The real cost of freeways in LA

Across LA County communities have been decimated trying to fix traffic with wider roads - even when research tells us it doesn't help. Learn more: www.destructionfornada.com
Clarifications:
At 1:48 the estimated number of people impacted by the Harbor freeway is 12,000
At 4:57 the number of people living within 1000ft of a freeway is 1,280,000
UC Davis VMT Calculator: travelcalculator.ncst.ucdavis...
StreetsblogLA reporting on Metro's Freeway spending:
la.streetsblog.org/2021/05/25...
Thanks to Alex Contreras, Amy Lee, Jamey Volker, and Susan Handy for the great interviews
Written and edited by Josh Vredevoogd
Help from Kyle McMillan and Till Stegers

[@NotJustBikes]

Oh man, this video is so good. But it's also really bad because it means I'm going to have to up my game when it comes to maps. Thanks for setting the bar higher for KZbin urban planning videos. 👍

[@john-wo4rv]

I hate these racist democratic policies that made this highway.

[@kofinater]

@@john-wo4rv You seem to be implying Rebuplicans are the party of public transportation. Is that true?

[@austinhernandez2716]

@@john-wo4rv what do you mean by democratic? The people sure don't want this. And name ONE Republican who has ever even MENTIONED this problem. I'll wait. THEY are the ones that say that everything is okay and we don't need to change.

[@JAKempelly]

I am such a fan of your channel and I thought the same thing!!

[@thomasmaxwell954]

@@john-wo4rv What democratic policies? LA was solid conservative in the 50s and 60s. Hence why they didn’t built public transit systems like rail or bus lines

[@ralphjosephacobo8014]

Not Just Bikes brought me here.

[@Moses_VII]

Ditto that

[@NotJustBikes]

Mission accomplished. This channel had 79 subscribers when I linked to it. 😉

[@seansandhagen481]

Me too

[@Froboymike]

Me too! That’s why I love Not Just Bikes, he isn’t self serving for his own channel, it is about a greater purpose!

[@RaglansElectricBaboon]

And me :)

[@godowrk3360]

Wow these are some of the most impressive graphics to explain how destructive the freeways are

[@Seldom-Seen]

Destructive but very resourceful You can’t do without all these freeways in LA

[@roadguy4214]

Freeway widening is good

[@beanpasteposts]

@@roadguy4214How? Everyone drives on the new lane so it just gets congested again 💀

[@micosstar]

@@Seldom-Seenat the expense of millions of lives, especially disadvantaged ones?

[@micosstar]

@@roadguy4214what is the minimum amount of lanes needed on a freeway? (hint: there is limited land; we need land to have homes, food, goods [like metal and wood], and schools among many things)

[@grabasandwich]

"It's called the American dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it" - George Carlin

[@tomorrow2593]

That quote never gets old.

[@MetricImperialist]

@@tomorrow2593 Yes it does...

[@rickdlt]

😂😂😂

[@anonamos225]

The worst part is that the people doing it are fully aware of what they're doing and have been doing and continue to do it anyway.

[@debbiekruizinga6515]

I was thinking the same thing I mean: These "engineers" aren't idiots. They are paid very well to plan roads and stuff and not train or metrolines.

[@grahvis]

There tends to be a gap of a number of years between the knowledge a certain practice is wrong and actually stopping doing it. There is also a failure to adopt best practice even when it is being demonstrated to work elsewhere.

[@johnnymartinez478]

The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few

[@grahvis]

@@johnnymartinez478 . No, that is simply two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. The needs of the many should take the needs of the few into account. The main problem is piecemeal development with no future planning. Interestingly dwellings which are in walking distance of a range of services, fetch a higher price than those that aren't.

[@johnkeller5163]

Blame your corrupt politicians which Los Angeles citizens elected. The expressways were needed but also with a world class subway, bus, train, and bicycle system (properly separated from cars). Engineers do not make municipal choices and decisions; politicians and political city managers made those municipal choices in policy.

[@Uliio]

Metro should build actual metros instead of freeways.

[@omar90s91]

Metro= Metropolitan area

[@0Defensor0]

@@omar90s91 Depends on the country I suppose. Here we call it "metro" while people call it "subway" in the US.

[@bassdrumflextime1253]

@@omar90s91 yeah

[@cocodriloco7780]

@@0Defensor0 NGL when I think "metro" in the context of transport, I think subways and rail. not freeways and not even really roads unless you include buses. And I live in LA.

[@eitkoml]

Surface trains too, and light rail embedded within streets, and buses with dedicated bus-only lanes. Anything else?

[@Celis.C]

_"Repeating the same action and expecting different results is madness"_

[@glock4455]

Considering the amount of repeated mistakes made by the govt i'd say those lunatics are beyond mad lol

[@gocookies77]

its not madness, someones pockets are just being filled.

