Southern Sierran
Let's confront climate change and build a Cool Cities Waterfront A hot day drives ten thousand visitors to Los Angeles' waterfront and nearby beaches, in search of cool ocean breezes and shade. They come to browse, swim, windsurf, kayak, sail, walk, picnic, dine and relax. Ironically, as people drive to the waterfront, their cars leave a trail of greenhouse gases behind. Now, Los Angeles' plans to revamp the historic waterfront. Though the port will build energy-efficient structures, its plans overlook some key urban causes of climate change. The city needs to reconsider its plans and its future. Your voice can help change its direction for the better.

Serious shade seekers: people bring their own shade as they come to Cabrillo Beach, Los Angeles’ southernmost beach, to picnic and cool-off. Picnic grounnds fill up before the beach.

As the mercury rises, so does the number of visitors that come to Los Angeles' southernmost beaches and waterfront shops, located on the west side of San Pedro Bay.
The challenge in getting people here, like almost every other Southern California destination, is that people drive their cars to get anywhere. Busy weekends and summer holidays jam the Harbor Freeway, the principal road to the area.
The parking lot near the beach fills long before the beach does, forcing motorists to park many blocks away on residential streets - some of the same streets that other people use for parking when they go to other nearby parks. Traffic and parking for Ports O'Call, the commercial waterfront, and nearby parks fill up as well. Nearby passenger and cruise ship service aggravate the situation.
For fifty years, the California solution to parking and traffic woes has been to build more parking lots and widen freeways and streets. For all this time, Southern California has driven its way to prosperity, with new retail and suburban developments that required more and more driving.
Moving farther away and into brand new suburbs for bigger homes and better schools was our ticket to Tomorrowland. Unfortunately, it was also a ticket to a house of horrors, draining old downtowns and neighborhoods of their prosperity.
In the process, we became dependent on foreign oil, made climate change worse and painted ourselves into a corner. Hard-pressed to keep a growing crush of cars moving, planners began to think of pedestrians as an impediment to traffic flow. We made streets easier to drive but less pleasant to walk or bike. This only made our transportation problems worse, as it pushed more people off their feet and into cars.
Squandered land
About one third of Southern California's urban area is devoted to automobiles in the form of roadways, parking lots and supporting uses. Near many attractions, including retail centers, we easily devote more land to parking and roadways than we do to the destination. It's no wonder Los Angeles often has no there there.
Los Angeles' waterfront and beaches on the west side of San Pedro Bay are part of the state's tidelands area. As such, they are some of the rarest lands we have. If ever there were a place where convenient parking for everyone should be a crime, this is it. Every extra parking space and driving lane we provide takes away from land that could be part of enhancing the destination for visitors, whether the commercial waterfront or the non-commercial beaches and marina.
We can build parking lots and roadways outside of the waterfront area, but would be hard pressed to put beaches, marinas, cruise terminals and waterfront dining in those locations.
Yet, the Harbor Department's current plan for the Los Angeles Waterfront is stuck in the 1950s idea that Autopia is part of Tomorrowland. The port's plans will squander almost half of our valuable waterfront land for parking and roadways. It will encourage greenhouse gas making behavior - driving our cars - at exactly the time when we need to be weaning ourselves off it.
Energy price squeeze
With gas prices flirting with $5 a gallon, the timing for an auto-centric plan is poor. High gas prices are al- ready doing the job that no president since Carter has undertaken: getting people to conserve gasoline. Americans are already making adjustments to their driving habits as fuel prices start taking a painful bite out of monthly budgets. Maybe now healthier and environmentally smart behaviors - carpooling, consolidating trips, walking and biking more, using more public transit and driving less - will become part of our commuting habits.
Whether or not this happens, rising energy prices have many local merchants and restaurateurs nervous. Many local proprietors say they see a dip in their business each time gas prices notch up. At the same time, the merchants are facing swelling energy bills and higher prices of many staple foods. It doesn't help merchants just as their own costs rise, their customers are becoming more sensitive to higher prices because gas prices are cutting into their discretionary spending.
Though gas prices will certainly go up and down, a long-term rising trend is expected due to peak global oil. Even if we begin a big rush to renewable energy, it could take a long time to replace all our cars with plug in hybrids and convert to renewable energy for all our electricity. Improved urban efficiency and conservation will be key parts of coping with the challenges we face.
If ever there was a time to heed the environmental message of revitalizing our old downtowns and neighborhoods, this is it. It is not surprising that many local business leaders have picked up on the theme, and are pressing for the reforms needed to get people out of their cars, into public transit, and walking through our old downtown areas.
Cool Cities
The Sierra Club's Cool Cities is implementing the Kyoto Protocol to cut global warming one city at a time. Even if Los Angeles everything else it can, it will fail to meet these goals without reforming its transportation system.
A large scale development effort in Los Angeles' waterfront, marina and beach area offers an ideal opportunity to plant the flag for a new urban paradigm - one that gets people out of their cars and into public transit, then out and about, walking around town.
The Los Angeles Waterfront could be a how to in which the city demonstrates its leadership with first-class public transit links to the region's largest walking district, instead of building for more cars.
To do this, planners need to rediscover how to design for people instead of cars, so that we do everything we can to make a place people will enjoy walking, biking and skating.
The job is as much about will and cooperation as it is about know how. It is about bringing together multiple city agencies, along with regional, state and federal agencies, each with their share of responsibility and skill in the various types of planning needed.
The lessons we learn here can well be repeated elsewhere in Southern California. If we reach the world-class mark many aspire for, they may help lead the world as well.