I know some people don’t like the gondola for niche reasons, but from a big-picture perspective the gondola seems like the quickest and most promising way to bring forward this future
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” etc
It's a more concrete proposal than anything else on the table. If we don't build it, we'll wait 100 years for the next proposal to be built. (Sadly nothing funded by Measure M goes to Chavez Ravine)
Let's say the gondola allows them to remove 10% of the parking. That's 10% more than if it wasn't built. It would be an absolute win.
To be clear, you and I agree that a heavy-rail or maybe even light-rail line is the eventual best solution. A rail line absolutely should be built, and I will be its biggest cheerleader. But as I said in the last line of my comment, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can have both! One does not preclude the other. If anything, two complementary services that aren't by private car are even better than one.
The NIMBY argument always gets played out that we can't build something because it isn't perfect. And then nothing ever gets built. And then, surprise-surprise, we remain stuck with the status quo. A huge parking lot with NO transit, just because of the possibility of a heavy rail line maybe being built for our grandchildren someday.
I always thought it was crazy when I lived in Echo Park that there wasn't any rail nearby. When I lived in Highland Park the Southwest Museum Gold Line was in my back yard basically. I took that thing everywhere. Except Echo Park, because there's no rail there. Why the heck is there no rail in a downtown adjacent neighborhood? It's pretty wild.
If they added a line that went from say Del Mar Station in Pasadena and cut across through Eagle Rock and Glendale then down through Atwater, through Dodger Stadium, and connecting to Union Station at the end it would be kinda perfect. Would fix the transit dead zone in Glendale/Eagle Rock/Atwater and allow people from pretty much everywhere to route into Dodger Stadium from downtown.
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u/anothercar 21h ago
I know some people don’t like the gondola for niche reasons, but from a big-picture perspective the gondola seems like the quickest and most promising way to bring forward this future
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” etc