3 ms·

This isn't true though. There used to be light rail in LA, it was bought up and then shuttered by Ford and the like.

robomartin 7y ago
I said a lot of things there, which part isn't true, that it would take me six hours to take public transport to some parts of Los Angeles from where I am? With regards to the myth of car companies driving or forcing urban development in a place like Los Angeles (really, think about that for a moment), here's the most complete research on Los Angeles mass transport I have ever found: https://media.metro.net/projects_studies/crenshaw/images/presentation_crenshawlax_2014-09.pdf https://media.metro.net/projects_studies/crenshaw/images/pre... There are an array of interconnected competing interests that drive the evolution of a city or region. For example, good union jobs building highways, suburban home developments and driving buses (one train = one conductor; 100 buses = 100 union jobs), etc. No, car companies are not that powerful. Los Angeles did this to itself over a very long period of time and for a number of reasons not having much to do with this fable of a car company promoted car culture. The simplest explanation is: It just happened. This isn't unlike the internet, which just exploded at one point and it is what it is. If we had to design it from scratch today with the benefit of hindsight we would likely change quite a few things. Same with cities. You get what you get, unless someone early enough had enough vision or was naturally restricted in some way to take a more favorable path. EDIT: I stand corrected. I just checked with Google Maps. There is NO way to take public transport of any kind. Well, at least Google can't solve the routing problem. I think there might be a way if I took something like three buses to get close to where I might be able to reach light rail. Plain and simple, Los Angeles didn't evolve to favor mass transportation.
rayiner 7y ago
That’s false. The LA street car was already failing by the time GM bought it. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2013/06/be-careful-how-you-refer-so-called-great-american-streetcar-scandal/5771/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2013/06/be-careful-ho... > A case study can be made of Los Angeles, where Snell focused a good deal of his attack. But contemporary accounts suggest that a transformation from streetcars to buses was underway long before GM and its affiliates entered the scene circa 1940. As early as 1923, the Pacific Electric rail line was buying buses to replace some of its routes. The city's board of public utilities encouraged this trend — calling the use of motor buses "a foregone conclusion" — and by 1930 the city's big bus conglomerate carried 29 million riders a year. > The scholar Sy Adler once wrote, plain and simple, that everything Snell suggested about transit in Los Angeles "was wrong."

I said a lot of things there, which part isn't true, that it would take me six hours to take public transport to some parts of Los Angeles from where I am? With regards to the myth of car companies driving or forcing urban development in a place like Los Angeles (really, think about that for a moment), here's the most complete research on Los Angeles mass transport I have ever found: https://media.metro.net/projects_studies/crenshaw/images/presentation_crenshawlax_2014-09.pdf https://media.metro.net/projects_studies/crenshaw/images/pre... There are an array of interconnected competing interests that drive the evolution of a city or region. For example, good union jobs building highways, suburban home developments and driving buses (one train = one conductor; 100 buses = 100 union jobs), etc. No, car companies are not that powerful. Los Angeles did this to itself over a very long period of time and for a number of reasons not having much to do with this fable of a car company promoted car culture. The simplest explanation is: It just happened. This isn't unlike the internet, which just exploded at one point and it is what it is. If we had to design it from scratch today with the benefit of hindsight we would likely change quite a few things. Same with cities. You get what you get, unless someone early enough had enough vision or was naturally restricted in some way to take a more favorable path. EDIT: I stand corrected. I just checked with Google Maps. There is NO way to take public transport of any kind. Well, at least Google can't solve the routing problem. I think there might be a way if I took something like three buses to get close to where I might be able to reach light rail. Plain and simple, Los Angeles didn't evolve to favor mass transportation.

rayiner 7y ago

That’s false. The LA street car was already failing by the time GM bought it. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2013/06/be-careful-how-you-refer-so-called-great-american-streetcar-scandal/5771/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2013/06/be-careful-ho... > A case study can be made of Los Angeles, where Snell focused a good deal of his attack. But contemporary accounts suggest that a transformation from streetcars to buses was underway long before GM and its affiliates entered the scene circa 1940. As early as 1923, the Pacific Electric rail line was buying buses to replace some of its routes. The city's board of public utilities encouraged this trend — calling the use of motor buses "a foregone conclusion" — and by 1930 the city's big bus conglomerate carried 29 million riders a year. > The scholar Sy Adler once wrote, plain and simple, that everything Snell suggested about transit in Los Angeles "was wrong."