Is PUBLIC TRANSPORT in LA USELESS?
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- Опубликовано: 1 май 2023
- I travel across Los Angeles from Westwood to San Gabriel Valley (626/Temple City) in an attempt to score some good Asian grub for lunch. Join me as I find out whether it was a good idea to do this trip using public transport only.
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You are obviously not an American and could hardly speak English. So Calif actually had decent public transportation dependng on where you live. Of course they couldn't gain enough ridership or everywhere.
I have the most horror commute story in 24/7 traffic when I was living in So. Calif. in 2006 I started a new job in 2006. I lived in Huntington Beach and started a new job in Chatsworth; 66 miles away. NOTE: I drove to work the first week. It took me 1:15 hour at 5:30 A.M. and 3 hours at 5:30 P.M. on a good day.
I would leave my house at 4:15 A.M. and drove 15 minutes to downtown Long Beach to take the 4:45 A.M. Metro Blue Line. The Blue Line arrived at 7th St. in downtown L..A. at 5:30 AM. Then I took the Red Line and arrived in North Hollywood Universal City at 5:55 AM. Then I took the bus for 70 minutes, finally arrived in front of my company building at 7:10 A.M. I worked a 10 hour day (20 minutes lunch) , and reversed the direction at 5:30 P.M. at night and arrived home at 8:30 PM. Total commute: 6 hour+
Great observation, glad you noticed I'm speaking a foreign language!
He has a British accent that's better English than you pal.
Dude, if you're going to be condescending towards someone for not talking like you at least be able to tell the difference between a non native and a native English speaker. You do know Australians are native English speakers, right? I know us Americans are supposed to be retarded but this is too much lol.
What does speaking English have to do with anything if someone is making valid points? Don't be pretentious.
@AC John When ignorant American who can't see reality says he can't speak English well ......that pisses me off.
LA has invested a lot in their transit system. Unfortunately, they’re up against decades of poor land use and housing decisions. Also, the quality of a trip is impacted by larger social failures, like homelessness, drug abuse, and mental health problems.
Can't agree more. It's not a transit problem. It's a social problem.
Smh hater
Nailed it man
Yeah I’m in LA and all the buses, subways, and trolleys don’t matter if they smell like piss and a bike lane/sidewalk blocked by tents is no good either.
@@tomhwm913 If social problems affect public transit then it's a public transit problem.
There was a news segment I saw a while ago about a math teacher in LA receiving a car as a gift after he’s been commuting by public transit. 2 hours to work and 2 hours back home. His students wanted to surprise him by low-key raising money to buy him a used car, but they raised more than enough money. So instead they bought him a brand new car with insurance and gas for a year.
There are countless of stories on how people received car donations. It’s a beautiful thing and sad at the same time. This shows how car-dependent our country has become over the years. And it didn’t used to be that way, but there’s a long history as to why and how.
Those students are incredibly generous and selfless to make sure their teacher has reliable transportation, but it really is quite sad that a public servant like a teacher needs to rely on the generosity of their students for donations just to get to their place of employment. LA has their work cut out for them to correct these issues.
I would LOVE to have those kids as students in my school.😩
Pretty soon you won't be able to own a car ether because EVs are expensive and CA is forcing everyone into EVs.
at least in the public transit, that teacher would be reading or listening to something for 3 hours a day. In the car, that person would get very good at memorizing songs. I lived in Los Angeles during Jr. High, High School, College. I lost so many hours a day, just driving, or someone else driving. LA is a sh.t hole. I don't know why anyone lives there. Wasting so many hours a day, just getting somewhere. I think I saw a documentary about a nurse working for UCSF years ago. She couldn't afford anything near SF, so she commuted 4 hours on the road a day, for work. America is big. There are other places to live. Even with top name hospitals, corporations, California is a stupid place to live, and to waste your time on the road. Oh, it's chill and accepting you say. Really? So many violent addicted homeless tents everywhere. I would say the person on public transit could catch some naps there, too, but in the LA of the 2020s, that might put the person in danger of being robbed, beaten, totally unsafe to be sleeping on the LA Metro.
@@iamtherepairguy I've seen segments about everyday citizens having to drive very far just to get to work, known as "super commuters". I was briefly one of them until I landed a job nearby.
The city officials from different neighborhoods should ride the trains the entire lines themselves to have a first hand experience on what the public is facing on a daily basis.
Exactly that’s what they should do . There are some bus lines that makes no sense and should be removed due to low ridership .
Although I agree that LA could use a major upgrade in public transit, you also traveled +30 miles across the county. For reference, I live in New York City, which has great public transportation, and chose a destination with the same distance at it was still a 1.5hr trip according to google and that’s taking 2 trains. This trip is definitely an extreme outlier.
That's a fair point. Though I am sure there are plenty of people who live far from their work and need to commute fairly long distances.
I guess I didn't cover this thoroughly enough in the video, but most trips taken with public transport in LA will be 2-3x longer than it takes by car, sometimes even with traffic in mind. For instance, a trip from Westwood to Santa Monica via bus could be 30-40mins, versus 10-15 by car on a random evening. There's also the last mile problem to keep in mind. Granted there's a lot of variability in the time of day and week, but I've found this observation generally holds true no matter the distance travelled. The exception of course is if you live next to a train station, which most people in LA do not
east/west transit across the city sucks
Good point. Also, he did this on a Sunday. Headways tend to be less on Sundays.
