WE FOCUS ON THE FOLLOWING AREAS FOR CHANGE:
AIR QUALITY- Greenhouse gas reduction
- Air pollution reduction
- Transit
- Highways
- Local Streets & Roads
- Bicycles
- Pedestrians
- Mobility
- Efficiency
- Environmental stewardship
- Coordination with infrastructure
- Retention
- Expansion
- Attraction
- Opportunity
- Affordability
- Proximity to employment
- Proximity to recreation
- Proximity to transportation
THE PROGRAM
Our vision is that Los Angeles County will one day be recognized as a region with a thriving, dynamic economy and a livable, clean environment. We see a future Los Angeles in which citizens are connected to employment, homes, recreation, cultural amenities, and educational opportunities through a fast, reliable, and efficient transportation system and sustainable land use practices.
To ensure these goals are reached, we created a strategic action plan of immediate, mid-term and long-term initiatives to integrate land use, transportation and mobility.
PROCESS
Vision Los Angeles began with the formation of an expert advisory committee. This committee was purposely populated with representatives from the public, private and non-profit sectors. These individuals were selected because of their leadership and highly developed expertise in the areas of business, economics, housing, education, air quality, environmental protection, environmental justice, labor, city management, planning and policy.
The diversity of experience represented by this committee adds a fresh new perspective to transportation planning. For the challenges being tackled by Vision Los Angeles, contribution from an array of represented communities and markets ensures more robust solutions.
THE PROBLEM
The Los Angeles region routinely ranks among those with the worst traffic congestion in the nation. Transportation is the source of more than 2/3 of the smog-forming pollution and more than 40% of the region’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are linked to transportation.
On average, the region’s cost of housing and transportation are among the highest in the nation. Available affordable housing near employment centers is lacking. Many suffer long commutes that are economically challenging to individuals and working families.
THE SOLUTION
A better operating system — one that integrates new elements and makes the existing infrastructure work better—will improve overall transportation performance. It will make travel times more reliable, improve mobility, and help reduce smog, greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution levels. This applies to the entire transportation system that makes Los Angeles unique: freeways, roads, rail and bus transit, private transit, and Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Three key organizing elements — Access Operating System, Access Hardware, and Accessible Land Use — work in concert as an integrated system in the Vision Los Angeles approach to a functioning transportation system.
COMPONENT: ACCESS OPERATING SYSTEM
Vision LA recommends that we create an integrated, dynamic transportation database that powers our existing and future highways, arterials, transit, bicycles, and pedestrian facilities. We call this LAccess and it is designed to dynamically provide information for ever increasing choices – and the associated costs, time and environmental impact of those choices – for accessing work, home, school and play. We can create this by implementing the following strategies.
COMPONENT: ACCESS HARDWARE
Our hardware, or physical infrastructure, must be retooled to realize the vision of a sustainable economy and environment. We need to build our physical capacity in a number of areas and modes that lack the infrastructure and/or access services needed to support a thriving economy and quality environment in Los Angeles.
Vision Los Angeles strongly supports LA Metro’s initiative to advance transit infrastructure much earlier than listed in plan documents via the America Fast Forward program. Vision Los Angeles further recommends some additional hardware improvements that supplement existing and planned (typo in briefer) transportation infrastructure improvements to fill in gaps not currently addressed in existing plans.
COMPONENT: LAND USE
Land use has a profound effect on accessibility. Los Angeles is a region neither defined by low-density sprawl nor by vertical high density. Increasing residential density in areas close to existing and proposed transportation infrastructure will greatly improve mobility in the region.
There are a variety of creative solutions at our disposal that will make an immediate impact when implemented. The recommendations are innovative, yet proven. Decreasing the distance between home and work is an important step to smarter, sustainable growth.
