Weighing in its favor is the sheer size of the regional air market between the Bay Area and Southern California, the largest in the country. This makes the project attractive to investors. But the current route alignment sets it at a potentially insurmountable disadvantage to both auto and air travel.

“Over the last number of years, there has been some land speculation in various places, so the line goes via a slightly odd route that is 100 miles longer than the highway. So high-speed rail starts with a handicap,” explains Tolmach, in terms of being “competitive with the energy utilized [per trip] and with the cost of driving and air travel.”

“There is a 50 percent chance it won’t happen, because the CAHSR Authority will expend all of its planning money before they can package a project that’s workable.”

According to Tolmach, some Japanese and European companies (Kawasaki, Bombardier) are interested in bringing their own funding sources, subject to a significant project redesign that would make the capital costs more affordable and the overall system financially viable to operate.

Indeed, Tolmach’s assessment of the project’s main design flaw underscores the tension between the public mission of the high-speed rail project – to serve as an economic development tool that will connect the struggling Central Valley  to urban job markets – and the private imperative to maximize profit if the project is to attract a sufficient amount of capital to move forward.

The  economic and environmental benefits could be enormous. Naturally, the long-term land use implications of this initiative have also attracted developer interest.

At the recent ULI Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Summit, 30/10 took center stage during a thinly-veiled stump speech by Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is shoring up support for her 2010 re-election campaign. To a cheering crowd, Boxer announced a minor breakthrough at the federal level related to environmental clearance for the 9.3-mile Westside Subway Extension, which is perhaps the signature project of 30/10 .

The level of excitement was palpable in the room, and yet I found myself asking: how much will the Westside Subway Extension actually promote TOD, defined in the traditional sense as development within a 1/2-mile radius of a station area?

The prospects for TOD along the Westside Subway alignment are less promising than they might intuitively seem.

Based on the proposed alignment, I concluded that the potential for TOD remains elusive at best, especially on the Westside “proper”:

Veteran’s Administration Hospital – future development on or around this site is virtually DOA, given the political forces in favor of maintaining the grounds as open space, as noted in my September 19, 2009 post.

UCLA – the station will most likely be located on Lot 36 of the UCLA campus. University property is exempt from local land use controls; the city therefore cannot change station area zoning to encourage future development.

Century City – the alignment here is constrained by the San Andreas fault line, which was discovered during seismic tests to run spookily parallel to the section of Santa Monica Blvd near Wilshire.  Which means any high-rise development in this immediate area should logically be out of the question, too.

Wilshire/Rodeo – the existing density of this commercial district, combined with the surrounding NIMBYists south of Wilshire, makes it difficult to envision dramatic changes here, although it could just be my lack of imagination.

Wilshire/La Cienega – same caveat as above applies here.

Wilshire/Fairfax – will the owner of Johnnie’s Coffee Shop finally sell out? will LACMA develop the fenced-off no man’s land behind the former Bullocks May?

Wilshire/La Brea – prospects here are more sanguine. A Metro-owned property at the NW corner of the intersection, along with adjacent city parking lots, could be prime candidates for TOD.

This is not intended to dampen enthusiasm for the overall objective of 30/10, which remains a worthy initiative. Still, it seems unfortunate that the proposed station locations on the Westside are diminishing the opportunities for real estate development typically associated with transit. Hopefully, between now and final design, some of those location options could change.

The proposed Bundy Village at Olympic Blvd. could include 119,838 sf retail, 385 condos, 384,735 sf medical offices, and 3,395 parking spaces.

The massive mixed-use complex has been pitched–somewhat disingenuously–as “Smart Growth at its best” given its proximity to the future Expo line station (Phase II). But as Los Angeles City Planning Commissioner Michael Woo recently noted at a workshop held by Psomas in downtown LA, the developer Cerrell Associates plans 3,395 parking spaces–the minimum required under city zoning. In other words, no attempt is being made to incentivize future transit use by reducing the amount of parking to be provided on site.

At the February 11th Planning Commission hearing (case file here), Woo pitched an elegant solution: the creation of a Travel Demand Management (TDM) zone, in which the Bundy Village developer would be allowed to provide the full amount of requested parking, but users of the medical offices who drove to the site would be assessed an additional $3 parking fee, collected at the garage entrance, that would in turn be used to subsidize the cost of transit passes for other users who arrive to the complex via light rail or bus.

This arrangement would strike an interesting balance between the free market and government regulation. By sending a clear price signal to drivers (and at the same time rewarding transit users), it could conceivably reduce traffic impacts in the area. Neighborhood opponents may not be appeased, but compared to their demand for a radical “downsizing” of the overall project,  a TDM zone is the closest thing to an innovative planning idea that we are likely to hear out of this debate.

With so many development projects in L.A. either cancelled or indefinitely on hold, one cannot help but wonder about the massive potential of vacant lots as temporary sites for urban agriculture. A report last April by the Los Angeles Times documented the exceedingly long wait times – up to 4 years – for a plot in local community gardens.

