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Greater LAs charm is all about the multitude of smaller things going on. Its a city for those who love exploring the whole region, with all their surprises around every corner. Chicago is for those who want just one easily accesible, spectacular spot where its all going on and hate driving.
no doubt, LA is great at this.
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Originally Posted by munchitup
Well put. Add in that it should be as sterilized and generic as possible.
Sure, but if that is the distance you need to go, might as well lump Milwaukee in to be "accurate." Plenty of good festivals there also and you can go from DT to DT by rail.
So out of the blue an idea just popped into your head and you felt like mentioning it.
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Yeah, of course, Houston and Atlanta are not on the same planet with LA
I never said they were bad cities but no they are not on LA's level. What LA is to these cities is what NYC is to a place like Philly.
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yet LA can barely match the taxi demand in Houston
OH! So now taxis are urban? Is a taxi not a car? So when its a personal car then its sprawl and when its a taxi and yellow then its urban!!
LOL. Eastern logic fail. To answer the question I don't know why Houston has a bigger taxi fleet, maybe because that's all the have for other means of transportation since you know they barely have a rail system.
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or the subway ridership in Atlanta...
30/10 will end this madness.
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cities with a fraction of LA's population.
Ok so they have their strong points just like any big city. Whats your point besides scapegoating all the questions I have asked you.
It's misleading to say LA has a lower subway ridership than Atlanta. Moat of the system is LRT. LA has the 2nd highest PT ridership in the nation.
Then what you did was misleading as well. Two wrongs don't make a right.
If it is true LRT was not counted in LA, then... just add the heavy rail and light rail together...
You can't just jump to "2nd highest PT ridership" logically, but you could have jumped to, total combined "rail" ridership.
Besides that, subways go quite a bit faster than Lightrail... noticeable difference. Can definitely change up your travel decisions for the day. Probably why so many people in LA opt to drive. I know you don't mind riding the bus, but many of us, it's not about not having a car or *could* I get somewhere without a car given an infinite amount of time... I mean, that is part of it. It's more about, how fast can I get from X to X, and get on about my business. Even in Chicago I rarely if ever take a bus. Same if I'm in NYC. Why? they are slow and ride in traffic. I can bike faster than most buses. Depending on where I'm going, I'll gladly hail a cab off the street, I can walk around then hail a cab within seconds. So that is the difference between a private vehicle and how you use it, vs using cabs when needed.
I own a car, but it's garaged in Florida, I use it when I fly in there, I don't need one in Chicago.
Buses are an inferior form of urban transit, that is why the "major cities" go towards subway system...moving more people, faster. LA will be SOOOO much better once they implement more subway lines, and I would expect continued good development around the stops as well as population growth making LA even more desirable.
For a potential urbanite, I'd say great PT is just as much of a factor in choosing a place, having equal sway with say, great weather. For instance, I'll easily admit that PT in Chicago is pretty freaking good, while the weather is pretty terrible.
It really comes down to what is more important to you. I know many people who haven't had a car for decades and don't even have a drivers license, and would never EVER move to a place which meant they had to get around in a car. Doing this would irritate them to no end. I know just as many people who wouldn't think of moving up north b/c of the winter, doing this would also irritate them to no end.
Let's just come out and say it and be fair. For weather given the big city options in the U.S., Chicago is pretty darn lousy (despite those people who like 4 seasons and extreme weather) And for big cities with good public transit, LA is pretty darn lousy.
I don't know many people who would disagree with these statements, though surely I will see it in city data in droves compared to my usual every day interactions for people defending both to no ends.
Umm, didn't you just post a picture of Santa Monica?
This thread is about metros, sorry that your tundra has nothing like Santa Monica.
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Somewhere which is outside of LA's 450square miles... and 15 miles from Downtown LA?
Ok so all the pictures that I posted of LA prior to the Santa Monica ones just went under the bus now? Amazing how you had nothing to say about those but when I post about Santa Monica (a suburb you wished you had) then all hell breaks loose.
You and the rest of Fitzrovian's posse. Every other person understands this is a metro thread. LOL.
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It's not that LA doesn't have some walkable pockets ...they are just far away from each other, and often not even part of LA proper
This is a flat out lie. Do you easties even read posts or do you just say what comes to your head?
All of LA's most walkable areas ARE next to each other. Koreatown, Westlake, Mid Wilshire, Mid City, Mid City West, Downtown, Harvard Heights, West Adams all have a walkscore above 80 and border one another. Their combined population is 432k and these neighborhoods are all above 80 in walkscore. So if LA isn't urban then puny Boston isn't urban because it has less people living in neighborhoods above 80 in walkscore.
I already posted the walkscore site yet it flew over your head and apparantly facts are not good enough for Fitzrovian because he's seen LA 4 times with his own eyes. LOL which isn't saying much.
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these areas do not FLOW together nor are they cohesive.
Yes they do. I have already provided evidence of this but the eastern logic is that if its a fact then skip it and if its an opinion (agreeing with their own) then basically make out.
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LA does *not* have this and is NOT centralized like NYC or SF.
Oh ok, LA isn't centralized yet all of its most urban neighborhoods, most walkable neighborhoods, most dense neighborhoods being in the central city near downtown don't make it centralized. Ok. Thanks for that opinion of yours.
