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Comment by double_nan | Hacker News Reader

What exactly stops LA from having any working public transit in the first place? Why this _thing_ would not prevent LA from public transit with HSR as well?

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The answer is very simple: Most of the LA metro is not LA. You can build a rapid transit system to Huntington Beach[a], but if the Huntington Beach municipality doesn’t allow for dense housing, parking, and right of way around their train station it’s a railway to nowhere. Policy is geographically shattered in Southern California, and it takes only a lawsuit or furious public comment period to throw a wrench in a wide ranging public goods project. It’s a prisoner’s dilemma: Why should we rezone our single family homes so the riffraff from Hollywood can enjoy our own precious town?

[a] So called because the Huntington street car system used to go there!

So, HSR will have exactly the same issues as current airports right now: lack of transportation. So the main selling point of HSR (saving time) is diluted somewhat by a necessity to rent a car next to the train station. I’m wondering how many ppl will pick planes just because the traffic is better outside of downtown where all the train stations are.

You can live next to a train station. Like, within walking distance. You can’t live next to an airport. Transit connections are much easier with trains. You can catch a local light rail or bus directly from the station.

This is what the entire rest of the world does. It actually isn’t hard at all.

By the rest of the world you mean Europe, right? Because outside of Europe it’s not really the case. Granted, i’ve not visited every country on earth, but in most cases i’ve seen “small livable downtown” is mostly an European thing. In other cases, you will need to take a looong ride home from the downtown (1h+).

You can attribute this to the economics of the Renaissance pre-modern Europe. Most regions and peoples of the world imported modern economies to go straight from Dark Ages to globalism. Europe somewhat uniquely transitioned to dense, walkable mercantile centers during this period before spreading the system abroad, whether by sword or ship.

"The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance" by John Hale is a great, lengthy reference here.

Did you reply to the right comment? I never said everyone gets to live in an idyllic neighborhood that serves their needs for housing, work, and entertainment. What I said is it is possible to live near rail and transit but not air.

  What exactly stops LA from having any working public transit in the first place?

Nothing. In fact LA is building out more light rail than the Bay Area and they're doing a damn good job of it.

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