[@Celis.C]

@@gocookies77 through a Ponzi scheme, which is another brand of madness.

[@micosstar]

@@gocookies77oh boy, it is car and oil getting the payout!

[@Coffeepanda294]

Or capitalism. Or living in an insular, ignorant, poorly educated population.

[@b11171]

Great visuals. Sucks that such an expansive city like LA doesn't even rival a subway system found in smaller countries such as Spain.

[@houstontexas8738]

LA does have a subway system.

[@b11171]

@@houstontexas8738 It does, but it's trash.

[@penamena5238]

@@houstontexas8738 it’s not a subway, they have public transport but it’s very lackluster and doesn’t have much reach. Thankfully new lines are being built and they are much less destructive than freeways. I hope LA is a better place to live in the coming decades

[@yellfire]

LA used to have a extensive streetcar network. The Los Angeles Railway served most of the central city. By the 1930s, LA’s streetcars had become wildly unprofitable and were quickly losing riders. During the war years, transit ridership spiked because of government gas rationing. But the streetcars emptied out again in peacetime. Between 1945 and 1951, the number of riders carried each year fell by nearly 80 million. Cheaper to operate and requiring less maintenance, buses began phasing out the streetcars very early. Buses were an attractive choice for transit operators; they could be easily rerouted as the urban area developed and rider demand shifted. The streetcar could have been saved if LA subsidized this transit service.

[@davidemmyg]

@@yellfire thats strange, european cities with streetcars and light rail swear they are more efficient and cheaper to run once installed. Only in the US can rail based transportation be expensive for confounding reasons.

[@AlexCab_49]

20 billion dollars to widen the LA freeways! That money could've been spent on more rapid transit projects.

[@rra7490]

No more widening, such a waste of money. They need to put the metro trains through freeways instead.

[@AlexCab_49]

@@rra7490 Or better yet, demolish the unnecessary freeways

[@rra7490]

@@AlexCab_49 Would take money to do that as well. It all costs taxpayers money.

[@AlexCab_49]

@@rra7490 But I think it would be worth it in the long run

[@jzero90921]

@@AlexCab_49 agreed. The polution it throws on people would disappear. and the neighborhoods can reconnect.. new parks and schools too

[@huskytail]

150 000 people displaced. That's like a war count.

[@dutchman7623]

Do not mourn those who were relocated, pity those who had to stay next to a freeway.

[@omar90s91]

You make it sound like is a bad thing grow up

[@jeffbenton6183]

@@omar90s91 How is losing your home, or growing up with asthma a good thing?

[@indeepjable]

Omar, You Ever Snort Pure Asbestos Daily And Consider That More Healthy Than Living In The Amazon Rainforest In Terms Of Oxygen Purity?

[@AlCatSplat]

@@omar90s91 Being removed from your home is certainly a bad thing.

[@EnjoyFirefighting]

When will they learn that making an already super wide highway even wider will NOT solve their traffic problem? And it's not just LA, but many cities across the US! Call it un-American, call it stupid, call it loosing freedom, but just take a look at how European cities deal with their rush hour traffic despite having way less lanes of freeway: it's because large amounts of people make use of public transit, not because they have to, but because they want to. You don't get people to want to use public transit when you have a poor public transit network, with poor connections, filthy buses etc ... you got to make an efficient network, with several modes of transportation being interlaced, creating interesting, quick and efficient connections/routes throughout the city. NOt just to connect suburbs with downtown, but connect all areas with each other. Just a small example from the Bavarian state's capital city with a population of 1.7 million in the city. Besides 8 highways going towards or into the city, they have all kinds of train services including regional and commuter trains on a local basis, subways, trams and buses. Let's take only at a major commuter rail track downtown: during rush hour they run commuter trains on a 2 minute schedule, which equals 30 trains per hour and direction. Each train has a capacity of up to 1,632 passengers, that's close to some 49,000 per hour, in only one direction, on only one track ... not counting all those on other routes, other trains, subways, trams or buses. Imagine if all of them would be using their private car instead. Public transit takes lots of people off the road. Of course you'll feel rush hour, but there's no daily rush hour traffic jam. And let me be clear: Munich public transit is by far not among those which can be called very good, very efficient or anything like that

[@onelyone6976]

It seems like here in Europe the closest a freeway gets to the city center, is a ringroad going around the outer edge of the city that connects to connecting roads leading into the city, and highways going out of the city area

[@jan-lukas]

@@onelyone6976 yeah, here in cologne there's a ringroad around the city, with 1 highway that continues into the city (actually 2, but the 2nd one ends after a few hundred meters). There are some big roads with 2 lanes (in rare cases 3), but everyone else either happily uses public transport or suffers in traffic. Actually the ringroad, which is the busiest in Germany, is one of the few places here where you actually see roads as wide as American ones, at one junction there's up to 6 lanes per direction I think, with all of it being at least 3 lanes, but it's actually necessary as it doesn't only serve cologne but is a hub for people from Frankfurt/the south (A3), Benelux (A4) and the north (A1)

[@micosstar]

nice channel name!

