Los Angeles River Cleantech Corridor…

GreenTech Center For Excellence 

Wireless Digital Green Village with Green Commons (Futurist Jacque Fresco),
and Cybertran Light Rail Transit System along the LA River

Los Angeles River 'Cleantech Corridor' Vision

Ultra-light rail Cybertran system powered by solar sunflowers along the Los Angeles River

Imagine that the next 'Main Street' of Los Angeles will be the Los Angeles River and a “Cleantech Corridor” along the river connected by an ultra-light rail transit system that connects a series of transit garden villages along the river bank.

Imagine the L.A. River Cleantech Corridor becoming the model transit-ready, linear Wifi hot spot environmental “Green River City” of the future in which people live prosperous and sustainable lives of meaningful work, play, and learning, all in the context of daily caring for one other and the environment, modeled on the best practices of the world's urban 'eco-villages' and communitarian villages.

Imagine an L.A. River Cleantech Corridor with a series of constructed water gardens enjoyed by people and wild creatures alike.

Imagine a future where zero-emission vehicles are powered with solar electricity from 'sunflower' solar panels dotted along the river banks.

Imagine the L.A. River Cleantech Corridor, once contaminated with toxic brown-fields, turned into a 'Greenfield of Dreams' for the community and for the City.

Imagine 21st century Los Angeles as the Green City Gateway to the Asia Pacific Century.

The Green Technology Institute of the Tom Bradley Legacy Foundation, Inc. envisions the Los Angeles River Cleantech Corridor becoming a showcase for a sustainable 'intelligent village' redevelopment process. The most advanced environmental and digital technologies, utilizing a range of electronic, biomimetic, 'R3' (reduction, reuse, recycling), digital and hardware and software technologies should be incorporated in the planning, designing and development of the Green River Garden Village.

The Green Village development should strive to become an “auto-less village” in which personal cars will be an unnecessary expense and commuting between home and work will occur on innovative transit systems and community-owned zero-emission vehicles. The goal of the Green River Village is to become a model of energy sustainability and of a high quality of urban life, improved by the comprehensive reduction of the stress and expense created by America's omnipresent urban sprawl and vastly too intensely car-oriented society. The development goal is to create a sustainable future through intelligent innovative mixed-use vertical garden villages in an auto-free development.

Development Concept Proposal Rationale

The United States is facing a convergence of major mega-threats that are creating a gathering perfect economic storm that will have a devastating impact on our fossil energy-dependent economy of oil, coal, and gas:

• From global warming that is reducing the snow levels on the High Sierras, southern California's source of fresh water, to global terrorism fueled by our addiction to Middle East oil;
• From the world oil peak with China and India with over two billion people fast industrializing and consuming the oil reserves; to the End of Cheap Oil (where the real price of oil will be over $200 per barrel, with the addition of the Iraq War cost); to a terrifying end-stage that could be called 'Peak Carbon';
• From the continuing resource wars and their extreme resource exploitation; to the Middle East Wars where we trade American blood for oil; and
• From natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, in which the central power grid was down for months; to the next California natural disaster -- the Next Big One (a great earthquake), in which the central power system will be destroyed and down for months.

These are the threats that have provided the framework of our Los Angeles River Cleantech Corridor redevelopment concept. We will take a highly polluted brownfield industrial corridor and turn it into a green river city of the future.

It is past time for us to deconstruct our “gray economy” based on fossil energy and construct a Green Economy powered with renewable energy such as solar and hydrogen. We believe that the freeways will be largely replaced – or at least outperformed -- by the Internet's information superhighway; that autos will be largely replaced by telepresence and a personal automated transit system; and that oil and gas will be replaced by solar electric and solar thermal technology, and by biofuel- and hydrogen-powered vehicles that will reduce the impact of global warming as well as stress on commuters. The lifestyle of the 21st century will be a major paradigm shift to telecommuting; living and working in work/live lofts; a stunning array of green entrepreneurial opportunities; and much more.

The Advanced Green Technology Innovation Park

The Green River Village is envisioned to become a center for innovation in the development and commercialization of environmental technologies advanced mass transportation, global communications, clean personal vehicles, solar and hydrogen generation, waste-to-energy and biofuel production, wastewater remediation, and solar desalination, as well as energy storage technologies.

The centerpiece of the Green Technology Innovation Park will be an advanced ultralight rail transport system connected to the light rail Gold Line's Los Angeles River Station. The major challenge for the Los Angeles River Corridor development is the egress and ingress of private autos. The solution is the development of a smart automated network that will carry passengers on demand among and between stations located along the river, in shopping areas and the office buildings. The cornerstone of the solution is to install a cost- effective ultralight elevated rail transit system that will transport people from their homes along the L.A. River to Gold Line, from home to shopping, from building to building, and from and to anywhere along the River Corridor without driving their personal vehicles.

The Green River Village will become a model for future high-density and high-intensity development as Los Angeles doubles its population over the next 100 years. An intermodal transit solution such as Cybertran will demonstrate the feasibility of ultra high-density development with an intelligent transportation network connected to high-density mixed-use multigenerational villages.

The Green River Village and Technology Park will become a premier showcase for the ways we of Earth will create a sustainable future and a good living on our fine planet. It will show how to turn an industrial Rust Belt polluted by years of dirty use into a 'Technology Green Belt' of industries integrated in a smart mixed- use development concept. These 'Green River' e-Transit Villages will be a shining example of a modern 21st century village where human needs, not personal automobiles, will control the redesign and reinvention of our cities.

Garden Transit Village Transit Village examples

LA River Transit Village Development Strategy