MetroRiderLA

Confession. I bought a Nintendo Wii. There are already too few hours in the day to do what I need and want to do (as evidenced by the sporadic posting around here lately), and yet, I bought a Nintendo Wii. As if writing a Metro blog wasn’t enough of a distraction from trying to make my freelance graphic design business the kind of venture that pays my bills, I had to go and buy a Nintendo Wii.

So here’s how my Wednesday was shaping up. I had a plate full of work, a lack of sleep from the previous night, a Nintendo Wii cooing my name in the other room, and on top of all that, some dude was supposed to talk about urban rail over at Metro Headquarters. Talk about a dilemma. Do I do the responsible thing and work through lunch, ensuring (at least temporarily) my financial future? Do I abuse my home office and take a nap? Do I falter to the Wii’s incessant pleading and waste the rest of my day playing fake doubles tennis against a bunch of virtual Weebles? Or do I put blog before work and go check out Jeff Kentworthy, co-author of Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence, over at Metro HQ.

Yes loyal readers, I sacrificed work (easy), napping (harder), and the Wii (damn near impossible), to learn about the advantages of urban rail. The following is a record of what I learned as to ensure my choice was not in vain.

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Jeff Kenworthy, co-author of Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence and professor of Sustainable Cities at Curtin University (Australia), will be speaking tomorrow (Wed. April 30th) at noon in the Metro Board Room at One Gateway Plaza (the Taj Mahal).

This special talk is sponsored by the L.A. Eco-Village, CRSP Institute for Urban Ecovillages, Sierra Club, Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust, and So.CA.TA.

He’ll bring us up to date on all the latest research on rail in the major cities of North America, Australia, Europe and Asia comparing high, median and low rail cities with respect to a variety of quality of life issues, competitiveness with cars, comparative urban form, and economics. Lots of inspiring pictures on how to do things differently in Los Angeles. The presentation will help us see that urban rail systems are a critical element in building effective multi-modal public transport systems that create a ‘virtuous circle’ in public transport and compete more successfully with the car.

The talk also shows that cities that are more rail-oriented tend to develop better qualitative features of the urban environment such as more livable, attractive and congenial people-oriented public spaces.

This sounds like a very interesting event for those interested in urban planning, automobile dependency, and the future of rail in Los Angeles.

Elsewhere:

• The Ten Myths About Automobile Dependency by Peter Newman & Jeff Kenworthy [PDF]

Click the above image to watch the commercial.

I found this commercial for the Madrid Metro via the Carfree USA blog.  This stunning ode to urban life and subterranean transit shows that in some places the kind of money and time that goes into car advertisements also goes into promoting mass transit.  According to the Wikipedia entry on the Madrid Metro, the 12 lines that serve Madrid’s 3.5 million people (6 million in the larger metropolitan area) span 175 miles and make it the 8th longest urban rail system in the world.  Los Angeles, a city of 3.8 million people and a metropolitan area of 12.9 million people comes in 18th place, with 73 miles of urban rail.

Contrast with:

• Metro TV Spots