Okay – a confession.  I’m a fan of StreetFilms, a big fan actually.  They do an excellent job of illustrating issues and ideas many of which as dead nuts on with what we at the Coalition are promoting for our region.  And it doesn’t hurt that the production values are great.  So rest assured that you’ll see more them showing up here.

This latest one caught my eye for a couple of reasons.  First off, I’ve spent a fair amount of time on-and-off over the past 12+ years in China for business.  I’ve been fortunate I believe to see in some cases first hand the steps that they have taken in addressing their infrastructure and mobility challenges seemingly head on.  It really is a case of “see a problem – then fix it”.  Makes me step back at times and watch in dismay at what it what we call progress here in the States.   Yes China has money, boat loads of it in fact, and yes it is a Communist State but I’ll tell you it is a highly entrepreneurial, it works differently than you might imagine.  And when it comes to building things for the community – it really does seems to work.

The second aspect is what I call the thoroughness of the implementation – specifically the integration with the Metro and bike stations into the BRT coupled with the Yang Cheng Tong smart card payment system.  Simply brilliant in my mind.

So why do I feel it important to share this?  It’s not that I think we need a solution like this here (but I bet if you’ve spent any time whiling away your time slinking along PCH/Sepulveda or Hawthorne or to a lessor extent Aviation Blvd during rush hour, you may actually think this a good idea.  No – it is more as inspiration that things can and should be done.  If we come together to really look at a shared vision of what we want our region to look and behave like, we can hopefully reduce the NIMBY effect and get things done.  I also really think the integrated, more systems-like like view is very powerful and something worth adopting in our transportation thinking.

So enough of my thoughts, view it yourself and share yours with us.  Happy viewing!