An interdisciplinary team including two Portlanders, architect Aaron Whelton of AAW Studio and planner Jacob Brostoff of the city of Portland, took first place in an ideas competition sponsored by the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) and The Architect's Newspaper.
The competition, entitled "A New Infrastructure: Innovative Transit Solutions for Los Angeles," invited designers to imagine LA's transit solutions for 30 to 50 years in the future. Judges included some heavy hitters of Los Angeles architecture, such as Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, and Neil Denari.
The winning entry, called "Más Transit" is according to the press release "a regional high-speed rail system for Los Angeles with a landscape to match. Promoting dense, organic development, it diversifies the communities in the built environment, making travel less necessary, easier and more predictable, and bypassing roadway congestion through a new raised infrastructure."
Looping around the city, with connections to subways, light rail and buses, MásTransit links local and inter-regional commuting, providing frequent service that will also sync up with the California High Speed Rail network. San Diego via m·sTransit is less than an hour away, including transfer times; San Francisco is less than three hours away."
Now if we could only get some people started on imagining regional high-speed rail for the Pacific Northwest. At the very least, there needs to be a high-speed line connecting Portland and Seattle. Really, it ought to also include connections to Vancouver (BC), Bend, Tacoma, Olympia, Salem and Eugene or maybe even to Medford and San Francisco. Much more than a new bridge for the Columbia River and Interstate 5, we need high speed rail. However, maybe rail could also be incorporated into this crossing.
Meanwhile, congratulations to Whelton, Brostoff and the rest of their team.
Sorry Brian, I asked years ago at two or more CRC Committee meeting to incorporate a HSR component into the design of the CRC. It was discarded. Saving the money that is going to be needed for a HSR Bridge down the road wasn't on their radar.
Maybe we get a set of lines next to the BN Bridge. All I hope for now is a Eastside HSR Station to remove the major speed hits at the two Willamette River bridges.
Ray
Posted by: Ray Whitford | March 30, 2009 at 12:47 PM
Transit alternatives are at the heart of future sustainable models, congrats to Aaron and Jacob.
For a local competition, also focused on transportation infrastructure and alternatives, consider the upcoming Cascadia Green Building Council's competition:
http://www.cascadiagbc.org/emerging-green-builders/NTDC09
To be judged at the Living Futures conference held this May in Portland.
Posted by: Aquacultutre_PDX | March 30, 2009 at 09:35 PM