Giving Up Cars in LA?

[gwd]

"In the early 1900s Los Angeles boasted the largest urban rail network of any city in America, more than a thousand miles of track." Admirable.

But this is shameful:

"I scoured a map of the entire system for somewhere fun to spend the day - what about shopping in Beverly Hills? Sorry, not on the subway route. Santa Monica beach? Ditto. Burbank, where the big movie studios are based? Uh-huh. Well I could always go to the airport to watch the planes take off? Er, not on the subway I couldn't."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7413056.stm

[JeffS]

So the measure of a rail is whether it stops at all the tourist attractions?

[axelfox]

I read that the Firestone bought the rail company. Well, you can guess what happened.

[Artkansas]

"In the early 1900s Los Angeles boasted the largest urban rail network of any city in America, more than a thousand miles of track." Admirable.

But this is shameful:

"I scoured a map of the entire system for somewhere fun to spend the day - what about shopping in Beverly Hills? Sorry, not on the subway route. Santa Monica beach? Ditto. Burbank, where the big movie studios are based? Uh-huh. Well I could always go to the airport to watch the planes take off? Er, not on the subway I couldn't."

I guess taking the bus would be out. :roflmao2:

[folder fanatic]

You think that the subway/light rail system is bad now? At least there is one running at present. Before the first modern one opened about 10 years ago, all there was was buses, buses, buses-if you were lucky enough to live near a bus stop. Most of the time, the suburb sprawl was the norm-and as soon as you can, you drove. As I said before, the subway as it was designed was more a shuttle system than a get to a particular point one. It was built over train tracks that really went out-of the city to a distant point, not within the city or it's vicinity. That is one of the main reasons why I use bikes as much as I can. This system is not only unreliable, it does not go anywhere I want to, when I want to.

[Ekdog]

So the measure of a rail is whether it stops at all the tourist attractions?

Hasn't it occurred to you that tourists aren't the only people who might want to go to places like LAX, Beverly Hills, Burbank or Santa Monica?

[Torrilin]

"I scoured a map of the entire system for somewhere fun to spend the day - what about shopping in Beverly Hills? Sorry, not on the subway route. Santa Monica beach? Ditto. Burbank, where the big movie studios are based? Uh-huh. Well I could always go to the airport to watch the planes take off? Er, not on the subway I couldn't."

So, the BBC reporter is unable to go to metro.net (http://www.metro.net) and enter his start and end destinations so he could *gasp* use the city mass transit? Santa Monica beach is serviced by a solid half dozen bus lines spread over 3 different companies. Same for the airport (actually, the airport might be more... I only ever paid attention to the 3 companies that would take me home). And even if there are no Burbank buses, the LA city buses still go there...

Damn straight none of these places are on the subway lines. Building subway lines in earthquake country is not cheap, and subway tunnels aren't cheap to begin with. If you *can* go there by subway, metro.net (http://www.metro.net) will tell you. Otherwise, stop whining and grab the next bus.

[Ekdog]

Damn straight none of these places are on the subway lines. Building subway lines in earthquake country is not cheap, and subway tunnels aren't cheap to begin with. If you *can* go there by subway, metro.net (http://www.metro.net) will tell you. Otherwise, stop whining and grab the next bus.

If he grabs a bus to cross L.A., it'll probably take him all day to get where he's going.

I hardly think the earthquakes are a good excuse either. They haven't held the Bay Area back, have they?

[gwd]

So, the BBC reporter is unable to go to metro.net (http://www.metro.net) and enter his start and end destinations so he could *gasp* use the city mass transit? Santa Monica beach is serviced by a solid half dozen bus lines spread over 3 different companies. Same for the airport (actually, the airport might be more... I only ever paid attention to the 3 companies that would take me home). And even if there are no Burbank buses, the LA city buses still go there...

Damn straight none of these places are on the subway lines. Building subway lines in earthquake country is not cheap, and subway tunnels aren't cheap to begin with. If you *can* go there by subway, metro.net (http://www.metro.net) will tell you. Otherwise, stop whining and grab the next bus.

What caught my attention was ridership was way up. The whining and comments about empty cars read like the writer was being negative about the whole concept.

[Torrilin]

If he grabs a bus to cross L.A., it'll probably take him all day to get where he's going.

For scale, imagine that Seville, Cadiz, Cordoba and Granada are all part of the same city, and that the city extends somewhat inland of Cordoba. Every inch of ocean front from Seville to Granada would be developed. Would you think it's reasonable to live in Seville and commute to Granada every day? I suspect no *g*

There are some Angelenos who do the equivilant in a car. Not smart, not sensible, but they do. For a more normal trip distance (say from Seville to Dos Hermanas), the bus system works well. When we lived there, we didn't bother to have bikes. The buses and walking were more than good enough.

Grasping the scale of Los Angeles is hard. I've lived there, and I still have a hard time imagining the size of it.

I hardly think the earthquakes are a good excuse either. They haven't held the Bay Area back, have they?

