Would you rather ride on a 14-mile subway to the sea 30 years from now or on a 70-mile Regional High-Speed Monorail to everywhere in less than 8 years?
“Change!” is the new campaign promise offered by all candidates of both political parties. However, history reminds us that whoever gets elected will eventually break his or her campaign promises. There will be just more of the same old, same old. Unfortunately for Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is perhaps the only politician who has ever kept a campaign promise, albeit a very skeptical and expensive one.
Stop Gambling With Taxpayer Money
When then City Councilman Villaraigosa campaigned for Mayor three years ago, he made a promise to end our decades-old gridlock with a plan to build a 14-mile subway under Wilshire Boulevard for $5 billion.
The fact that it would take another 25 to 30 years to complete didn't seem to matter. Nor did the fact that there would ever be enough taxpayer money to gamble on this snake- eyes roll of the dice. In fact, none of these faulty promises for a subway has stopped the Mayor, City Council members and the MTA from raising the ante to $7 billion and delaying the completion to nearly a third-of-a-century away on this far-fetched gamble.
Even more troubling is that building a “subway to the sea” promises to make a very big change in our lifestyle because the construction for this boondoggle guarantees that the next three decades of commuting will make today's bumper-to-bumper gridlock on Wilshire seem like a free-flowing expressway.
Elevate Mass Transit, Not Taxes
The only way to end decades-old gridlock is to start thinking anew because gridlock did not begin on our streets. To the contrary, it began in the gridlocked minds of the backward-thinking politicians and bureaucrats. Consequently, if we think more subways, buses, light rail and carpool lanes are the answer to our problems, then we’ve certainly been asking the wrong questions.
Moreover, raising higher taxes and imposing newer fees to fund more of the same old concepts that got us into this mess will only impact gridlock and make matters far worse.
The only thing that needs to be raised is a new level of thinking with an ultra-modern, 70-mile Regional High-Speed Monorail System built above our streets and freeways.
Besides the obvious advantages: Private-public funding for one-fifth the price and it would be completed in one-fourth the time of a 14-mile subway under Wilshire.
This new commuter transportation system would connect West Los Angeles with the San Fernando Valley, LAX Airport, the South Bay area, Downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena. We also need to start planning to connect with Orange County, the Inland Empire and Ventura County.
Disneyland’s Tomorrowland is Today
In late February, Disneyland will launch its new Mark VII Monorail, which is a dynamic and forward-thinking system that offers an inspiring solution for today’s commuter transportation.
And for those who say that the Monorail is an “amusement ride,” we agree.
Yes, our commute back and forth to work should be as fun, amusing and pleasant as possible instead of the boring, depressing and miserable experience that lumbering buses, antiquated trolleys cars and depressing subways offer, which are in stark contrast to L.A.’s progressive and free-spirited lifestyle.
Since its introduction in 1959, more than 175 million passengers have safely ridden on Disneyland’s world-famous Monorail with their sleek-moving coaches gliding effortlessly above the crowded world below.
As to why we do not already have a Regional Network of High-Speed Monorails moving rapidly and efficiently across L.A’s vast landscape of communities remains the greatest of mysteries.
The Choice Is Ours
In the simplest of terms, Los Angeles is a paradoxical phenomenon. Headed in one direction we have the grand visionaries and challenging ambition of private enterprise, forging ahead into the 21st century. In the other direction we have the regressive bureaucrats with their outdated mass-transit plans of the 19th and 20th centuries that continue to stagnate street traffic and further restrict our freedom of mobility, not to mention burying our economy in the process.
It’s time to start thinking newer, smarter, bigger and being more productive than ever before.
We, the citizenry, can no longer entrust small-thinking bureaucrats to resolve our major traffic problems with regressive ideas. Instead, we must demand that our current politicians set a progressive goal to make L.A. No. 1 in traffic efficiency — or we’ll do it ourselves.
Simply put, Los Angeles either will begin going forward into the future as “the creative capital of the world” or continue going backward into the 20th century as the “gridlock capital of the world.” The choice is ours.
Investing in Our Future
In his Southern California Government speech last year, former Secretary of U.S. Transportation, Norman Mineta encouragingly declared: “I see pairing private investment with public infrastructure as one of the keys to building a 21st century transportation system. There is no question that California would benefit tremendously from enacting the necessary legal reforms to facilitate public-private partnerships. Every private-sector investment group that we talk to says that California — and Southern California in particular — is the most attractive investment opportunity in America, if not the world.”
That is encouraging. A far-reaching High-Speed Regional Monorail could easily be the motivation and incentive for the private sector to invest in L.A’s transportation infrastructure and our boundless future? One thing is for certain. There is no public money available for a subway whose costs have skyrocketed upward by more than 40% in just two years, and they haven't even dug the first shovel of this methane-laced underground tunnel.
It’s worth noting that for the $2 billion that the subway price has already escalated, an 18-mile Wilshire Monorail from downtown to Santa Monica could’ve been built for that same amount and still had $200,000 left over.
Cartoonists or Engineers?
David Honda, president of Honda Construction, Inc., an international company, spends a great deal of his time in Japan on business. He recently said that when he’s there, “I can travel around very effectively with their monorail, bullet train and subway system. However, when I’m in Southern California, I waste endless productive hours sitting in gridlock because our mass transit system is simply inefficient. Unfortunately, there’s just no viable alternative to the personal car."
David also wisely noted that “Walt Disney, a cartoonist, created the first elevated monorail in the U.S. nearly a half-century ago. Yet today our engineers have failed to find a better solution or even implement Mr. Disney’s innovative concept. It’s curious as to how the Disney style monorail has been implemented all around the world, yet only a few miles from its inception, it is ignored. Something is wrong with this picture.”
David is right. We obviously need to change the picture. For starters, maybe we need to fire all the government engineers and hire cartoonists to draw a new vision if we are serious about changing L.A.’s massive gridlock problems. Today’s picture illustrates that the only thing our government has done in decades is build the same old Mickey Mouse transit relics while other nations around the world are progressively implementing Walt Disney’s forward-thinking vision of monorails.
Building an Upwardly Mobile Society
The development of a new Regional High-Speed Monorail will provide an environmentally friendly transit system that can move Southern Californians more quickly and efficiently than ever imagined. This modernistic multi-functional transit system will glide swiftly, silently and effortlessly above L.A’s major streets and freeways while motorists in the traffic below will experience fluid and free-flowing driving conditions.
Not only will a Regional Monorail System reduce traffic congestion but it will also offer a more dependable and proficient public transportation system for now and future generations.
Unlike any other public-private transportation system in the world, a regional monorail will offer exceptional flexibility and mastery in mobilizing both our citizenry and our civic services into a safe and promising future.
Remember, the choice is ours, not the politicians’.
We hired them to solve our problems, not to gamble foolishly with our future and the future of generations to come.
It’s Time to Make Real Change
The word “change” means “to make or become different; to transform.” That is precisely what we need; a different mass transit system that will transform gridlock into freedom of mobility.
Either it is time for our politicians to make a big change or it is time for we, the citizenry, to make a big change in our politicians.
This is an election year. We need to change directions and try something new, efficient and inspiring that will end this oppressive gridlock. Abraham Lincoln offered some challenging advice for our dilemma nearly a century-and-half ago: “I say try. If we never try, we shall never succeed.
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.” — Michelangelo
Mr. Rosebrock is the founder and director of the Wilshire Monorail Project.