[@ChilapaOfTheAmazons]

If only there were examples of large cities in Europe with no freeways, much smaller streets, extensive public transportation and no gridlocks. Oh, wait... 🤪

[@havila6396]

What European city has no gridlock?

[@criztu]

I lived for 2 years near a freeway with 14 lanes in Europe, I was coughing all day long, then I moved to another neighborhood. A year later I visited back the place where I used to rent, and I saw the blackened air in that place, it's when I realized how polluted it was. My coughing went away by the way

[@Codraroll]

@@havila6396 Most of them? Sure, traffic can be bad during rush hours, but not nearly to the degree seen in LA or Atlanta.

[@sor7en07]

@@Codraroll It's a bad comparison though. European street grids and housing density is result of their age. They are literally based on and built on cities that are thousands of years old, using the same thousand-year old infrastructure that the Romans paved. LA and Atlanta were built using relatively modern principles, eschewing density and favoring a suburban configuration, which, as we know now, was idiotic. But you can't undo that sprawl. I don't know what the solution is, I'm just saying that it's a weird comparison.

[@Codraroll]

@@sor7en07 Not sure if I fully align with that argument, for a few reasons: 1. Many towns and cities in Europe were levelled during WWII and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. They were still built with density in mind. Look also to Japan, which was in the same situation if not worse, and didn't end up with the post-war sprawl of the US either. Then again, there's little room to sprawl in Japan, so they kind of had to. 2. European cities have grown during the car age too, far outside the old street grids the Romans planned (those are mostly confined to historic downtowns and make up a very small share of most cities). Still, they were expanded without building the endless suburbia of American cities. 3. US cities used to have dense, walkable street grids too. Look up historic photos of Chicago or Baltimore, for instance. The country existed for a century and a half before the car came along, and had several settlements long before that again. The US did the fairly unique act of abandoning and reforming their historic downtown, then expanding their cities using the same pattern of thinly spread development. Luckily (?), we can assume that a culture that demolished and abandoned their historic downtowns within a generation could do the same to parts of their sprawling suburbia, and re-densify their cities.

[@Lunavii_Cellest]

When they are so expensive they shouldn't be called FREE way.

[@woutervanr]

Same with car travel. You shouldn't call it freedom to go everywhere when you literally HAVE TO own a car and drive or you're not going anywhere.

[@rubenayla]

@@woutervanr A car highly regulated by the state, with its license plate, circulation rules, max speeds, fines... Yeah freedom

[@garthy4u]

@@woutervanr worse, being stuck in gridlock in LA is far from "free".

[@edwardmiessner6502]

The State and Metro should have originally built them as TOLL ways

[@williamhuang8309]

Waste-of-money-way

[@tarzz25qwe]

I didn't realize that most of my adult life would revolve around cars

[@alecward895]

This is such an incredible visual depiction of the displacement that took place. This channel deserves way more subs.

[@davislinkaits6935]

7:58 “more than 21 billion USD” Jesus. That’s around three times larger than the budget for Rail Baltica to build high-speed rail in the Baltics. Do the american officials know that trains exist? They don’t even need HSR, just regular trains do the job

[@zRhid]

They do. But, they also receive money from automotive lobbies

[@Codraroll]

The population pattern is a bit of a challenge, though. Say that, for a train station to be economically viable, it needs to have a certain number of people living within walking distance of one, and working within walking distance of another (if you can't walk at both ends, you'd probably drive instead). LA is mostly suburbs with very low population density, so there don't live or work many people within walking distance of anything. They could build train lines, but few people would be able to use them effectively. They would have to re-zone the districts around the stations to make them work, and NIMBYs would have a real field day with that.

[@Korina42]

@@Codraroll Do I remember organizations advocating for increasing housing density around transit stations?

[@TheSpecialJ11]

@@Codraroll Yeah it's a bit of a chicken and an egg. Rail needs high density, high density needs rail.

[@grahvis]

Just have car parks at the railway stations, plus secure cycle storage. Also cycle storage at the other end, Waterloo station in London has around 250,000 passengers per day, it also has storage for 5,000 cycles.

[@zinedinezethro9157]

Proposal: that $20B budget can be redirected from widening lanes to building and maintaining more bus lanes and also LA metro.

