Avoiding L.A. altogether

The Inland Daily Bulletin editorial board sees something very good in the increase in office construction in western San Bernardino County: Less commuting. Of course, the Inland Empire has always struggled with a home-job imbalance, though things might be improving for someone with this latest growth boom:

The explosion of Class A office space in Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga is good news in many ways, not just for those cities, but for the Inland Valley and San Bernardino County as a whole. It means more professional companies and higher-paying jobs are coming to the Inland Valley. As a result, better-educated workers will be enticed to move to the area, bringing with them more demand for local services, education, entertainment and shopping. And some of the better-educated, higher-paid workers who already live here will now, or soon, have the option of ditching that ugly commute to Los Angeles or Orange County and finding a suitable job right here at home.

But what about local traffic from all these new offices?

Comments

[KingBorbon]

Just take a look at Spain where theres no Marones telling us what to do with our transit system. except for the Madrid bombings.

[Jennifer Reyes]

"We talk about concentrating homes and retail near transit but nobody seems to mention JOBS! the biggest creator of rush hour traffic. We need to centralize employment where transit is available, like downtown LA."

Well then Shaun, tell those Liberal Socialists down in City Hall to stop taxing hell out of businesses and residents and promote their growth within these "Transit corridors" and to take care of Business with it's police force, street services, you know, Basic Public Services then we can bring that back because it would be more desirable to live.

[difference between a wife and a girlfriend? 55 lbs.]

This construction in Rancho Cucamonga is great; when completed my new office location will cut four hours off my daily round trip commute to my home in the bedroom community of Phoenix.

[Paul]

San Bernardino and Riverside will develop their own urban cores, apart from Los Angeles, just as Anaheim is starting to do. The difference between the growth of the Inland Empire and the growth of Orange County is that the Inland Empire has a LOT more land to grow in, further away from LA. You will see San Bernardino develop massive suburbs east of its valley and in the high desert, while Riverside will have massive suburbs grow in its southwest valley. Also, the Inland Empire has been growing a LOT longer than Orange County has, it is just within the last 7 years with the housing boom that its growth grew to OC proportions. It is a melting pot of decades of urban history, as early as the 1800s.

As far as the local traffic, yes it is getting worse. It always has to get worse before it gets better. Still, there is some planning ahead. San Bernardino has in development a BRT route from CSUSB to Loma Linda University, combined with a central "transit village" where bus routes, SBX (the BRT's nickname) and Metrolink will all meet. Add on to that an extension of Metrolink to Redlands with up to 7 stations and you have a lot of mass transit in the works.

[Shaun]

THIS IS SPRAWL!! Why do people assume that when new offices are built in the suburbs that only people who live in the area will work there?? Not all those workers will be local or will be willing to relocate there. There will still be people commuting to there from homes in the Valley, Westide, Orange County, ect....

We talk about concentrating homes and retail near transit but nobody seems to mention JOBS! the biggest creator of rush hour traffic. We need to centralize employment where transit is available, like downtown LA.

Building sprawling office parks that are not dense, centralized, and that are completely reliant on the automobile will not help this region at all! It will only encourage more people to drive and worsen traffic. I guess gridlock going one way towards LA is not bad enogh, so now they want gridlock on both directions of the freeway!

[russell]

Isn't it interesting to know that LA is so spread out _because_ of rail, instead of the fiction that rail will never work here because it is so spread out? Yes, the Pacific Electric ran all the way to San Bernadino.

[LAofAnaheim]

Yes...traffic will increase. Because there is no Metro Rail near these offices! I work in downtown and some of my fellow office workers use Metro Rail & Bus to get to work. You lose that advantage when companies move to the valley. My job takes me to places in the valley, anetelope valley, IE, etc.. and w/o Metro Rail availability I am stuck taking my car. In downtown, I walk, thus one less car on the road. We need to centralize businesses in downtown (a la Chicago, New York, London) and increase investment in Metro rail. Hopefully these businesses are at least by a Metrolink station, thereby giving commuters an option to use their car to work.