Take This Car and Shove It
An Orwellian "100 percent parking reduction" rule quietly wends through City Hall
By STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS
Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 5:00 pm

AFTER WORLD WAR II, the city of Los Angeles figured it would be a swell idea to provide incentives to the local tire industry by dismantling what was then among the most comprehensive and enthusiastically used light-rail systems in the nation. What's good for business is good for the city, the tire companies said on their way to the bank, before the city paved over or shut down every passenger-train track from Mount Lowe above Pasadena, to Long Beach, to Santa Monica - wiping out the popular Red Car rail line.

While keeping the city's poky bus system, Los Angeles leaders of yore took away what planners would call "transportation alternatives."

Or so the urban legend goes, a much-told but probably untrue tale about the Orwellian strategy of using free-market lingo - "good for business" - to restrict consumer choice and shutter the Red Cars. Sy Adler, professor of urban studies at Portland State University, has since shown that the deal wasn't so Orwellian: The Red Cars were abandoned after Angelenos took to their autos with such vigor that the rails lost riders.

But now, the sort of social engineers Orwell envisioned actually are in residence at City Hall as commuters piddle to work in cars. The worst traffic is probably on the Westside, where things move at about 3 mph during rush hour, in a sector of L.A. that lacks a subway and suffers from infamously slow bus service.

Perhaps taking inspiration from the old Red Car legend, the city's Planning Department is using free-market lingo to restrict consumer choices. The bureaucrats' aim: to get Angelenos out of their cars and onto a troubled, skeletal mass-transit system that's a pale reminder of past Red Car glory.

Under this scheme, veteran city planner Thomas Rothmann is pushing to restrict parking, even at condos and apartments. He hopes to render your car so burdensome, and your life around it so miserable, that for relief you'll use the frequent and efficient buses or subways - neither of which will actually exist in most corners of L.A. for 20 to 30 years even under best-case scenarios.

The city's euphemism for all this is "pedestrian friendly."