Would you volutarily sell your vehicle and rely on LA Metro Rail & Bus service for your primary transportation? (buy, maintenance)

[impala666]

No

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by ccm123

Not in LA, unless you live relatively close to work. If you lived in, say, Woodland Hills and needed to commute to say, Long Beach, I think it would be very inefficient.

That is a ridiculously long commute, even by car. Not typical of Angelenos at all.

[genjy]

I live within one mile of my workplace, grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, discount stores, dentists, salons, banks, and public schools. I walk/bike to those places daily with no problem.

And I use public transportation quite often, but there is no way I could do car-free.

I still drive because there are simply places I can't get to with public transportation, not at least without an inconvenient amount of walking.

Also, using public transportation requires a lot of time and planning. If I wanted to bus to the shopping center 5 miles down the road, I would have to allocate time to walk to the bus stop, plan how long I would have to ride the bus (like 30 minutes), how much and what I could buy, and plan some more for the return trip. With driving a car, I could just hop in, drive for like 7 minutes, buy whatever I wanted, and then go home or any other place I felt like going.

I also have a family--wife and kid. Just because I could hack a public transportation journey, that doesn't mean that they could/would.

[disgruntled la native]

Originally Posted by genjy

I live within one mile of my workplace, grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, discount stores, dentists, salons, banks, and public schools. I walk/bike to those places daily with no problem.

And I use public transportation quite often, but there is no way I could do car-free.

I still drive because there are simply places I can't get to with public transportation, not at least without an inconvenient amount of walking.

Also, using public transportation requires a lot of time and planning. If I wanted to bus to the shopping center 5 miles down the road, I would have to allocate time to walk to the bus stop, plan how long I would have to ride the bus (like 30 minutes), how much and what I could buy, and plan some more for the return trip. With driving a car, I could just hop in, drive for like 7 minutes, buy whatever I wanted, and then go home or any other place I felt like going.

I also have a family--wife and kid. Just because I could hack a public transportation journey, that doesn't mean that they could/would.

This is pretty much my situation (minus the wife and kid). I have entertained the idea of going car free. It would save thousands of dollars a year, and having a car can be a major headache. I also live (and always will live) in central, walkable areas where everything I need is a mile or less away.

But the big issue is employment. Sure, it's easy if you live in West LA and work in Santa Monica or West Hollywood to just hop on the 704 or 720 (hellishly crowded) and have a straight shot to work. But most jobs don't rely on your bus line to conveniently get you there. Maybe the next job with a pay raise is in Burbank, and taking 3 transfers with a 3 hour one way commute just isn't going to happen.

[PDF]

Originally Posted by disgruntled la native

This is pretty much my situation (minus the wife and kid). I have entertained the idea of going car free. It would save thousands of dollars a year, and having a car can be a major headache. I also live (and always will live) in central, walkable areas where everything I need is a mile or less away.

But the big issue is employment. Sure, it's easy if you live in West LA and work in Santa Monica or West Hollywood to just hop on the 704 or 720 (hellishly crowded) and have a straight shot to work. But most jobs don't rely on your bus line to conveniently get you there. Maybe the next job with a pay raise is in Burbank, and taking 3 transfers with a 3 hour one way commute just isn't going to happen.

Also my situation, except I am car-free. I walk to work, and if I need to get somewhere then I have the Rapid 720 line within walking distance also.

I have been wanting a car, though. I would definitely get one if I were to be staying in LA. In which case that would make me car-lite.

[nickdahammer]

Good one. But seriously, I have car-less friends who utilize a 'by the hour' rental gig if they absolutely have to have a car for awhile. There is a place under Pershing Square for example. And yes, I'm to the point where I would probably do the same if I felt I could get a decent return from my car. Too bad cars as such horrible investments.

Originally Posted by DellNay

It's totally impractical. You would have to utilize some form of auto transport to get to In between places and LA is not the kind of place where there's taxis driving around looking for passengers. Also there's a safety issue and you would Jane to be prepared to carry out a Bernard Goetz scenario in terms of being armed defensively and using it as necessary on hoodlums causing mayhem.

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by genjy

I live within one mile of my workplace, grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, discount stores, dentists, salons, banks, and public schools. I walk/bike to those places daily with no problem.

And I use public transportation quite often, but there is no way I could do car-free.

I still drive because there are simply places I can't get to with public transportation, not at least without an inconvenient amount of walking.

Also, using public transportation requires a lot of time and planning. If I wanted to bus to the shopping center 5 miles down the road, I would have to allocate time to walk to the bus stop, plan how long I would have to ride the bus (like 30 minutes), how much and what I could buy, and plan some more for the return trip. With driving a car, I could just hop in, drive for like 7 minutes, buy whatever I wanted, and then go home or any other place I felt like going.

I also have a family--wife and kid. Just because I could hack a public transportation journey, that doesn't mean that they could/would.

I think having a car is advantageous in every city but NYC. I was carfree in Boston and would have killed for a car a few times a week.

[Spikett]

I wouldn't go car free voluntarily anywhere. I love to drive. I love driving to the desert, mountains, etc. It relaxes me (weekend drives in areas with lite traffic). I also have a 20 mile commute each way and am not interested in moving closer to work (westside) and I love living in a less congested area closer to the foothills (and I have a great job so not looking for something closer to home). I also have rheumatoid arthritis. No way I could schlep groceries, etc, on public transport.

[HarryKerryJr]

NO. I would keep some sort of automobile. EVERYONE I know who was or is without one, still depended on others to give them rides to and from MANY places on several occasions, or when one person I know was attending night school, her brother picked her up at CSULA because the ride back home close to 10PM was "rough" and took far more time than during the day. She also felt very unsafe waiting a long time for her connection bus downtown to finish the journey home. Oh, and she and her sister depended upon their brothers and I to take her to the grocery store and other errand. In other words, these transit dependent people were STILL relying on automobiles, but they just didn't drive them.

HOWEVER, there is an opportunity if one uses transit whenever practicable: one can have the best of both worlds (the words of these two transit dependent people) by only needing to invest in a fairly simple or inexpensive automobile that one uses for those times when an automobile is clearly an advantage. Also, the less expensive, no frills car keeps cost of registration and insurance down so that owning a car can be closer to affordable.

I'll add the we used to take public transit just few miles to The Grove. It was fine going to as it was a short ride along W.3rd Street, and it was very convenient and made PERFECT sense. However, we soon ended up DRIVING both ways because the eastbound runs at weekday rush-hour was a sad JOKE. Either the bus could not take any more passengers, or we were able to squeeze in, but I had to step on feet, others stepped on my feet. It was like hacking your way through the dense rain forest just trying to get to the back door to leave. I WAS INTOLERABLE. We really preferred to take the bus, but it was a great example of how some people are truly "driven" to drive their cars instead of using public transit. So the used, very simple car she inherited after her brother's deat, was of TREMENDOUS use. All she needed was for someone to use that car to drive her to where she needed to go. And there were times I drove her to special errands or places where public transit would have been utterly awful and too time consuming, like going suburb to suburb, as one example. But we always preferred public transit when it made sense.

Summary: A good idea in LA to have some sort of automobile for night trips, supermarket runs or when a trunk is needed, odd errands or destinations that just aren't public transit realistic. Just keep a SIMPLE low cost car for backup.

[jm1982]

Owning a car and paying for it can be a hassle ...but public transportation can also be a huge hassle .