[sustran] Science Fiction

[Jonathan E. D. Richmond]

I love it that science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury is now in the business
of promoting monorails.

Here is his editorial from the Feb. 5 Los Angeles Times.

Transportation seems to attract more dreamers with no concept of reality
than any other area of public policy. Bradbury is obviously completely
unaware that his ideas should be kept for Disneyland or one of the
wonderful worlds of fantasy he creates in his fiction writing --Jonathan

L.A.'s future is up in the air
By Ray Bradbury, RAY BRADBURY is the author of "The Martian Chronicles,"
"Fahrenheit 451" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes," among other books.


SOMETIME IN THE next five years, traffic all across L.A. will freeze.

The freeways that were once a fast-moving way to get from one part of the
city to another will become part of a slow-moving glacier, edging down the
hills to nowhere.

In recent years we've all experienced the beginnings of this. A trip from
the Valley into Los Angeles that used to take half an hour  all of a
sudden it takes an hour or two or three. Our warning system tells us
something must be done before our freeways trap us in the outlying
districts, unable to get to our jobs.

In recent months there has been talk of yet another subway, one that would
run between downtown L.A. and Santa Monica. That would be a disaster.

A single transit line will not answer our problems; we must lay plans for
a series of transportation systems that would allow us to move freely,
once more, within our city.

The answer to all this is the monorail. Let me explain.

More than 40 years ago, in 1963, I attended a meeting of the L.A. County
Board of Supervisors at which the Alweg Monorail company outlined a plan
to construct one or more monorails crossing L.A. north, south, east and
west. The company said that if it were allowed to build the system, it
would give the monorails to us for free  absolutely gratis. The company
would operate the system and collect the fare revenues.

It seemed a reasonable bargain to me. But at the end of a long day of
discussion, the Board of Supervisors rejected Alweg Monorail.

I was stunned. I dimly saw, even at that time, the future of freeways,
which would, in the end, go nowhere.

At the end of the afternoon, I asked for three minutes to testify. I took
the microphone and said, "To paraphrase Winston Churchill, rarely have so
many owed so little to so few." I was conducted out of the meeting.

In a panic at what I saw as a disaster, I offered my services to the Alweg
Monorail people for the next year.

During the following 12 months I lectured in almost every major area of
L.A., at open forums and libraries, to tell people about the promise of
the monorail. But at the end of that year nothing was done.

Forty years have passed, and more than ever we need an open discussion of
our future. If we examine the history of subways, we will find how
tremendously expensive and destructive they are.

They are, first of all, meant for cold climates such as Toronto, New York,
London, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo. But L.A. is a Mediterranean area; our
weather is sublime, and people are accustomed to traveling in the open air
and enjoying the sunshine, not in closed cars under the ground.

Subways take forever to build and, because the tunnels have to be
excavated, are incredibly expensive. The cost of one subway line would
build 10 monorail systems.

Along the way, subway construction destroys businesses by the scores. The
history of the subway from East L.A. to the Valley is a history of ruined
businesses and upended lives.

The monorail is extraordinary in that it can be built elsewhere and then
carried in and installed in mid-street with little confusion and no
destruction of businesses. In a matter of a few months, a line could be
built from Long Beach all the way along Western Avenue to the mountains
with little disturbance to citizens and no threat to local businesses.

Compared to the heavy elevateds of the past, the monorail is virtually
soundless. Anyone who has ridden the Disneyland or Seattle monorails knows
how quietly they move.

They also have been virtually accident-free. The history of the monorail
shows few collisions or fatalities.If we constructed monorails running
north and south on Vermont, Western, Crenshaw and Broadway, and similar
lines running east and west on Washington, Pico, Wilshire, Santa Monica
and Sunset, we would have provided a proper cross section of
transportation, allowing people to move anywhere in our city at any time.

There you have it. As soon as possible, we must call in one of the world's
monorail-building companies to see what could be done so that the first
ones could be in position by the end of the year to help our huddled
traffic masses yearning to travel freely.

The freeway is the past, the monorail is our future, above and beyond.

Let the debate begin.


-----
Jonathan Richmond
Visiting Scholar
Department of Urban Planning and Design
Graduate School of Design
Harvard University
312 George Gund Hall
48 Quincy St.
Cambridge MA 02138-3000

Mailing address:
182 Palfrey St.
Watertown MA 02472-1835

(617) 395-4360

e-mail: richmond at alum.mit.edu
http://the-tech.mit.edu/~richmond/