Last Write Up

Biological Transportation in Los Angeles (ILC)
Evergreen State College
Summer Quarter 2011
Student: Taylor Arneson
Faculty: Eddy Brown
4 Credits





In the age of oil, people sometimes forget what transportation was like before we sunk a drill bit and set up a derrick. Los Angeles is one of the most car dependent cities in the nation where cars are king. Massive amounts of oil have been extracted from the soils beneath our feet. It wasn’t always this way in Los Angeles, actually it never really was until the last 100 years. Native peoples walked and carved canoes out of solid pine and cedar trees (and used oil tars to seal them). They were able to navigate the ocean and Channel Islands for thousands of years in these dugout canoes. Newcomers (Spanish conquistadors) arrived on sailing on the ocean winds in 1781 along with horses, oxen and mules. Trains arrived in 1870 and horses and mules began to loose favor as real estate became more expensive (this made hay more expensive). Cars were much faster, oil was cheap, and you didn’t need to fuel a car with oil when it wasn’t in use, unlike working animals.

The United States has one of the most highly developed transportation systems in the world, however there are also many negative impacts from this system. We suffer high death rates on many highways, have evelated levels of asthma and other smog related illnesses and we have lost the sense of walkability in many communities, small towns and cities. There is a markable difference in places developed prior to WWII when pedestrians took a backseat to the private auto. Suburbs are the culmination of this design. With a garage door opener, it was possible to leave your house, go to work, without setting foot outside or talking to neighbors.


Nevertheless, we are not doomed for failure in these places, in fact, some suburbs provide an ideal layout for small scale home farms, with ample areas devoted to grass that could just as easily grow vegetables. Many unused paved areas are often transitioned to bike lanes and paths in more progressive areas. The major problem, however, lies in that solution. How do people get out of the suburbs to the cities to get to work? Well, they can’t. It makes a lot more sense in most cases to bring the work to them. We move thousands of pounds of machinery and about 200 lbs of human to sit in front of 20 lbs of paper. The paper can be sent to them, electronically, or in the mail. Many people can tele-commute these days, and sit at home instead of sitting in the car. Instead of taking trips to far away places, a new kind of tourism is emerging. One that is right under our own noses. People in cities often get to know certain aspects of their environs in detail, other aspects are usually overlooked as large metropolises contain sprawling masses of hidden places.

People are becoming more aware of local food issues, and while they may get their food from less than 50 miles away rather the national average of 1500 miles away, real connections are made when you are able to visit the farm where your food is grown. This is an essential part of local, ecological tourism, connecting with food by visiting the places where it grows, the people who grow it and understanding the processes involved.

It takes someone with a very detailed knowledge (most likely a native or a bike messenger) to know a city like the back of his hand. These people can provide a unparalleled experience to bring people on journeys of discovery that allow them to expand their views on the places closest to them, gaining a more intimate feeling than getting tidbits from tourist traps, this is information about where they reside that may be of use on a daily basis. It is certainly more affordable to travel within your own region than going on faraway trips. This opens the experience up to a much larger audience than the traditional middle to upper-middle class travel experience.

I have long held the idea that cultural exchange and examination of different styles of urban design, architecture, landscaping and art pose an excellent subject for local eco tourism. Working with a skilled web designer, I often dream of setting up a site where anyone from local to international travelers can customize a tour based on a wide range of walking, biking, horse, boat and biofuel transportation options. Once they select a custom package of the type of places they would like to visit, they get a price based on the amount of labor and level of impact per transportation type, saving money by walking or biking mostly. Expressed here in a simple table.

Walking Bicycle
Natural History Museum $10 an hour per person $15 an hour per person
Green Architecture $12 an hour per person $16 an hour per person
Community Garden by donation $9 an hour per person

Other activities such as horseback riding, which are typically limited to specific areas can be expanded upon by pressure from equestrian groups and citizens who would like to see more areas open to equestrian travel. Horses are the most expensive activity I have encountered thus far, both as a prospective client seeking horseback rides and a prospective horse owner, working with them in the past, it is no secret that they are expensive animals to own and work with. I attempted to find a horse owner willing to rent to me for urban explorations but there was little success. I was met with skepticism. After research on the legal issues with riding a horse in the city, I found it is legal to ride a horse on the sidewalk almost anywhere in Los Angeles (outside the downtown Metro exclusion zone) with a $16 a year license as long as you pick up the manure. Buying a retried police horse, trained to deal with it all (bombproof), might prove to be the right combination of light work to keep a horse happy in his golden years and an affordable employee. It is a similar concept to those seeking to employ retirees as a method to get qualified workers who are often more responsible and punctual than their younger counterparts. I look forward to pursuing this idea further.

