Christopher Hawthorne: Los Angeles' Architectural And Urban-Planning Failures

Pershing Square in more glorious times

L.A. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne nailed it in Sunday's paper: Although Los Angeles is home to some fantastic architecture and civic innovations, those things are overshadowed by all the things that we've gotten wrong. "Los Angeles has become as well known for its high-profile architectural and urban-planning failures — for the buildings, institutions and public spaces we can't seem to get right — as for its innovations or breakthroughs," he writes.

L.A.'s civic mistakes are legion and noticeable from the moment you fly into the city and walk through our tragically horrendous international airport. LAX is an embarrassing travesty. As is our river. And a lot more.

A few choice excerpts from his must-read piece:

As a gateway to the city, Los Angeles International Airport could hardly be more dispiriting. A jumble of mismatched, outdated terminals, LAX gives visitors a resounding first impression of civic dysfunction.

The city, which owns the airport, has tried several times to remake LAX. The latest attempt is a master plan by Fentress Architects, which is also designing the nearly $2-billion Tom Bradley International Terminal.

But the truth is that the airport's biggest liability is not simply architectural. Somehow Los Angeles built a major rail route, the Green Line, past LAX 20 years ago without adding a stop at the airport.

And guess what? We are about to build another light-rail route — this time the $1.7-billion Crenshaw Line — near the airport and make precisely the same mistake again.

[snip]

Since 32 of the river's 51 miles are within the L.A. city limits, the mayor has a powerful say over its future. The goal should not be to take the river back to some idyllic, preindustrial past. Instead we should look for a few places where we can crack open its hard shell and interact with it in new ways.

A number of intriguing ideas have already emerged, building on advocacy by the Friends of the Los Angeles River and a master plan the City Council adopted in 2007. Among the most promising is a proposal by landscape architect Mia Lehrer and three architecture firms for the so-called Piggyback Yard, a 125-acre site across the river from Union Station.

It would add walking and biking paths along newly green riverbanks, as well as a park with soccer fields and a botanical garden. It would also act as a powerful pilot project, helping the public see the river's larger potential.

Pushing landowner Union Pacific to sell or make the site available to the city should be high on the next mayor's agenda.

[snip]

No such defense can be made of the city's repeated missteps at Pershing Square. The 5-acre park in the heart of downtown is manageably small and self-contained. It is also a perfectly depressing symbol of L.A.'s neglected public realm.

The square was once the most vibrant public space in Los Angeles. The decision to build a parking garage beneath it in the 1950s added entry and exit ramps that cut the square off from the sidewalks around it. A 1993 redesign somehow made that sense of disconnection worse.

Now entertainment giant AEG, the company that brought us L.A. Live, owns the Staples Center and wants to build a pro football stadium downtown, has pledged $700,000 in seed money to reimagine Pershing Square. City Councilmember Jose Huizar, who represents much of downtown, has said that when it comes to a redesign, "everything is on the table."

Here's one thing that shouldn't be: AEG's direct involvement in the revamp, given its track record of sleekly generic architecture and design.

Hawthorne also discusses the frustration of how we're still struggling to build a subway to the sea. And he chastizes the city for spending so much time, money and energy on a flawed attempt to turn Grand Avenue into something it's not.

One Slow Step Closer to the Westside Subway

As we slowly move toward the long-awaited Westside Subway Extension of the Purple Line to the westside, I'm excited to see that there's a planned stop just near my office, at Constellation and Avenue of the Stars. Of course, the projected opening is 2026 (or, if the accelerated plan is put through, 2022). So I won't hold my breath just yet.

Nonetheless, I'm pleased that at least I'll see this in my lifetime. Los Angeles magazine's Chris Nichols has a roundup of where some of the subway stations might go -- and what would be displaced:

The report includes renderings of proposed stations at La Brea, Fairfax, La Cienega, and near Rodeo Drive. Looks like Johnie’s Coffee Shop survives, but Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills, The green MTA center adorned with Jim Isermann’s artwork at La Brea and the former Tiny Naylor’s on La Cienega do not. Here are some before and after images to orient you to the Purple Line circa 2020.

Here are the "before" shots. Click to Chris' blog to see the "after."

Los Angeles Ad Town: L.A.'s Subway Plays D.C.'s Metro

For some reason, this commercial felt the need to turn a downtown Los Angeles Red Line subway stop into a Washington, D.C. Metro stop -- the Gallery Pl-Chinatown station in D.C.


Here's another shot, where you can definitely tell the fake "Gallery Pl-Chinatown-DC" lettering has been (poorly) superimposed on the L.A. sign.


(Here's the real Gallery Pl-Chinatown station in D.C.)


And here again is the Red Line subway station... not exactly a match.


On Wilshire in downtown, near the boulevard's start

CBS' "New Adventures of Old Christine" Discovers the L.A. Subway

Of course, this wasn't shot in the real Los Angeles Metro Red Line subway... but Wednesday's episode of CBS' "New Adventures of Old Christine" took place there -- in the process, helping spread the word to the rest of the world that, yes, L.A. does have public transportation. (It also comes on the heels of another CBS show, "The Amazing Race," which also featured folks taking the L.A. Metro).

Here's a synopsis for the episode: "In an attempt to teach Ritchie's class some street smarts, Christine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) encourages Principal Nunley to have them take the subway on a field trip, but she ends up being stranded at the station and has her own street smarts put to the test." (Why is that such a big deal? I guess I'll have to watch the full episode to understand.)

What Could Have Been: The Metro Library's Collection of Proposed Rapid Transit Routes

The Metro Library and Archive has posted a host of old maps detailing proposed -- and ultimately, failed -- Southern California rapid transit plans to its Scribd account. The maps are fascinating -- and to a degree, heartbreaking.

