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Public transportation works best as a dense and highly interconnected network. When you're first building out a system, it's just a patchwork, and so not very u

Public transportation works best as a dense and highly interconnected network. When you're first building out a system, it's just a patchwork, and so not very useful. At some point you reach a certain "critical mass", and suddenly your low ridership turns into overcrowding. Low ridership doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of interest in public transportation, it just means that for most individuals it isn't the most practical choice yet. From this perspective, it makes perfect sense to support expansion of the network even if you don't use it.

maxxxxx 8y ago
This exactly describes LA compared to places like Munich or Paris. In Munich I can easily get to most places using public transport without much planning and it will overall be competitive with driving time in a car. In Los Angeles there are a few lines here and there but it requires a ton of planning and often takes three times as long as a drive would take. My commute takes 35 minutes by car and would take more than 3 hours with public transport.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  In LA, it highly depends on the commute. For example, friends who work in Hollywood have a 10 minute commute by public transportation (20 min round trip)...but would have a 30-60 minute commute by car (1-2 hours round trip). My commute in the morning takes is 30 min longer by rail than by car, but the commute home is 30-45 minutes shorter by rail...
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    True. If you are close to City Hall you are golden. Tons of options. But as soon as you are a little away the situation is horrible.
- closeparen 8y ago
  Clearly we should make your drive take 3 hours 15 minutes to make public transport competitive. /s. Unfortunately it seems some people actually believe this.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    There's nothing wrong with providing incentives for other forms of transport, like road tolls, bus/bike lanes, decent pedestrian crossings, etc. Otherwise you end up with cities optimised for vehicle traffic, like almost everywhere in the US. This limits growth (easier to add more capacity to public transport, more difficult to increase infrastructure to support the equivalent number of cars if you're out of space) and cost the city more to maintain, plus shitty commutes significantly reduce the quality of life (at least IMO, I guess some people might want to be stuck in a car and have an hour or two less with friends or family).
    - closeparen 8y ago
      The incentives for the other forms of transport should be to make them better than the status quo, not to make the status quo worse until they start to look good.
    - magduf 8y ago
      >plus shitty commutes significantly reduce the quality of life (at least IMO, I guess some people might want to be stuck in a car and have an hour or two less with friends or family). Actually, you'd be surprised. I've met tons of Americans who actually like long commutes, and refuse to live too close to work. They seem to live having some kind of separation, and having to spend a lot of time in the car driving there every day. It boggles my mind.
      - closeparen 8y ago
        If you have an open office at work and a family at home, the commute might be your only access to solitude. Some people need that.
        magduf 8y ago
        So we're going to burn incredible amounts of fossil fuel and destroy the ecosystem because a bunch of morons can't figure out how to go find someplace quiet to sit for a while? And why can't these idiots get their families to leave them alone for a while in their bedroom or whatever?
- magduf 8y ago
  I just visited Munich recently for the first time, and you're right, the public transit there is fantastic. What I couldn't figure out, however, was why anyone still bothers with a car there, since there were plenty of cars. But one thing about Munich: it's just not that large a city, either geographically or population-wise, compared to LA. The LA metro area has 13 million people, and LA proper about 4, according to a quick google search. Munich has 1.5M, though the metro area has 6M. But the city itself is really not very large geographically; unfortunately Americans have really screwed themselves by making their cities too sprawling, and it's pretty hard to fix that once it's done. One thing I noticed about Munich and other German cities: there's a lot of mixed-use development, where shops and businesses are on the ground floors of buildings, but there's residential space on top. This makes cities extremely livable and walkable: you can walk down some stairs and over a street and go to the local grocery store, for instance. This is mostly impossible in America because we hate this kind of development with a passion. You don't even see it much in Manhattan, NYC.
harmmonica 8y ago
To add to your comment about density of the transportation network itself, you also need housing/commercial density near those transit stops to feed people into the transportation network. Real estate developers aren't going to lead the charge in areas where housing/commercial density doesn't yet exist without an incentive (demographics, transit, etc.) and in the case of transportation density there is arguably no better incentive for developers because they can be guaranteed that people will "show up," en masse, at mass transit stops like moths to flame. Not hard to justify building at those locations (note that there is a difference, one I don't have the ability to quantify/source, between bus stops every block or two and light or heavy rail stops with the latter being much more compelling to the developer). Specific to LA, here are a couple of projects where moths -> flame -> incentivized developers: https://urbanize.la/post/renderings-revealed-1200-unit-cumulus-development https://urbanize.la/post/renderings-revealed-1200-unit-cumul... http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2019/jan/22/1b-crossroads-hollywood-project-approved/ http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2019/jan/22/1b-crossroads-...

