Skytrain, even LA wants one
It might be a little late but we (Vancouver) got name checked on Blogging LA [bla] back before Christmas. Basically the post’s author Jillian was comparing LA’s public transportation system with ours and Seattle’s. Now we all know that Seattle can’t even run six feet of monorail track without crashing the cars into each other, but what about LA?
Well it seems that Ray Bradbury has chimed in to their debate:
“Ray Bradbury even said, L.A. needs a monorail, not a subway. The other three biggest cities on the West Coast - Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco - all have monorails or above ground trains as their rapid transit (SkyTrain, the Seattle Monorail, BART). These may go underground when necessary, but the majority of the tracks are above ground - far cheaper to build. And far nicer to look at - the Gold Line scenery is absolutely gorgeous. As Bradbury said, we’re used to traveling above ground, in the sunshine.”
Random? Oh yes. But next time you’re thinking about how annoying the construction around the new Skytrain line is, just think we could be LA.
Or even Seattle.
That is just completely nasty. Just kind of wondering how the person wearing them could have lost them and y’know, not realized it when it happened.
Well, as a former Vancouverite, I got awfully used to living in a place where, although I had a car, I never REALLY needed it. Getting across Vancouver without a car was always relatively efficient, if crowded - getting across L.A. takes forever and a day, and having the buses that go beyond the limited subway routes confined to high-traffic roads totally doesn’t help.
I also used to live in Seattle, but haven’t ridden the monorail since it was confined to the Westlake Center/Seattle Center route. However, Seattle should be taking a cue from Vancouver and rolling out SeaBuses - which would do more to ease traffic than anything else I can think of. L.A. is just poor urban planning that descended from real estate barons creating sprawl via electric streetcar lines. Seattle, at least, has real geographic constraints responsible for its traffic that a few catamarans would greatly help.
But most of the construction delay on the Canada line is caused by its underground sections, which are about half its length… Also, it’s nice to look *out* of the above-ground trains, but it sucks if you have an elevated track going down the middle of your street blocking your sun.