L.A.'s Lost Transit
strongtowns.org
strongtowns.org
I lived in LA for quite a few years and they opened the expo line through my neighborhood (Culver City) towards the end of my time there. It was transformational. It wasn't the fastest way to get downtown (assuming no traffic), but it meant you could have a drink without worrying about getting home. You could have a nice afternoon walking around without searching for parking. You could see an event at Staples Center and easily get home when it was over. Now the line goes all the way to Santa Monica, bringing more and more people into the fold.
I get that it is not as extensive as other systems, and parts of it share passage with cars, but it would have never gotten done as an underground system [1], and it works quite well as a complement to local bus lines.
Basically, LA Metro is actually building the infrastructure people imagine Red Car to have been. It takes decades because it is a big project and we are not good at building infrastructure quickly anymore [2], but it is a long-term investment in helping the city grow.
[0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway [2] https://patrickcollison.com/fast
Heh. I’ve lived in your old neighborhood (Culver City) the last two years. The % of times there’s been light traffic going east to DTLA or west to Santa Monica is <10. Expo line trains run frequently and are consistently ~30 minutes to either destination. In a car, it’s between 20 and 90 minutes.
I’m from NY and spoiled with train options. The Expo line and LA Metro in general has allowed us to live here with one car and for me to mostly avoid driving altogether. Just like in NY, more cross-town train options are welcomed, and the airport extension to LAX will save time and stomach lining.
Found this nice interactive map over the lines, in case someone else is also curious https://sharemap.org/public/Los_Angeles_Pacific_Electric_Rai...
Every boomer male that I know who grew up in LA perks up at the mention of the red car.
They tell people to use public transit, but fail to recognize that it takes 2 to 3 hours to get anywhere useful with it.
They built light rail that nobody can use, because it doesn’t go to where people need to go. They squandered a huge opportunity to do it right, to dig subways and put the rail on a grade-separated medium. Instead they opt for light-rail that shares the same surface roads as cars, thereby ensuring that the system is a failure.
And to add insult, to even use the light rail, you must drive to the nearest light rail station!
They don’t have an express system to go from one major location to another, which means that you must stop at every location, which means the rails cannot go as fast, thus adding to the commute time.
They don’t even have rail service to connect the 4 major airports in the area! Absolutely none!
Quite frankly, the whole system is run by idiots. Their only success is in deflecting and making excuses. Billions squandered, and 50 years later, they have nothing to show for it.
Yes, the lack of express lines is a serious issue.
Quite frankly, the LA metro system is admirable failing at a nearly impossible task. It's just too spread out here for the usual set ups to work.
Ironically, part of the spread comes from the original LA transit system. You should look up a map sometime, it's really illuminating.
Additionally, LA is the densest metro area in the US.
But this comment got me curious, maybe I'm missing something. This article shows that LA is pretty close to NYC in terms of average density. But NYC is still more dense.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/10/americas-truly-denses...
Anyhow, it’s always good to remember that NYC is not just Manhattan.
Also, what's the definition of "LA metro area"? Los Angeles County? Ignoring, say, Orange County, and the parts of San Bernardino County and Riverside County that are relevant to solving the actual commuter problems of the LA basin?
I used to live in Los Angeles (Westside) and I found this to be true. The bus system has excellent coverage but that often meant that buses stop frequently. A relatively short 7 mile trip could take 35 minutes or more at times. That's 5 minutes per mile, which is a good running pace but a rather poor pace if you must travel a longer distance.
I used the light rail occasionally (the Expo Line) and I too found it underwhelming. The headways were long, often 15 or 30 minutes. The trains had only 2 cars and were often crowded. Heavy rail moves a lot more people much more quickly, with its own right-of-way too. I would have preferred LA going the heavy rail option, but they appear to be mostly investing in light rail (with the exception of the much needed Purple line extension).
This was the case in the past. Expo line trains are now typically 3 cars, and come every 6-12 minutes.
It can still get crowded during rush hour, but otherwise has plenty of room.
I imagine it’s hard to do transit well in a city where a lot of people are trying to use their single family homes as an outsized, speculative investment asset.
My view is that it will take time on the order of 1-3 decades for housing to densify around major arterials where this mass transit will run. At that point, it will “go somewhere people want to go.” You can see it happening in Pasadena.