I agree and made a similar comment. Another point would be that this trip is much more competitive with a car during rush hour when freeway traffic is slower and when most people are commuting. It will likely be faster when the subway opens to Westwood in 4 years.
Well not really. This trip might be an outlier in NY where things are much closer but in LA i wouldn't say it's much of an outlier at all.
The problem is the USA focuses on making public transportation cheap instead of good. It’s seen as charity for poor people that can’t afford a car. Raise fare prices so you can have GOOD service that’s better than driving, then offer a discount for poor people.
look at the NYC metro, where you have commuter railroads and subways. The cost of a simpler trip would be 5 times more expensive, but it takes the same amount of time as driving, and still costs a little less than driving.
NYC was a game changer innovator when the subway first started really being used in the 20th century. NYC also had a fairly good public transit base since it had some of the first of its kind in all of America in general. LA was a game changer in transport too… but it was instead focused to be car centric and urban sprawl was designed around and by the interstate and other highways in the 50s/60s
Because our leaders can’t comprehend that public services are for the public, not a means for profit
Drugs and general mental illness plagues the SoCal homeless population - it really should be treated like the health emergency that it is. That said, if fare enforcement was 100%, there would be essentially zero of the 'mental' issues that you see on the trains in LA. (I can't speak to how it is in other cities, because my only sizable experience is in LA)
@@amigajoe a health emergency is exactly what it is!
Because just raising fares had proven to be an epic fail in USAmerica. Fares were increased which only drove more people to drive their cars everywhere, the transit systems (then mostly private) lost still more money, so they cut services, driving away still more passengers and losing still more money, and the cycle repeats itself.
The transit authorities have to provide good services like New York City's Long Island RR, Metro North Commuter RR, PATH, and the MTA subway which isn't 5 times more expensive but only $2.75 last time I checked. Just a dollar higher than LA MTA's fare.
Edit: grammar
It is worth noting that Los Angeles is building tons of new transit, with one goal to get lots of it open before the 2028 Summer Olympics (although there will be more to come afterwards as well). Extending the purple line is one such project.
good luck, my city Brisbane has promised loads of public transport works that are meant to be done in time for the 2032 Olympics, including train lines that have been in talks since the 90s, but so far things are moving at a snail's pace and the projects that are being built are all 2-3 years behind their original completion date.
they have promised a solution to the 405 fwy. for years. still a mess.
@@xstensl8823
Actually! Six solutions, but the first three is actually insulting which is building a monorail. No Angeleno (except the wealthy NIMBYs) wants that.
@@whathell6t I want a monorail. I had a lego monorail as a kid, and Springfield had one too! What could go wrong with that idea?
@@Saladjones828 in the city's defense, they've already broken ground on many of their expansion projects. So even if they don't finish by the Olympics, we know it's not an empty promise. They are staggering out the completion dates before 2028.
"I'm in Westwood... I'm going to get to the San Gabriel valley by public transit." and that's all I needed to hear. (I did this commute daily for an entire summer. About 2.5 hours each way lol.)
Was it worth it? That may be the longest commute I've heard anyone doing. Thankfully you can sleep or do laptop work etc during it. Some people at my job drive 1.5hrs each way - fuck that.
@@moejuggler6033 it was the summer after I went to high school and I was volunteering in a lab at UCLA... so I would say just to be able to get lab experience at the time it was worth it for me personally. But I don't think it's something I could do without having a definite end date. Now my commute by public transit for work is ~65-75 minutes each way.
I'm from Europe, don't own a car, rely myself fully on the public trasport. Always wondered why people in America don't use more public transport, now I know why 🤣 Everything, even the buses, felt hella sketchy. The undergroud is like a completely different world compared with the one from the outside, trains and stations empty, like from some apocalyptic movie, the only people that are there are the weirdest individuals that you don't wanna meet or share space with. The buses were better, but still hella weird. The bus hub was extremely empty, no people. In my country, bus hubs tend to be busy, buses coming and going every other minute, people everywhere, I'm mean, that's how a "hub" should look like, right? I would be scared to wait at the bus hub that was presented in the video, waiting around 23 minutes for a bus with nobody around ... at a bus hub!!! 🤣 I would just think that I'm at the wrong spot the whole time. Don't know what to write next, I'm speechless. When I visit LA, I need to check this out on my own! With a bodyguard though.
Bus hubs are usually busier because they're located near the downtown and are usually near or below a major shopping mall, plaza, etc. The El Monte bus station pictured in this video is about 13 miles (20 km) east of LA in a highly industrial area, and the station itself if literally surrounded by a freeway, a huge drainage channel, and dozens of acres of parking with nothing to walk to (it's where many of the metro buses are parked at night, and where metro employees / bus drivers park, which they are required to arrive at via non-Metro means). The only way you are getting in or out of there is via a connecting bus or a car.
