Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

Not alarmingly, this prediction has come through over at Yahoo news.  While predicting something like this is one thing, what's more important is determining a solution in the near term future.  In particular, places like Los Angeles need to act immediately to do something to stem the inevitable rise in gas prices.  Having more hybrids doesn't seem to entirely cut the situation either.  Here's some suggestions for how car dependent cities like Los Angeles can do some preemptive strike against this situation:

• Increased tax breaks for hybrid car owners
• More funding for universities in green technology research
• Tax breaks for companies doing research into or selling green technologies
• Tax penalties against companies that seek to disrupt such activities either through corporate lobbying or collusion
• Tax breaks for companies that have car pooling programs.  For instance, companies might setup policies where people doing ridesharing with 4 people can receive complete compensation for gasoline.
  
• Tax breaks for companies that encourage commuters to utilize the Metro line.  Again, companies would absorb the cost of paying for commuting via the Metro much in the same way that many Japanese companies pay for transportation expenses and in return receive tax credit.
• Increase investment in the Metro.  Los Angeles needs to increase the availabiilty, efficiency and diversity for locations of where the Metro can be used. 
  

I think Los Angeles also needs to improve the way it's planned.  For instance, there are no real business central areas except downtown.  However, downtown is quite limited in the types of jobs.  Los Angeles needs to start building more business zones that are connected via the Metro.  Of course, this idea is very similar to how Tokyo is handled, but I can see validity in moving towards this direction for Los Angeles.  Right now, Los Angeles suffers because it's a massive sprawl and things are far too decentralized with pockets of suburbs interconnecting without any focus.  Because of this architecture, Los Angeles forces its residence to do these nonsensical commutes that made traffic unbearable and causes a horrible increase in pollution due to people sitting around in traffic.

While I don't think centralizing all businesses into one urban center will benefit anyone, I do think that there needs to be some centralization of types of businesses.  For instance, you have entertainment with Hollywood, manufacturing, technology, or finance.  Logically grouping businesses up might help in partitioning commutes for people when it comes to using the Metro.  I think cars should really be used more infrequently, more in the cases of shopping or something more casual.  At the moment, cars in LA are nothing more than a detriment to people and the environment.  The more I think about the situation, the more I believe that LA should deemphasize cars and move towards a more modern urban architecture as proposed above.  The immediate benefits for such things might be:

• Better commute times
• Less accidents and deaths for careless /drunk drivers
• Improved communities since people will be in more public spaces
• More physical fitness for people
• Less emphasis on gas
• Ecological improvement in terms of air quality
• Less traffic

Honestly, after looking  at such benefits, it's impossible to deny that LA shouldn't move in this direction. Hopefully, the city also sees these opportunities and will take action in the near future.