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That's true, but as I said, you would be a social pariah not being able to get everywhere else as there are still several key missing spots. what happens when somebody calls and is like can you meet me at X?
The point is that these claims of spending hours in the car driving to work are way overblown. Like I said, if you plan ahead even a little bit before moving and starting a job in LA, you can easily take transit to work (ask a few newcomers to LA in the LA board and you will find a lot of recent transplants that are taking PT to work, and believe it or not they enjoy it.)
And no, you are not seen as a social pariah except for by a few of the worst generation of Angelenos (baby boomers between 35-60).
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Originally Posted by grapico
I just looked at a few of these express buses, and many of them stop their service at 7pm. WTF?
Another which last comes at midnight only seems to only run once an hour... seriously?
Those are basically the commuter rail of buses (I've never even heard of those lines). How about you show the lines people actually take and use late at night, like these: Maps & Timetables
I do agree that the bus service can be too infrequent at night on most lines, especially compared to Chicago or NYC. That being said it is still in the top 5-10 in the nation, and easily. For example, Boston has no transit after about 1:30, yet it is considered one of the premier transit systems (and better than LA).
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Originally Posted by grapico
I looked through the Red Blue and Gold lines and those seem pretty decent though, but the distance between stops seems a lot farther than I'm used to, so unless the place is very close to the stop you are going to, you'd have to walk fairly far still or wait on another bus.
All of this just seems to leave the "random going places" part out of the city that so many people love having to plan out and time trips so much.
LA just expanded all fixed-guideway lines to run until 2 AM (with a few running later). It has a long way to catch up to the big boys of transit in the US but this is a start. Metro representatives have made a point of stating this is a build-up to 24-hours service on the rails. I believe most stations are about a mile apart, which is pretty par for the course I believe. As you get further out on the Gold Line and the suburbs between Long Beach and LA, they might be more like 1.5 miles.
Yeah, there are definitely degree of ease/difficulty here. You could theoretically live in Charlotte or Tampa without a car "if you set yourself up right." Don't believe me? Check out these threads:
Yes there is a degree of difficulty. NYC is what you would call easy. Boston, Philly, DC, somewhat easy. LA, SF, Portland moderately easy. And so on and so on... Charlotte and Tampa would be way down the list, probably around 20-30th easiest in the US. That is what people are making LA to be even with when it is really more on par with "heralded" mass transit cities like Portland and SF.
Yes there is a degree of difficulty. NYC is what you would call easy. Boston, Philly, DC, somewhat easy. LA, SF, Portland moderately easy. And so on and so on... Charlotte and Tampa would be way down the list, probably around 20-30th easiest in the US. That is what people are making LA to be even with when it is really more on par with "heralded" mass transit cities like Portland and SF.
I would agree that it's not Charlotte or Tampa. I just used those threads as examples of people often overstating the case for their city's public-transit friendliness. Even in threads in the Charlotte forum, you have people saying, "Only a fool would believe that public transit is not really doable in Mecklenburg County!" Well, consider me a fool then because I'm headed straight to Hertz or Alamo as soon as I step off the plane.
As far as public transit goes, I'd say LA is much closer to Atlanta than most of you guys are willing to admit. The percentage of transit riders is about the same in both metros. And unlike LA, Atlanta does not have millions of poor immigrants that bias the ridership numbers upward (someone posted an article a while back showing that poor immigrants in LA tend to abandon the bus system once they have enough money to buy a car...will look for it later).
Yes there is a degree of difficulty. NYC is what you would call easy. Boston, Philly, DC, somewhat easy. LA, SF, Portland moderately easy. And so on and so on... Charlotte and Tampa would be way down the list, probably around 20-30th easiest in the US. That is what people are making LA to be even with when it is really more on par with "heralded" mass transit cities like Portland and SF.
Meh. I find it hard to believe LA is on the same level as Portland or San Francisco. Simpler from having good coverage in a smaller city Portland is probably more convenient to get from Point A and B via public transit, and Portland appeared to lack a stigma, with many non-poor people using transit. Seattle has higher public transit usage than Portland even though its light rail system is much smaller, the city is denser than Portland and the downtown is bigger (and more expensive parking and much bigger traffic issues than Portland).
San Francisco's public transit system has issues, and from what I've gathered is quite a bit worse than Boston's or DC's even if by density and walkability San Francisco is as good as the other two. But San Francisco transit usage is much closer to Boston or DC than LA or even Seattle or Portland. Sure, for getting from random Point A to Point B San Francisco's public transit system might be worse than Los Angeles. But a higher percentage of activity is concentrated in or near the city center where public transit is most useful.
Likewise for NYC, transit between two random city neighborhoods varies from decent to often horrible. But with centralization so many normal trips are convenient via public transit. And unlike most cities with local rail, where the only connections to other lines are in one small downtown section, the NYC subway forms a "net" where transfers are possible over a much greater area.
As far as public transit goes, I'd say LA is much closer to Atlanta than most of you guys are willing to admit. The percentage of transit riders is about the same in both metros. And unlike LA, Atlanta does not have millions of poor immigrants that bias the ridership numbers upward (someone posted an article a while back showing that poor immigrants in LA tend to abandon the bus system once they have enough money to buy a car...will look for it later).
It seems to me the most comparable city transit-wise is Portland. Right now LA is sitting around 10th (11.3%) in transit share, and Portland is at 9th (11.5%). <- This is for city-only.
The big differences:
1.) Portland has invested significantly in bicycle infrastructure and the results show (5.58% vs. 1%) - though in the last year LA has made huge strides by painting bike lanes, buffered lanes, new bike trails along transit lines... 4% is still a large number to make up.