America is a big and relatively young place, so most towns and cities aren't dense enough to support public transit - and even where they might, there is far too much emphasis on costly shiny rail systems over practical bus systems, and far too many critics don't acknowledge the ridiculous distances they're expecting our slow LRT to cover, in comparison to other metros with fully-grade-separated heavy and commuter rail systems serving a CBD.
Yes, we can change some of this, in some places, for the better, but if our "leaders" deliver 12-figure white elephants and abandon public safety along the way, why should we support any of it, when a used Corolla gives us a far superior result?
@@user-qt5le9nv9s I think if you look more closely, most regions that end up picking rail only do so after intense public support and probably a decade later than they should have. If you look at the transit plans for a lot of US cities, as soon as the budgetary hearings take place, it usually gets whittled down from "regional metro" -> "miniscule light rail line" -> "BRT (We can get more transit for less money" -> "Extra colorful buses with fancy signs with no dedicated priority or ROW, and 15-20 minute headways". Any region that does stop at "mini light rail line", it ends up proving so popular they they start extending it, and you end up with impossibly slow light rail covering far greater distances than the technology was intended to cover.
In the US car ownership is almost mandatory. The public transit systems in cities other than New York or Chicago are just not very extensive.
You cannot possibly exist in Los Angeles without your own car. And, you need a well-paying gig. If you don't believe this, you are a fool. it's been this way for nearly 80 years, and it is NOT going to change.
I recently had to go to Los Angeles to attend a meeting in Glendale. I have experience navigating public transit systems, having been spoiled by the Seoul Metropolitan Area's transit system, and I briefly considered using public transit to get to Glendale to save on rental car and parking fees. I also wanted to stop by Koreatown and Burbank to do some sightseeing
The route that Google Maps suggested from LAX to Glendale was about 2 hours and 20 minutes and involved transfers between four bus or train lines. I decided to just rent the car and deal with the traffic and parking. Even taking those into account, I still saved at least an hour of time. The implied message here is that public transit is only for the poor or those who really don't value their time.
That’s exactly what the implication is. It’s also true - America as a whole but especially SoCal is a car-centric culture. Most people here don’t want to have to deal with being around the general public during their commute. They’d take sitting in traffic over being in a train car with people who don’t wear deodorant during summer, homeless people, the mentally ill, drunks, kids/teenagers, ghetto people, etc. I don’t think it matters how much the metro system improves, people are always going to choose the privacy of their air conditioned car and radio to a public transit system.
As an Angeleno, I would not even dare to make that long of a trip between the Westside and SGV, so you're a brave soul. But what I've noticed in me personally as a transit enthusiast and urbanist as well as other urbanists I know in LA is that if you are going to take public transport, you would most likely just park your car at a train stop and go where you need to go if it's walking distance from another stop. (i.e. Pasadena, Culver City, or Santa Monica) So yeah, it's really hard to live without a car here. Regardless, great and insightful video! Glad you made it out alive.
rthrt
The BART Metro in the Bay Area also has major problems with safety as well, especially the San Francisco Civic Center station. Although it’s getting better with police onboard some of the trains, it’s not nearly as safe as other systems around the globe. Hopefully there’s a better solution for these Californian transit systems. Feeling safe while onboard would certainly increase ridership 😅.
Exactly, they've already spent so much money building the system, keeping it safe and maintaining it should be the easiest part. Yet they let it fall into neglect like this.
I'm on a BART train right now and it's actually pretty nice, shows that BART is making a change
It's a really hard issue to fix as California on the whole has a problem with this. I assume it stems from the high cost of living due to the restrictions on housing construction.
I moved from San Francisco in October and haven't been back since but I'll be back next week to ride BART. Can't imagine it's really THAT much worse 😂😂
Thats california for ya
To be fair, LA is significantly larger than other cities. I grew up in the LA suburbs, and as soon as I received my first big boy job, I commuted on the Metrolink train to DTLA, which took about 45 minutes one way; I was about 30+ miles away from downtown LA. It was a pleasant experience, and I would never drive into downtown via a car. I felt my biological age would increase faster than my chronological age due to the stressors of being in a car for many hours. Riding the Metrolink also helped my career since I had free time to read, complete extra work, or network with other commuters working around the downtown area.
This gent explains the size of LA perfectly. ruclips.net/video/f6fx379hcb0/видео.html
One interesting fact is that the entire greater LA area is about 33,000 sq. miles. By area, I know LA is the largest city in America by a long shot. I once read that you could fit Delaware in the county alone. My point is that LA will never have enough public transport because we really need bullet trains to connect the entire landmass. hahaha.
👍
Great. You had a Point A to Point B commute, and the Points were near the Metrolink stations. Relatively few people commuting in LA have that option.
I was a practicing lawyer in LA and had to drive to court houses all over Southern California. Even just driving to Downtown LA to my office was over an hour for 14 miles.
LA is becoming more dysfunctional by the day.
No excuses!!
@@GarthGoldberg But most people don't have to go to different locations for a job. I found jobs where I could take public transportation and it worked out well.
I'm with you that NYC subway has a vibe to it, but LA metro is downright bizarre. I remember it being impossible to even find a station in literal downtown LA and felt like I entered an abandoned warehouse when I did find it. My first morning after arriving in Union station, I also remember being greeted by a homeless dude casually sweeping the sidewalk outside of his tent like it was nothing lol
Uber is your friend in LA.
