Southern California Is The Land Of Freeways. Expanding Them Could Be An Issue
If you build it they will drive it, and that may be the problem! A 2020 study from UC Davis found widening and highway expansion projects didn’t result in the expected easing of traffic. Rather, wider roads meant more cars (the “induced travel” increase of vehicles), along with negative effects on the health, homes, and businesses of those in marginalized communities, and the displacement of nearby working-class communities.
Now Assemblymember Cristina Garcia is considering a bill to block the widening and expansion of not only the 710 Freeway in her home district, but also other future freeway widening and expansion projects around the state. Today on AirTalk, Larry is joined by California Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, UC Davis professor of environmental science and policy Susan Handy, and Eric Avila, UCLA Professor of Chicano Studies, History, and Urban Planning.
The Memories We Attach To The Department Stores Of L.A.’s Past
It's no secret that department stores are going the way of the dinosaur. Even before the pandemic, the retail space was struggling. In 2019, more than9,300 retail stores closed their doors as part of a decade-long trend dubbed the "retail apocalypse."
While it's certainly easier to shop from your couch in your pajamas, shopping at department stores was an experience. Today on Air Talk, Larry speaks with Los Angeles Times columnistPatt Morrison about defunct department stores from L.A. history.
COVID-19 AMA: Omicron Spreads In California, Will We Always Need Boosters, And More
In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, Larry Mantle speaks with Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, professor of epidemiology and community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Topics today include:
- Omicron variant spreads in CA as mask order takes effect
- Will we always need COVID-19 boosters?
- Broadway is canceling shows due to positive tests, and we’ve heard about the uptick in positive cases among athletes, too.
- Is there something about these environments that just makes transmission more likely?
- Are infections inevitable in an environment like this at this point in the pandemic as other things are opening more?
- Met Opera to require booster shots for staff and audience and the shifting definition of “fully-vaccinated”
- L.A. County falls far behind Bay Area in vaccinating Black, Latino residents
The Movies And TV That Got Us Through 2021
In the middle of a global pandemic, and at a time when it seems like just when we’re about to turn the corner on a full-scale return to normal cases start to rise again or some new variant emerges, it’s nice to have an endless stream of TV and film content to transport us to other worlds so we can stress about other people’s problems instead of our own. 2021 in TV brought us new season of critically-acclaimed shows like Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso” and HBO’s “Succession,” as well as brand new fan-favorites like Amazon’s “The Underground Railroad” about an enslaved young woman’s journey to freedom and Netflix’s wildly popular (and wildly violent) drama “Squid Game.” And in film we met new characters like Marvel’s first Asian superhero in “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” learned the story of Venus and Serena Williams’ journey to tennis immortality in “King Richard” and got to reacquaint ourselves with some old friends through reboots like “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “Candyman” and “West Side Story.”
Today on AirTalk, NPR TV Critic Eric Deggans and FilmWeek critic and Santa Barbara International Film Festival Program Director Claudia Puig stop by to share the films and TV/streaming series that helped get us through 2021.