Monthly Archives: May 2014

Let Them Eat Cake

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Last week the Board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to raise fares. The cost of a monthly pass will go up from $75 to one $100, a thirty percent increase. The cost of a day pass will from $5 to $7, a forty percent increase. This is an outrageous example of a clueless elite making decisions with no regard for the needs of the population they’re serving. Citing the MTA’s own data, the LA Times reports that over 90 percent of riders are low income, and 80 percent make an average of less than $20,000 a year.

Supervisor Gloria Molina

Supervisor Gloria Molina

The Board projects a $36,000,000 deficit next year. They say that if they don’t raise fares they’ll be forced to lay off 1,000 workers or cut 1,000,000 hours of service. I don’t buy it. These are scare tactics. Gloria Molina, the one member to vote against the fare hike, offered a motion to investigate ways to cut the budget in order to stave off the increase. She couldn’t even get someone to second the motion. For more info on the meeting and the rate hike, you can access the MTA’s newsletter by clicking here.

It’s true that other cities have higher fares, because other cities have a more economically diverse ridership. In New York and San Francisco, a large number of well-paid professionals use mass transit for their daily commute. Not so in LA. The people who use public transit here are mostly on the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Charging them $300 more a year to ride the busses and trains in many cases literally means taking food out of their mouths.

For me personally, shelling out $25 more a month is not a huge sacrifice. I prefer to take public transit, and I don’t mind paying a little more. And up until now, I was pleased to see the MTA aggressively expanding the transit network. But now that I see the price tag, my feeling is that they’ve been grossly irresponsible. They embarked on these ambitious plans knowing full well that it would put the MTA in the red, and knowing full well they were going to use that as leverage to raise rates. They’ve obviously forgotten who they’re serving.

Eight of the Board’s thirteen members are either serving on the LA City Council or the LA County Board of Supervisors. All of these people make around $180,000 a year. In addition, most of them use cars and drivers that are paid for by taxpayers. Why is it that decisions about MTA fares are made by people who only take the subway when they’re touting some new program or taking part in a ceremony? None of them rides the bus to work. Obviously Molina is the only one who has any concept of who it is she was elected to serve. She’s the only one who seems to care that for a family living below the poverty line, carving $25 a month out of your budget is a real sacrifice. This is going to hurt a lot of families, and the pampered elitists sitting on the MTA Board don’t care.

Mayor Eric Garcetti

Mayor Eric Garcetti

And speaking of pampered elitists, let’s talk about Eric Garcetti. It should be obvious by now that Garcetti doesn’t give a damn about anyone who hasn’t made a campaign contribution. He has a bold vision for an exciting new LA, full of skyscrapers and wine bars, boutique hotels and high-end clubs. And he’ll bend over backwards to keep his wealthy developer buddies happy, handing out tax breaks and giving them great deals on city-owned land. But he can’t even support affordable fares for the vast majority of MTA riders who really need them.

How did this guy get elected?

Braking Is Better Than Crashing

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design by Renzo Piano for the proposed Academy museum

design by Renzo Piano for the proposed Academy museum

I’ve been reading the news about Zoltan Pali’s departure from the AMPAS museum team. There are a lot of ways to look at this. And it’s important to remember that expensive, high-profile projects like this often take longer and cost more than anyone imagined. I think everyone agrees that the ultimate goal, building a museum dedicated to film history in Los Angeles, is definitely worthwhile. I’m anxious to see it completed, but I also want to them to do it right. I certainly don’t have any credentials that would give me special insight into this process, but I do have a few thoughts to offer….

Renzo Piano is a great architect. With buildings for the Centre Pompidou, the Menil Collection and the Zentrum Paul Klee on his resume, everybody seems to agree that he’s a good choice for the project. But even great architects are human, and therefore fallible. I read this morning that some Academy staff members are concerned about unresolved problems with the design of the new theatre. Movie theatres are technically complex structures that present a very specific set of challenges. No doubt Piano is aware of this, but is he going to bow to the experts who actually have experience in this area?