We use cars for a reason.
@@SoulEraser000 A real shame. LA had good transit back in the 40s and 50s, then we tore it up to make more roads and now we have both insane traffic and housing issues.
props to the homeless dude doing more than the gov
I used to drive 9 miles to work in LA. The one-way drive took about 30 minutes, maybe a few minutes longer on the return home in the afternoon. In an effort to promote ride-sharing or using public transportation, my employer came up with alternative plans for all employees. Taking public transportation would require 2 bus transfers, and the trip would take at least 90 minutes. Because public transportation was so inefficient, I kept driving my car to work. I just didn't have 2 extra hours a day to spend getting to and from work.
Would cycling be a possibility?
@@no_soy_rubio Not yet for him, I bet. I know what cycling would be like in L.A. just from watching videos!
@@edwardmiessner6502 I know in Santa Monica/Venice it'd be OK but yeah, other parts probably not. I found LA more walkable than a lot of US cities though
Now that the routes have been revamped, that trip might be possible today, or on June 16th when the RC opens.
I travelled around the USA 4 years ago and used public transport in most cities. The best systems I encountered were New York and San Fan Ciso. Overall I was not impressed. Busses and trains were dirty and I also encountered a lost of anti social behaviour.
SF has underrated public transport, trains are decent but the buses are great. They're frequent and SF uses express buses (popular routes with limited stops) intelligently. It is a more expensive public transport than usual though.
Im a regular metro rider (Boston, NYC).... I've ridden LA metro and that was one of the few times I have ever felt truly unsafe & uncomfortable on a metro system. Even when riding Philadelphia's MFL branch through Kensington (neighborhood has a reputation for the unfortunate drug epidemic) didn't give me nearly as much discomfort as riding the purple line in LA. It wasn't even just one bad experience either. Your video summed up pretty much every time I got on the metro in LA. (I will admit that the bus system in LA feels quite nicer though) That system needs a lot of help and proper investment if they want more people to ride it. Not to mention, 15 minute frequencies for a subway system is absolutely horrific, especially for a line that doesn't have that many stops. It doesn't matter if it's a weekday or weekend, those trains need to be operating on much shorter headways.
Thanks for watching the video! Not a huge fan of the frequencies either (4 trains/hr is way too few) but yes same for me. Have not felt truly uncomfortable like I did on this trip, especially in contrast with some of the public transport networks in Asia and Europe, or even Oceania.
Frequencies were higher precovid. There is apparently a driver shortage right now and demand is also down. Also, the purple line, before they finish extending it, shares all but the last two stations with the red line and therefore there is effectively 7/8 minute headways for that large segment of the line.
As for weirdos and homeless people, not sure what can really be done until society at large solves those issues.
I agree. There should be 5 minute headways at the most, 2-1/2 minutes when the B & D trains share the same tunnel
For me it was the Red Line where I felt unsafe. Heck the news media are making the NYC subway seem like it’s the 70s again, but the times I’ve been on that it was like nothing compared to the Red Line. And that should be the line that gets the most tourists as it goes between the main train station (Union Station) and the main tourist attraction (Hollywood Boulevard). But the decentralized layout post-WW2 hasn’t helped. The housing shortage, cost of living, and red tape preventing housing have made homelessness and all its subsequent issues worse. It is indeed a broader context responsible for homelessness and mental illness.
@@ecoRfan The LA metro red line makes any "gritty and tough" east coast metro system look like a fucking daycare xD
When I was young, i spent 12 months backpacking around the world. As an Australian, LA was my last stop. Asia, Middle East, Europe, South America & the rest of America down. Got to LA, stayed in San Pedro at a hostel, after 2 days of public transport, I gave up. Stayed at the hostel rest of my trip. It was useless, frustrating, disjointed & as you did I felt unsafe on it. Honestly LA public transport was the only public transport I felt unsafe on compared to an other I’ve been on around the world. For the reason I’d never go back to LA (other than passing through the airport, as I will later in the year)
As a So Cal native (live an hour up the coast from LA) the problem you had visiting LA... was that you tried to visit LA. The city doesn't offer itself up to tourists on a silver like NYC does. Los Angeles is a private city. Not a public one. Its a city you live and work in. Not a city you visit.
I've ridden many miles on public transportation in LA and I've never felt unsafe.
@@nathanvalle6997 Actually LA is definitely a place you visit. I live near Hollywood and Highland. This place is overrun by tourists. The biggest problem is parking and now homeless people and their garbage.
even the airport is awful
Great video. It's certainly *possible* to use public transit in LA, but it's not always enjoyable. LA definitely doesn't have the worst public transit but for the size it really needs to do better. Safety is definitely a big concern on Metro, but unfortunately it's just a representation of the city as a whole. Metro hasn't done enough in terms of safety but the city is also responsible for the problems on Metro. I've heard that they are planning to start Metro's own police department because LAPD and other police departments aren't really doing anything to keep people safe. If Metro is at the very least clean and safe, some people will choose it over driving to save the hassle of having to park, get stuck in traffic, etc even if it is a little slower.
