terra non firma: monday media: transportation edition

Monday, December 05, 2005

two big articles on LA transportation needs in the latimes recently:

a sunday editorial on LAX's shelved (sorta) plans to modernize the airport that has passed thru 2 mayors, 10 years, and $150 million.
and similarly, today's op-ed looks at LA's need for a "subway to the sea" along the wilshire corridor. why is this article different from all other subway articles? because D.J. Waldie is not only blunt, he's also adept at understanding and explaining, as he puts it, "the mechanisms of power." he's also a lyrical writer - strange to say about an article on proposed subway plans, but there it is:

If you've been reading these pages for a while, you may have caught the half-anxious, half-amazed tone of city watchers who seem to be wondering what to make of Los Angeles when it isn't Los Angeles any more, when all of our cliched assumptions — bright and noir — are questioned by our encounters with a city that isn't Raymond Chandler's or even Joan Didion's.