Commuter gridlock in Los Angeles: we all schlepp through it, and moan about it. Joseph D. Smith, a graduate of Pepperdine's School of Public Policy, and a land development and public affairs consultant in L.A., makes a proposal to ease road traffic: use the ocean.
"Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Sydney all take advantage of their coastal location and operate ferries. Why not Southern California? [...] By establishing a network of Local Coastal Routes (LCR), the counties of Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara could be linked together, giving residents, workers and visitors an innovative alternative to congested freeway travel."
Smith's idea is to use Santa Monica as the main LCR hub, and to retrofit existing piers along the coast, from Dana Point to Santa Barbara. With the population of Los Angeles expected to increase 31% by 2025, "We must continue developing alternative transportation choices for our region, even if it results in sacrificing a bit of our serene, untouched coastline," Smith concludes.
Leaving aside the dubious cost/benefit ratio of such proposal, and the fact that only a fraction of the population lives or works on the coast, what of the devastating state of the oceans, and the appalling health of our local beaches [here]? Our coastline is not untouched: it is suffocating already.
There is plenty of talk about the need for smart growth in L.A. these days, so let's be smart, and not impose further degradation to an environment that plays such a crucial role in the well-being of our planet. Sure, smart growth is not about developing, and then figuring out (or not) how to move people around -- which is what happens in Southern California. It's about thinking smart about growth, and providing adequate, viable infrastructures as an integral part of it -- rather than as an afterthought. But not at any (environmental) cost.
[update 07/05/07: Smith is delivering his goofy idea again in the SMDP page 5]
"Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Sydney all take advantage of their coastal location and operate ferries. Why not Southern California? [...] By establishing a network of Local Coastal Routes (LCR), the counties of Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara could be linked together, giving residents, workers and visitors an innovative alternative to congested freeway travel."
Smith's idea is to use Santa Monica as the main LCR hub, and to retrofit existing piers along the coast, from Dana Point to Santa Barbara. With the population of Los Angeles expected to increase 31% by 2025, "We must continue developing alternative transportation choices for our region, even if it results in sacrificing a bit of our serene, untouched coastline," Smith concludes.
Leaving aside the dubious cost/benefit ratio of such proposal, and the fact that only a fraction of the population lives or works on the coast, what of the devastating state of the oceans, and the appalling health of our local beaches [here]? Our coastline is not untouched: it is suffocating already.
There is plenty of talk about the need for smart growth in L.A. these days, so let's be smart, and not impose further degradation to an environment that plays such a crucial role in the well-being of our planet. Sure, smart growth is not about developing, and then figuring out (or not) how to move people around -- which is what happens in Southern California. It's about thinking smart about growth, and providing adequate, viable infrastructures as an integral part of it -- rather than as an afterthought. But not at any (environmental) cost.
[update 07/05/07: Smith is delivering his goofy idea again in the SMDP page 5]
