When it comes to promoting monorails, Garcetti is in good futuristic company. Sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury strongly endorsed the LA monorail in 2006, writing in the Los Angeles Times that “the freeway is the past, the monorail is our future, above and beyond.” Drab subways, anyhow, are for cities with cold, unpleasant winters like “Toronto, New York, London, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo,” noted Bradbury. But “in LA our weather is sublime, and people are accustomed to traveling in the open air and enjoying the sunshine, not in closed cars under the ground." Indeed, the views of sun-drenched LA backed by the dominant, granite San Gabriel Mountains, could be glorious from the rails.

“At the end of the day, people like to see a beautiful city,” agreed Garcetti, but added, to temper too much delight, that the city is still weighing the best rapid transit plan.

Of course, there will always be some (or many) vehicles still buzzing along the 405. That’s as sure as gravity. And that’s where the impact of LA’s Green New Deal, which endorses electric vehicles, could be most immediately apparent on the freeways.

“It’s going to be so much quieter in LA,” said Peterson, the cleantech chief. “[Electric vehicles] are nothing like the cacophony of internal combustion engines.”

The first transformations of the 405 won’t begin with any futuristic trains — or decongestion. It almost certainly will start with the electrification of cars on the notoriously polluted highway. Though just 1.4 percent of vehicles in LA run on electricity today, Californians’ have welcomed battery-powered cars, and lead the nation in electric vehicle adoption. While electric cars are generally more expensive than the average gas guzzler, that may not be the case for much longer. Prices are expected to equal their combustion-engine counterparts by 2022 as electric battery costs dip and more car companies offer long-range electric vehicles. To charge these vehicles, the green plan calls for installing 28,000 electric-charging stations around LA by the Olympics, as a way to encourage Angelenos to trade in the drudgery of gas stations, brown smog, and trips to the oil change shop for electric cars. This includes some 20 grand “plazas” for plugging in your ride.

Crucially, sedans, SUVs, and compact cars won’t be the only vehicles running on electricity, instead of fuel fracked from the Earth. Much of LA’s air pollution and greenhouse gases get heaved from the loud, heavy trucks chugging to and from the mega shipping ports of Los Angeles, which are the largest and most valuable in the nation. By 2035, Garcetti’s scheme calls for the big machines that haul our foreign-made iPhones and toasters to run on electricity — in part by giving these modernized rigs the best curb or delivery space.

But in 15 or 20 years, it's possible that some vehicles driving over the 405 might not have drivers — or even steering wheels.



