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LA has areas that are this high but it's not as widespread as in Chicago.
Chicago may have more walkable areas, but I don't think it is by all the much. Los Angeles has many walkable neighborhoods, and they are spread wide across the city. And that is the problem most people have with Los Angeles - lots of walkable areas scattered all over the basin. The issue is for a long time they were not connected by any transit other than buses.
The other problem is, as Bajan mentions, that they are not super-cohesive and are typically linear in lay-out. Though this actually works pretty well for residents who live within the grid and can walk in any direction towards the surrounding commercial corridors, typically between .1-.5 miles away. It's not too different from what you see in many urban neighborhoods of Chicago, but out there they have better pedestrian orientation, and probably more mixed use.
So basically, I'm not arguing that Los Angeles has more walkable areas than Chicago or Toronto, but that it is much better than some people realize.
I think that's fine for the people who can make that commute happen by transit. But what are the odds of that? That's probably the biggest reason for the low ridership. The more dispersed economic activity is, the harder it is to get people onto transit.
The odds might not be too bad, since some of the peak hour trains get crowded. The issue has a bit to do with all the lines from all directions terminating in stub end tracks at Union Station where they come in, offload and idle and then back out from there. There are only so many stub tracks so what happens is that sometimes incoming trains have to wait a bit for one of those slots to be cleared before coming in--basically, it's at capacity already during peak hours and it needs to be fixed because transit service where a train is at capacity or a delay occurs doesn't really entice people to use it as much.
What's currently happening is that Union Station is getting refitted with run through tracks where instead of trains come in, idle, then back out, the trains just pull in, offload, and then shoot down in another direction. This means the capacity will go up and that trains can and will be run at greater frequencies--which might be an interesting chicken and egg sort of study to see how greater frequency (and fewer delays) relates to greater ridership. Run through tracks also allow new possible single seat routing options for people from the Valley to the Inland Empire or Orange County and vice versa.
For the CSA to get to 20 million? Why would you count the CSA since it makes so little sense? The MSA is at about 13 million now and that population figure makes a lot more sense.
Then tell the LA boosters to stop bragging about how their almost a hyper city - they can't have it both ways.
The odds might not be too bad, since some of the peak hour trains get crowded. The issue has a bit to do with all the lines from all directions terminating in stub end tracks at Union Station where they come in, offload and idle and then back out from there. There are only so many stub tracks so what happens is that sometimes incoming trains have to wait a bit for one of those slots to be cleared before coming in--basically, it's at capacity already during peak hours and it needs to be fixed because transit service where a train is at capacity or a delay occurs doesn't really entice people to use it as much.
What's currently happening is that Union Station is getting refitted with run through tracks where instead of trains come in, idle, then back out, the trains just pull in, offload, and then shoot down in another direction. This means the capacity will go up and that trains can and will be run at greater frequencies--which might be an interesting chicken and egg sort of study to see how greater frequency (and fewer delays) relates to greater ridership. Run through tracks also allow new possible single seat routing options for people from the Valley to the Inland Empire or Orange County and vice versa.
Though I don't think they show any through-routing in the plans.
Basically the Regional Connector is the same project, but for LRT. Right now the Gold Line loops through a corner of DTLA, only going as deep as Union Station to connect to the Red/Purple Line. The Blue and Expo Lines both terminate at 7th Street / Metro Center, making Pasadena to USC a three seat ride - this corrects that early design flaw.
Not really. If anything, its doubly impressive due to the massive population of the urbanized area. It's easy to maintain a high density with a small population; try maintaining it with a population over 12 million.
First, your analogy is flawed. Jax has a larger population, but nowhere near the density of the a Boston or San Francisco. Los Angeles OTOH is easily in the same density group as Chicago and Toronto. Depending on how you look at it, you could argue the L.A. tops both:
Population over 20,000 ppsm
Los Angeles UA: 1,956,347 (15.99% of UA)
Chicago UA: 1,120,257 (12.52%)
Toronto UA: 993,659 (19.19%)
Los Angeles comes close to matching Chicago and Toronto combined at the census tract level. Impressive, and completely debunks the notion that Los Angeles only has dense suburbs and nothing else.
There is nothing impressive about the urbanity of LA, only a small towner or native would be impressed by its urbanity. Your analogy is flawed and wouldn't know urban if smacked in the face. LA is as urban as a John Deere tractor on a highway. My professor in college stated "LA" looks like a suburb, the burbs in Paris are denser". Let me repeat myself for the gazillionth time, maybe LA posters will understand this. LA doesn't even have a DT, visitors are not sure where the DT is and munchitup confirmed this. LA is medium density, which is never ending spread out over 1000's of miles. And "coming close" at the census tract doesn't account for the worst transit by far of the three. Again, LA is wil soon be the only mega city or hyper city in the world without an efficient subway system or Dense/well known DT. Congrats, a 20 million metro and people don't even know where the DT is located.
