ilivestrong84

Love, love, love your enthusiasm for fixing LA. I am an architect who studied a lot of planning when in school, and it seems as though where there is density, the better the mass transit. LA has a density of 8,000 people per square mile and the metro only has 2,645, which is less than phoenix 2,745, and denver 4,044. So it seems as though fixing the metro of LA is the problem and is going to require billions and billions of dollars. A typical light rail will run 50 milion per mile and a BRT will run up to about 20 million per mile. Have you put a cost estimate on what a full buildout of the metro would cost for a BRT or lightrail? Why has it taken so long for LA to get their ass in gear to get this fixed? this shouldve planned for 40 years ago and had dedicated ROW's available...

I love the quote from the LA planner who stated "It doesn't matter how many lanes i put on a highway, in a matter of months we'll be right back to where we started" It seems as though gridlock is impossible to fix until people move to mass transit or some other means. I think the only realistic possiblity to getting this issue fixed is for the google car to actually be implemented in the next twenty years. How do you feel about it? I think it's the only way for us to fix cities like LA realistically...

How much do you think poor city zoning and codes has been a cause of LA's gridlock. Donald Shoupe of UCLA, the parking guru, ssems to think that most of our gridlock problems has been linked to problems with free parking or cheap parking. Are you working with the cities in the metro to increase parking prices and therefore force people to make better decisions about how to get work? i.e. bus/lightrail/biking... etc.