There's certainly a lot of potential for public transit in LA and I really hope things get better. In the meantime, San Francisco has pretty good pubic transit (SF itself, not the suburbs around the Bay Area). BART and Muni are both pretty safe but Muni also suffers from some problems LA Metro has such as a really slow speed. The average speed is actually slower than Metro but at least SF is a really small city. Also, SF was able to reject many freeway projects so the city is still really walkable and therefore the public transit is pretty good. BART is actually pretty nice now, with new trains, new/renovated stations, more police, more cleaning, and overall safe, fast, and clean.
Thanks for watching! Yes it's useless in the sense it's not practical for most people to spend that much time commuting when you can do it 2-3x faster by car.
I've taken the BART a couple times and never had any serious issues there but will get a chance to see it more sometime soon.
@@freerangeasian It does depend on where you're going and what time of day, but it's certainly much slower most of the time.
Your video showed really well the kind of challenges we who commute to work on LA public transportation are facing on a daily basis. I am used to safe and fast European transportation systems, but here I waste a lot of time just traveling to work on slow, inefficient and above all unsafe trains. Taking the Metro trains, morning, and afternoon, has made me seriously consider changing my stance, and start driving my own metal tube on the freeways instead. Thankfully, morning commute is usually less eventful. People are sleeping on the trains, but in the afternoons all the chaos breaks loose. Vandalizing, pot smoking, meth smoking, roaming taser salespeople... LA Metro has an app called Transit Watch to report issues, but it's pretty useless. If someone's doing drugs, they just recommend you change the car you are sitting. Why am I paying for my fare when these people up to no good do not, and nobody checks for tickets. And unlike New York, the seats on Metro trains are not facing sideways, so that you could keep an eye what happens around you. If you are too into listening to your music, somebody could just ambush you from behind you. That's why I usually prefer the ends of the cars that tend to have single seats available/I can keep my back free.
I agree with you, that J Line is pretty efficient. Sometimes if we go to a sporting event, we just do park-and-ride and catch the J line rest of the way, saving 30 to 50 bucks in parking fees. They are supposed to take off the supplement fare for J line in the coming months.
@@hamswakii most of metro lines are fine, it’s mainly the A, B, and D lines. The buses are pretty safe too, but LA Metro has gotta improve safety on the underground lines bc those have the highest ridership!
@@AshmewStudios sadly those are the common lines people use. I have actually seen cops get on the train for part of the line, it was at least 5 stops, but it was the expo line and i saw it one time. Sometimes it feels unsafe just waiting at the station with 1 other person if that person does not look "normal". Sad times. They should boost safety and also services, which help to increase ridership through the system, which in turn can deter some of the issues. However its so hard with the way our city was planned by some dump politicians in the past 60 years. People are also too used to the car culture, getting rid of bus / bike lane in culver city is an example. People think bringing the lane back will soothe traffic jam.
The current situation in LA is pretty depressing and sad because LA could easily be a world class city for alternative transportation. It literally has some of the best year round weather in the country. However, due to the expensive cost of living and high unemployment combined with the insane car centred infrastructure, it’s easy to see why the transit in LA is so unpopular.
ALL the money goes into elites' packet and their private jet fuels.
ALL the money goes into elites' packet and their private jet fuels, they dont care about people's public transportation. they do it for the olympics, which is another elite's money making organization.
Hey thanks for featuring the 626, where I'm from, and the LA Metro! As someone who's also traveled on many metro systems, whenever I come back to LA and the 626, I'm always very disappointed at how lackluster and unreliable it is. For example, I take the J Line to DTLA often and I really like this BRT-ish bus line, but I always have to drive to El Monte Station first, which really shows the lack of last mile access to the station (and many other LA Metro stations).
I'm glad that you were able to safely get out of that situation on the subway. I also experience that occasionally whenever I ride the subway (red/purple line). I wish that metro would take safely there much more seriously because these are the things that make people not want to try out public transport in LA.
LA has so much potential to be a good transit and bike city, but with the politics, suburban sprawl, and homelessness problem, there are so many hurdles to overcome to get there. Thank you for making this video! Good transit is much needed in LA and your video highlights many of the problems and potential that the LA Meteo has!
Thanks for watching! I regularly visit the 626 since I love all the food options there.
The last mile problem is definitely going to be the most challenging part and barrier to LA having a truly world class public transport system.
As for the safety absolutely agreed. I've been able to try out trains in many different parts of the world (Western Europe, East/SE Asia, Australia, other parts of North America) and I have never once felt unsafe in any of those systems. So this was definitely a shock for me.
I used to live in Highland Park 10 years ago and I'd take the Gold Line to Chinatown or Pasadena all the time and it'd be mostly fine. But now when I ride the Red or Purple Line from Union Station towards Koreatown, oh man it's darkness. Super sketchy, super scary. Just having to be on full alert or be ready to act like you might be crazy too.