I used to work at MOCA on Grand Ave.. Isozaki is another great architect, and the building is a beautiful and complex creation. But I was friends with one of the preparators at MOCA, and he was very critical of the design. Sure, he would say, it’s a gorgeous building, but it wasn’t properly planned as an exhibition space. He cited a number of problems with the design that made his job difficult. According to my friend, Isozaki didn’t take enough time to understand the specific challenges of creating an exhibition space. Piano needs to listen to the experts in designing the theatre. Whatever his vision as an architect, it has to function as a place for audiences to see and hear movies.

May Company store on Wilshire, photo by Anne Laskey from LAPL archives

May Company store on Wilshire, photo by Anne Laskey from LAPL archives

Some images of Piano’s design were first made public last year, and then views of an updated version were released just recently. Both versions have been criticized. I don’t have a background in architecture, and honestly, it’s hard for me to evaluate renderings. My impression is that Piano has some great ideas, but I can’t say it totally works for me. I wonder though, if rather than finding fault with Piano’s new building, we shouldn’t look harder at the building that exists on the site already. Many people praise the May Co. building, designed back in the thirties by A. C. Martin. I don’t share their enthusiasm. I love the building because it is an iconic part of the LA landscape. It occupies the corner at Wilshire and Fairfax with a lot of authority, and the gold cylinder rising above the intersection gives it a great presence. But in terms of design, I don’t think it’s very impressive. It’s a big, bland box. Piano is obviously trying for a dramatic contrast with this new addition. Unfortunately, I think starting the project with the May Co. building is like starting the project with an anchor around your neck. I’m glad the Academy wants to use it, because it’s been sitting vacant for years, but Piano faces a real challenge coming up with a design that incorporates it successfully.

The Times ran a piece yesterday by their architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne. He argues that the Academy needs to slow down and make sure this project is done right. I couldn’t agree more. Their public position is that everything’s going great and there’s no reason to reassess the timeline. Nobody’s buying it. Whatever the reason for Pali’s departure, it obviously signals a change of direction.

Rather than pretending everything’s hunky dory and pushing ahead, they need to pause and take stock of the situation. Why rush to break ground this year if the design isn’t right? I’m so glad the Academy is building this museum, but I also really want it to be something special.

A few links for those of you who want to read further. First is Hawthorne’s piece for the Times. Next a post that ran on Arch Daily back when Piano’s original design was made public in April of last year. And finally an article from the Hollywood Reporter that includes quotes from anonymous sources within the Academy. If these quotes give an accurate picture of what’s going on, there is good reason to be concerned about the viability of the project.

LA Times Commentary

Motion Picture Academy Unveils Designs

Academy Museum Architect Exits Amid Tension

San Fernando Road

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SF A1 Desolate

Even if you’ve lived in a city your whole life, you probably only know a small part of it. We tend to stay in our own little worlds. There are the neighborhoods we know, the hangouts where we feel comfortable, the landmarks that are familiar. In our mind that becomes the map of the city. Everything else becomes irrelevant or invisible.

For a long time San Fernando Road was invisible to me. It’s one of the oldest streets in LA, and I’ve been travelling along it since I was a kid, but I never paid any attention to the landscape that was sliding by. It was just a route I’d take to get from one place to another.

Last year I was riding down San Fernando on the bus and I looked out the window. I can’t say I saw anything remarkable, but I started to notice things I’d never paid attention to before. I saw the railroad tracks and the industrial parks. The markets and the restaurants. The trees and the billboards. It’s not a pretty stretch of road, and there’s not much that would attract people from other places, but there’s a lot going on. There are manufacturing and recycling centers, there are auto repair shops and wholesale outlets, and there are trucks and trains that run up and down the road all day long. In other words, there are a lot of things that are made here or processed here or transported through here that touch our lives every day.

San Fernando Road has been called different things over the years. The state and local governments have defined it in different ways. Even now it’s called The Old Road up north in Santa Clarita. In Burbank it’s called San Fernando Boulevard, and it’s interrupted briefly by a mall. When it crosses the LA border again it turns back into San Fernando Road, and it runs all the way into Downtown.

For now I’m just going to focus on the stretch between Hollywood Way and Tuxford. As San Fernando Road leaves Burbank behind, you have the hills on one side….

SF A2 Banners Hills

And Burbank Airport on the other.

SF A3 Airport (2)

The road is lined mostly with one-story buildings.

