An update on green transportation

A key component of our Green Transportation proposal is the implementation of a parking fee on the Occidental College campus. This has the potential to be a very controversial proposal, and has many components that make it so. The purpose of the parking fee would ultimately be to reduce the number of students who brought cars to campus, and in doing so increase the use of public transportation within Los Angeles.

Los Angeles has always been a car-centric city, therefore facilitating the best experience of the city is done through the car . Sitting on the freeway alone in your car, with thousands of other people also alone in their cars, at an almost dead stop for hours is an experience that you can get in few other places. But it's more than that, the freeways in LA have become the city's bloodlines. As Reyner Banham writes, for LA the space of the freeway is an entirely separate ecology- it has its own characteristics, as do the actions of those within its space.

So the question then becomes, what does it mean to change this model? What does it mean for LA to be experienced through public transportation instead of the private automobile? Public transportation opens up a whole different side of the city. It means exposure to more neighborhoods, the potential for interactions with more people. It means moving out of the private space of the car, and moving into the public space of the city. It means truly integrating into the city, and finding a sense of place through movement within it. In a city as rich as Los Angeles, using public transportation is not shorting out on the experience of the city, but it is in fact enhancing it- something that should be especially valued by the college community.

The implementation of a parking fee on campus is a sign of changing times, and of a changing city experience. It may be hard to culturally and socially adapt to that change, but it doesn't add up to a less complete experience. The parking fee in combination with subsidized public transportation would facilitate this changing city experience, while at the same time encouraging the transition to a more green campus and sustainable future.