Why can’t the mismatch between supply and demand be partially met through the transformation of individual parcels on a case by case basis, with the city helping to negotiate agreements with willing private landowners?

This property at 5th Ave/Rose in Venice, once envisioned for a mixed-use condo building,  lies fallow, bursting with green. Its conversion to a garden isn’t difficult to imagine.

This parcel at 5th/Rose Ave is one of many potential community gardens.

The upside to the landowner/developer would come primarily in the form of community goodwill (provided there was a clear understanding about the length of use and other conditions) from the creation of a new neighborhood amenity. In the case of residential projects, part of the garden could even be preserved and incorporated into the future development to meet on-site open space requirements for multifamily housing.

But in his latest article on newgeography.com, Kotkin has gone a step further to declare that the Democratic Party’s electoral defeat in the recent Massachusetts Senate race can be attributed to Obama’s “war against suburbia,” an aggressively pro-urban agenda that has in effect alienated a key bloc of “swing” voters living outside major cities.

The evidence for this so-called “war against suburbia”? A proposal to convert interstate highways to toll roads is one of many smoking guns, since in theory it would disproportionately impact suburbanites who drive more. Yet Kotkin also points out in the same breathe that suburbanites have shorter commutes to work than the average city dweller, due to the increasing dispersion of job centers, so it is unclear why they would be more affected by toll roads than anyone else.

As everyone knows, the real impetus behind toll road and congestion pricing proposals is a bankrupt Highway Trust Fund, not some imaginary war on suburbia. A policy that asks drivers to internalize the costs of road use deserves to be part of the political conversation. Of course, there is a double standard at work in Kotkin’s stance: massive federal subsidies for highway maintenance are somehow not “anti-urban,” whereas investments in mass transit are utterly “anti-suburban.”

Armed with a few original insights and talking points, Kotkin has built an enviable career as a nationally syndicated columnist. In this case, though, his tendency to apply the same insight to every situation results in a bit of an overreach.

LA's pedestrian-last policy: one of the most poorly designed crosswalks (San Vincente/Montana in Brentwood).

Imagine you want to go from point A to point B. The awkward, rhomboidal shape of the intersection leaves you with few good options while awaiting a signal change to begin the long trek across San Vicente Boulevard. There are multiple segments to the crosswalk, with pedestrians left stranded on the various medians (yes, plural) while cars whiz past. Total crossing distance for the existing scenario (in yellow) is over 400 feet, or about an entire city block.

Diagonal crossing in Beverly Hills: breezy, efficient, and conducive to retail spending!

Contrast this with Beverly Hill’s downtown, where diagonal crossing allows a swift, efficient jaunt from one destination to the next. If this scheme were implemented in Brentwood, the crossing distance at San Vicente/Montana would be reduced to just over 120 feet (in purple), or 30% of the original distance.  This type of fix is not just about catering to the impatient pedestrian, but increasing economic vitality in Brentwood’s retail district overall. Think about the boutiques and restaurants on both sides of San Vicente that would benefit from increased flows of foot traffic across the boulevard. Right now, would-be customers have good reason to look at the intersection, ask themselves “why bother?,” and get back into their cars to drive elsewhere.

But apparently not quick enough, because in the last week, the entry price has been lowered to $819,000 for a second-story flat of 1,383 sq. ft. (or $592 PSF).

I actually interviewed with the developer, Bob D’Elia, back in January 2008, as an internship-seeking graduate student. At the time, I had produced a mock pro forma for Dogtown Station, estimating its construction costs, revenue from condo sales, IRR, and presented it at the interview.

D’Elia was impressed by the accuracy of my estimate for sales revenues, $41.3 million, which took into account both pre-sales and the planned release of remaining units at escalating price points. With the development totaling 57,869 sellable sq. ft. (excluding common and outdoor areas), that translated into an average sale price of approximately $714 PSF. D’Elia would not verify the accuracy of my cost estimates but boasted of a project IRR in excess of 20%.

Overall, this newest price point, $819,000, represents a 17% decrease (on a PSF basis) from the early 2008 peak average…without counting the additional incentive of a 36-month lease on a new 2010 Toyota Prius with the purchase of any unit (valid until December 31st).

Dogtown Station has lowered its price and and is offering an additional buyer's incentive.

Assuming a 2010 Prius base sticker price of $23,370 with monthly  lease payments of $341, this incentive is worth around $13,000 by my calculations, meaning that the effective price PSF is closer to $583, or about 19% off the original ask. This percentage drop is, perhaps not coincidentally, in the zone of the developer’s originally projected IRR, which means that Dogtown Station may have hit rock bottom in terms of the price decreases its investors can absorb before erasing profit margins entirely.

With Southern California slated to convert existing carpool lanes to HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes on stretches of the 210 10 and 110 as soon as next year, the committee gathered to debate whether the application of road pricing strategies should be broadened across the region to manage anticipated increases in VMT.

