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View Poll Results: Which has the more urban streetscape?
LA 81 61.83%
Oakland 50 38.17%
Voters: 131. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 02-16-2014, 11:55 AM
 
Location: The Bay
6,914 posts, read 14,747,106 times
Reputation: 3120

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Quote:
Originally Posted by munchitup View Post
Yeah... Driving in LA is a total pain, the surface streets are comparable in congestion to SF and way worse than the East Bay.

Don't get me wrong, I've sat in traffic in LA before (as a passenger that is). When it sucks, its worse than anywhere in NorCal. However, its still more fun to drive down the boulevards in LA than in NorCal... the car culture in LA is much better than NorCal and its still pretty good to begin with in NorCal. That's part of the appeal of LA for me but then again this is City Data... Should've known better than to say that lol.
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Old 02-16-2014, 12:09 PM
 
Location: The Bay
6,914 posts, read 14,747,106 times
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Not to troll with a point that is obviously unpopular on here but there is a reason why Oakland is on this list:



And LA isn't as well as why Oakland has a higher O/A walkscore in all categories than LA. Its not an attack on LA to point out public transit there isn't as good as it should be nor that it's not as walkable lol.
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Old 02-16-2014, 01:36 PM
 
Location: Pasadena, CA
9,828 posts, read 9,410,810 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava View Post
Not to troll with a point that is obviously unpopular on here but there is a reason why Oakland is on this list:



And LA isn't as well as why Oakland has a higher O/A walkscore in all categories than LA. Its not an attack on LA to point out public transit there isn't as good as it should be nor that it's not as walkable lol.
The much smaller city should beat the larger one percentage-wise. LA compares to a good sized MSA, after all:

Los Angeles (city limits): 3.8 million
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont MSA: 4.34 million

A 50 transit score is actually pretty decent for such a large city. How many MSAs score a 50? Other than New York, most likely none. At the neighborhood level, using walk score's definitions:

Downtown LA: pop: 36,000, 92 walk score, 99 Transit Score
Chinatown: pop: 7,700, 91 walkscore, 91 transit score
Westlake: pop: 91,000, 86 walk score, 80 Transit Score
Koreatown: pop: 91,000, 90 walk score, 78 Transit Score
Pico-Union: pop: 29,000 90 walk score 82 Transit Score
Hollywood: pop: 144,000, 86 walk score, 64 Transit Score

That's nearly 400,000k residents right there.
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Old 02-16-2014, 01:38 PM
 
Location: Pasadena, CA
10,078 posts, read 15,847,950 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava View Post
Not to troll with a point that is obviously unpopular on here but there is a reason why Oakland is on this list:



And LA isn't as well as why Oakland has a higher O/A walkscore in all categories than LA. Its not an attack on LA to point out public transit there isn't as good as it should be nor that it's not as walkable lol.
Yeah but LA has a transit score of like 50, for a vastly larger city.
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Old 02-16-2014, 01:46 PM
 
Location: SF Bay Area
18,980 posts, read 32,634,523 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava View Post
You can say that, but it's not particularly functional when it takes over an hour and a half to get from the middle of Central LA to the middle of South LA on the bus and especially when its the only option for a huge number of people in both areas other than a car. That's not acceptable for a city as big as LA period; LA city hall thankfully seems to have gotten that memo and is working on expanding the metro system.
I'm not sure what lines you're referring to but it takes about 30 minutes to get from South LA (Harbor Gateway Transit Center) to Downtown LA on the Silver Line BRT.

Even on their Rapid routes which aren't true BRT as they lack a lot of BRT design featues it only takes an hour to go end to end from Hollywood to South LA (Vermont/120th St) on the 754 line. On the the Western Ave line (757) it takes an hour to go all the way from Hollywood to Hawthorne (Crenshaw Green Line Station). That's actually pretty good considering the distance covered on surface streets for a bus line.

The Orange Line in pretty much a true BRT line and a lot more advanced than anything planned planned in the Bay Area.