Most Bay area trains are just that. Trains that run above ground. The LA subway is underground. You've probably got an idea of how much it costs to add some tunnel miles to Madrid's subway. Now imagine that it has to be built to survive quakes. In the Bay area, they can just focus on making the tracks handle quakes. In LA, they don't have that option. They *chose* to get rid of most surface rail lines.

There's a real serious class prejudice hiding in the article too. In LA, people who walk and people who ride the bus are lower class. They do not matter. Riding the subway or driving a car is higher status, and the subway is only a *little* higher than a bus. Ordinary people would never *choose* to live without a car.

[girljen]

I was unintentionally car-free in LA for a few months. I never once had trouble getting to my destination (except for one time when a friend with a car ditched me, and didn't call until the one bus I could have taken stopped running...I called a cab, no harm no foul).

[burbankbiker]

So the measure of a rail is whether it stops at all the tourist attractions?

You're missing the point. It's not just that it doesn't stop at the tourist attractions. It hardly stops anywhere. And those tourist attractions aren't just tourist attractions. It's where the heart of business is conducted. Beverly Hills and its neighbor Century City is a heart of finance. Santa Monica is where a lot of music and television industry people are based. By far, the biggest employer in Burbank is the the movie studios. In fact the Disney Studio alone is the biggest employer before you add Universal and Warner Bros.

So the fact that the workers and industry of the city isn't served by its public transit system is what highlights its failure as a system.

The ultimate tragedy is that all these points, and beyond, were once served by the old rail network. I've spoken to many who remember the red cars. They were fast, frequent, got you around everywhere, and cheap.

[burbankbiker]

I read that the Firestone bought the rail company. Well, you can guess what happened.

It's actually quite a lot more maniacal what they did.

See... when the rail companies put the rail tracks into the city all the roads were dirt roads. Yes, the rail network was that ahead of its time!

The rail companies, though, were all private companies. They operated their rail for profit but they needed something from the city in exchange for their business to work. They need permission to install rails onto the streets all across the city. So they made a deal with the city: "If you let us lay track on your streets, we'll assume responsibility to maintaining those streets."

In an era of dirt roads, this was a completely reasonable agreement. It was also a completely financially sensible one since the cost of maintaining a dirt road is a bargain compared to the development space they were getting for their track network.

The city of Los Angeles, in the dawn of the automobile era, used this as a loophole to defer the cost of infrastructure investment. See, when they needed to lay asphalt down on a road they billed the rail companies. When there were potholes, they hit up the rail companies to fix them. Suddenly the rail companies were spending far more to maintain the parts of the road that was used by their competition (the cars) than the part they used for their product (the trains).

The car companies came in and bought the rail companies in their financially weakened state and then declared that the agreement with the city was far too costly to continue the rail program. Instead they conveniently sold the city a fleet of busses, paved over the tracks, and withdrew from the maintenance agreement. Now when there's a pothole, the city fixes it and there's no pesky trains for people to consider over cars.

[Ekdog]

For scale, imagine that Seville, Cadiz, Cordoba and Granada are all part of the same city, and that the city extends somewhat inland of Cordoba. Every inch of ocean front from Seville to Granada would be developed. Would you think it's reasonable to live in Seville and commute to Granada every day? I suspect no *g*

There are some Angelenos who do the equivilant in a car. Not smart, not sensible, but they do. For a more normal trip distance (say from Seville to Dos Hermanas), the bus system works well. When we lived there, we didn't bother to have bikes. The buses and walking were more than good enough.

Grasping the scale of Los Angeles is hard. I've lived there, and I still have a hard time imagining the size of it.



Most Bay area trains are just that. Trains that run above ground. The LA subway is underground. You've probably got an idea of how much it costs to add some tunnel miles to Madrid's subway. Now imagine that it has to be built to survive quakes. In the Bay area, they can just focus on making the tracks handle quakes. In LA, they don't have that option. They *chose* to get rid of most surface rail lines.

There's a real serious class prejudice hiding in the article too. In LA, people who walk and people who ride the bus are lower class. They do not matter. Riding the subway or driving a car is higher status, and the subway is only a *little* higher than a bus. Ordinary people would never *choose* to live without a car.

I was born and raised just down the road in San Diego and went to high school in Glendale, California, so I know the area. The people of L.A. have dug their own hole when it comes to public transport. For years they voted down every bond issue that came along that would have provided the funds to start a light rail system. Meanwhile, San Francisco got to work on BART and San Diego built an efficient trolley system.

The excuses about the area being too big for mass transit are bogus. Ditto the earthquake argument. As you point out, the trains can run above ground if need be. It's time for L.A. to finally wake up and join other California cities that are providing commuters options other than the automobile.

[folder fanatic]

I was born and raised just down the road in San Diego and went to high school in Glendale, California, so I know the area. The people of L.A. have dug their own hole when it comes to public transport. For years they voted down every bond issue that came along that would have provided the funds to start a light rail system. Meanwhile, San Francisco got to work on BART and San Diego built an efficient trolley system.

The excuses about the area being too big for mass transit are bogus. Ditto the earthquake argument. As you point out, the trains can run above ground if need be. It's time for L.A. to finally wake up and join other California cities that are providing commuters options other than the automobile.

