4 ms·

I voted for Measure M. I'm a "sometimes" user of transport. I own a car and it's probably my most frequent form of transport outside my legs. I'm lucky enough

I voted for Measure M. I'm a "sometimes" user of transport. I own a car and it's probably my most frequent form of transport outside my legs. I'm lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where I can walk to a grocery store, two restaurant/retail dense streets, a mall, and even a university, so that's fun. If I'm meeting/visiting friends across the city, though, there's rarely public transport options that aren't going to triple or quadruple travel time. So, I often drive. But not always. Some routes have convenient travel times -- for example, I can get from LAX to my house for $1 on a bus. Metro to downtown LA or Santa Monica is pretty convenient and lets me skip parking hassles/fees. Throw a rideshare into the mix and you can get pretty great coverage. And as a sometimes transit user, I can tell you that buses and trains are definitely not empty -- sometimes they're uncomfortably crowded. People are absolutely using them, even if not everybody uses them all the time. So I was happy to support Measure M, be a sometimes transit user, and hope that I can become a more frequent one as options expand. About the only real complaint I have isn't really a transit network one per se -- the modern society-wide issues of homelessness, mental health, and drugs spill over into every public space. Cars and curated neighborhoods can give you a bubble of comfort, but don't solve the problem. So I voted for Measure H (among others) in hopes of seeing solutions there, too.

similarInLA 8y ago
Yeah, I'm in a similar position. When the Expo line was expanded to Santa Monica, I was actually working in the building next to the final Santa Monica stop. But my house wasn't on the train line, so I would have had to somehow get to the train to take it in, but I would have only been riding like 3 stops. It doesn't make sense to drive to the train in that case, and riding a bike wasn't a realistic options because of the traffic I'd have to get through. (There were parts that would have been dangerous for a bike.) On the other hand, my yearly mileage is around 4-6k miles, so I don't feel like I'm contributing too badly to the problem. A coworker of mine was out in South Pasadena and tried taking the train one day. His normally 45 minute commute turned into an hour and 50 minutes one way. There's no way that makes sense. I've since moved, as has our office. I still live about 3 miles from work, so overall very low mileage each year. I looked up bus schedules as both my house and work are near bus stops. My one-way commute time would go from about 15-20 minutes to 50-60 minutes. That's just stupid. I have a family I'd like to see and making my commute 3-4 times as long just isn't worth it. I'm all for public transportation, but if it doesn't go where I need to in a timely manner, it's useless.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  When the Regional Connector (funded by Measure R!) is finished in 2021 and they realign Gold/Expo/Blue, there will be a direct light rail line from South Pasadena to Santa Monica: no subway transfer to hop across downtown. I think then the commute time will be around 1:00 or 0:50 each way.
DoctorOetker 8y ago
it's really annoying to read 2 conflicting accounts, the one in the article and yours, on ridership... the article makes it appear as if people voted for measure M in the hopes "that the rest would start using publiic transport" to have less traffic congestion in their cars. Considering your karma I am more inclined to believe you than the article. But even if the article were correct: it suggests that people in the cars don't mind if money is spent to persuade people to use public transport, perhaps a system can be set up such that gas taxes are levied and used to sponsor people to use public transit? Without the price of the ticket going negative of course, but arbitrarily low until congestion is tolerable? Of course if both the roads and public transit vehicles are congested, then Measure M was simply not successfully executed or planned, as it promised to ease congestion...

similarInLA 8y ago

Yeah, I'm in a similar position. When the Expo line was expanded to Santa Monica, I was actually working in the building next to the final Santa Monica stop. But my house wasn't on the train line, so I would have had to somehow get to the train to take it in, but I would have only been riding like 3 stops. It doesn't make sense to drive to the train in that case, and riding a bike wasn't a realistic options because of the traffic I'd have to get through. (There were parts that would have been dangerous for a bike.) On the other hand, my yearly mileage is around 4-6k miles, so I don't feel like I'm contributing too badly to the problem. A coworker of mine was out in South Pasadena and tried taking the train one day. His normally 45 minute commute turned into an hour and 50 minutes one way. There's no way that makes sense. I've since moved, as has our office. I still live about 3 miles from work, so overall very low mileage each year. I looked up bus schedules as both my house and work are near bus stops. My one-way commute time would go from about 15-20 minutes to 50-60 minutes. That's just stupid. I have a family I'd like to see and making my commute 3-4 times as long just isn't worth it. I'm all for public transportation, but if it doesn't go where I need to in a timely manner, it's useless.

tomjakubowski 8y ago
When the Regional Connector (funded by Measure R!) is finished in 2021 and they realign Gold/Expo/Blue, there will be a direct light rail line from South Pasadena to Santa Monica: no subway transfer to hop across downtown. I think then the commute time will be around 1:00 or 0:50 each way.

DoctorOetker 8y ago

it's really annoying to read 2 conflicting accounts, the one in the article and yours, on ridership... the article makes it appear as if people voted for measure M in the hopes "that the rest would start using publiic transport" to have less traffic congestion in their cars. Considering your karma I am more inclined to believe you than the article. But even if the article were correct: it suggests that people in the cars don't mind if money is spent to persuade people to use public transport, perhaps a system can be set up such that gas taxes are levied and used to sponsor people to use public transit? Without the price of the ticket going negative of course, but arbitrarily low until congestion is tolerable? Of course if both the roads and public transit vehicles are congested, then Measure M was simply not successfully executed or planned, as it promised to ease congestion...