La Sombrita, or, How to Fail at Infrastructure

Paul MatzkoLos Angeles spent $200,000 on La Sombrita ( ‘“in the shade”), a bus stop shade/​light structure that provides littleshade or light. It has been almost too easy to criticize its design, the token DEI framing given to the project, how most of the funds went to a global junket for the designers, or the fact that city officials held a tone deaf celebratory press conference for its unveiling. Would this “make waiting for the bus at night [feel]safer” to you?But La Sombrita isn ’t really the problem. Rather, its failures are symptoms of its designers trying to work around deeper, structural problems with the governance of infrastructure in Los Angeles. Others have focused on how the shelter‐​on‐​a‐​stick reveals the flaws of governance vianon ‐​profit, the kludgery ofexcessive permitting, or “Blue America’s”systemic failures. There is plenty of blame to spread around, but I  want to focus on what I believe is a more fundamental flaw that separates Los Angeles’s failures with transit infrastructure from those of even other progressive city governments.But let ’s start with the basics. Cities are paved heat sinks that get unbearably hot in the summers, especially for the poor bus riders waiting and baking for anaverage of 40  minutes (!) per day. They need shade from the sun, but only about 25% of bus stops in Los Angeles have shelters. Riders are left tosqueeze themselves into the narrow shadows cast by utility poles.Riders ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs