Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I believe LA got its billions of funding for mass transit (and levied a large sales tax on itself) because of the increasing need for it due to increasing traffic congestion. It sort of makes sense that it needs to spend a lot now to catch up.
Yet, for a city/metro of its size, LA's transit use has remained stagnant to negative growth.
I actually agree, the system is not that hard to understand. But that does not mean there is no room for improvement... the issue isn't that the underlying system is complex, it's that the terminology is convoluted and needlessly complicated.
Here is an (abridged) map of the NQRW line:
Compare with this map of the District line in London:
These are not very different in terms of area served or the way they branch out from each other... the difference is that in London, these are branded as a single line with different spurs. A westbound train from Victoria on the District line would tell you whether it terminates at Richmond, Wimbledon, Kensington, Edgeware or Ealing. In New York, there is a pretense of the N, Q, R and W are all different lines that happen to share a track... this is needlessly confusing and conveys no information. A Broadway line with branches that begin in different parts of Queens and end in different parts of Brooklyn makes a lot more sense intuitively and expresses exactly the same thing. You can even keep the express vs local thing.
There is a reason everyone retroactively loves the Vignelli map, it conveys this all way better than the maps that have actually been used historically.
The same goes for signage... here is a platform in NYC:
Here is London:
Note the amount of information provided to the rider in London... departure boards, which only exist in some MTA stations, telling you the wait times for all coming trains as well as the final destinations of those trains. A large sign showing the next stops from your current location to the terminus and a map/timetable for the entire system. None of that information is conveyed on the New York platform, you are left to figure out for yourself whether the train that is arriving is going to get you to any specific station.
There is a reason that people retroactively love
We just do things a little differently in NYC. That picture of the sign you posted: that sign is saying that the exit to 34th st and 35th st is that way, and also the way to the B,D,F, and M trains. That's not supposed to tell you where the train is going. Now look to the right of the image, above the train. It's kind of hard to see in this image, but there's another sign. That's the sign that tellls you where the train is headed and terminates. It says: "Downtown & Brooklyn via Broadway Express" and also: "Q to Coney Island via Brighton Beach all times" You'll see a similar sign for the R train on the left side of the image.
The departure boards have been in all 1,2,3,4,5,6 and L train stations for years, and IDK what's taking so long for the rest of the trains. There are plans to have them in all stations though. They actually just added a few new ones very recently. That picture of the station that you posted, The Herald Square NQRW platform, does actually have a digital departure board now. They are also in the process of installing them in many other stations. I've seen one in the Whitehall RW stop as well. There are also a few G train stations in Brooklyn that have accurate time arrival kiosks, weirdly enough.
But they're coming.... they're taking a long time, but they are coming to the rest of the stations.
We do have large maps of the entire system in every station, as well as a few in every train car as well, and we always have had that.
What we don't have are signs in the stations showing the next stops, or timetables. I think it's a good thing that we don't have time tables posted, because that would be misleading since the subways don't actually ever run on a set schedule, probably due to them running non-stop 24/7/365.
The Staten Island train does have timetables posted at each station, but that's different since it runs less frequently than the subways and also is timed in coordination with the ferry.
One thing that I was going to say in my earlier post was that lines and number/letter name in NYC are not the same thing. I left this out of my first post because I wanted to keep it simple but I guess now I'll explain what I mean.
So the lines I mentioned earlier in Midtown Manhattan where the trains get their colors from are known as "trunk lines". These can be thought of as the "main" lines since Midtown is the main CBD where most people go for work.
But don't confuse service designation (the number/letter name) for line. Sometimes the word "line" is mistakenly used to refer to service designation. I'm guilty of this too sometimes.
But anyway earlier I mentioned that there were about 22 different trains (different routes/service) but there are actually 36 different lines. So the NQR and W trains are not all different individual lines that share a track, they are different service designations that make up the Broadway line in Manhattan. Get it?
