QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE VALLEY : Temmy Walker, real estate agent
“When I first came to L.A., you could get anywhere in 10 minutes. We came from Chicago. We thought traffic was bad there, but now we go back there for relief. Once you are in your own neighborhood, the quality of life has not changed, but it’s the aggravation of getting past that last congested corner to get into that neighborhood.
“When I go down to the grocery store, which is a mile away, I have to wait at a stoplight with arrows going in all directions. It could be five to six minutes of waiting, when it used to be 30 seconds to get there from my house.
“Having some mode of transportation that would get the people to work would change it all. Buses are not reasonable, however, they take too long to get there.
“It puzzles me why people are so against light rail, when it could be our absolute savior. Coming from a town like Chicago, where they did have transportation, I can’t imagine why we don’t embrace it.
“I suspect I might fight it too if it was going through my neighborhood. But in Chicago, living near a rail stop was a plus, not a minus. People think living near transportation will make their property values drop. On the contrary, if you can walk to public transportation, with the weather we have, your value has to go up.
“The Valley itself probably should be a separate city. A lot of the tax dollars that are collected here go to the rest of the city. We have 2-million-plus population and many of our cities aren’t that large. We are pretty much self-contained--wonderful restaurants, great business centers. This is a city. A full city.
“If nothing else splits, the school system should split. Any school system that is as large as L.A. can’t possibly be run right for its size. Although you get economies of scale, you lose efficiency. You’ve got too many interests dealing with too many fragmented parts of society.
“People say, ‘Oh, you’re one of the secessionists. We tried that in the ‘60s, but it didn’t work.’ It might be time to try it again.”
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