Bicycles are perhaps the most utilitarian invention ever created. A single human on a bicycle is the most efficient converter of energy to land miles in terms of distance traveled. In cities based on timed traffic it is often difficult to get places any faster in a car than a bicycle. The bicycle is still the most common form of human transportation world wide for good reason. And transportation is just the tip of the iceberg. For years I have been advocating (with little success, albeit) to get bike shops to carry other forms of bicycle uses. Anything from sharpening knife blades, making a smoothie, anything that uses mechanical power to change the physical make up of something. There are agricultural uses like water pumps and nut shellers. This has potential to be an important component of any tour as an introduction to cycle power and it’s uses and history.

Dogs are also an option for transport, more popular with the younger crowd as wheeled skate devices are implemented in the form of sleds, much as ice skates compare to rollerblades. The major drawback of this activity in Los Angeles is the heat. Most dogs capable of pulling human weight are not bred to be in hot climates such as southern California. However winter time, early morning and late afternoons of summer time as well as night rides are potentially better. Dog training is difficult, and again, this is a slightly more intensive and expensive activity, but it is also very popular as dogs are man’s best friend.

The LA river is no doubt in a sad state from it’s former glory. It was described as so beautifully by the Spanish, first to record it’s existence on paper. The channelization was an important (although misled) effort to save lives and alter the landscape to function as was most convenient for direct human use. Today, only 3 sections are left with a natural soft bottom. In the Sepulveda Basin, the Glendale Narrows, and near the port of San Pedro. The most easily navigated is the Sepulveda Basin by far. In the summer time, when the flow slows to a trickle, treated sewage water is sent into the channelized river, creating opportunity for some plants to grow there (and wildlife to stop through) that normally would not. This provides good opportunity for nature hikes and kayak trips. On 2 kayak trips i counted at least 20 different species of trees and 14 kinds of birds and water fowl.

In the context of transportation and tourism, Los Angeles is at it’s most technical. Hundreds of double decker busses tour Hollywood and the homes of the stars in Beverly Hills. Yet there is a market for travels off the beaten path emerging in almost every city. There are tours of haunted places, the sets of TV shows, freak shows on the Venice boardwalk and niche tours for different culture and language groups. This contract provided the opportunity to examine the feasibility of other options for more ecologically friendly and informative tours with dialogues for locals and visitors to appreciate together. Bringing together tourists and locals for discoveries that are both new, yet relatable to each individual is the goal. Encouraging people to experience a new sense of place through an outdoor venue rather than an air conditioned bus with highly predictable stops. Smaller scale, individualized tourism provides the personal touch of someone enthusiastic about sharing and learning new things about the city rather than giving the same old speech on the same street.





Example Itinerary:

Bike Tour Times Location Activity
1:30pm stop 1 Jimmy Bike Shop 1/2 off tune up / talk
2:15pm stop 2 Green Building Site walk tour / history
2:45pm stop 3 Public Fruit Tree Harvest / history
3:00pm stop 4 Beach Beach Natural Hist.
4:00pm stop 5 Community Garden Planting seasonally

This tour could accommodate 6 people for three and a half hours, costing them roughly $40 each, totaling $240. Half might go to the organization and half to the tour guide. The rough idea is to make it about the price of a movie per two hours as a baseline price. As transportation sophistication goes up (ie anything but walking), so does the price.

As my project progressed it was clear that a budget that never existed in the first place was quickly spent on a kayak and supplies, gas to get to the LA River locations and bike repairs and camera equipment. I spent time to find the most frugal prices and routes to and from places. There is a substantial amount of market research, planning and marketing etc that will have significant infrastructure, labor and time investment to build a successful business from a educational project. It maybe the next big thing, it may never materialize, it may take another form at the hand of invisible forces. The important issues here are the need for advocacy in pedestrian centered transportation, understanding of local economies, ecologies and their mutually exclusive interconnectedness.