LA Seeks a World’s Fair Driven by Transit

This month, Laura Bliss of The Atlantic’s City Lab blog wrote about the new effort to host a transit-oriented World’s Fair in Los Angeles. The organizers, Los Angeles World’s Fair, are planning to launch the two-year fair in 2022. Having established an Indigogo campaign, LAWF seeks to use crowdfunding and grassroots activism to make the fair a reality.

The transit-specific portion of the event comes in the form of decentralized venues spread throughout the L.A. basin, connected by L.A.’s growing Metro system. It’s a novel idea for such a large event and would be a big lift for the system and the many city bus systems that support it. The plan harkens back to the Panama Pacific Exhibition 100 years ago in San Francisco that transformed Muni.

The City Lab piece quotes historian and World’s Fair expert Robert Rydell, who points out that our collective anxieties about the future can make the solutions posited at a World’s Fair especially attractive. As we take time on Earth Day tomorrow consider the many climate-related challenges we face, we know that, like Los Angeles, improving and growing sustainable transportation options is one way we can start today to create a better future.