Train of Thought

Taipei, like Los Angeles, is a sprawling metropolis surrounded by mountains and ocean. The ocean breeze pushes the air inland, but the mountain's altitude blocks the air from passing the city by, leaving the same air sitting stagnant over the city. The busy and industrial nature of the city spews pollutants in the air, which collects and discolors the sky, leaving every one to soak in it like throwing dirt in a bathtub.

_{From Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world, the view looks like this for 360 degrees. The lights would keep stretching out if it weren't for the smog-caused-horizon.}

Taipei was once so polluted that one of the city rivers was literally flammable. 15 years ago though, Taipei began to turn itself around. It built a subway system that has steadily developed and now provides convenient accessibility to a broad expanse of the city. I've only used a taxi once here, and that was because I could not find a map of the area so I did not know where to walk from the subway.

The common line is that LA could not build such a system because of the earthquakes. I simply don't buy that. There was an earthquake here on my third day, and though minor, Taiwan suffered a massive earthquake in 1999 that measured 7.3 on the Richter Scale.

_{A sign in the subway station warns that graffiti is bad for the city's image. I just find it funny that their graffiti is Tigger and Rainbows, but is still viewed as a major problem to the Taiwanese. Compared to other major cities, violent crime is pretty uncommon here.}

Although now is probably not the right time, considering California's massive debt, cuts to the education system and the IOU's the state is literally using to make payments, but when we are able to spend, they should look to Taipei as a model of how to build an effective subway system through a massive spread out city that deals with earthquakes.

_{My photos are getting less relevant to a public transportation system, but hey, everyone likes photos, right?... Wait, actually that little blue pagoda thing is an entryway/exit for the Chaing Kai Shek Memorial subway stop. Ha!}

Taipei, which is actually denser than LA, has developed a pre-paid "easy card" system to prevent the entry from getting clogged up by human traffic, builds stations with convenient retail (economic) opportunity with pharmacies, 711s, Dunkin Donuts and other stores found throughout. They have areas marked by blue lines where women can know they're within sight of video surveillance (plus plenty of buttons around to notify police of emergency). They have #'d exits which are surprisingly helpful as someone can simply say "come out of exit 3, take a left and then a right at your second light."

Of course, certain things wouldn't work so well in the States. Taipei has painted lines for people to wait for the train when it's crowded, leaving an open space for others to exit the subway first and give priority to enter the train to people who got there first, often leaving people at the back of the line to catch the next train... I just don't see that working in LA.

But considering we're spending money anyhow, why not spend it on something with a return on investment like this instead of spending tax money on Michael Jackson's funeral? A better transportation system would increase commerce for all the standard obvious reasons, would significantly decrease the pollution in the city with the biggest smog problem in all of America, and do wonders for the mental health of the people in that city. Spending two hours a day in horrible traffic is not good for the psyche. Speaking from experience, spending too much time in the car in LA can be a frustrating experience that impacts your mood and makes you disappointed in people in general... Using your signal is a sure-fire way to make sure you don't get to change lanes as it only lets the people near you know to speed up and block you out.

_{For every bicycle and every car, there are 10 of these motorcycle/vespa type things. Sometimes they seem endless.}

The urban planning in LA is universally accepted as atrocious, and the city has talked about changing the urban planning and transportation and even building a subway for years, but it never seems to improve. If you want to blame it on the deficit, than fine, but after being in Taipei and seeing the impact of an effective subway system here, I'm tired of hearing it's because the earthquakes or that it is too low a priority. It shouldn't be. The system has done wonders for the physical, economic, and even the mental/social health of this city. We should treat it as a lesson.

People in LA make their plans around the traffic - who they're going to see, where they're going to take their business, when they're going to leave home. Complaining about the stress of sitting in traffic is a daily occurrence. Having some time to sit and think isn't such a bad thing, but it is when you're staring at someone's break lights. As much good as cutting down the smog would do for the physical health of the city, and as much good as the increased mobility would do for the economic health of the city, I think the decreased time spent sitting in traffic (separated from, distrusting and angry at every person around) would have an enormous ripple effect on the mental health of the city as well.