Businesses/developers have also made some adaptations to squeeze a bit more life out of bad zoning and car-oriented regulations of LA where they cram more retail density out of their lots so you have takes on the strip mall such as this
these seemed to be a lot more common in Los Angeles than anywhere else. Yea, stacked strip malls that are pretty ugly, but bustling sometimes anyhow and it's really convenient to live in walking distance to these things. Being near that last one on Sawtelle (along with the other retail near there as well as Santa Monica Blvd just a bit north) for a while was probably the most convenient setup I've had considering what I'd actually frequent.
There is nothing impressive about the urbanity of LA, only a small towner or native would be impressed by its urbanity. Your analogy is flawed and wouldn't know urban if smacked in the face. LA is as urban as a John Deere tractor on a highway. My professor in college stated "LA" looks like a suburb, the burbs in Paris are denser". Let me repeat myself for the gazillionth time, maybe LA posters will understand this. LA doesn't even have a DT, visitors are not sure where the DT is and munchitup confirmed this. LA is medium density, which is never ending spread out over 1000's of miles. And "coming close" at the census tract doesn't account for the worst transit by far of the three. Again, LA is wil soon be the only mega city or hyper city in the world without an efficient subway system or Dense/well known DT. Congrats, a 20 million metro and people don't even know where the DT is located.
Maybe the most unimpressive retort ever. I couldn't care less about any of your opinions, seriously. FACTS. Do you have any? No? Exactly.
Your medium density argument has already been debunked. Why slam into that brick wall again?
FACT: Los Angeles = most densely populated UA in the United States.
FACT: You could take the entire population of Toronto's UA, add it to Chicagoland, and L.A. would still be more densely populated.
as I said before if it's in Toronto you don't like it. Nothing new here!
Quote:
Originally Posted by edwardsyzzurphands
Oh sorry I forgot North America only consisted on 2 countries
Labor Day Parade draws over 2 million visitors each year; if only counting the US and Canada then yes it doubles the size of Caribana. You also have Calle Ocho in Miami which draws over 1 million visitors and lasts for 10 days. There is nothing like Caribana in Chicago, because Chicago does not have a large West Indian/Caribbean population, not that difficult to figure out.
The reason I am not a huge Caribana fan is because I actually understand what Carnival is supposed to feel like. Caribana is an over-policed, over-regulated and underfunded mess. You have a wall of uptight police commanding people to stay within the roped off areas when they are dancing and confiscating their alcohol. You have the ridiculous city council regulating what street vendors are allowed to cook and how long they are able to serve it, hence the reason there is terrible food at Caribana. Then you mix that in with 11am-2am serving hours and you have an extremely uptight event in general and are treating adults like children. No wonder there are always incidents and people looking for a fight, I would be frustrated too. We just enjoy ourselves for as many days at whichever hours we want during Carnival in the Caribbean.
Even during NY and Miami Carnival you can replicate the vibe of the Caribbean in certain ways (very small ways) because they have late or in the case of Miami no last call, which encourages people to keep the party going all night, when in Toronto Caribana events shut down early. So I guess you are right, I do not enjoy Caribana because it is in Toronto, due to Toronto's ridiculous appetite to over-regulate everything it gets in hands on.
The public transportation is below Chicago and Toronto but I'm impressed with its urban makeup. I find myself driving less here and walking more. Stuff seems to be at my feet moreso than when I lived in DC. My commute to work is a breeze too. No more 495 and 270 misery.
There is nothing impressive about the urbanity of LA, only a small towner or native would be impressed by its urbanity. Your analogy is flawed and wouldn't know urban if smacked in the face. LA is as urban as a John Deere tractor on a highway. My professor in college stated "LA" looks like a suburb, the burbs in Paris are denser". Let me repeat myself for the gazillionth time, maybe LA posters will understand this. LA doesn't even have a DT, visitors are not sure where the DT is and munchitup confirmed this. LA is medium density, which is never ending spread out over 1000's of miles. And "coming close" at the census tract doesn't account for the worst transit by far of the three. Again, LA is wil soon be the only mega city or hyper city in the world without an efficient subway system or Dense/well known DT. Congrats, a 20 million metro and people don't even know where the DT is located.
Density-wise, LA and Chicago are actually pretty evenly matched up until you get into the medium/lower density tracts where LA has more of while Chicago goes faster into low density. For high to medium density tracts, LA and Chicago are remarkably similar.
munchitup mentioned some instances of people being confused due to LA having large secondary areas with highrises, and it does happen. However, I don't think it's that common and definitely no one who actually lives in LA would be confused.
The 20 million number by your count won't be coming for another two decades or so which is a lot of time for development in Los Angeles. Plus, that 20 million stat is ridiculous. The 12 million Metropolitan Statistical Area is a lot more sensible than the 20 million Metropolitan Statistical Area when talking about metropolitan populations.
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