Getting Around in L.A.: Cars, Cars, Cars

Due to the widespread suburbs, the car is not just a convenience in Los Angeles but a necessity. 

The BBC documentary “Hot Cities - Surviving Climate Change” offers some numbers: The 10 million inhabitants of Los Angeles County own 6 million cars and take 20 million car trips per day. It is “the original car capital” and the first city with an urban freeway. 

 Another thing that comes with the car culture is the need for parking space. As one blogger observes, "Besides all the smog and traffic, one of the effects of the car culture out here is the amount of space taken up by parking lots. [...] Being from New York, the idea of wasting all that space on empty cars is unfathomable to me."

The band "Missing Persons", founded in Los Angeles, observed in 1983 in their song "Walking in L.A." that "nobody walks in L.A.". The only people that can be seen on the street are either a jogger or rollerskater exercising or "maybe somebody who just ran out of gas". In the refrain this idea is clerverly twisted into "only a nobody walks in L.A.".

As dramatically announced by the BBC documentary's narrator, with all the car drivers living the American dream on Los Angeles' highways it has turned into a nightmare, because of the high emission that is blamed for the climate change.

But since the growing traffic has been recognized as a severe threat to health and environment, several actions have been taken.