When it was announced that
LA 2024, the group organizing Los Angeles’ bid for the Summer Olympics, was
changing its plans for the Olympic Village, the city chose a fiscally safe path
– but one that lacks imagination and foresight.
At the edge of the long ridiculed
Los Angeles River, on the verge of a grand revitalization, the Union Pacific Piggyback
Rail Yard, sandwiched between the Arts District and the eastside, was to be
renewed as a development that would house over 17,000 athletes before being
converted as affordable housing. The project featured a cable car that sailed passengers
across the river to Union Station, to Los Angeles shiny new transportation
system. It was to become the central focal point of the river restoration, and
still might – but now, not until at least 2033.
For an Olympic bid
applauded for being fiscally responsible, the audacious scope of the Piggyback
project was a stand out, game changing public project that the Olympics, at
their best, catalyze for their hosts. And dozens of projects crawling by in Los
Angeles are in desperate need of a jump-start.
On my bike ride in the
mornings from my apartment in Palms, a neighborhood of LA just north of Culver
City, I’m struck by how we’re failing so many Angelenos. Leading to the sloped
planted area between the new train tracks on Exposition Blvd and the 10
freeway, there’s a gate that’s nearly always open that leads to the planted
area in between. As I head east on the bike path, I look over, and there is a
small, but ever expanding community of people camping. I turn right onto
Robertson past three more tents. Headed west toward the sun setting on Venice
Blvd, under the 405 freeway there’s another encampment, dozens of people, many
with children with no other option. This pattern repeats throughout the city,
in rich communities and in poor, in freeway underpasses and under the boardwalk
at the beach.
Renowned architect Frank
Gehry, who has already made his statement throughout Los Angeles with
contributions including the Walt Disney Concert Hall started working on the Los Angeles River restoration with a few strings
attached. He gives voice to the frustrations many in our region feel living in
a drought and watching all the rainwater flow to the ocean, and demanded that
water reclamation was the central point of the project, so the river can work
for all of us again. Piggyback was unique in the sense that it truly would
allow the whole city, even those with
nothing, to share in the future.
In 2012, despite busting
their budget, London managed to revitalize Hackney Wick in east London, derided by many as a drug and crime haven, into a vibrant waterfront with affordable
housing – and that was on top of building a new Olympic stadium. The
neighborhood today is representative of what is possible. Hosting athletes at
UCLA on the other hand, is representative of what has already been. Los Angeles
has become too expensive, and we need more housing. Los Angeles has a river
that they turned into a city length storm drain, but following the trends of
recent years in the city, the future is looking east – and on riverfront
property. And yes, the Piggyback yard development could have cost $2 billion,
and will eventually suck up a third of the LA River restoration budget. But
this is the Olympics, and even in post-Sochi age of austerity and prudent
planning, Hackney, and London, showed the potential of accelerating the
restoration of waterfront property for the greater urban good.
I have hope that, earlier
than 2033, Piggyback will be revived in a more traditional, perhaps in a more
fiscally responsible fashion. The way LA 2024 just walked away from the
project, however, leaves me that much more skeptical that Los Angeles really
has Olympic sized ambition these days.
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