvement over LA's status quo. However a better idea would be to reduce the need to travel long distances by bui
by avn2109 10y ago
Bus themed solutions would definitely be an improvement over LA's status quo.
However a better idea would be to reduce the need to travel long distances by building denser. LA roads are super wide right now, so the easiest way to raise density would be by putting buildings in the middle of the road, leaving a Really Narrow Street (tm) along either side. Ground floors of new buildings could be commercial, upper floors residential. (Some LA roads are so wide we could put 2 or more blocks of Really Narrow Streets in the space consumed by a single car-oriented surface street).
This would reduce housing prices by bringing a crazy amount of inventory online, and would greatly lower maintenance expenses by severely curtailing the number of square feet of publicly-funded roads, traffic lights, signage etc. If we structured this correctly, the city could make a giant pile of money in both land sales and new real estate taxes. Maybe they could then use the surplus money to build a real train system or just reduce taxes. Lastly, there would obviously also be large environmental benefits such as smog reduction, CO2 emission reductions etc.
Yes, I realize this will never happen, and yes, I realize I'm proposing turning LA into old Paris. Old Paris is great, we should copy it more.
I stole these ideas from [0].
[0] http://newworldeconomics.com/the-eco-metropolis/ http://newworldeconomics.com/the-eco-metropolis/
- mabramo 10y agoHere's hoping that NY, LA, and other major US cities adopt "Old Parisian" urban planning methods. Wishful thinking.
- freedrock87 10y agoBecause housing is so cheap in Paris.
- jaredklewis 10y agoMy impression is that yes, housing in Paris is cheaper than in LA. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=France&city1=Paris&country2=United+States&city2=Los+Angeles%2C+CA https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoThose numbers are really outdated for LA.
- noir_lord 10y agoIt doesn't have to be perfect to be better. Paris has a set of issues like any major city but when it comes to managing urban density it does it broadly better than LA, for that matter so does New York.
- OrwellianChild 10y agoBus Rapid Transit expansion is a near-term fix that can happen in a year or two. Rezones and construction to densify a city take longer. I don't think these two solutions are incompatible - they address the problem at different time scales.
- trome 10y agoZoning is inherently racist, designed to keep the poor and working class out of areas of the city. It stunts economic growth to boot, and should be done away with entirely. That being said, the roadways are public property, and should be redesigned to be on a road diet, but building structures in the middle is perhaps not the best idea. Parkifying some sections, expanding others into plazas (while infilling parking to densify) and selling the edges of the roadway to new development so it may be denser would be better approaches.
- OrwellianChild 10y agoNot sure where you're going with the "zoning is racist" comment - I'm not talking about redlining here. In places like Seattle, much of the city is still zoned single-family, which is exclusionary to the poor and working class. The rezones happening in our city boost the building density permitted in most of the city while requiring that some of that extra capacity be dedicated to low-income units. It's net positive for those in need of affordable housing and lets developers build bigger, which hardly hurts the economy.
- trome 10y agoDedicating units to low income housing means you've failed to build enough units despite demand, and zoning is likely at fault. Whether it be height caps or parking minimums jacking up the price, they need to go.
- OrwellianChild 10y agoAgreed that lack of units is at fault. This kind of mandatory affordable housing is an attempt to mitigate displacement within neighborhoods dealing with gentrification. In my case, this is Seattle, which has no parking minimums, but has suffered from too many single-family zones and not enough dense zoning. The rezones are an attempt to correct these issues.
- fian 10y agoBy old Paris, I assume you mean the area inside the Peripherique? Apart from Montparnasse Tower the building heights inside the Peripherique are limited to seven floors. This has the same effect as San Fran on restricting the density of the inner city, which means most people can't afford to live there and put up with....long commutes. I spent three months working in Paris and many of the younger people lived further out and had a 45min - 1hr commute by public transport or driving. The link you posted talks about narrow streets, this is true in some areas of the city, but Paris also has many wide boulevards. The traffic during peak hour was pretty bad - the French driving on the footpath meme has some truth to it. Also old Paris can be like it is because the CBD is located just outside the Peripherique at La Defense.