[@J.5.M.]

A well advertised, frequent, rapid bus service with well designed bus stops and clear schedules sounds like a much better investment

[@Codraroll]

Problem is, LA isn't dense enough for that to be viable. In suburbia, any bus stop would service very few passengers within walking distance, so you'd need a lot of stops for a bus to cover enough customers to be viable ... and a bus that stops all the time would take forever to get anywhere and not be attractive. What LA needs is to densify around public transport corridors, to gather enough people in one place for public transport to be effective. That would be really expensive and meet tons of local opposition, but it's not like it can afford any alternatives. Installing bus lines with the current population pattern would not do enough. It needs to fix the population pattern too.

[@ababababaababbba]

Lanes of these freeways should be repurposed for light rail

[@dog-ez2nu]

Forget light rail, there's enough space here for straight up heavy rail,

[@ababababaababbba]

@@dog-ez2nu true true

[@LeeeroyJenkins]

Maybe if the trains weren’t so dirty and stinky people would voluntarily ride in them instead of using them out of necessity.

[@ababababaababbba]

@@LeeeroyJenkins it's part of the experience

[@LeeeroyJenkins]

@@ababababaababbba I know it is, but to most train goers they say it sometimes smells like a combination of a homeless shelter and a portapotty. The metro should dedicate more money to hardcore cleaning crews to clean the shit (literally) off the trains.

[@MartijnPennings]

Wow, just imagine what public transport LA could be realizing with 20 billion dollars... They already made way for it, you just have to take it away from cars at this point.

[@panzer_TZ]

Copied my reply from another comment thread: This is a very complex issue. For example, in order to pass a sales tax measure for more transit projects, you have to throw each area of the county a bone. It's why the Metro Gold Line light rail was built early on despite going through wealthy suburbs. Unfortunately, people are not simply going to vote to tax themselves(nor will the politicians in each area support it) so only one part of the county gets an expensive subway with no benefit for their own neck of the woods. Also, the vast majority of people in the LA basin drive. So the argument could made that transit projects serve a (very) small portion of the traveling public even though the vast majority of the tax revenue to fund the projects is coming from drivers who probably won't ever give up their car to ride transit. I want more rail and BRT as much as the next transit advocate, but there is reality. At the very least, there are a number of great transit projects in Los Angeles now under construction.

[@MartijnPennings]

@@panzer_TZ okay, but it doesn't need to be an expensive metro line at the start. Just an idea; you could start with designated bus lanes which would make taking the bus much faster than taking a car and it's easier to reach all parts of the city with busses in stead of metro or train. Where possible, make designated bike lanes. Make parking more expensive. You have to start taking space away from cars at some point or you'll end up with 25 lane highways and nowhere to go.

[@emporioalnino4670]

I think they should just add another lane, surely that will fix it.

[@williamhuang8309]

LOL and while we're at it, why not a few more? Suurreellyy that will fix it!

[@onorebakasama]

just one more lane guys JUST ONE MORE LANE

[@grivitastb]

another freeway over there perhaps?

[@BigPapiLoc]

I live in Washington but I still want to help. It's really disheartening seeing our poor, archaic infrastructure being used as a money dump when life could be so much better if we invested that money wiser.

[@YOUR_MOTHER_WENT_TO_COLLEGE]

Great video man, this was very insightful! As a SoCal native and angry road rager due to traffic being beyond out of control 24/7 from decades of newly transplants and self entitled drivers. I've always wondered if it was ever gonna get better on the freeways and roads, when they pitch more lanes on TV they sure make it sounds nice, sweet and very beneficial for all the commuters out here.

[@howardian8829]

So the economic equilibrium of freeways is gridlock.

[@zephyros256]

That does make sense, since it will fill up until alternatives are faster. At which point people will take the alternative and an equilibrium is reached, until the alternative becomes slower again.

[@Codraroll]

Unless you build the freeways so big that every car in the city could be on them at the same time without traffic slowing. After all, there is a finite number of cars available to fill up the freeways. Then again, good luck paying for that using the same city's taxes.

[@halincandenza7640]

@@Codraroll except people woh live in LA will start buying more cars. And peole outside LA might start to make more trips into the city.

[@TheSpecialJ11]

@@zephyros256 Well put. This is probably why the U.S. cities with decent rail seem to only get gridlock during the worst hours. Chicago has very good traffic for how large it is. Without Metra and the L it would be horrific.

[@andrewjohnstone7943]

The economic equilibrium of ultra high traffic cities (ie. LA, NYC, Chicago) is an average travel time in line with public transit/walking/cycling times for the same route, which rarely get longer as a result of demand. Note that a lot of travel takes place in zones that aren't ultra high traffic, hence why highways outside cities are usually pretty fast

[@Jay-jq6bl]

Do you have evidence that the decision where to put freeways was motivated by more than economics? I'm not questioning who was displaced by the expropriations, but whether a colorblind city planner would have done things differently. The land owners had to be financially compensated, after all.