I'll give an example. Let's look at the N train. So the N train is not a single line. It is a service designation for a particular route that travels through multiple different lines. So starting in Queens, the N is part of the Astoria line (the NW). Then in Manhattan the N becomes part of the Broadway line (The NQRW). And then in Brooklyn, it becomes part of the Fourth Avenue line (The DNR), and then finally the Sea Beach Line (Just the N) before terminating in Coney Island.
Just like earlier with the main "trunk" lines, the train letter/number group is used more often than the actual name. So am example of this would be how the M train is part of the BDFM in Manhattan, but in Brooklyn it's part of the JMZ.
Yet, for a city/metro of its size, LA's transit use has remained stagnant to negative growth.
Right, its bus usage is down, but shouldn't that be expected with the increasing traffic congestion and the lack of dedicated right of ways? The bus without dedicated right of ways and signal priority will never come remotely close for point to point transit time and extended travel times from congestion hits way worse for bus riders than drivers. There are a lot of different analyses out there on why bus ridership growth hasn't been great, but in pretty much all of these, they note rail ridership has been growing at a good clip as more lines are added and that's where a lot of the new transit construction money is going.
Right, its bus usage is down, but shouldn't that be expected with the increasing traffic congestion and the lack of dedicated right of ways? The bus without dedicated right of ways and signal priority will never come remotely close for point to point transit time and extended travel times from congestion hits way worse for bus riders than drivers. There are a lot of different analyses out there on why bus ridership growth hasn't been great, but in pretty much all of these, they note rail ridership has been growing at a good clip as more lines are added and that's where a lot of the new transit construction money is going.
...and the $ will need to keep going. For a metro as large as LA is, after 2 1/2 decades, the total rail ridership figures are way below expectations.
...and the $ will need to keep going. For a metro as large as LA is, after 2 1/2 decades, the total rail ridership figures are way below expectations.
What do you mean? I believe its constructed rail lines have hit and exceeded their ridership projections. It's just way too small of a network for a city of its size.
What do you mean? I believe its constructed rail lines have hit and exceeded their ridership projections. It's just way too small of a network for a city of its size.
It doesn't really have that much of an alternative as the congestion is pretty terrible. So far, rail riders have been showing up as the system expands, so that can be taken as a sign that if it keeps building, people might keep showing up.
Of course, it's going to be nowhere near as absolutely or proportionally good for a city of its size, and I don't think there's a city that has a proportionally as good of a system as NYC in the US, though DC comes closest.
And as I've said before, Chicago is maybe a few major projects to get to that as well, but those projects don't have funding commitments.
It doesn't really have that much of an alternative as the congestion is pretty terrible. So far, rail riders have been showing up as the system expands, so that can be taken as a sign that if it keeps building, people might keep showing up.
Are there park and rides everywhere? Congestion in LA is terrible, but that's the consequence of auto-centric planning. I just don't see how people realistically get from their homes to the stations and from the stations to their final destinations. As I've said before, unless it's stopping every quarter or half mile, there are going to be insane coverage gaps. LA is also unique in that DTLA isn't really the center of economic activity. There are nodes all over the place which makes something like rail difficult to implement.
Are there park and rides everywhere? Congestion in LA is terrible, but that's the consequence of auto-centric planning. I just don't see how people realistically get from their homes to the stations and from the stations to their final destinations. As I've said before, unless it's stopping every quarter or half mile, there are going to be insane coverage gaps. LA is also unique in that DTLA isn't really the center of economic activity. There are nodes all over the place which makes something like rail difficult to implement.
Commuter rail has a lot, but light rail and rapid transit don't have much in park and rides. In the last decade or two, the city has been doing a lot of dense infill where a lot of these rail lines serve and are continuing to do so. Meanwhile, the Purple Line extension under construction is linking several of the other secondary CBDs to downtown LA and the Expo Line extension recently completed connected two secondary CBDs (downtown Santa Monica and Culver City) to downtown LA and ridership has hit projections though it's light rail.
Again, not a match for NYC or Chicago currently or in the near future in this department, but if you're interested, you should try for a LA trip without renting a car. It's vastly more doable and pleasant than it was a decade ago.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
