Festivals and parades remind us that during the Spanish and Mexican Periods, these first modes of land transportation were introduced and the first horse trails and wagon roads were established in California.Boats are expensive and impractical alternative choices for personal commuting even compared to the crowded bridges, public transportation, and ferries designed to get you across the bays around San Francisco. Most of these vessels serve recreational boaters.This public space could have been filled with ramps and connections to a rebuilt double-decker Embarcadero Freeway.Instead of a massive concrete structure for cars, The City used this new-found space to create richer experiences for San Franciscans and visitors. This bicyclist takes advantage of a route where once-dominant cars were rejected and spectacular views are now cherished. Fishing for dinner has replaced fishing for an open car lane or parking space in this newly-discovered space that celebrates San Francisco Bay.If you still don’t want to jam yourself and your car into the gridlock on the Bay Bridge, you can always choose the bus, BART, or even a ferry to get across. San Francisco’s steep hills were never car friendly, and certainly never manual transmission friendly.You are likely to find interesting narrow pathways like this in older northern California cities where you can step back to times before cars took control of city planning. They also offer comfortable spaces for murals with messages.Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area is the last California beach where you can drive right up to the surf in just about any personal vehicle that suits you. Such activities have attracted their share of attention, conflict, and controversy.Some of the most notorious slides along the Big Sur coast require millions of dollars of engineering and maintenance every year to keep Hwy 1 open to car traffic. Residents and visitors wonder how long this iconic highway can survive. Reseda doesn’t really have a freeway, but the community is surrounded by them. This boulevard is typical of the wide thoroughfares that have always invited cars and helped define the San Fernando Valley. Bicycles took over on this day on 2023. Interstate 10 (the Santa Monica Freeway) is one of many examples of freeways that were built to slice directly through working-class neighborhoods.Across LA, monotonous freeway infrastructures have become dangerous homes for the unhoused.Give me shelter has earned a different meaning beneath the I 10 Freeway on the West Side of LA. Residents and commuters have learned to avoid these underpasses. Just above, dense traffic backs up with thousands of commuters who would never know about the dramas unfolding below their cars. New developments such as these can still be found stretching beyond California suburbs, testing people’s patience to see how long they are willing to commute each day from their new-found more affordable planned communities. Telecommuting has made these lifestyles more attractive for those who don’t have to appear at their workplaces.Each section of this quiet planned community in Canyon Country is carved into different levels on the hills. You will need your car to get to the store or for just about every other activity that you can’t do at home. It is a perfect example of how one person’s car heaven retreat can be another person’s hell. You will almost always find some of the most reliably paralyzing traffic jams (when returning to California) at the Mexican Border. Visitors to border towns have learned to park their cars and walk across.These tar seeps at Tar Pits Park, Carpinteria Beach, display the same tar that emerges from the ocean floor and then floats ashore to get on our feet. It is related to the petroleum we have been pumping out of the rock formations below Santa Barbara Channel that is then refined to support our petroleum-hungry industries and car cultures.Oil platforms have lined the horizon for 50 years in the channel from Santa Barbara to Huntington Beach. These out-of-date platforms are scheduled to be decommissioned during the next ten years. Since the devastating 1969 oil spill, groups such as GOO have lobbied for their removal. They stand out as monuments to our addiction to the oil that has fueled our car cultures. Sticker shock such as this briefly limits transportation options for every working- and middle-class Californian. Hybrid and electric vehicle owners were the clear winners during these high-price times.Urban residents sometimes forget how much we rely on cars and trucks to transport the labor, farm equipment, and crops that get food onto our tables. Without reliable roads, freeways, and vehicles, the Golden State couldn’t lead the nation in farm production.In more rural parts of northern California, laborers couldn’t access remote work sites without their cars and trucks. Larger trucks couldn’t transport products without reliable roads. Countless miles of rights-of-way have been cleared to support these primary industries. You have likely seen this landscape along PCH at Pt. Mugu (between Malibu and the Oxnard Plain) before. It has starred in countless commercials, TV series, and movies. Coast Highway was originally built around the rock, until too many cars and the highway itself fell into the ocean for the last time. By 1940, workers had blasted this cut through the rock so that we could continue to enjoy this scenic coastline along Hwy 1.Yet another iconic and heavily-traveled coastal route is Hwy 101 from Ventura to Santa Barbara. A separate and convenient parallel bike lane invites energetic cyclists to discard their cars and embrace the coastal magic.San Onofre State Beach is a beloved gem, home to some of the best surfing spots in the world. But you will need a vehicle to get down there and you should arrive very early to miss the crowds. On many summer weekend afternoons, cars line up for waiting times (there is limited parking along the narrow beach) that can be more than an hour long.Bridges are required to route traffic over waterways in more remote parts of the state (especially in Northern California) where cars are required to get around. Though frequent flooding along the Russian River often blocks Sonoma County roads, this bridge is plenty high to look down on them.Viewing from the Palm Springs Tramway, we can see suburban developments extending north and beyond Palm Springs. Though there is a bus system, most low desert communities and resorts are accessed by car and then require vehicles to travel longer distances.Is this some kind of transportation message? This art installation in San Gorgonio pass was visible from heavily traveled Interstate 10. When sprawling Coachella Valley’s Desert X appears next year, you will again need your car to visit such site-specific creations. In about 45 minutes, you can follow the scenic Pines to Palms Highway (Hwy 74) from the cool forests of the San Jacinto Mountains (behind us) down here to the hot and dry Palm Desert. Notice how the snaking road below proves our determination to make rugged and remote places accessible to cars. Off roaders make their plans here. The Truckhaven 4X4 Training Area in Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area can be seen along the Salton Seaway on the way to Anza Borrego Desert State Park. It is one of several places in California’s deserts where recreational vehicle enthusiasts can celebrate their off-roading passions. Car art has even appeared at Slab City, where unhoused folks (after losing permanent shelter) often plop down in the desert with all types of vehicles that include RVs.You will need good directions, maps, knowledge of landmarks, and a four-wheel drive vehicle to navigate dirt roads in and around remote Saline Valley.Danger ahead? Heading across the high desert, around Mono lake and toward Nevada, you will find plenty of open space to lose yourself …. or to get lost.Is this our deserted desert road to freedom or to nowhere, or both?Why is this freeway onramp so short and what happened to the cars? Our first freeway, Arroyo Seco Parkway, turned out to be an experiment where we could learn about how to (and how not to) design freeways. You might remember how, for one day in 2023, we cast aside the cars and took over this narrow passageway between Downtown LA and Pasadena.Towns and cities across the Golden State learned a lot from urban planning experiments made necessary by the COVID pandemic. Here in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter is an example of how restaurants were able to expand out into narrower streets. In many cases, the al fresco dining was so successful, it was continued beyond the health crisis. Most California districts found that customers and other visitors would quickly ditch their cars in local parking lots to let pedestrians take over the streets. Walking and dining outside without a car are much easier and remain popular in California, thanks to our mostly mild Mediterranean climates.To cut traffic gridlock and pollution, LA Metro encourages a host of transportation options that don’t involve cars. CicLAvia events have particularly become popular, such as here around the Leimert Park Metro Station. Here is a 2023 biking event organized by LA Metro to encourage hesitant bicyclists to rent their bikes and pedal through city streets. LA Metro leaders lead bicyclists through crowded Koreatown streets in this event that encourages safe use of their convenient bicycles.
Now, you are invited to enjoy some classic car art that celebrates a century of California car cultures. Click to Page 3.
Thank you for a great essay about cars and California! I’m looking forward to the day when driving won’t be a necessity of life in L.A.