I guess in the end, it does not really matter. Ekdog, you are an excellent example of how Los Angeles, and even Californians, solve problems-they move away. Migration is a time old means of solving problems, no votes. And the poor and transient are stuck with the leftovers.

[burbankbiker]

Ekdog, you are an excellent example of how Los Angeles, and even Californians, solve problems-they move away.

If I may side with Ekdog, the point was exactly opposite what you're saying. You can't say Californians solve problems by moving away when Ekdog was referencing the contrast between LA and SF (two cities in California).

Los Angeles has a whole host of problems, a history of corruption, and a self-centered approach to public policy that is beyond the scope of this message board.

But if I may wildly generalize and make assumptions that are bound to collapse under even the slightest rebuttal: ;)

LA always struck me as failing in its development initiative for the same reason that it had sprawl in the first place. LA, generally speaking, is still a city of community strangers. I've never lived in a city before where an early conversation starter was "so where are you from originally?" It was such a foregone conclusion that you WEREN'T from LA. And 95% of the time, it was a correct assumption in my experience (present company included).

Moreover, the "transplants" as they're known commonly, move to LA for self-serving reasons. They're musicians, actors, photographers, directors, screen-writers, bankers, lawyers... and they're all coming to LA for a piece of the financial pie (preferably as big a slice as they can get).

Now I know people move to many cities for financial and professional reasons but there is a difference in LA that's hard to articulate. Where NYC is full of go-getters... it's also so hard to live there that people really have to WANT to live in the city. They have to love the city so much that they end up not just pursuing their own best interest, but the city's best interest. NY has a very "we're all in this together just get the hell out of my way to the top" mentality.

LA doesn't have that. So while people are pursuing their fame and/or fortune they tend to overlook issues that would improve the overall life of the city. It effects everything around the city IMO. The architecture is functional, not expressive (of course there's exceptions). And there's a million other examples. But as it relates to this forum, it also plays out in transportation. Development priorities are geared towards freeways (singularly enriching projects) to transit systems (community enriching projects).

I'm typing too much... I'll stop.

[folder fanatic]

If I may side with Ekdog, the point was exactly opposite what you're saying. You can't say Californians solve problems by moving away when Ekdog was referencing the contrast between LA and SF (two cities in California).

Los Angeles has a whole host of problems, a history of corruption, and a self-centered approach to public policy that is beyond the scope of this message board.

But if I may wildly generalize and make assumptions that are bound to collapse under even the slightest rebuttal: ;)

LA always struck me as failing in its development initiative for the same reason that it had sprawl in the first place. LA, generally speaking, is still a city of community strangers. I've never lived in a city before where an early conversation starter was "so where are you from originally?" It was such a foregone conclusion that you WEREN'T from LA. And 95% of the time, it was a correct assumption in my experience (present company included).

Moreover, the "transplants" as they're known commonly, move to LA for self-serving reasons. They're musicians, actors, photographers, directors, screen-writers, bankers, lawyers... and they're all coming to LA for a piece of the financial pie (preferably as big a slice as they can get).

Now I know people move to many cities for financial and professional reasons but there is a difference in LA that's hard to articulate. Where NYC is full of go-getters... it's also so hard to live there that people really have to WANT to live in the city. They have to love the city so much that they end up not just pursuing their own best interest, but the city's best interest. NY has a very "we're all in this together just get the hell out of my way to the top" mentality.

LA doesn't have that. So while people are pursuing their fame and/or fortune they tend to overlook issues that would improve the overall life of the city. It effects everything around the city IMO. The architecture is functional, not expressive (of course there's exceptions). And there's a million other examples. But as it relates to this forum, it also plays out in transportation. Development priorities are geared towards freeways (singularly enriching projects) to transit systems (community enriching projects).

I'm typing too much... I'll stop.


I never payed too much attention to this phony side of Los Angeles you are describing. Over the last half century, I live in this city for the most part. I own property here. I saw how much this city has changed just in the last 25 years. The Los Angeles you are describing is usually limited to the San Fernando Valley and the West Side. It has been the home base for the celebrity and the wanna-be alike. They are usually busy with their deal making and meeting people to drum up interest in whatever they are pushing. I photographed this Los Angeles in my Flickr set "Touring Hollywood On The Brompton And The Dahons" photos. (See Below). The Los Angeles I live in was once a very stable family orientated area-until the desperate immigrant population pushed out the middle class group which was the true foundation of Los Angeles that I know. It is now just another third world city with a squeezed out middle class, a few wealthy divorced from reality, and a now shrinking sprinkling of the colorful people (not to be confused with the homeless) that gave Los Angeles it's unique look. Your username indicates to me you are-or were-from the West Side. Try to get around the city more-there is the San Gabriel Valley, South Bay etc. And talk to the older population who remembered the trolleys (age 70+ now), decent schools (40+) and a place where you chose who you wanted to be with-not an accident of birth or location (limited to who lives next door to you). That is the Los Angeles that was the draw to all these immigrants and migrants. It is simply a victim of it's own sucess!