Freeways have failed us -- Part One: Valley Girls

A guest post from Cassandra Davis, trainer, freelance writer, and car-free L.A. blogger.

I’m a Valley Girl¹, born and raised. I learned to drive² at 15, had my first car at 16, and I can name all of the exits on the 101 from Calabasas to the 110.   

Growing up, we were dependent on cars.  While most of us lived on identical streets with identical houses, most of us also lived too far away to ride bikes to each other’s houses or to school.  Cars meant freedom; the freeway meant escape.   

I should love the freeway.  Instead, I came to hate L.A., as did many of my friends. And, like³ many of my friends, I moved away.

So what went wrong?

A quick history: The first suburbs that we recognize as The Valley⁴ started with Santa Fe’s train lines, and were able to expand because of the Pacific Electric red cars⁵, William Mulholland’s L.A. Aqueduct, and WWII.

The Ventura Freeway was completed by 1960, and by 1965 there were already novels written about The Valley’s car culture.  City planning, including transportation, was dictated primarily by housing developers⁶.

While housing developments spread, businesses were shaped by the needs of drivers, starting with Valley Plaza in 1951, the first shopping center nationwide designed for the freeway commuter.  Shopping shifted to center around busy intersections and thoroughfares so workers could pick up what they needed on their way home. 

It is no surprise that high school for my generation revolved around driving a car. 

We didn’t carpool⁷ because our parents didn’t.  The majority of us didn’t take the bus either (again, neither did our parents). The bus was unreliable, dirty, unsafe, and for people who couldn’t afford a car.  In fact, very few of us knew how to take a bus⁸.

We didn’t ride our bikes, at least not as a form of transportation.  Parents' fears aside, there just wasn’t anywhere to go.  The house I grew up in has a walk score of 23, with the majority of nearby businesses existing over two miles away. 

The 2003 long-range plan for the San Fernando Valley provides a good overview of the sprawling development which resulted from a reliance on freeways and lack of strong urban planning: concentrated areas of interest are islands in large stretches of residential development.  Freeways may have provided the freedom to live in one place and commute to another, but they also made us rely on cars to move around.  This quickly led to a one person, one car mindset, which led to more traffic.

In the four years between when "Clueless" was released (1995) and when I left The Valley (1999), “everything in The Valley” went from 20 minutes away to 40 minutes away. 

In 2000, traffic was identified as the second most important community issue in The Valley. The traffic, lack of entertainment options, and urban sprawl are leading to a lower quality of life for all residents, and to generations of valley girls and boys (gasp!) leaving The Valley.

So what can be done to help the case of transportation in The Valley?

1. Parents: teach your kids how to ride the bus.  Believe it or not, it will make them safer, especially   if they find themselves stuck somewhere without a car and needing to go home.
2. Take the bus yourself. Try the Orange Line or a trip on the subway if you haven’t already.  You don’t have to become a regular bus commuter, but if you take MTA once a month, that’s one less trip where you have to sit behind the wheel in traffic.  Or, if the bus just isn’t possible, try to carpool (call 1-800-COMMUTE if you need help getting started).
3. When you’re driving, give buses, pedestrians, and bikes the right-of-way.  It’s the law. It’s polite.  And it’s one less car that you’re stuck behind.
4. If you feel inspired, write a quick note to your district representatives or MTA leadership.  Is there a bike lane that can be improved in your area? A bus schedule that could be better? 

There are a lot of large-scale and long-range plans, and of course you can assist in leadership or activism, but the first step is to start being aware of the transportation structures around you.  Yes, this includes the freeway you’re stuck on every day.  But it also includes the buses, trains, sidewalks and bike paths you pass on your way to the 101⁹.
______

¹ Naturally blonde.

² Stick shift

³ “Like” is only used once in this entry.  “Totally” cannot be found.

⁴ The Valley is capitalized intentionally throughout this entry, because the San Fernando Valley is, indeed, The Valley. 

⁵ Yes, we had trains in The Valley.  The Orange line is built on an old Red Car line.

⁶ A phenomenon not unique to The Valley.  See also: Hollywoodland.

⁷ Younger siblings are obligations, not carpools.

⁸ But the ones who did were the cool kids, delinquents and rebels … at least, until we all had cars.

⁹ The 118 is also a freeway in The Valley, along with the 170 and 134. However, the 101 (and, occasionally, the 405 or the 5) is the only freeway which matters.

Image courtesy of csun.edu. The large parking lot full of cars later became the home of the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

Comments

[Crimanimal Mass]

we rode our bikes on the freeway last week. it was fun. it was dangerous. We wondered why in a city so dependent on automotive infrastructure can our legs pedal our bikes faster than cars.

[chacha]

great post - I love it. The freeways would make really really great bike lanes (in an ideal world where LA has led the green revolution and the one-car-per-person concept had totally disppeard)

[Nancy]

Wow. I got realy excited when I read "Valley Girls." But no one in this blog entry actually lives in the Valley.

*Sigh*

[Edith]

Excellent post. Really puts the pervasiveness of our perception of the Valley (and LA in general) into perspective (alliteration not intended). We're dealing with the consequence of many decades of deliberate choices about land use -- and what we now know as a car-dependent freeway culture didn't have to be so.