As a New Yorker, I realized how good we have it here. LA’s transportation was horrible. The wait times were incredibly long, stations were completely filthy, and 90% of the passengers were homeless and druggies completely zoned out
It's not that bad from my experience and I take the Metro often. About several times a month. I see all kinds of people on the trains. Mostly students, families, tourists, etc. Safety has improved quite a bit, too. I see security checking for fare evaders. I'm seeing more police and the metro system has implemented Metro Ambassadors (the people in green who report issues and safety concerns) and they're nearly on every cart. When the B line arrives at the NOHO station, the police are there to make sure everyone is emptied out so less homeless people are able to stay and sleep on the trains. Now, they could be there more often, but I'm seeing them nearly every time I travel on the trains. The mornings are usually quieter but they're present mostly in the afternoons. It is getting much better. Just wanted to add my two cents. :) Also, this is my perspective as a woman who rides the train.
90% is an overstatement but it was still repulsive whatever it was. The housing shortage and subsequent homelessness have taken their toll. The auto-centric sprawl layout post-WW2 really makes transit hard to pull off right.
Riiight, becasue I've never seen a hobo doing the junkie lean on a subway platform in Manhattan before 🙄
Let me also add, its amazing how cavernous and huge they built the red/purple lines of the LA Metro but it looks so deserted and dilapidated, even during rush hour, despite being one of the newer metros built in the past 30 years (I rode the line in 2016 and 2019, well before the pandemic).
The B & D train carriages look old and decrepit on the outside and very outdated on the inside.
That fact that this is not even that bad compared to some us cities mainly in places like texas or some mid sized cities mainly sunbelt cities but including some rustbelt cities. The rust belt is kinda hit or miss with public transit some are good some are putrid but they all tend to be more walkable since they got big before cars Chicago the twin cities an Milwuakee are pretty good and decently affordable.
Dallas's light rail system is huge, and it covers not only Dallas but also neighbor cities.
@@TuanNguyen-uq8gzDallas aint all of Texas though, try Houston or Austin
Lived in LA county for 10 years. Seeing the map at 1:10 had me howling.
My friends and i, naively, went to six flags from around LACMA once. Needless to say we spent more time on the buses than at the park.
i swear the US is so dystopian these days
How 💀 how is families being able to afford their own vehicle, home and plot of land dystopian? If anything europe is dystopian
@@664theneighbor5 You must have never been to Europe. Being forced to own the depreciating asset and high upkeep cost that is a vehicle to go anywhere and do anything is dystopian. Most families have homes on a plot of land because in most of America there aren't much other options. Homeownership rates have been declining in almost every state since 2005 since its becoming increasingly less affordable as the lower and middle class are further wrung dry for the benefit of the wealthy
@@Koopzilla24 I’ve been to more countries in Europe than you have. Stuff costs the same as in the US, people have way lower income and taxes are way higher. Pretty terrible life standard if you ask me
Not all of America is LA btw
It's not dystopian. you're just not from there. Prime example of culture shock.
the point that you made that transit should be time-competitive with the car is very correct. LA has sprawl working against it so it should be building out high speed regional rail lines to act as trunk routes, akin to an S-bahn system. A grid network of high-frequency buses can then feed into these stations. LA is building a lot of transit but it isn't going to be the right type of transit to get people on the rails.
The more people who use the train, the safer you will feel, but it looks like no one is really using the subway system around LA, and there’s little incentive for them to do so.
Great video, I've never seen an on-the-ground, real-life exposition of the LA transportation system. Even as a transit-loving person like yourself, I don't think I would use it if I went there. The stations and vehicles are dark, utilitarian spaces that would make any normal person uncomfortable.
Btw, what kind of camera do you use? I'm in awe of the video quality and the fact that it doesn't seem to bother anyone!
Glad you enjoyed the video :)
I use my phone - S23 Ultra.
Great video. I bike and use transit in LA. I love being car free and there are some good options to get around, but we starve metro and bike infrastructure of funds, over police, and don't have the popular support needed to demand better metro service and multimodal transit. Glad to see you're making urbanist videos. Subscribed!
Los Angeles used to have one of the largest tram/streetcar networks in the world. Unfortunately, they've been torn up and replaced by buses. Honestly, unless you live or work strictly in DTLA, I feel like the public transport network serves very little reliability or relevance to ordinary Angelenos.
Yeah its a shame about the old tram tracks being taken apart 🥲
L.A needs the streetcars back.
Fun fact:
When L.A. started it's light-rail service, it painted it's blue-line and green-line cars, respectively, white with 3 horizontal stripes of either blue or green. But, in *both* cases, one horizontal *red* stripe so as to evoke the old "red car."
Apparently, though, this nostalgia didn't last, and the cars all started being painted yellow and white-regardless of on which line they operated.
🚈
I did the same thing while in L.A. I went from LAX to Hollywood Blvd. The trip took about two hours. About the same amount of time it took you. Had to get a hotel shuttle to the airport, then catch a bus to a light rail station, then transfer to the subway.
The only thing in LA Metro that I would always consider avoiding are the B-Red and the D-Purple lines. Exactly what you captured is a reason for it.
I'm still impressed to this day after using it that LA County's public transport will take you places I would never imagine possible if you got the time for it.
I rode the B/Red midday on a Friday in October 2022. Definitely felt like there was something off unlike any other metro/subway rides I’ve taken. Sad since that line goes from DTLA/Union Station to Hollywood Blvd and it was still the most harrowing.
