L.A.’s public transit system might look a lot like the busways of Curitiba, Brazil in the future thanks largely to the efforts of planner Martha Welborne
With L.A. traffic inching toward gridlock and more subways essentially written off as an option, the solution now being most passionately embraced by public officials, including Mayor Richard Riordan, is a dedicated busway.
And the individual most frequently credited with bringing this option to the forefront is Martha Welborne, an urban planner who has led two delegations of local, state and federal officials to Brazil to see such a system in operation.
The system is akin to a subway system on wheels elongated buses zooming along in their own dedicated lanes, only stopping every mile or so, with passengers pre-paying and boarding from platforms that are flush with the buses’ floors, just like subways. No waiting for riders to climb steps or fish around in their pockets for correct change, or even into their wallets or purses for bus passes.
Such a system, similar to the one in use in the Brazilian city of Curitiba, could be built for a fraction of the cost of subway lines. Largely as a result of Welborne’s efforts in promoting the system, the busway plan has been gaining more attention and support from a broad spectrum of involved parties, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is now studying possible busway routes.
Long before the urban planner became a champion of the bus idea, Welborne was part of a team at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill that came up with a redevelopment plan that directed major investments in downtown Boston in the 1980s. She relocated to Los Angeles six years ago when she married her husband John, and she became managing director of SOM’s L.A. office. Welborne oversaw high-rise projects in Asia, a renovation of the Hollywood Bowl, and numerous interior design projects for local law firms, insurance companies and banks.
Her life took a turn into the nonprofit world when she left SOM three years ago after the firm requested she move to San Francisco. She founded Surface Transit Project at that time with grants from the W. Alton Jones Foundation and has since emerged as “the bus lady.”
Question: How did you get into this transit issue?
Answer: This thing fell in my lap. I didn’t really expect it. I happened to know about this Curitiba, Brazil story, having gone to a lecture one evening at MIT when I still lived in Boston. It was so phenomenal, I had never forgotten it. But it wasn’t until I had moved to Los Angeles that I realized the transit system there might make some sense here. It was just an idle thought because I was very busy with SOM at the time.
So when some friends here in Los Angeles mentioned they were going off to Curitiba, I said, “Wait ’til you see it.” They were on the board of the W. Alton Jones Foundation. They came back and said, “You’re right, the transit system makes a lot of sense for Los Angeles, give us a proposal.” So I thought, maybe I’ll do this. It wasn’t guaranteed they’d give me the grant, but they did. I thought I’d do it for six months and it’s now been three years. I keep submitting (requests for additional grant money) every time and I don’t take a bit of it for granted.
Q: What’s the goal?
A: It’s really to learn about the ideas, test the ideas. If they fly, if they’re picked up in the political arena, to begin to educate people about them. And also to push certain design aspects because, as a designer, I want to make sure they’re designed well.
Q: Did you have to work hard to lobby this idea?
A: No. I originally approached the mayor because at the time I was leading the delegation, he was about to become chair of the board of the MTA. The mayor didn’t go on the first trip (to Curitiba), but the deputy mayor went, a state assemblyman went, and (officials from) the bus riders’ union, MTA and Federal Transit Administration came along. It was a small group, about six people, but a very important trip.
Q: Had you ever been there before?
A: I had never been. I still had questions about the idea myself. Intuitively, it seemed like it would work. And on the plane on the way back, people were drawing routes. They were pretty convinced it was a great tool.
Q: What happened after you led the big delegation to Brazil last year?
A: That convinced some people who were skeptical, or at least made them more open to the idea. After I got back, I made a video of that trip for those who didn’t go and also to help me explain it to homeowners’ groups. That’s been an effective tool. Everybody on the trip took off with it in their own way. I actually began to lay out a system because it seemed to me there was a lot of discussion of particular routes, but I was worried people were forgetting to think about it as a system. It has to be in a network and it has to link to the existing investments we’ve made light rail and the subway and feeder buses.
Q: How extensive is the plan you sketched out?
A: We are much lower in density (than other metro areas with well-regarded public transit systems), obviously, but if you look at the land mass, the city of Los Angeles is 500 square miles. The county is 34,000 square miles. Boston is 50 square miles. San Francisco is about the same. But if you look at the amount of transit in cities that really have transit, and then you look here, you just can’t be satisfied with as few lines as we’re talking about currently.
There’s really not enough money available for subways, for the time being anyway, so it’s only reasonable to talk about these (dedicated busway) ideas. In my idealized vision of the future, there’s a line about every three to five miles, spread as a net across the county, distorted for hills and the ocean and other geographic barriers.
Q: Couldn’t this add even more congestion and pollution?
A: The pollution issue is not really an issue. They would probably start out with compressed natural gas and 10 years down the road or so, fuel-cell buses will be much more reliable and probably by then be affordable. And their byproduct is water.
Sure, there are a lot of criticisms, but frankly it’s just the same as light rail it’s just that there’s no rail and the vehicle is powered by a different source. But all the problems you have if you put light rail on an arterial street are the same with this idea. In both cases, you have the issue of, do you remove a parking lane or a travel lane? In both cases, you have the issue of, do you allow a left-turn lane or not because any conflicting movement inevitably slows down the system. I think the problem is, if people want transit, there are trade-offs. There’s no silver bullet. There’s no magic solution, and the huge trade-off with subway is the price.
Q: How much will this system alleviate traffic? Is there a quantifiable measure?
A: There are a bunch of different points. One is that a million people a day ride our bus system, and right now, if you’re transit-dependent, it can take you two or more hours to get to work. Those people deserve a better system, a faster system, which is what this allows. This gets the bus into its own lane, so it helps the cars too.
Q: Do you ever take the bus?
A: I take the subway more than I take the bus because it’s a three-quarter-mile walk from my home to the subway. It’s awfully handy, especially if there’s a meeting at the MTA.
Q: Do you think you would take these fast buses if they were available?
A: It would depend on where I was going. The whole thing really does depend on a network. For me, just like anybody else, it’s going to depend on convenience, reliability and safety and I even think cleanliness. But also there’s the time factor. If it takes longer to do that than it takes for me to be stuck on the 10 (Santa Monica Freeway), I won’t do it. I’ll be stuck on the 10. But at some point, it will take longer to drive there than it will to take transit, and we really should have a system in place.
Q: How much longer will you be working on this project? Until it’s a reality?
A: Since I started this thinking I would stop in six months, about every six months I think I’ll stop. But every time, something comes up where I really need to monitor or help out. I guess I’d like to see at least one route built and built properly. I contemplate this question every time I’m about to run out of grant money and have to go find some more.
Martha Welborne
Position: Director
Organization: Surface Transit Project
Born: Decatur, Ill., 1952
Education: Bachelor’s degree in architecture, University of Notre Dame; master of architecture and master in city planning, MIT; fellowship at Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Career Turning Point: The year she spent in Rome as an undergraduate studying architecture, which made her an urbanist
Hobbies: Attending the L.A. Philharmonic and Opera and events at the Hollywood Bowl
Most Admired
Person: French physicist Marie Curie
Personal: Married
