Los Angeles, like many American cities .. evolved around the automobile. This has lead to sprawling suburbs, congested freeways, polluted air and reliance on foreign oil. Political conservatives fear that mass transit would threaten this ‘cherished way of life’ and they’re accusing advocates of pushing a ‘socialist’ agenda. These fears were clearly evident in a recent article by the Los Angeles Times:
“Political conservatives are deeply opposed to the California high-speed rail project. They see something sinister about it: an agenda to push people into European or Asian models of cities where apartments are clustered around rail lines and people rely on state-run transportation. In their view, the rationale of the rail system rests on flawed assumptions that would undermine California's identity, which during the last half-century has revolved around single-family homes that have driven economic growth, family-oriented lifestyles and signature West Coast recreation” [ link ].
I live on the West Coast. This is a highly skewed portrayal of our ‘identity’. I don’t know anyone here who feels that commuting contributes anything to ‘family-oriented lifestyles’ and recreation. On most days you can’t even park near the beaches of LA.
4 comments:
Much better to get up well before dawn and buck the traffic on our way to work
I'd prefer a train that would take me to work, not to San Francisco
For whom will a bullet train traversing California be built?
then they'd also have to oppose the national railway system, urban rail, bus and subway systems, interstate highways and airports as negative social engineering experiments.
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