maxxxxx 8y ago

This exactly describes LA compared to places like Munich or Paris. In Munich I can easily get to most places using public transport without much planning and it will overall be competitive with driving time in a car. In Los Angeles there are a few lines here and there but it requires a ton of planning and often takes three times as long as a drive would take. My commute takes 35 minutes by car and would take more than 3 hours with public transport.

gamblor956 8y ago
In LA, it highly depends on the commute. For example, friends who work in Hollywood have a 10 minute commute by public transportation (20 min round trip)...but would have a 30-60 minute commute by car (1-2 hours round trip). My commute in the morning takes is 30 min longer by rail than by car, but the commute home is 30-45 minutes shorter by rail...
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  True. If you are close to City Hall you are golden. Tons of options. But as soon as you are a little away the situation is horrible.
closeparen 8y ago
Clearly we should make your drive take 3 hours 15 minutes to make public transport competitive. /s. Unfortunately it seems some people actually believe this.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  There's nothing wrong with providing incentives for other forms of transport, like road tolls, bus/bike lanes, decent pedestrian crossings, etc. Otherwise you end up with cities optimised for vehicle traffic, like almost everywhere in the US. This limits growth (easier to add more capacity to public transport, more difficult to increase infrastructure to support the equivalent number of cars if you're out of space) and cost the city more to maintain, plus shitty commutes significantly reduce the quality of life (at least IMO, I guess some people might want to be stuck in a car and have an hour or two less with friends or family).
  - closeparen 8y ago
    The incentives for the other forms of transport should be to make them better than the status quo, not to make the status quo worse until they start to look good.
  - magduf 8y ago
    >plus shitty commutes significantly reduce the quality of life (at least IMO, I guess some people might want to be stuck in a car and have an hour or two less with friends or family). Actually, you'd be surprised. I've met tons of Americans who actually like long commutes, and refuse to live too close to work. They seem to live having some kind of separation, and having to spend a lot of time in the car driving there every day. It boggles my mind.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      If you have an open office at work and a family at home, the commute might be your only access to solitude. Some people need that.
      - magduf 8y ago
        So we're going to burn incredible amounts of fossil fuel and destroy the ecosystem because a bunch of morons can't figure out how to go find someplace quiet to sit for a while? And why can't these idiots get their families to leave them alone for a while in their bedroom or whatever?
magduf 8y ago
I just visited Munich recently for the first time, and you're right, the public transit there is fantastic. What I couldn't figure out, however, was why anyone still bothers with a car there, since there were plenty of cars. But one thing about Munich: it's just not that large a city, either geographically or population-wise, compared to LA. The LA metro area has 13 million people, and LA proper about 4, according to a quick google search. Munich has 1.5M, though the metro area has 6M. But the city itself is really not very large geographically; unfortunately Americans have really screwed themselves by making their cities too sprawling, and it's pretty hard to fix that once it's done. One thing I noticed about Munich and other German cities: there's a lot of mixed-use development, where shops and businesses are on the ground floors of buildings, but there's residential space on top. This makes cities extremely livable and walkable: you can walk down some stairs and over a street and go to the local grocery store, for instance. This is mostly impossible in America because we hate this kind of development with a passion. You don't even see it much in Manhattan, NYC.

harmmonica 8y ago

To add to your comment about density of the transportation network itself, you also need housing/commercial density near those transit stops to feed people into the transportation network. Real estate developers aren't going to lead the charge in areas where housing/commercial density doesn't yet exist without an incentive (demographics, transit, etc.) and in the case of transportation density there is arguably no better incentive for developers because they can be guaranteed that people will "show up," en masse, at mass transit stops like moths to flame. Not hard to justify building at those locations (note that there is a difference, one I don't have the ability to quantify/source, between bus stops every block or two and light or heavy rail stops with the latter being much more compelling to the developer). Specific to LA, here are a couple of projects where moths -> flame -> incentivized developers: https://urbanize.la/post/renderings-revealed-1200-unit-cumulus-development https://urbanize.la/post/renderings-revealed-1200-unit-cumul... http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2019/jan/22/1b-crossroads-hollywood-project-approved/ http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2019/jan/22/1b-crossroads-...