Say what you want about public transit overall in LA but their bus system is a lot better and more advanced than anything in the Bay Area. Then when you bring up the subject of BRT, LA is a lore more advanced and ahead of the Bay Area too in that department.
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Old 02-16-2014, 02:01 PM
 
Location: SF Bay Area
18,980 posts, read 32,634,523 times
Reputation: 13630
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava View Post
You would swear I said LA isn't urban or something judging from the reaction to saying LA isn't very walkable lol. Its obviously an entirely different kind of urban than a city like San Francisco which is perfectly fine when you take the city on its terms and don't try to approach it from the same angle. Some of you however seem to actually believe there's no difference between being a pedestrian in LA vs. more compact cities... Lol. The densest areas of LA are indeed eons more dense than the most dense of Oakland but more compact they (generally) are not.
Oakland is smaller but not sure if "more compact" is the correct term. It's not like Oakland's walkable neighborhoods with pedestrian activity are all that close to each other to where people are walking between them. The pedestrian activity within the neighborhoods and between them is nothing that impressive.

If you're talking about the more urban area of LA between Santa Monica and Downtown north of the 10 and south of the Hollywood Hills, Oakland isn't more compact at all.
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Old 02-16-2014, 02:05 PM
 
Location: Crooklyn, New York
32,087 posts, read 34,686,093 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dispo4 View Post
That guy makes no sense, so if LA chopped up the districts so they're smaller in area it would be more walkable according to him though the built environment would remain the same
Only that's not what he's saying. He said that Oakland is more walkable because of its scale (not saying I agree or disagree). The actual largeness or smallness of an area bears no relationship to its scale and walkability. You could have a place that's highly walkable over a relatively large area (Manhattan) or a place that's not very walkable over a small area (random neighborhood in Dallas). You could easily have the opposite as well.
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Old 02-16-2014, 02:41 PM
 
Location: The Bay
6,914 posts, read 14,747,106 times
Reputation: 3120
Quote:
Originally Posted by sav858 View Post
I'm not sure what lines you're referring to but it takes about 30 minutes to get from South LA (Harbor Gateway Transit Center) to Downtown LA on the Silver Line BRT.

Even on their Rapid routes which aren't true BRT as they lack a lot of BRT design featues it only takes an hour to go end to end from Hollywood to South LA (Vermont/120th St) on the 754 line. On the the Western Ave line (757) it takes an hour to go all the way from Hollywood to Hawthorne (Crenshaw Green Line Station). That's actually pretty good considering the distance covered on surface streets for a bus line.

The Orange Line in pretty much a true BRT line and a lot more advanced than anything planned planned in the Bay Area.

Say what you want about public transit overall in LA but their bus system is a lot better and more advanced than anything in the Bay Area. Then when you bring up the subject of BRT, LA is a lore more advanced and ahead of the Bay Area too in that department.

True that their bus system serves the entire LA area much more effectively than Bay Area buses serve the Bay Area as a whole. That's in large part though because the trains/BART in the Bay Area actually do serve the Bay Area well to an extent that the Metro does not serve LA (yet). LA probably will overtake the Bay transit-wise in the next 5-10 years but currently BART and even Caltrain are much more practical options for moving around the Bay Area than LA's admittedly extensive bus system is for moving around the greater LA area.

As far as my comment on getting from Central to South LA, I've found that the buses/rapid buses is not very useful for getting to the westernmost part of South LA. The Inglewood transit center isn't served by any rapid bus at this point... the only direct route from Central LA to the part of Inglewood I needed to go to the last time I was there (La Brea Ave) was the 212 and that took a little under an hour and a half with little traffic. I've taken the bus around Echo Park and within Central LA as well... as long as you're staying in one particular area of LA it can be decent but moving between the different regions of LA can also suck.
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Old 02-16-2014, 03:03 PM
 
Location: New Orleans
2,322 posts, read 2,991,007 times
Reputation: 1606
This is how the LA Rail system will look like by 2023. There are more projects to come after this, but are scheduled to start construction later as Measure R is completed over 30 years. There are also plans to expedite the 30 year process in 10 years if Measure R++ can get passed ( The last transit measure failed to reach 2/3rds majority but got %66.11 of LA county voters to approve).
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Old 02-16-2014, 03:06 PM
 
Location: roaming gnome
12,384 posts, read 28,500,336 times
Reputation: 5879
I think LA is better for walking than Oakland, but not better than SF.
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