SF A4 Coop

Here and there the monotony is broken by a few trees or a billboard.

SF A5 Beer

There are all kinds of businesses, many of them dealing with recycling things in one way or another.

a recycling center

a recycling center

La Raza Foods

La Raza Foods

a used car lot

a used car lot

Lite-Weight Tool Mfg.

Lite-Weight Tool Mfg.

The Relic

The Relic

a neighborhood market

a neighborhood market

Dapper Cadaver

Dapper Cadaver

Empire Showgirls

Empire Showgirls

There’s even a couple of places for those seeking a spiritual experience.

Ministerios Gracia Divina

Ministerios Gracia Divina

Burbank Islamic Center

Burbank Islamic Center

Security is obviously a concern.

bougainvillea and barbed wire

bougainvillea and barbed wire

a guard dog eyes me suspiciously

a guard dog eyes me suspiciously

Here’s a relic from the past.

SF C3 Lckd 2

This is one of the few visible reminders of the days when aerospace was a major industry in the area. Lockheed came to Burbank back in the twenties. During and after WWII it employed tens of thousands of workers. The aerospace industry was a major factor in driving the post-war growth of the San Fernando Valley.

This is the intersection of San Fernando and Sunland.

traffic at San Fernando and Sunland

traffic at San Fernando and Sunland

another shot of San Fernando and Sunland

another shot of San Fernando and Sunland

There are a lot of businesses that deal in stone, either polished or pulverized.

sheet rock

sheet rock

paving stone

paving stone

decorative stone

decorative stone

concrete, asphalt, sand and gravel

concrete, asphalt, sand and gravel

The railroad runs right down the middle of San Fernando Road.

tracks originally laid by Southern Pacific Railroad

tracks originally laid by Southern Pacific Railroad

And here’s the Metrolink, a commuter train that serves Southern California.

northbound Metrolink train

northbound Metrolink train

The entrance to the Golden State Freeway is on Tuxford just a short block from San Fernando. The next few shots were all taken along Tuxford.

SF E1 Fwy Ent

You can see all kinds of trucks going up and down Tuxford.

SF E2 Tux Trucks Fwy

And you can see the traffic on the freeway gets pretty bad at rush hour.

SF E3 Tux Jeep Fwy

I have no idea what this is about, but it seems to be tied to a place that buys junk cars.

SF E4 Big Wheel

Lots of the billboards in this area carry public service announcements.

SF E5 Communities

A shot of a guy waiting for the bus on San Fernando at Tuxford.

SF F1 Busstop Clouds

And this is what San Fernando Road looks like as the light starts to fade.

SF F2 Distance Twlght 2

Looking to the Future

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DSC02666

Not long ago the City of LA released two documents for public review. The Mobility Plan 2035 and The Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles are both intended to create a framework for the city’s future growth. There are many good things in both plans, and I certainly support efforts to improve public transit and develop a healthier environment. However….

I have to say I don’t trust our elected officials. If you take the documents at face value, they present a thrilling utopian vision for the city where everyone will have the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. But unfortunately, the Mayor and the City Council have shown over and over again that they’re willing to put the interests of their wealthy buddies ahead of the interests of the average citizen.

The thing that makes me suspicious is that both documents talk about land use, and both documents promote higher density. This is not bad in itself. LA is notorious for its sprawling communities and there are many areas where we could reap significant benefits by creating greater density. My concern is that the Mayor and the City Council want to change land use policy not to build a healthier city, but rather to let their developer friends build skyscrapers wherever they like. We’ve already seen our elected officials playing fast and loose with the facts with the Hollywood Community Plan Update. They argued that greater density was necessary because Hollywood’s population had increased, when in fact they knew that the community had lost thousands of residents in recent years. Fortunately the courts set them straight.

But I don’t want to go off on another rant. I do too much of that already. As I said, there are many good things about both plans, and I encourage you to take a look at them. We should all be thinking about what direction we want this city to take. LA seems to be riding a new wave of growth, and it’s important that we make informed, intelligent decisions about how that growth occurs. If we aren’t involved in the process, others will make those decisions for us, and they may not have our best interests at heart.

Here are links to both plans.

Mobility Plan 2035

Plan for a Healthy LA