[@dominicgunderson]

Research redlining. That's the intersection between race and class you're looking for.

[@bethanygreenwood8655]

Stunning visuals and very easy to understand! Thank you

[@modalmixture]

Incredible video. I’ve always wondered how significant induced demand really is in LA, where demand for car transportation must be fairly inelastic because there are few alternatives.

[@kidmohair8151]

07:51 says it all, in a succinct understatement

[@jwt1035]

I’d like to see all the carpool lanes converted to light rail.

[@JAKempelly]

This video was really really good! Thank you! Please do more!

[@alexandrelachance7767]

That's a really great video! I'm definitely sharing this to many friends.

[@Meaisk]

What a great video. You earned yourself a subscriber and I hope YT will push your videos in their algorithm

[@GorgeGeorg]

Were the displaced people compensated for the loss of their homes? Sure. Then it seems likely the freeway locations (neighborhoods) where chosen to minimize the cost of compensation.

[@Batman-qe7ig]

now and days yes they have to and if you don't accept they just build over or around you. Back in the 50s thru late 70s i highly doubt it since they were black and latinos which were obviously looked down upon.

[@derek20la]

@@Batman-qe7igWith the exception of the East LA interchange and the 10 freeway thru the Sugar Hill neighborhood of West Adams, most of the neighborhoods cut in half by freeway construction were white. When the 110 Harbor Freeway was first being built in the 1950s, South Los Angeles was majority white, but poor and "blue collar". Only Watts and the area immediately surrounding South Central Avenue had many blacks and latinos. In some cases, such as the 605 freeway thru northeast Downey, the houses torn down were only a few years old. But don't let actual history get in the way of your need to see everything as racist 😂

[@james-p]

@@derek20la That is true. My (white) grandparents and great aunts and uncles lived in south LA, Santa Fe Springs, and Inglewood. My Mom (also white) went to Inglewood High School with Sonny ("Sal" at the time) Bono who also lived there. The 105 destroyed my great aunt's house. Correlation does not equal causation. Because some freeways went through black neighborhoods does not mean that the people who built them decided to "get the blacks" any more than it means they wanted to "get" the working class whites. They had freeways to build (for better, or more likely, worse) so they took the land under Eminent Domain (and paid for it) and built them. It's bad enough that freeways suck and that Metro is continuing to make them worse without sidelining the real problem with a class and race conflict.

[@calvinbaII]

Incredible quality video, thanks!

[@swivelkeyring3512]

Coming from not just bike post, love the video. Amazing quality.

[@Patrick-cj7es]

Incredible editing, where or how did you learn to video edit like this? Im thinking of getting into making videos with lots of information like this and this is one of the best videos doing this I’ve ever seen

[@alanthefisher]

Great video, love the graphic design of the maps!

[@jakedavis7957]

Wow this video was amazing. Subscribed.

[@Rugopoly]

This is a high quality video! More please!

[@alwaysalpha1931]

Incredible visuals, especially the extended visualizations of the freeways being built right over the old aerial photos.

[@CLMBRT]

Impressive visuals, new sub!

[@tonamiplayman4305]

How Ironic. An agency named "METRO" is engaged solely in building freeways and not actual rapid transit.

[@omar90s91]

Because that word means metropolitan area not metro inself

[@RichardJLawrence]

Metro is short for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. They’re responsible for all methods of transport including rapid transit.

[@ForrestIandola]

Great work. Can you make more videos like this?

[@Timbuhofficial]

I gotta say driving during the pandemic was hella interesting. The traffic had died down and now its all back again

[@jojoadeyemi8239]

Dennis the Menace Park?😂 Best park name ever.

[@lonesnark]

They decided to build freeways in order to consume federal dollars, so they planned to build them in areas where the land was cheaper and the residents lacked political influence to prevent the construction. A strong argument can be made that the freeways should not have been built at all. Prior to them, LA was a mass transit centric city, built originally around the streetcar, evolving into private bus lines as technology evolved. The government strangled that network to death through price controls on fares and heavy taxes on the lines. Ultimately, the city seized the transit lines through bankruptcy, again enabling the city to spend federal dollars doing so, granting itself a monopoly on busing, which it then proceeded to strangle to death, leaving everyone with no choice but to drive...on the new freeways built with federal dollars. In effect, the Federal Government paid Los Angeles to kill its own mass transit system. And it continues to do so, by paying it to scrap the remaining bus lines to fund rail transit construction which will never carry as many riders as the bus lines it displaces.