I liked the authenticity of this public transportation video. I could see myself doing something similar and coming to the same conclusions as you. But I wouldn't have actually gone on such an adventure. There's enough information online to know better than to do what you did. Instead, I would have settled for Indonesian food in Westwood or Santa Monica or tried to make my own food at home. Still, I appreciate you documenting your experience. It was definitely worthwhile to see what it's like firsthand. Thanks again for doing this.
I used to travel to Cal State L.A. by the Metro Rail and by Bus from 1998 to 2001 And you hit everything you said, right on the money! It is a zoo using public transportation in Los Angeles. I would only use public transportation as a last resort. The video you've made was an excellent source how public transportation operates. Thank you sharing this video.
I use the LA metro frequently. Just ignore the high people, put on some music on Airpods, and chill. There is nothing to worry about. I have seen similar stuff in other places as well like NYC and Paris. The only thing is that the low ridership makes it creepier in LA.
The last few times I was in LA I took the metro trains and had the same experience. I felt like I was in a moving mental institution. Everyone around me was crazy. At one time it wasn't quite as bad. It used to be just mainly working class Latino people who were quiet and minded their business. But now it seems like a bunch of insane and aggressive people just hanging out on the trains. Cannot recommend anybody take those trains unless you a pretty big guy who can fight.
The Bart system in the San Francisco Bay Area and the other transport services there are way better than than la’s public transport. You should do a review on that too.
Yes I will at some point once I visit the Bay again!
@@freerangeasianYES BRO! I use BART 5 days a week. I would love to show you around the system. If you do come be aware of the Red line Millbrae/SFO-Richmond line.
That's because for whatever reason in the 60s the bay area planned and gunned for rapid transit and LA didn't until the last minute when the political climate was cooling down for building post war metro trains.
3-4 times as long as driving is pretty standard in Los Angeles. This is a remarkably accurate depiction.
Awesome video. Please tell me you Ubered back to Westwood haha. I always say that LA could be the greatest city on earth if they would just fix their infrastructure. I’ve taken the bus and metro a few times here and they weren’t great experiences. Like you mentioned, the biggest issues are the slow frequency and safety. The sad reality is that taking the metro in LA makes you feel poor, and shockingly, people don’t like feeling poor. I know they’re expanding the metro (which is great!) but until they fix the safety and cleanliness issue, people simply won’t ride it.
There's always an excuse for people to stay in their cars. First it was "But it doesn't go anywhere!". Now it's "Oh it's full of creepy homeless people!"
You traveled on a Sunday. Fewer people and fewer trains and buses. Try traveling during the work week on the trains when it’s not so deserted and there are officers removing sketchy individuals. LADOT also has buses running from Westwood to DTLA and other lines to get around DTLA (still free but could change soon). I definitely wouldn’t recommend traveling at night.
I never felt too worried or anything on the subway here; I even brought my scooter with me (to solve the last mile problem) on the same train you took no problem. That being said, I 100% see the issue people have with the train and even though I live about a 10min or so walk from the nearest station to me (civic center where you got off) I'll choose to drive basically every time even when the train is conveinent and I absolutely dread driving.
Only time I definitely take the train is for USC games be it football or basketball, to BMO for LAFC games, or to the Cryp for Laker games. The expo line is so convenient and the regional connector will basically make it a no brainer for me. Other than the expo line last time I went to an Angels game I took the train and that was a good experience. I also did park and ride for a Rams game last year and that was fine too. I even took public transportation from LAX to my house last time I was there b/c I didn't wanna pay $80 for an Uber lol. That wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be and if I don't have lots of luggage I'll probs do that again instead of paying exorbitant fees for parking or spending at least $80 on good days for uber round trip. That trip from the airport consisted of connecting with a transfer bus to the green line, then taking another bus to transfer to the K line, then the K line to the E line, E line to the Red line, and then a walk home. Could've just done flyaway for $10 and an $8 uber home but eh I'm a simp for trains and wanted to check out the K line (awesome btw) and $2 was a hell of a price. Once that LAX Metro connector finishes up I might even make the trip with real luggage.
That being said I wouldn't even listen to music on the subway let alone record lol
I'm a Democrat myself but LA needs to stop listening to some of these crazy super left leaning folks and put some damn cops on the trains and in the stations and actually criminalize the shit we're seeing. Can't just let it go unpunished and basically waste billions of dollars in public funds.
Also even easier to do would be to implement a better cleaning and lighting program. That'd go a long way to making the trains and stations feel safer too.
I have seen a huge increase in police presence in the last few months. Cops patrolling in groups of SIX. Also a huge number of cleaners, as well a green shirted "Metro Ambassadors" who give directions to confused tourists.
@@themoviedealers that's good to hear haven't been since last November
@@KuroshiKunit’s never going to change until you stop voting Democrat. It’s insane you’re still even at this stage. Let it go.
They don't develop a transit oriented development like Hong Kong or other Asian country. I am pretty sure the public transport in LA would be useful if they build apartments and shops right by the train/subway/light rail stations. If I have to drive from my house to the station, and find a way to go to work/shop from a station, why don't I just drive directly there?
