Buses Not the Answer

I wonder how many of those who make up the “consensus of transportation experts” who concluded that buses are the answer for Los Angeles (“Good Ol’ Buses ‘Boring’ Solution to Transit Crisis,” Jan. 19) actually ride a bus? One does not have to be a professor of urban planning to know that buses move slowly and congest our roads. In the next 20 years, we are going to add 800,000 people to our local community, and they say, “Move them by bus.”

I must respectfully disagree with these “experts.” Buses are not “darned effective at getting people around in a sprawling metropolis like ours.” Spending hours on a bus getting from home to work and back is not what I call effective. If we go with these so-called “experts,” this city’s economy will die of traffic strangulation.

Let us not blame the “concept” of rail transportation for the corruption and inefficiencies that have plagued the construction of our rail system. Obviously, somebody didn’t do a good job of controlling the costs of the project, but that doesn’t make it a bad project. Our school system is in disarray, but no one suggests we close the schools.

Certainly rail transportation is not the sole answer. Yes Zev Yaroslavsky is right in saying that we need all the things he talked about, but rail will play a major part in the future development and economic well-being of this city. There are areas of the city where you can build dedicated busways, there are other places where they can be built if you are willing to take private property, there are some existing rights of way that can be used but the lines have to be built where the people are, not where rights of way are located.

How do you build a dedicated busway down Wilshire Boulevard? Wilshire has the heaviest concentration of jobs and residences of any street in L.A., and its buses carry the largest number of passengers. The only answer for Wilshire is a subway, and not one that cuts south to Pico at Crenshaw.

The economy of Los Angeles is dependent on the movement of people and goods, and so far our leadership has failed us in planning ahead. L.A. is going to change, and the way its citizens define their quality of life is going to have to change as well. Change is not bad, it’s just different. Increased density is going to be one of those changes, and that increased density should be geared to transit stations.

I look forward every week to your lead story on our great city. You always make your readers think about what’s going on around them.

HAROLD L. KATZ, CPA

Co-chairman of transportation, planning and governmental affairs

Los Angeles Business Council