Public Transit Key to Creating a Livable City

LOS ANGELES—Public transit is the key to creating a livable city, according to the city leaders on the Infrastructure and Urban Design: Plans, Projects, Ideas and Ways to Make L.A. a More Livable City panel at the USC Gould Real Estate Law and Business Forum last week. The panelists, which included William H. Fain Jr., partner and director of urban design and planning at Johnson Fain; Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg director at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Matthew J. Parlow, associate dean for academic affairs and a professor of law at Marquette University Law School; Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Second District; Martha L. Welborne, chief planning officer at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority; and panel moderator, Keith M. Allen-Niesen of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, each presented the ways in which they are making Los Angeles a more livable community.

“We need more public transportation, and we need it faster,” said Fain on the panel. He used the example of the much-needed EXPO Purple Line extension, which will expand the subway line from Koreatown to the Westside. The 9-mile extension, however, will be completed over the next 20 years, and Fain says that this is too long, noting that a five-times larger extension in London was completed in half the time.  However, the problem is not the lack of effort from the city’s elected officials and the MTA, but rather funding problems.