[@williamhuang8309]

Let me guess... the money from the government is actually from the auto industry lobby.

[@lonesnark]

@@williamhuang8309 no, the money is just regular federal taxes. Federal politicians are trying to buy urban votes by funding urban projects. That is basic politics.

[@lonesnark]

@@jethrogump9016 there is. There is undeveloped land outside the urban growth boundary

[@044krot2]

Great video, bro. Thank you very much! Keep going!

[@MrJeep75]

Public transportation is what we need

[@somelucifrostguy9208]

I was wondering why my cousin's house was on side of the hill near a highway. Urbanist KZbin has shown me what's eluded me my entire life, why I found those wide asphalt pits so weird, why it's a pain to get anywhere here. That and that minorities like me were targetted when came to this shit.

[@duanerackham9567]

Big facts. The root cause of a lot of public transit, transit in general and American carbon footprint. Is racism and wealthy whites fleeing from POC.

[@specialopsdave]

It just so happens to be cheaper to displace minorities, so while racism was not their primary rationale, it was likely a result they didn't mind.

[@glock4455]

Ah, government, fucking up minorities' lives since the dawn of time 😌😌😌😌😌

[@ClawBoss]

If you’re so targeted then don’t ever drive your car again. You’re contributing to the problem of traffic so therefore stop driving and new freeways won’t need to be built. Stop crying racism

[@AlCatSplat]

@@ClawBoss Maybe you should be the one to stop driving, you'd lose that double chin if you started walking more.

[@DavidinSLO]

I’ve used and have experienced public transit in both LA (as well as cities around the world). I’ve seen cities both in the US and abroad where public transportation really works. That said, until LA gets serious about keeping the metro and buses SAFE and CLEAN, they’re going to have a very time wooing people out of their cars. I’ve had too many experiences around the city with people with drug/alcohol or mental illness issues (or both). Many Angelenos will continue to take a “hard pass” on public transit until the city gets serious about safety and cleanliness issues.

[@dwarffortress69]

Perhaps they were displaced because those were the cheapest neighborhoods. Absurd conclusion.

[@garryferrington811]

Least political power.

[@rareaardvark3504]

They were also redlined areas which was common practice until the fair housing act in 1968, so id say it's a pretty accurate conclusion. Not absurd.

[@brendanregs]

really great video, keep it up!

[@Mikeybandz]

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that construction or car or gas company lobbies have something to do with this (probably all of the above). I don’t think government officials will continue to make a mistake and pass it off as a good idea every single time for no reason. Definitely need to follow the money and organize against it

[@PresCities]

Really, really good work here.

[@Spido68_the_spectator]

There is already a (overly) dense network of mostly big highways, so why not spending all the money into public mass transit?

[@northernbrother1258]

This is off topic, bit the graphics in this video are stellar...kudos!

[@TheNotverysocial]

Reclaim the center lanes for buses. It would be far more efficient in denying cars one traffic lane. Add a barrier, a policeman at the entries, and a platform accesible through stairwells.

[@sidharthcs2110]

LA might look like a landscape that's completely covered in concrete roads in the future

[@adiosbahamas397]

Excellent video and very well-done!

[@TechnicalAboutIt]

I have been looking for photos or video about this for 20 years. I grew up in the area once called Sugar Hill in the 70s and it was an amazing but run down area. My neighbor a few houses down was a woman named Big Mama Thornton, who was the first to sing the song, "You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog". The houses that were destroyed were some of the most amazing craftsman style and other unique architectured homes in America. I wish I knew where photos are of that area.

[@sammers2K01]

WOW!! Please share more of anything you know about Sugar Hill. When watching the video, I thought ' I have to know more about that'.

[@Clemente4u]

Look, we've been through a pandemic and it has shown that many people can still work from home and a company can still thrive. Let's have every company instruct their employees to stay at home 2 to 3 days and then alternate odd and even license plates. This would cut down on traffic... But I guess this is too much like right, right?

[@gio160]

People still go into cities for things other than work

[@asdsdjfasdjxajiosdqw8791]

I'm looking forward to similar quality in the future. This was brilliant

[@dante340]

Dang, this was mind blowing.. it explains why north and south of the 10 freeway feels like two completely different worlds.

[@emmacarpenter765]

In the bit about Harbor Freeway, the voiceover says 1200 people were displaced but the subtitles say 12000. Which is correct?

[@danieldaniels7571]

Neither.

[@bastiaan4129]

I'm not an expert in any way, but wouldn't a European system where slow traffic rides as far as possible on the right lane, and faster travel on the left lane help with congestion? All those cars driving everywhere all willy-nilly doesn't seem like an efficient use of space.

