Imagine how much more expensive living in LA will be. Instead of fixing their god awful public transit (like NYC) they want to punish people for using the only reliable mode of transportation?
Am I the only person who found the phrase 'the poors' offensive? I'm genuinely asking.
Poe's law appears to be in effect here.
Hyperbole aside, when you see gentrification in neighborhoods like Boyle Heights, one has to wonder how numbered are the days of LA's poor neighborhoods.
If LA wants to improve their traffic problem, they need to address the root cause: bad urban planning and zoning laws. Where people work and where people live are in completely different areas of the city, requiring you to commute. They need to make local traffic easier (ie: not force you onto the freeway) and they need to reduce the need to drive all over the city every single day.
LA is hands down the worst major metro area I've been to when it comes to transit, and getting people off the roads will only improve that situation—carpooling, public transit, biking, and hell WALKING are all better options.
So you're suggesting that instead of fixing the problem (public transit) they should start whipping people so that the rich can drive on their traffic-free roads?
The point of tolls is not to make roads exclusive for the wealthy
I think LA is probably a market that most uniquely fits for self driving cars (depending on whatever business model emerges for those things). Thing is, I can't imagine the special kind of road rage that'll emerge when you're driving on the 405 and look to your left and right and see a completely empty vehicle.
I would walk the final leg because Torrance Transit is never on schedule.
i see no real point in trying to convince them otherwise, since... you know, they don't live here.
The city of Los Angeles, and by that I mean the sprawling megalopolis it really is, simply isn't built for public transportation. A fundamental shift in urban design of massive proportions would have to occur for mass transportation to make dent here.
In order to affect this massive re-modelling of the city one would have to use eminent domain laws to force millions of people to sell their properties and move. You would literally have to displace millions of people in order to build the required roadways and infrastructure that would allow a shift towards mass transit. This, of course isn't only unthinkable, it's impossible.
Take the "simplest" (in quotes because I am being sarcastic about the actual simplicity) of all problems: Where do you park your car?
Mass transit isn't going to reach into every suburban neighborhood. And, no, people are not going to ride bicycles. If we want an Amsterdam-like bicycle culture we would have to displace even more people. And then you'd have to build massive bike parking lots like the one next to Centraal station in Amsterdam.
People would need to drive a cars to a parking lot somewhere. Millions of people. There is no space to build these parking lots and the required rail in/out pathways without destroying whole neighborhood en-masse.
Once you get to work you'd have to be able to get from the station to your workplace. Once again, if we want this to be within walking or biking distance of most businesses we would have to tear-up whole neighborhoods in order to enable the tentacles of a mass transit infrastructure to get close enough.
And then there's the cost. I won't even bother trying to estimate it. What's the cost of buying-up, I don't know, 100,000 homes? Include both the real estate and legal costs ('cause there would be tens of thousands of lawsuits). And, once all homes are acquired and millions displaced, what's the cost of construction.
Nah, LA isn't suitable for mass transit in the spirit of many European cities. The comparison is futile.
What we could do is try to encourage --over time-- a spreading out of centers of employment. This can be done NY style by offering no taxes for ten years for the relocation or startup of businesses in designated areas. There's a huge focal point of businesses in the Downtown LA to Santa Monica corridor that creates massive traffic flows from as far away as 50 miles in every direction. That's the problem.
Most of those businesses don't need to be there. Why some flock to that corridor is somewhat incomprehensible to me other than there might be lack of space availability or zoning issues much outside that region.
It's a tough problem. Not sure tunneling is the solution either.
Bam, you have a good public transit system that is much faster than private cars due to being immune to traffic, and you didn't have to confiscate any property, build anything expensive, or do anything else exciting or risky.
Everyone's obsessed with rail, and rail is nice, but if you already have roads rapid bus transit makes more sense in the short run
You must not live in Los Angeles. If you took a lane away on every freeway the mayhem you'd create would be indescribably. In some places you can't due to the topology of the roads.
Besides, buses will guarantee that it will take three hours to move a handful of miles because they would have to get on and off the freeways at regular intervals and brave street level congestion while then making stops at non-existing parking lots (they don't exist now) to pick-up and drop off people.
There are no good mass transit solutions in Los Angeles. I've lived here long enough to see and analyze what is happening from multiple vantage points. We lived by the beach, desert, inland and in a couple of valleys. It's a mess. This megalopolis did not evolve to be mass transit friendly.
I say this with sadness because there's nothing I'd like more than not to own a car. I am simply being a realist on this one.
Really? Because all those lanes that have been added over the years don't appear to have made a big difference.
Also, the lane would be replaced with something amazing angelinos have never seen before -- a transport mode way faster than any other. With all the people choosing to use that bus, there'll be less car traffic. Saving half an hour has a way of turning excuses like "the bus is crowded" into jelly.
(Also, if it turns out you're right, lane rules and hours can be adjusted immediately with just a little paint or a sign. This is not risky.)
> Besides, buses will guarantee that it will take three hours to move a handful of miles because they would have to get on and off the freeways at regular intervals and brave street level congestion while then making stops
Um, don't use the freeway then, except where it's genuinely more direct. Then you don't have to take lanes away anyway.
> at non-existing parking lots (they don't exist now) to pick-up and drop off people.
Are you kidding? There's so much space in wasted parking lots for individual businesses, or even street space on these huge wide roads, any of which could be reclaimed.
> You must not live in Los Angeles.
Correct! If I did, I'd be afflicted by the same sad disease as you, lack of imagination.
Fact is, we make it work here in metro NYC, which is as big and sprawled out as LA -- probably more actually. If we can do it, so can you. (Note that by metro NYC I don't mean manhattan and the like, I mean to emphasize the outer parts, the 4 boroughs and 3 detached counties (Westchester, Bergen, Hudson) surrounding manhattan.
I invite you to come tour outer NYC, and see what you think
And the conversation stops here. Thanks.