Surviving Traffic: An A to Z Self-Help Guide

With the demise of the Orange County's Centerline light-rail project, an alternative weekly sheds light on the past, present, and grim future of transportation in Southern California.

1 minute read

February 18, 2005, 2:00 PM PST

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech


"But what’s the alternative? What we have now sucks. No one wants to ride the bus, domain of the ethnic and poor. Rail choices such as the Metrolink, while successful, occupy pathways originally set up to benefit ranches and farmers back in the day when there were ranches and farmers. Building new roads and freeways costs billions and, given our state budget, will probably never happen...

...people support public transit so other people will take it and allow them more room on the road....

...The prenatal death of the CenterLine project makes it hard to imagine a future in which Orange County will ever be linked by a light-rail system to the rest of Southern California. What makes this particularly pathetic is that half a century ago, we already were...The Pacific Electric’s 900 cars and 1,150 miles of track weren’t the result of altruism or civic action; they happened because, for a time, greed coincided with the public interest."

[Editors' note: This article contains strong language that is not appropriate in a professional work setting, and might be offensive to some.]

Thanks to KMKoldus

Thursday, February 17, 2005 in OC Weekly

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