Everybody knows about Mulholland Drive; but does anyone know who he was? He was the man that brought us the California aqueduct which takes water from the Owens River valley and diverts it to Los Angeles. He is basically solely responsible for LA being able to grow into the metropolis it is today. OK, that is the good.
Now the bad:
Has anyone ever been to the Mammoth Lakes area, near what was once Owens Lake? A large, open, natural lake was replaced by a alkaline-filled wasteland of sagebrush for as far as the eye can see. Any area with river access, or a decent place to fish, et cetera has big signs that say "City of Los Angeles private property, no trespassing, violators will be prosecuted". It truly is very sad to see. He forever changed the ecosystem in the Owens River valley; there is no way it would have been allowed today.
So, the next time you flush your toilet, or drink a glass of tap water, thank William Mulholland, for it was he that made it possible, at great expense to the people, and animals of the Owen's river valley.
He swindled people out of their water rights for sure. If not for the efforts of the Mono Lake Commitee fighting in court for many years against DWP and winning Mono Lake would be heading to look like Owen Lake . Look up MonoLake.org and read about its history, I'm glad for one its being saved and preserved for generations to come. Like their motto says "Its for the Birds" and that is so true.
I think a lot of the problems today are due to the "unintended consequences" of what he did back then. Nobody really looked that far ahead.
He was brilliant in designing the freeway systems. Imagine that he began work on them in the 30's (design) and they still work fairly well today (with widening and such).
I think a lot of the problems today are due to the "unintended consequences" of what he did back then. Nobody really looked that far ahead.
He was brilliant in designing the freeway systems. Imagine that he began work on them in the 30's (design) and they still work fairly well today (with widening and such).
Traffic sucks, but think about how many millions of people drive into and around LA every day. We have more (auto) commuters than other cities, but the freeways still handle the flow (outside of peak times).
When the freeway system was envisioned the population was a fraction of what it is today, and not every family even had a car. Now individual people have several cars. The fact that the freeways work at all is amazing, especially when we know they were designed 70 years ago.
Do i like our traffic problems? Hell no. But if we did not have the freeways SoCal would not be functioning.
I spend a lot of time up in Mammoth and got interested in the DWP history. Chinatown aside, there are some pretty good research sources for water and Los Angeles history. One I like: Western Times and Water Wars: State ... - Google Books
I bought the book above at the rock shop in Lone Pine CA. A good percentage of the people who live in the long valley towns work for DWP. They tell some pretty good stories about the old days. My take is that Mullholland and the DWP were pretty fair to the farmers in the area, but there were a few in Los Angeles politics who did some front-running (buying farms, water rights, etc.) before the whole project became public.
Traffic sucks, but think about how many millions of people drive into and around LA every day. We have more (auto) commuters than other cities, but the freeways still handle the flow (outside of peak times).
...Peak times: 8am till 8pm
When the freeway system was envisioned the population was a fraction of what it is today, and not every family even had a car. Now individual people have several cars. The fact that the freeways work at all is amazing, especially when we know they were designed 70 years ago.
...There was gridlock 50 years ago too...
Do i like our traffic problems? Hell no. But if we did not have the freeways SoCal would not be functioning.
...Unless we had a good mass transit system
(Or unless we could get people to drive appropriately sized vehicles)
Steve
It seems our politicians have their fingers on the transit and gridlock problems in California. Once all the businesses move to other states and our welfare money runs out, the traffic problems will ease up quite a bit!
Traffic sucks, but think about how many millions of people drive into and around LA every day. We have more (auto) commuters than other cities, but the freeways still handle the flow (outside of peak times).
...Peak times: 8am till 8pm
When the freeway system was envisioned the population was a fraction of what it is today, and not every family even had a car. Now individual people have several cars. The fact that the freeways work at all is amazing, especially when we know they were designed 70 years ago.
...There was gridlock 50 years ago too...
Do i like our traffic problems? Hell no. But if we did not have the freeways SoCal would not be functioning.
...Unless we had a good mass transit system
(Or unless we could get people to drive appropriately sized vehicles)
Steve
I hear you, but it would take zillions of dollars to get SoCal back to mass transit, though.
Gridlock is not going anywhere soon. Name any major city in the country and we can discuss their gridlock. Boston? NYC? Chicago? St. Louis? Even Phoenix. I've driven in just about every city in the country and traffic just plain sucks everywhere.
Any action to alleviate traffic will be reactive at this point. The days of being proactive are gone.
Linear Mode
