“As I tell my fellow commuters, driving a freeway is like running a river; you learn where the rapids are and where you are likely to get caught in an eddy. After seeing dozens of three-car pileups in the same sharp curve, I have learned to slow down and say a little prayer for people who speed on by.”
- Larry Harnisch, Los Angeles Times Blog, 2007
(Read the full post if you like)
The 110 Freeway, also known as the Pasadena Freeway, is the first and oldest freeway in existence. The project was completed in 1940, although it was first conceived in 1907. Before it, cross-city travelers relied on a vast network of streets to trek across the Los Angeles landscape. Ironically, the 110 freeway was created to relieve congestion and traffic.
What has the introduction of such a transportation system done to the psychology of people in Los Angeles? Edward T. Hall claims that advances in technology and urban development are, what he refers to as, "extensions". Extensions are human creations that push our abilities beyond the confines of nature. In the case of the Los Angeles Freeway system, we are molding the environment to improve the efficiency with which we can traverse the landscape. Nonetheless, the implications of such a system on the way in which the people of Los Angeles live were never fully thought out. Freeways create borders, they are the new railway tracks that divide and stratify the races and classes of Los Angeles. They limit the contact of people within the city by creating a means to speed by the "other" without ever seeing them.
People are working further and further away from home as job opportunities are more abundant in areas with the highest population densities, whereas rents and homes are least expensive in areas on the outskirts. People spend several hours daily isolated in the cell of their car.
What are the implications of the increased mobility and isolation created by the car on the psychology of people living in a freeway paradise?
Your topic is very interesting. We studied the underuse of public transportation in one of my planning classes. Even though public transportation is more environmentally friendly and has the potential to be faster, people won't give up there cars because they value the time in spent in the car that they get to think or be alone and also view driving a car as a symbol of wealth and status.
ReplyDeleteI believe it was Reyner Banham who wrote about Angelenos actually enjoying the time they spent in the car as a time to be alone and think.
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