HNTB was mostly preaching to the choir as it outlined the positive benefits – economic and environmental – that have been reaped from the implementation of congestion pricing policies elsewhere. Representatives from the trucking/goods movement industries were a tad more skeptical, but most everyone agreed that the success of congestion pricing in Southern California will ride on the rollout of the concept to the public, particularly how the revenues from any user-based fees are subsequently allocated.

One of the most interesting findings from HNTB’s research was that, even in other cities less enamored of the automobile than Los Angeles, public support for congestion pricing increased after implementation, but still barely passed the 50% mark. The graph below tracks the opinion of Stockholm residents before and after the city started charging cars to enter its central district. The poll further distinguishes between residents in the inner-city (ie. within the congestion pricing zone) and the outer region/periphery.

% of Stockholm residents in favor of congestion pricing, before and after implementation, by location (Source: Stephen Glaister, Imperial College, UK, via HNTB)

Two caveats: 1) Public support may have increased further since Spring 2006, as residents have presumably adjusted to the policy and perhaps shifted their places of work/residence accordingly. 2) Southern California is not Stockholm. It is a famously polynucleated region without a dominant urban core. But the longstanding disparity between job-rich coastal counties and the more affordable but primarily housing-driven Inland Empire could pose similar challenges to Southern California policymakers in garnering broad majority support here. Indeed, there are still so many variables that it is hard to gauge who the probable winners and losers would be (more on that in a future post). But congestion pricing may be part of the long-term solution to our traffic woes.

*Of which I am a member, representing UC Irvine’s Center for Urban Infrastructure.

The Fletcher Studio, which won second place, proposed urban agricultural villages that would convert freeway embankments into terraced hillsides. Affiliated bungalow housing would be built alongside. These developments would be a new source of “green” jobs, employing farmers on a rotating, seasonal basis. Fletcher calculated that along LA’s 527 miles of freeway, there are approximately 960 acres of largely unused land that could be reclaimed as a productive landscape.

Freeway embankments: reclaimed space for urban agriculture?

Panelists responding to Fletcher’s presentation debated whether Caltrans, the state agency with regulatory authority over freeway-adjacent land, would ever “yield a square inch” of its terrain (both literal and figurative). Landscape architect Mia Lehrer, also a participant in the symposium, highlighted the importance of working within entrenched bureaucracies to make change happen. Not every project is going to be “sexy” or transformative on a regional scale, Lehrer stated, but if it has the potential to improve environmental or community health outcomes, design professionals should not shy away from the political challenges of implementation.

Judging from the pessimistic mood of the panel, it is clear that designers are suffering from an acute sense of disempowerment in the current economic environment, with its renewed focus on pragmatic, “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects, at the expense of more radical, paradigm-shifting proposals. On the other hand, the glass can be seen as half full: current approaches to issues of growth and mobility in Southern California have failed, so there may be a growing receptivity to systemic change. A small dose of unconventional thinking may be necessary to get the city unstuck, as it were.

In this context, the recently renovated Westfield Culver City off the 405 represents its own leap into the future of architecture. Inside, vaulted ceilings and slices of skylight create an airy, vertical sense of space, a cathedral-like effect. The interior is more or less gutted, with walkways around the perimeter. Diagonal ramps straddle and crisscross this spatial void at non-perpendicular, irregular angles. The ground plane feels tenuous. From virtually any given point in the mall, the consumer enjoys panoramic, unobstructed views of the retail frontage on multiple levels. Paradoxically, however, it is nearly impossible to identify the shortest way from Point A to Point B, if you actually see somewhere you want to go. The developer of Westfield Century City wanted to “blur the boundaries between exterior and interior spaces,” and by this measure succeeded, but the effect is disorienting.

What does this mall say about trends in American urbanism? Well, the Westfield Culver City actually seems much closer to the grands magasins, the great department stores of early 20th-century Paris than the nostalgic village concept so successfully exploited at The Grove.

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With its generous use of glass and open-air quality, the architecture is undeniably complicit in a sense of voyeurism. There is nothing new about places of commerce serving as a showcase for social spectacle and celebrity. Indeed, the Parisian upper classes would frequently go to these luxe Art Deco retail palaces to see and be seen. During my visit, the TV phenomenon “So You Think You Can Dance” was hosting auditions on the main plaza, amid a 360º ring of onlookers.

Overall, this design concept is thoughtful and contextually appropriate. Westfield Culver City is located not only at the intersection of the 405 and 90 freeways, but of ethnically diverse communities who might otherwise find few opportunities or excuses to patronize the same places. Because the architecture makes voyeurism acceptable, it in turn allows people to gawk at cultural differences and feel comfortable doing so.

In its quest to be modern and cutting-edge, however, the mall overlooks features that might make the experience more user-friendly. The parking system is disorganized. None of the innovative traffic management strategies used at other Westfield locations, such as the red/green lights installed above parking spaces to signal occupancy/vacancy, are imported here. Directional signage is inconsistent at entrances and exits.

Despite high hopes, especially for a Target both nearby and easily accessible via freeway, the new Westfield Culver City mall misses the bullseye in terms of convenience.