LA2B
Redesigning LA Transportation
My fun-imperfect AI-made tour announcement video :)
I'm a car designer that will soon be walking, rolling, and riding through all 88 cities of L.A. to co-design a car-lite future — it's called LA2B: Designing a Car-Lite Los Angeles.
For forty years I've designed vehicles and systems to help people move better — from concept cars to community mobility, But now I'm taking that work to the streets, literally. LA2B is my eight-week journey through all 88 cities of Los Angeles County — walking, rolling, riding, and connecting with people who make this region move.
Along the way, I'll meet with city leaders, mobility innovators, and everyday Angelenos to co-create a new car-lite transportation vision for L.A. County — a new system that I expect will become known as the Transportation Mesh (but we can accelerate development of it with Near-Far transportation thinking). I'll also be filming my travels (With a little help from Gita, my robotic travel companion) and sharing conversations with designers, residents, and even a few celebrities about what a more connected, less car-dependent Los Angeles could look like.
The goal? To reimagine how we move — not by building faster cars, but by designing better connections between people, places, and possibilities.
My tour will begin in early 2026. Please let me know if you want to meet-up on my journey or have any ideas of where I should visit and whom I should meet. Thx :)
Meet-ups with My Mobility-Mind Friends
Above is a collage , from over a decade ago, of the many wonderful mobility-minds I’ve met in (or connected to) LA.
My LA2B Tour Path
Start: Avalon, Catalina Island
• Launch the tour in a town where nearly all local mobility is done on golf carts — a living example of short-distance, low-impact travel.
• Take the boat to Long Beach, using it as a symbol of the multimodal "Near-to-Far" future (a land-water version of near-far | local-regional transportation).
Long Beach >> "Short Beach" Vision
• Return to a city that inspired my early ideas for Local Lanes (and where I was featured in the Long Beach paper 20 years ago talking about them).
• Present my concept for "Short Beach" — reimagining Long Beach as a city emphasising short-distance vehicles and far-distance connectors, a model for balanced urban mobility.
South Bay Cities
• Visit the South Bay areas, where Mobilitee is collaborating with the Metropolitan Planning Organization there (SBCCOG) on the Local Travel Network (LTN) and the first mobility hubs — early prototypes of community-scale mobility ecosystems. (Here is the talk I gave at their General Assembly this past March on the future of local cars | mobility mesh)
LAX: Air Mobility + Climate Challenge
• Discuss the future of urban air mobility
• Reveal my proposal to limit unnecessary Olympic travel — suggesting global "pop-up" virtual venues so fans can gather locally instead of flying to LA, aligning the Games with climate responsibility.
Westside >> Downtown LA
• Move through Santa Monica, Culver City, and meet with GEM owners (local electric vehicle enthusiasts).
• Continue through Beverly Hills, West LA, Koreatown, and Downtown LA, meeting with LA Metro leaders to explore integration of local and regional public mobility | mobility hub networks future.
Crenshaw District & Leimert Park
• Visit communities working to co-design and build local cars — connecting local innovation and cultural expression.
• Highlight plans for Olympics showcase featuring neighborhood-led mobility solutions.
Central LA >> San Gabriel Valley
• Pass through Watts (Watts Towers), then City of Industry, Pomona, Monrovia, and into Pasadena, revisiting my roots at Art Center College of Design — a symbolic homecoming.
Burbank >> Antelope Valley
• Stop in Burbank to meet Jay Leno and explore his legendary car collection — bridging traditional car culture with the future of mobility.
• Continue north to Palmdale and Lancaster, where I once proposed Centerwalk, an experimental small city designed with architect Glen Small — representing the ultimate "Near-to-Far" living prototype.
End: Landcaster – Centerwalk Vision
• Conclude the journey where innovation, sustainability, and community-scale design converge — closing the loop from Avalon's golf carts to Lancaster's future urban experiment (a chapter in my book Near to Far)
More Info
Why Los Angeles?
Los Angeles has been the backdrop of my mobility work for more than four decades—starting with ArtCenter in 1983, then launching my first small-vehicle company here, helping Calstart connect e-bikes to rail in Pasadena in the mid 2000s, and later working on EV charging and regional mobility solutions. No other place has given me a larger network of innovators or a deeper sense of what’s possible.
LA’s weather also makes it a perfect proving ground for walking, biking, and small electric vehicles—exactly the kinds of modes that can thrive today without major new infrastructure. And the size of LA County—10 million people, bigger than 39 states—hits the “Goldilocks” zone for reducing auto dependency. It’s large enough to matter, but still a coherent region where most trips stay local. It’s also the core of the Southern California megaregion, and megaregions are where my long-term work is focused.
What I’ll Be Doing
Beginning February 1, 2026, I’ll walk the entire county in four or five segments (with breaks back home in Colorado, much like Art Garfunkel’s segmented walks across USA and Europe years ago). My Gita robot—thanks to Piaggio Fast Forward—will carry my gear and spark plenty of sidewalk conversations.
Along the route, I’ll meet with longtime colleagues and new voices—recording short interviews and gathering the best ideas for moving LA beyond automobile dependency. I’ll visit every city I pass through, speak with groups that invite me, meet students, and draw from the concepts in Near to Far to help reimagine what LA could look like when 50% of residents no longer own a big highway-capable car.
I’ll also sample different modes—from transit to local mobility services, and maybe even a lap at the Porsche Experience Center (yes, I still enjoy a fast machine). Expect discussions on robo-taxis, jobs, equity, corporate power, and the broader paradigm shift ahead. I’ll livestream parts of the journey as well.
My Motivation
This tour is a project I created for myself—a way to physically experience the distances Angelenos travel, to show that walking across the county is possible, and to help people see their communities differently when they’re outside a car. You meet more people. You notice more. Life gets better at human speed.
The Bigger Goal
The tour will lead to a short film I plan to premiere in LA in fall 2026—possibly the start of a larger series or media project. My hope is simple: spark a much broader conversation about how we can quickly move beyond auto dependency if we stop waiting for traditional automakers and other older institutions to lead the way.
Who Should I Meet?
I’d love recommendations—innovators, community groups, students, anyone pushing for healthier, more connected communities. I can’t visit all 99 neighborhood councils in the City of LA, but I’ll get to as many places and people as I can.
However it unfolds, I hope this journey will be helpful—for LA, but I confident it will be wonderful for me—allowing me to meet with so many wonderful “city-builders” :)