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NYC is on a completely different level.
You care because? You easterners seem to just use these sentences every other post, you wont ever understand how us Californians view our cities. Our cities are urban, they have the desirable climate, and they have the natural setting you wish your cities had. They have all 3 in one place. No one here is counting every person on the street to compare the density, the streets are packed enough for it to be vibrant and the areas are urban enough to enjoy.
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This is why people say LA is not walkable.
Their wrong then.
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but stop acting like LA is built up like these other cities, you look silly.
No you look silly. So look at the pictures and stats I posted in this post and then tell me if that is not built densely? Are there not people on the streets of downtown LA?
Here's a hint the answer is yes. You lose. You're just arguing for the sake of arguing now and its typical now you're going to come at me asking if downtown LA has as many people walking as NYC or Chicago. Let me just answer that now, no it doesn't but its vibrant enough to enjoy and dense enough to be content with. LA offers a better balance of everything, it has the climate, the nature, and the urban bones. Its an all in one place just like the San Francisco Bay Area and that is why they are closer to being perfect then NYC or Chicago. (TUNDRAS)
Not sure what you are even on about. I'm not from the East Coast... I've lived in both Chicago and SF but not from either
Also not sure what you are on about but in no way shape or form is LA even built out like SF, much less NYC.
I am now wondering if you've ever even been to San Francisco.
Sure it's urban, but again, it's back to the street dimensions, it's back to the urban & residential.
The loop in Chicago is very urban, but hardly anybody lives there. People care about the neighborhoods, same with SF... That is where LA starts to lose big time.
This is what Koreatown actually looks like and the other areas you are talking about.
travelpod
vegas pilgrim
tp
tp
tp
Those areas are "Dense" b/c they are poor and live many people to the home, no yards, small lots.
The streets themselves are NOT built densely or walkable in the same regard, hence my entire post, you can walk around NYC whether there are 50k on the street, or 4am. I don't CARE how many people live there. New Orleans has a much much better street layout and more walkable than LA, it's nothing to do with "easties"
It's how the city is built...Still not sure how you don't see the difference.
I have defended LA in many regards, if you didn't notice, but I will absolutely NOT defend it's urbanity or walkability. It's not the same.
I don't need to look at pictures, I've been to all these cities many times. The differences are obvious, but we have obviously found the achiles heel trying to incessantly defend LA as the same through "stats" and "aerial pics" lol... You realize a good deal of us have been to these cities right and continue to frequent them? Many of us like LA a bunch, but we aren't going to call it something it isn't... You aren't fooling anybody.
Now in contrast, and I'll just use SF... NYC as I said, is even on another level from that, esp Manhattan being 4-5x denser population with worlds better PT than San Francisco...
Stickign with the ethnic nabe theme...here is Chinatown in SF.
school bell
nabewise
this is a main "wider" street even. (wikimedia) on normal day activity level... not some "festival"
car free sunday. sf streetblog
Please, I hope you can see why one would be much more walkable and is a different kind of "city" than LA is...
and lets just do NYC chinatown for good measure...
ramblings from the left r guskind
j blough
wikimedia
completely different type of builds...
Then what you did was misleading as well. Two wrongs don't make a right.
If it is true LRT was not counted in LA, then... just add the heavy rail and light rail together...
You can't just jump to "2nd highest PT ridership" logically, but you could have jumped to, total combined "rail" ridership.
Besides that, subways go quite a bit faster than Lightrail... noticeable difference. Can definitely change up your travel decisions for the day. Probably why so many people in LA opt to drive. I know you don't mind riding the bus, but many of us, it's not about not having a car or *could* I get somewhere without a car given an infinite amount of time... I mean, that is part of it. It's more about, how fast can I get from X to X, and get on about my business. Even in Chicago I rarely if ever take a bus. Same if I'm in NYC. Why? they are slow and ride in traffic. I can bike faster than most buses. Depending on where I'm going, I'll gladly hail a cab off the street, I can walk around then hail a cab within seconds. So that is the difference between a private vehicle and how you use it, vs using cabs when needed.
I own a car, but it's garaged in Florida, I use it when I fly in there, I don't need one in Chicago.
Buses are an inferior form of urban transit, that is why the "major cities" go towards subway system...moving more people, faster. LA will be SOOOO much better once they implement more subway lines, and I would expect continued good development around the stops as well as population growth making LA even more desirable.
For a potential urbanite, I'd say great PT is just as much of a factor in choosing a place, having equal sway with say, great weather. For instance, I'll easily admit that PT in Chicago is pretty freaking good, while the weather is pretty terrible.
It really comes down to what is more important to you. I know many people who haven't had a car for decades and don't even have a drivers license, and would never EVER move to a place which meant they had to get around in a car. Doing this would irritate them to no end. I know just as many people who wouldn't think of moving up north b/c of the winter, doing this would also irritate them to no end.
Let's just come out and say it and be fair. For weather given the big city options in the U.S., Chicago is pretty darn lousy (despite those people who like 4 seasons and extreme weather) And for big cities with good public transit, LA is pretty darn lousy.
I don't know many people who would disagree with these statements, though surely I will see it in city data in droves compared to my usual every day interactions for people defending both to no ends.
Bus LRT and heavy rail combined LA is number two. Not to mention the most innovative bus system in the US
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