AIA/LA and APA form railLA to promote the California High-Speed Rail Project

The Los Angeles chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|LA) and the American Planning Association (APA), along with community members, business leaders, local governments and universities formed railLA to promote the California High-Speed Rail project and help advance a change in Los Angeles’ car-centric lifestyle.

Long considered the capital of American car culture and suburban sprawl, Los Angeles is the ideal location to illustrate the positive impacts of high-speed rail on the environment, traffic congestion, and sustainable urban design and planning. By creating a realistic vision of the opportunities that high-speed rail will bring, railLA will leverage private sector and grassroots support to ensure timely and efficient implementation of this statewide project with Los Angeles’ Union Station as its hub.

Launching June 1: Call for Ideas and Venues
The Call for Ideas, commencing June 1, 2010, will be an open, international call to all interested parties to “think big” on the broad topics of high-speed rail and its implementation in Southern California. The Call is intended to create a wealth of information about high-speed rail from around the world to be exhibited at selected venues through a separate Call for Venues. Entrants are encouraged to submit new and existing ideas, concepts, designs, plans, papers, videos, models, and other studies.

A select group of submissions will be showcased at an opening exhibit in Downtown Los Angeles later this summer, on the railLA website, and in various publications. A $2500 prize purse for the top five submissions will be announced at an opening exhibit on July 29, 2010. The deadline for submissions is July 13, 2010.