[@saxmanb777]

Yes, we try to teach that here but it falls on deaf ears.

[@RusNad]

When it gets that busy all that goes out of the window. Same with the A10 in Amsterdam at rush hour, though obviously not as crazy as LA.

[@misubi]

The 710 freeway’s northern terminus should be through Pasadena but was stopped by wealthy white people so now it ends in Alhambra where Asian and Hispanic people live.

[@jflow08]

😖

[@sciontcfanclub]

Yeah it was supposed to go all the way to the 210/134

[@granthughes8179]

Excellent video!

[@zepmarq]

Very eye-opening. Thank you.

[@intreoo]

As an Angeleno, this was heartbreaking to watch. It’s the fact that Los Angeles today could’ve had so much more affordable housing, so much more wealth+racial equality, so much more walkability and affordable/accessible public transit for all classes, and so much less pollution, horrible air quality, car dependency, and a legacy of ghettos and homelessness if these decisions had the slightest drop of consideration to both the short and long-term effects. I hope to see a day where American cities can break off the shackles of car dependency and inequality..

[@lyssanch3096]

Ride a bike!

[@JJVernig]

I wouldn’t stop building completely. I would take a deep look where you would want flowing and where you would want stopped traffic. You need to change behaviour, and helping with another forms of (working) transport is a good start, but maybe parts of the trip may still be by car, like to a train station. Another thing to consider is the place traffic comes to halt or is crawling. That should be away from homes. Start stop traffic is very bad for pollution levels. So invest in places where public transport isn’t an option and probably never will be, but invest in the places where it is. Make it hard to drive into the city, but supply ample parking space for modal shift the last 10-20 miles. It’s al so easy to say stop completely. It isn’t what the public want, but with a bit of tinkering and good alternatives for most part can understand. Oh yes, learn from the mistakes or even criminal behaviour in the past, but don’t use it as argument to do nothing. Maybe you should take away complete roads, and built something else?

[@hannaheric634]

It's so weird that an organization named Metro do not focus on public transport but car infrastructure

[@grahamturner2640]

And the freeways they did build don’t always make much sense. In Boyle Heights, why didn’t they just make the freeways all go through a 6-way interchange? Might’ve saved more space, and probably would’ve provided more flexibility. If you’re going east on the 101 and need to go north on the 5, or from north of the 5 to go east on the 60, and miss the previous freeway interchanges, you need to take a massive detour. I know LA is littered with freeways, but I’d imagine a lot of tourists also use the freeways, and might not know how to navigate them.

[@doomduck3298]

This video was great. Though I would have liked it if you looked at the subject through the lens of someone driving to work each day. Hammering the point home that spending less on highways and more on public transport will also improve the traffic they waste time in everyday even if they themselves never take the bus.

[@danieldaniels7571]

But that suggests that someone has to take the bus and no one I know wants to take the bus.

[@pisspatt]

metro or bus beats the 405 early weekdays could turn a 1 hour trip to 40/35 mins

[@matthewgroza]

the reason freeways are where they are, is because more affluent areas of LA had the money to fight back and prevent freeways from being built through their neighborhoods. Same thing happened here in SF. We were supposed to have more than 8 freeways and ended up with two that go through relatively low income neighborhoods.

[@travi1997]

I only realized AFTER watching the video that this isn’t Vox. incredibly made, well done

[@malcolmscott5609]

I really had to search to find a video like this, surprised this info is not more widely covered

[@dragonskunkstudio7582]

Excellent mini documentary. More like this please. These kinds of videos will get the much needed attention required to get anything done, or rather stop getting undone by more car centric mentality bureaucrats.

[@drheinz1000]

Its so insane to me that they build the highways just through the city and not around it

[@danieldaniels7571]

I don’t think you understand how large and spread out the LA area is. Those highways are for getting you from one place to another in the city quickly. Even with the congestion they’re still much quicker than trying to get from place to place on city streets.

[@julieheath6335]

Thank you for this!

[@Ptaku93]

1:24 and I have to turn off CC because it's hella misleading, omitting some words and substituting others (i.e. Steve instead of steel). Hope you patch it up soon!

[@StreetsForAll]

Apologies for this - should be fixed now!

[@RichardJLawrence]

Your history of the Harbor Freeway way way off. When construction began, very few blacks lived in the area. The restrictive covenants that prevented most black people from buying were not struck down until 1948 so the area had not even begun to transition when freeway construction began. Also, the Sugar Hill area is a bit romanticized. While it was destroyed, it was not the center of LA's black community. Also, most of LA's prominent black citizens began moving to Baldwin Hills, View Park, Windsor Hills, and Ladera Heights.

[@MassiveChetBakerFan]

Can't believe this is still going on, decades after Jane Jacobs wrote about this.