Wouldn’t that be pretty much every city in America with a sizable middle class?
There’s also too much backlash from the population for any kind of transit. The local zeitgeist still hasn’t accepted the need.
I agree that Metro has been making lots of mistakes. But I also am grateful that they are at least TRYING despite the incredible opposition they face. And while right now the train lines are still kind of useless, they also recognize the need to improve the last mile infrastructure; Metro is generally favorable of scooters and bike docks for example, and they are revamping the bus lines.
Who knows, maybe it was a lost cause. I hope they can figure it out!
Isn't this the cheapest way to build stations?
Everyone's definition of "useful" is different. I personally run into far fewer last-mile issues with Metro Rail than I did with BART when I lived up north. Heck, BART had to run a bus service to OAK until just a few years ago, and they've had a lot more time to sort this out.
> They squandered a huge opportunity to do it right, to dig subways and put the rail on a grade-separated medium. Instead they opt for light-rail that shares the same surface roads as cars, thereby ensuring that the system is a failure.
No, they did dig subways where needed (and where geologically feasible). And they opted to use existing right-of-ways in other areas, so that the thing could actually get built. Look at the Gold Line going through South Pasadena; it cuts diagonally through a fairly dense, wealthy residential area, which it can do because the neighborhood was built up around tracks that were there long ago. Without that existing right-of-way, the whole line would have gone the way of the 710 connector.
2 hours is more than the transit time from Santa Monica to Pasadena, including worst case wait for a transfer. For comparison, most of the day that same trip by car is 2 hours, and 3 to 4 hours during rush hour.
The Expo Line (E line) already exceeds expected ridership. Tens of thousands use the E, red, gold, and purple lines for their daily commutes.
Light rail was chosen for the 3 longest lines because it is literally less than a tenth of the cost that subways along the same routes would have cost (you're talking almost 100 miles of tunneling, not including the costs of underground stations, or the years of work moving utility lines so you can even start digging.
Quite frankly, the system works as well as it can in a city dominated by cars. And it's getting better all the time.
A friend of mine spent some time in LA. He remarked that transit took you to other transit and not much else. Having only flown through LA once, I have no other direct context.
Is his assessment fair?
The bus network today is far more expansive, faster, and with far lower headways than the old redcar network that it replaced. The articulated buses used on busy corridors are probably about as long as a street car. Later this year LA Metro will implement a bus plan where 83% of the population will be in walking distance to a bus line with a 5-10 minute headway.
So yes, it was car companies that killed them.
Some research shows they (GM etc) were convicted of conspiracy to fix prices in the bus-transit industry. The streetcar conspiracy was tried and dismissed(?)
So, no smoking gun I guess.
While it's true that the main bus transit company in question (NCL) did acquire the LA streetcar systems and replace them with buses, many other cities voluntarily replaced their streetcar systems with buses in roughly the same era.
And who was lobbying the government for that?
Super fast, point to point trips are amazing. It’s still that way in much of the country.
The idea that transport policy wasn't shaped by any lobbying is ludicrous.
> I don’t think transit advocates realize how amazing car travel was back in the day.
That doesn't mean the shape of policy that leveraged that popularity wasn't shaped by lobbying by those with a concentrated interest that the legislation would advance leveraging the general popularity of car travel. In fact, having something naturally popular (whether it's “car travel” or “not dying in a terrorist attack”) to leverage as a basis increases, rather thank reduces, the intensity of lobbying to gain private benefit by exploiting that sentiment.
Barcelona's public transport system would blow the mind of anyone in North America with the possible exception of someone who's spent time in Manhattan (but BCN's is reliable).
Japanese public transit is actually completely broken in ways that are appalling:
1. Line transfers are user hostile within network
Even if you stay inside the same operator, like Tokyo Metro, making like transfers is an ordeal in distance, steps and most importantly cost. It costs 1.5x as much to go 2+3 stops than to go 5 stops on the same line.
2. Line transfers across networks are actively discouraged.
Even if the most convenient mode is for you to take two trains from two different companies (say Keihan and JR) they’ll charge full price rides for each.
To make it worse every company intentionally makes way finding to a competitor line hard. Get off the JR line in Osaka station and try to transfer to the Keihan line. It’s impossible.
