Zev Yaroslavsky and Traffic in LA

    Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez is well liked by the readership. Every time I ask someone about who they like to read at the Times, Mr. Lopez is mentioned.
    Recently he wrote a column in which he discussed the well known problem of traffic congestion on the West side of Los Angeles.
    It takes about 10 minutes to go a few miles between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm.  The same distance may take an hour or more after 4 pm.
    He wrote about and interviewed LA County Supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky, who got his Masters in History, in 1972, at the Westwood campus of UCLA, ran for City Council 3 years later, and has held the public trust ever since.
    He actually surprised a number of people when he ran for LA City Council and won in 1975, because he beat a top Bradley aide, Fran Savitch, at a time when the Mayor was at his peak of popularity.
    When Zev attended UCLA, Westwood was still a village.  When I attended Uni High during the late 50s and early1960s, Jon Steiner,who later became a lawyer and defended death row inmates, and whose father was the agent for Yule Brenner, and a few of the other guys would go to the bowling alley on the second floor of a two story building on Westwood Blvd. We would bowl a couple of games, and play the football gambling cards handed to us by some strange men.
    I liked Westwood, at the time. The Bruin and the Village movie theaters were as popular then, with one screen, as they are now.
    It was very easy to walk around and even park in the village.
    Now, in his interview with Lopez, Mr. Yaroslavsky was complaining about the horrible traffic conditions, and how it takes extra planning to get from one meeting to the next in the afternoon. Sometimes, he just gives up making appointments, because PM traffic is so bad.
    But, Zev can't have it all.  He lorded over the west side, and the Westwood area, in particular, while it was over-developed.  I believe Zev is an honest guy, but he got caught up in the same game as all politicians.  He raised his campaign funds from developers, and allowed the Wilshire corridor to be made into a little Manhattan, with mammoth office buildings and hotels looking over the backyards of the modest homes of Westwood.
    Congestion is horrible in Los Angeles because it has been developed to the point of insanity.  Why wasn't the Playa Del Rey and Howard Hughes Parkway development stopped?
    Zev can't have it both ways.  He can't complain about the traffic he actually helped create while holding office for the last 32 years.
    So, he goes to Brazil, or some other South American Country and comes back with a brilliant idea:  Make Pico and Olympic one way.  Major cities have been doing that on the East Coast for the last 30 years.
    I know we can't go back.  But, I still go to Farmers Market on 3rd and Fairfax, feel heartache that we lost the Pan Pacific Auditorium and Gilmore Field.
    I wish that we would have allowed only City Hall to be the tallest building in Los Angeles.
    That fantasy is all over.  But, at least Zev should have the humility to admit he was part of the traffic problem, not the solution.
    Thanks for reading:
    Bob Kholos



   

Comments

[roger carroll]

Bob, great story on Ziv. He's been there to long, so have the others. Get rid of them , we need new blood. They all HATE TERM Limits.
roger carroll, big time dj who did not mention in your note to LARadio, I'm hurt.