[@grod805]

People will keep driving because public transit still takes longer and in many cases is more expensive than driving

[@keithng2517]

The answer to LA freeway congestion is to ban car traffic on freeways and replace it with mass transit, like LRT (makes less noise and environmentally friendly)

[@aazul5499]

This is why I suggest you to keep wearing your mask, covid might be gone but for the better of your health wear your mask.

[@LeeeroyJenkins]

People should be required to wear a mask on those dirty, disgusting health hazards they call a train in LA.

[@vegeta9411]

@@LeeeroyJenkins lol 😂 fabric masks don’t stop you from inhaling chemicals. You need to wear the N-95

[@LeeeroyJenkins]

@@vegeta9411 It’s not the chemicals it’s the smell. Those things smell like port-a-potties.

[@damianpena9337]

Im a truck driver and we need wider freeways! We need to get rid of carpools (because in rush hours they dont really work), and we need to get rid of fastrack lanes!!(those lanes can be used to relieve traffic and pollution or contamination!) What we really need its traffic police, people who phisically can be at the stop lights to use their criteria to switch the lights to relieve traffic on a certain street! For example at a freeway exit, the traffic gets bad for a couple miles because of a congested lane for an exit ramp that is cloged because of the light on the street, but if we have people on that light managing the light, the ramp can be free in matter of minutes! And i say so because i was a traffic police officer in my country and it worked very well during rush hours! Something that would work very good would be a "continuos speed corridor", wich is a blvd or hard street with lights programmed to change allowing the traffic to run at for example 40mph, if you catch the green light and drive at 40 mph you will be able to drive all that blvd/street non stoping! But what authorities do its a red and red and red light corridor, to "avoid high speed accidents", believe me it doesnt work!! It makes it worse, why?? Because drivers begin to get stress from that and make them to rage and drive faster to try to get next light green, and that really provoque accidents! Am i or not right?? There are many if not a loooot of mistakes ive seen in california that makes traffic worse! Ive been at every single area at rush hour and i always have a solution, but well, im just another one in the bunch, an insignificant truck driver 😔

[@danieldaniels7571]

Where I live most major streets have the traffic lights synchronized so you get them all green at 45mph.

[@global.citizens]

At the 1939 highways route map at the 3:54 minute, it shows a lot of other areas not marked red were affected as well (green and blue ones...). It seems back then the authorithies took these decisions without taking into consideration their citizens lives, no matter the color. As someone put it, highway construction was very destructive indeed...

[@locoberzerker]

I've been living in SoCal for 5+ years and the highways here are truly a nightmare. A high percentage of the roads are in complete shambles. Public transportation is a joke.

[@danellis-jones1591]

If freeways reduced congestion, then building them for 50 years should mean we have no congestion anymore. But we don't. It's very logical.

[@sciontcfanclub]

That's implying population doesn't grow...

[@danellis-jones1591]

@@sciontcfanclub Even taking population growth into account, building roads creates congestion

[@Matty002]

its so crazy how we keep expanding freeways instead of building up the metro. we couldve had a sepulveda line already instead of still fighting over it

[@treeodore4369]

Great video-that area through Burbank is the absolute worst, and I hope the community around Downey/Santa Fe Springs fights back against the freeway being widened. I drive through there very often and they just widened the 5fwy south of there-traffic flows better and smooth with minor traffic (connecting to/off 605) but and I don't see a need for widening.

[@Alamyst2011]

Its almost like those cities couldn't sustain themselves without veins and arteries.

[@southpuddle]

If LA would have just invested in light rail systems 50 years ago instead of freeways, imagine how much better of a place it would be to live now... instead of a concrete jungle made for cars rather than human beings.

[@RichardJLawrence]

Except that if you know anything about the history of Los Angeles, you’d know that the same forces that kept freeways running through their neighborhoods also were against any type of light rail. The prevailing thought at the time is it would make it easy for hoodlums and the like to have easy access to upscale neighborhoods.

[@dylansimpson7831]

Such important stuff

[@overviewstrain]

Los Angeles county should be investing that freeway money ($21.3 billion) into heavy rail. Light rail and bus rapid transit are not as effective as the Metro red and purple lines. Shoutout to Westlake/MacArthur park station for having Manhattan inspired architecture.

[@Typing.._]

The fact the freeways look like they were placed for division all over the map rather then based on efficiency

[@Man2quilla]

Not Just Bikes sent me. Amazing video!

[@themessageman2463]

4 basic needs: Food, water, oxygen, shelter You can't even have 2 of those!

[@Tiliad]

Sick video!

[@Brmlyklr]

A little congestion pricing could go a long way for LA. Even small tolls during peak periods might save a few billion in roadway expansion costs.