3. Peak hour service is the single worst public transit experience in the world with the possible exception of the BRT in Colombia.
This was the real test of the system for me. I used to live along the L, which post CBTC has become one of the best performing subway lines in the system. It’s really bad at rush hour. People are jammed in.
It absolutely pales in comparison to a Japanese rush hour train which in my opinion is actively dangerous.
All of the “Japanese discipline and order” doesn’t buy them better headway either. It really does feel like 2 min headway on rush hour heavy rail is the max and neither Tokyo nor New York can do anything about it.
4. Station distances are far apart and last mile is terrible
Unless you’re really lucky and happen to do things right by a metro station, everything will be a 10-15 walk even within the core areas. Compare this to NY where we average a stop every 10 blocks even in the outer boroughs and can go as low as every 4 in midtown and downtown.
5. Entering and exiting the subway is a chore.
Either you have to deal with the terrible compromise that Japan made in privatizing its rail - giant maze like shopping malls that you have to walk through to get to the subways, or if you’re lucky a long underground passageway from a side street. There’s no cardinality, no orientation after you exit, the city is just a blob with buildings splattered across it.
I used to think Tokyo was the pinnacle of urban design - high functioning rail, zoning that allows for affordability - I am sad to say it fails on a number of key dimensions.
It is the most energetically “dead” big city I have spent time in and without a radical change in the norms of Japanese society it will remain that way.
For $2.75 I can ride all the way from Van Cortlandt park to the Far Rockaways, I can take as many trains as I want. I can connect with the vibrancy of the culture of our city. Will the train break down? Maybe. Will rats scurry across the tracks? Without doubt. Does the system smell like pee? Most of the time. But it is alive and thrumming. I will take that every day.
And if our dear leader Byford can get his way, it’ll run really well too.
An aside: the system that I think New York should actually be envious off are Hong Kong and Taipei who have both built excellent, reliable systems in cities that are vibrant and welcoming.
HN needs to tone down its Japan weeb levels.
The real problem I see in LA is the last 5 miles problem. When it takes nearly as long to get to the metro station in an Uber, then wait for the train, as it does to drive downtown, and the parking cost is similar to the to/from the metro, I’ll be driving. And don’t even get me started on paying $1.75 for the metro, then $3.50 to ride a metro bike one way.
The apartment near the metro line is really a lifestyle choice. It’s not an overall solution for all society in LA or even The Bay Area as we will never match the rail density of a city like New York. Earthquakes limit how high we can build.
I think one of the main points of the article is that for public transit to be worthwhile, a city must also work on zoning to increase density. Your point about the last “5 mile” problem is totally accurate for LA though, which as a New Yorker is always kind of funny — if I were to travel 5 miles from my apartment I’d practically be out of the city! I was just in LA earlier this month and every time I go the concept of not being able to walk to go about my daily business is pretty depressing.
LA doesn’t need to be as dense as New York or Paris, but if transit is to work, density needs to come with it. Otherwise it’ll always just be a massive suburban sprawl built for cars and not humans.
but many parts are quite multi-modal, like santa monica, westwood, palms/culver city/mar vista, downtown/arts district, boyle heights/east LA, hollywood, east hollywood, koreatown, westlake, los feliz, university park, chinatown, highland park, pasadena, south park/south central, long beach, studio city, north hollywood, etc.
so don't fall for the "suburban sprawl" cliché. frankly, a lot of the less multi-modal areas are uninteresting, so it's a good (if imperfect) barometer of such things.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Venice and it’s a bit better, you can kinda exist without a car there. My favorite is downtown, it actually feels like a city in that area.
Maybe my frame of reference is more east coast when I say suburban, where there is a downtown area that’s walkable, but you still have to drive most places.
I’ve never had a license, so I’m generally happiest in dense cities. I appreciate that many Americans prefer car life for whatever reason and LA is great if that’s your vibe. I just wish there were more cities like NYC in this country.
cities like houston, atlanta, and phoenix have overtaken LA as exemplars of suburban sprawl.
In WeHo, most the median was reused to make the sidewalks wider for pedestrians and restaurants.
("But Metrolink runs really infrequently!" So did the Red Cars on the inter urban routes.)