After all, had the money been raised and construction actually taken place, we would have had a subway or train to the sea decades ago -- and at the fraction of the cost it would take now.

Above, the 1968 Final Proposed Transit Master Plan Concept. According to the Metro Library, "The initial 62-mile, four corridor system that could expand to 300 miles was projected to cost $2.5 billion during its 8.5-year construction period." (Yes, 8.5 years -- which means it could have been completely done by the dawn of the Carter administration.)



Here, the 1974 Proposed Transit Master Plan Concept. "The initial 116 miles of mass rapid transit would eventually expand to a 250-mile system with 24 miles of dedicated busway lanes. The projected cost was $6.6 billion over a 12-year construction period." This could have been done by the mid-1980s.

Of course, opposition got in the way of these proposals -- and as a result, we're still debating the possibility in 2009 of a "subway to the sea" -- which wouldn't even be real until 2020 at the earliest.
And that's optimistic. As the L.A. Times today notes, it's unlikely Metro will be able to secure funds anytime soon for such a massive project:

(Mayor Antonio) Villaraigosa has been pushing to have the subway completed in 10 years, more than 15 years earlier than current estimates.

At his urging, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board agreed to submit the subway expansion, as well as a plan to build a light-rail link through downtown, as the county’s two projects to compete against a national pool of federal funding.

But the 14 members of Congress who signed a letter released today said those two programs don’t have a good shot at immediately getting federal funding. Further, they said that L.A. County risks not get anything from the federal New Starts program unless it adds other regional rail proposals, including an extension of the Gold Line in the San Gabriel Valley and a rail line down Crenshaw Boulevard in South L.A. and the South Bay.

For a quick but very informative primer on L.A.'s mass transit systems in the post-war era, check out the study "New Mass Transit Plans: Los Angeles 1951- Present," written by the Metro Research Center/Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library's Mattew Barrett, found here.

Is There Any Chance We'll Be Riding A Subway To The Sea Before We're Old and Grey?

Probably not. Like most of you, I was disheartened to read earlier this week that the Metropolitan Transit Authority's timetable for the much-discussed "subway to the sea" means we'll be card-carrying AARP members before ever getting to ride it.

If, of course, these dates are met -- and honestly, I still wonder if even the promise of a subway to Westwood by 2032 is too optimistic. (At least I'll still be just 58 -- perhaps we'll celebrate Franklin Avenue's 30th anniversary by taking a group ride down the Purple line; see you there.)

Jason at MetBlogs LA asked Metro about the timetable, and got back some pretty unsatisfying answers from a PR rep:

The next steps before subway construction could start are estimated to take 2 to 3 years. This includes full environmental review, approvals, engineering and design. We then estimate that construction could take about 7 years (1) depending on what the final project ends up being & (2) if all funding is available.

The funding generated by Measure R will come in over a 30 year period and therefore the schedules are based on an allocation of these revenues to many projects over the life of the sales tax. The schedule for the Westside project which identifies completion to Westwood by 2032 is driven more by the availability of funding than the time needed to construct. The actual time needed to construct the Purple Line Extension to Westwood would be considerably less than 23 years.

In case you missed it, here's what Metro has currently set as a timetable for rapid transit:

Subway to La Cienega -- 2019
Subway to Century City -- 2026
Subway to Westwood -- 2032
Expo Line light rail phase II, Culver City to Santa Monica -- 2015
Gold Line light rail extension -- 2017
Wilshire Boulevard bus lane in city of Los Angeles -- 2015
Crenshaw Boulevard light rail or bus rapid transit -- 2029
Green Line to LAX -- 2016 to 2018
Westside to San Fernando Valley transit project along the 405 Freeway -- 2038
Regional Connector downtown light rail -- 2018

I guess it's at least encouraging to see the Expo Line (gah, c'mon Metro, grow a pair and bring back the "Aqua Line" name!) expected to hit Santa Monica in six years.

Dare To Dream: Two Subways to the Sea

Damn, MTA, way to get our hopes up. Officials are looking to further study two subway lines to West L.A. -- one down Wilshire and one partly on Santa Monica.

The L.A. Times' Bottleneck Blog all the details:

While the whole effort is still largely hypothetical -- the subway has no funding, nor has it been formally approved -- it shows how officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are gearing up should any money be secured for a project with a potential $9-billion price tag.

It was just a decade ago, amid several spending and construction boondoggles on the existing subway, that voters in Los Angeles County banned the MTA from using sales tax money for subway tunneling. That ban remains in effect, but complaints over Westside traffic have continued to pile up, fueling efforts to continue the subway...

The Wilshire line would get first priority for funding because it has higher ridership estimates, said David Mieger, the project manager for the Westside study. But the other line is being considered because it would make the entire system more versatile by stopping near major job centers and attractions such as the Warner Hollywood studios and Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood and the Beverly Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Enough with the studies. Let's start building these damn tunnels!

Retro Friday: The Fairfax District Methane Explosion

It's why we don't have a subway to the sea -- or even west of Western -- these days. In 1985, a methane gas explosion injured many shoppers and severely damaged the Ross Dress for Less store at Fairfax and 3rd (read about it here). Soon after, Rep. Henry Waxman spearheaded a successful effort to stop plans to extend the Metro subway west under Wilshire.

Here's news coverage from KCBS/Channel 2 in the wake of the incident; a young Ann Curry is among the reporters seen in this heavily edited clip.

By the way, Waxman finally reversed course, and his ban on the use of federal dollars for a subway was finally repealed at the end of last year. OK, so where's our subway to the sea now?