I had the pleasure of serving with John Zimmerman on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC), which was the predecessor, along with the Southern California Regional Transportation District (SCRTD) to Metro (the present Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority).
John was elected to LACTC by local council members from Los Angeles County cities outside Los Angeles and Long Beach. He served as a Norwalk, California city councilman from 1957 to 1982. He was a dedicated and active member of LACTC and passed away in 1992.
The city of Norwalk is located immediately east of more famous Lakewood, which was in many ways a model of the post-World War II suburbanization that has dominated urban growth in the United States. Lakewood was incorporated in 1954 (see map above).
What reminded me of John was an article describing a proposal to develop a gondola system to link Disneyland with other attractions in the city of Anaheim. John frequently tried to create interest in a gondola based rapid transit system throughout Los Angeles County. He was convinced that it would maximize transit ridership cost effectively.
John was the only one of the 11 voting members who indicated any interest in the gondola proposal (this included me). The Anaheim proposal is far shorter, at 3.8 miles. More worryingly, it is not clear how the system would be funded, and according to Urbanize LA, the cost has tripled since December. Hopefully the Anaheim city council will recognize that a system that has tripled in cost in so little time can escalate even more on the way to completion.
But it seems clear that this gondola system has a chance to be built. I suspect if John were still with us, he would be an enthusiastic supporter.
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a Senior Fellow with Unleash Prosperity in Washington and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.
Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985), which was a predecessor agency to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.
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