Solar Freeways

A Swedish architect, Mans Tham, proposes covering the nearly 500 miles of freeway in LA County with solar panels. Tham's "Solar Serpents in Paradise" leverage the enormity and urban geography of freeways to produce something positive: locally produced renewable energy that can be fed easily into the existing grid, thereby reducing the need for environmentally destructive solar farms in the desert.

Just covering the 10 freeway from downtown to Santa Monica would produce enough electricity to power all the households in Venice. There is also the potential to provide electric charging stations under freeway over passes and to use the carbon dioxide rich air from the freeway to grow algae on underutilized shoulder space.

Regardless of what one may think of freeways, they are likely to remain part of the built environment for many years to come. But simply denigrating freeways as hulking concrete structures that divide communities and degrade local air quality ignores their potential for becoming part of the sustainability solution. Taking sunken infrastructure investments and repurposing them to serve current needs saves time, money, land and is probably the most effective way for existing urban areas like Los Angeles to transition into a more sustainable future.

Decentralized Energy Infrastructure

As electric cars and plug-in hybrids continue to increase their market share in the United States, efforts to decentralize the energy infrastructure for these cars will undoubtedly help make places like Los Angeles more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. I first introduced the idea of decentralized energy infrastructure in an earlier post, "Greener Cars and Fewer Gas Stations." To understand the point I'm trying make, consider that the fewer of these we need...

Gas station in Los Angeles

...means more land is available for developments like this:

Sierra Bonita affordable housing in West Hollywood

And with more housing and commercial development like Sierra Bonita in the heart of the city means there's less pressure to continue building at the urban fringe.

Sprawl in Santa Clarita

I applaud GM for partnering with Envision Solar to install their solar-powered charging trees at GM dealerships. Each "tree" can generate enough electricity to fully charge one Chevy Volt in a day. Making these charging trees available for private residences is the next logical step to improving the urban landscape in Los Angeles and making the region more sustainable.

Chevy Volt with Envision Solar-Powered Charing "Tree"

"Better Block" Project

The Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas transformed a tired stretch of street into a vibrant community center by gathering donations from local businesses and putting their DIY attitude to work. Their project is called "Better Blocks" and it's about greening the city and reclaiming streets for people, whether they be on foot, sitting outside a cafe or riding a bike. In 24 hours they were able to turn this:

Into this:

Making Los Angeles sustainable is about more than energy and resources; people and place matter. Reorienting streets for people, as demonstrated here and by the overwhelming success of CicLAvia last weekend, can help produce healthy, vibrant and safe communities that are socially sustainable.

It would be nice to see the enthusiasm generated by CicLAvia translated into an effort, like Better Blocks, to repurpose some LA's widest boulevards into people-based places. Clearly it doesn't take much in the form of resources or time to make a big impact. Use the DIY-model provided by Better Blocks and test-run certain neighborhood streets. Inexpensive and temporary demonstration pilot projects are a great way to generate community and business support, and help justify more expensive and permanent infrastructure investments later on. This approach may not be successful everywhere but with so little capital and time needed to implement a pilot program, the City has little reason not support such an effort.

Which streets would you like to see LA turn into "Better Blocks"?

CicLAvia this Sunday - 10/10/10

Check out the street map here. The event is this Sunday, from 10am - 3pm. Enjoy a car-free Sunday in LA!

CicLAvia youtube video

WeHo Spur

Joel Garreau made the point in his book, Edge City, that “every American city that is growing is growing in the fashion of Los Angeles.” Studying the patterns of growth found within the Los Angeles region allow us to examine the principle dynamics of contemporary urbanization (de-centered growth, poly-nucleation and sprawl) and propose appropriate planning solutions. These dynamics have produced the unique urban form and scattered travel patterns (and congestion) that characterize Los Angeles today, which many planners are now working so hard to fix.

A tremendous amount of work is being done to correct the problems and negative externalities caused by decades of unchecked growth. Extending the "subway to the sea" is one such effort, which is clearly vital to the public health, economic strength and cultural vitality of the Westside and the region. Despite the overwhelming evidence demonstrating the need for extending the subway west under Wilshire Boulevard, which I support strongly, building a transportation network based on a hub and spoke model ignores the very nature of urban growth and travel patterns in Los Angeles. Not all roads lead to downtown, nor should they. Building a de-centered, poly-nucleated transportation network that relies on linkages and connections would mirror the urban system that it is purported to serve.

Sending a spur of the subway through West Hollywood to connect to the existing Red Line station at Hollywood and Highland is exactly the sort of linkage that I'm talking about. Providing transportation connections that don't require a ride through downtown increase options for riders and facilitate easy access to other parts of the region like West Hollywood, while making the rail system more robust and effective overall.

The public comment period for the Westside Subway extension ends October 18, 2010. Be sure to email your comments in support of a West Hollywood alignment by clicking on the link under "Contact Us."