2.)Los Angeles has more future projects that will go online in the next 10-30 years, which will undoubtedly boost the 11.3% figure (Expo Line is at 17k ridership just a month or so into opening, which is higher than expected at this juncture, I believe). Once the Measure R projects are finished I would not be surprised to see LA to be right after Philadelphia at 6th in transit share.
I haven't been able to find a stat on what Atlanta's transit share is, because the city itself is too small to be included on the list I have.
Either way, NYC absolutely kills LA in this metric. There are probably few places in the city you would be unable to commute to and from for work, though of course there are some jobs that inherently require car-usage. My main point is that it is not a given that you are going to drive to work in LA, and even more of a stretch that you will spend hours in the car. If that is a priority for someone, they can fairly easily avoid needing to drive to work.
I haven't been able to find a stat on what Atlanta's transit share is, because the city itself is too small to be included on the list I have.
Metro ridership might be the best comparison here. Atlanta's public transit agency records 259k rail ridership per day and 211k bus ridership per day. Boston, in a metro roughly the same size records 1.30 million, though the numbers are inflated from people transferring between rail /bus or from one rail line to another. The SF Metro records 1.34 million (Muni bus & rail + AC Transit + BART) with a coverage of a similar population, maybe a bit less.
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Either way, NYC absolutely kills LA in this metric. There are probably few places in the city you would be unable to commute to and from for work, though of course there are some jobs that inherently require car-usage. My main point is that it is not a given that you are going to drive to work in LA, and even more of a stretch that you will spend hours in the car. If that is a priority for someone, they can fairly easily avoid needing to drive to work.
NYC doesn't just have a good public transit, but in many sections of the city a car is painful to use and own. It's much less auto-friendly than Chicago or Boston. There's little place to put a car and main roads are slowgoing. Both Chicago and Boston have parking garages next to their Amtrak stations, New York City has none. Of course, even in New York, there are many trips where a car is faster
Meh. I find it hard to believe LA is on the same level as Portland or San Francisco. Simpler from having good coverage in a smaller city Portland is probably more convenient to get from Point A and B via public transit, and Portland appeared to lack a stigma, with many non-poor people using transit. Seattle has higher public transit usage than Portland even though its light rail system is much smaller, the city is denser than Portland and the downtown is bigger (and more expensive parking and much bigger traffic issues than Portland).
I can't really speak from experience, as I have never lived in Portland or Seattle, but I do believe that those three cities are about on the same level when it comes to the amount of areas in which the ability to get to-and-from work without a car and live either a car-free or car-light lifestyle is not particularly difficult to obtain.
Where LA is different from those cities is it has large areas like Northridge, Chatsworth, West Hills, Sunland-Tujunga (basically most of the outer reaches of the San Fernando Valley) where owning a car is basically a requirement, unless you are very dedicated to walking/transit/cycling. It would almost literally be the equivalent of Portland annexing Beaverton into its city limits (there's even mountains/hills between them!).
One other note, about NYC's transit system offering a "net".... LA is actually building a similar, grid-based rail transit system, and it is looking like LAX may develop into a second "hub" of the system. Once the system is in place, there will be multiple transfer locations - there are many kinks in the system to be worked out once that has occurred, such as distance-based fares and eliminating the "transfer penalty-fee".
Not really. Los Angeles is much, much larger than Atlanta, yet it only has about 78 miles of total track (combining light rail and subway) compared to Atlanta's 47 (just subway). Is that 31 additional miles of track "significantly more extensive" in a city that has 3.5 times the land mass of Atlanta and nearly ten times the population? I mean, if we really want to put things in perspective, DC has nearly as much track in its city limits as LA does in its entire metro area, and it's only 61 square miles.
That's already been stated--percentage-wise, LA does terribly. However, you don't experience things percentage-wise. You experience them based on what you have accessible to you directly and if you live within the more central parts of Los Angeles, you do have a good deal of things that are accessible.
If I were working in Finance, Law and perhaps something political I'd work in NYC. If I worked in any other field I'd call it more of a wash. Outside of finance, law and politics LA offers the same stuff NYC does. The question then becomes: do you want a city like NYC or LA? Being a Californian I'd prefer LA. Also because I don't want to share my city with 70 million rats, I don't own a bubble jacket, I prefer my sidewalks free of EVERYBODY's garbage, I don't mind standing on the subway but I DO like to have enough space to inhale , I enjoy seeing the sun every once in a while, I don't like humidity...etc.
Also, I respect NYC and admire it and frankly, I enjoy it a lot. But I see a lot of New Yorkers or Boosters (not necessarily on this thread) just blindly call NYC the greatest on earth....um hey, London and Paris called! I guess THOUSANDS of years of history and having more culture and class than NYC just gets brushed under the rug huh? It's really that attitude that other people are put off by. We KNOW NYC is the biggest and wealthiest city in the country. Yes, thanks for the reminder. However, that doesn't automatically make it #1 in anything or everything by default. To belittle a city like Los Angeles is just uncalled for. It's funny how in half the time NYC has been around LA has grown from a dusty outpost in the middle of nowhere to a World Class Mega-City, a Cultural Mecca, Entertainment/Media powerhouse and the THIRD highest GDP on earth. Right behind Tokyo and NYC. That's VERY impressive for a "know nothing, sprawly, suburban, cultureless, derelict, third world sh-thole"
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, I enjoy seeing the sun every once in a while, I don't like humidity...etc.