I enjoyed this video -- so detailed and informative! I disagree with the term "useless." Usefulness is relative. I'm quite sure LA-area transit is useful to people traveling from one well-served area to another. There just aren't enough of those yet. Any transit system that needs to overcome approximately 75 years of complete car domination across a region that spans about 50 miles in every direction will take a long time to serve the "long tail" of all possible journeys.
On the issue of the people you saw on the train, I remember a similarly disturbing trip down Wilshire 40 years ago on an RTD bus (no subway then), also on a Sunday morning. This is true in so many cities. I suspect that buses and trains filled with ordinary citizens on Sunday mornings is the final stage of transit maturity. Hope LA gets there soon.
Interesting video, a couple things as an LA native.
1. The trip is not reflective of a realistic or reasonably trip a real angelino would take. Ain’t no body going from Westwood all the way to temple city. This trip is super long and would be similar to going from Staten Island to the Bronx (even in Ny that trip still sucks)
2. Even with the best public transportation systems, other modes of transport are needed or even better bike, scooter, car etc .
3. Scariest train ride of your life is a little dramatic. I agree the people were acting weird but it doesn’t appear anyone approached you, touched you, or even turned their attention to you. We tend to stigmatize homeless, substance abuse, etc. with violence? Which is not always true.
Staten Island to the Bronx, great analogy!!!
I grew up riding the Washington DC subway (Metro) as well as the old trams in Boston and was completely turned off by the public safety issues and design of LA’s Metro the first time I used it. I had high expectations, but sadly due to my experience I prefer driving whenever I visit LA.
I do support LA Metro’s expansion and hope increased ridership with the new lines will make the trains safer. Hard to believe you’ll be able to take a one seat ride from San Dimas / Glendora to Long Beach later this year. That’s an insanely long line.
For me I’d love to take a one seat ride from my cousin in Monrovia, to Santa Monica. I think there may be some trains that will go foothills to/from Santa Monica too.
Is not as bad as LA, but I have seen weird people in the DC metro and criminals.
I think LA metro look worst than Toronto. I don't think third world country is that bad. São Paulo metro is not that bad.
When I last visited LA in ~2013, the Expo was still being built to Santa Monica where I was staying, and I took a bus down Olympic to Culver City. That was actually pretty OK. It was not very fast, I seem to recall about an hour, but for all-day trips it was doable.
The Bay Area does better mostly by being more compact with a few corridors that contain nearly all the destinations: eastern SF down the Peninsula, and then from Downtown SJ up along the East Bay. Once you look at the details all the patchiness becomes obvious: depending on definition between 23 and 151 different transit agencies, missing last miles, and other papercuts. I will say that the introduction of Baywheels bikeshare has made a difference for me by fixing up a few of the papercuts - in areas that are covered, you can bike to a BART stop, take the train over, then bike to the destination without planning the logistics in advance. It makes a very big difference that can cut some trips from "90 minutes" to "under an hour".
Most of the problem with safety or perceptions thereof is that the US has opted to define "sweeping problems under the rug" as "sweeping them anywhere that isn't a privately-owned space". This has impacted the coastal cities more heavily and visibly, but it truly is everywhere in the country. You can't even get away from it by being in a car: someone will lose their mind and wander into traffic.
There’s lots of reasons why people would choose to ride public transit over driving in LA and many people do as a way of life. For one it’s much cheaper than driving and maintaining a car. Some people have no choice in this matter. Also, it’s a lot more convenient than finding a parking spot for certain locations in the city like downtown or near museums or shopping districts. It’s actually very dependable if you live in the grid of LA proper, especially for shorter trips. I’ll grant you it can be a bit sketchy, especially the train, but it is convenient and very usable.
good video, As someone who uses public transit every day, unhouse people are not really a problem to me. I can definitely understand the nervousness. I think we have been conditioned to really look down on homeless people. Homelessness is a social issue that has multiple layers on it. if people are destroying things, security should do something. but it is a public area so people will be there
It's not so much the housing status that people look down upon, as it is the disregard for other riders shown by both housed and unhoused riders. It is unfortunate that metro has become a refuge for open drug use and the erratic behaviors that result. There are laws surrounding being in public areas that for a variety of social reasons, metro decided to stop enforcing. They have only recently resumed enforcing those laws after the recent uptick in assaults, murders, and fatal overdoses.
@@shawng8613 you don’t ride the any public transport I can tell😭😂you don’t get things that serious unless ur in the hood lines around south central …. everywhere else is just normal homeless behavior 🤷🏾♂️it’s nothing to worry about if u lived years in the cold forgettten about you would lose your shit to
I actually make a similar trip very frequently since I live in the SGV! For me I will use my electric skateboard to ride from UCLA to the Westwood E line station then take that all the way to 7th St Metro Centre, then I just ride my e board to the L line station through downtown (faster than taking the subway). If you do plan on taking more frequent transit trips, I'd suggest getting an e skate or e scooter. Honestly last mile transportation is CRITICAL with how sparse LA's transit and bus stations can get. My transit time from UCLA to SGV area is usually around 1.5 hours and I'm a bit closer than Temple City, so whether sharing the road with the abhorrent LA drivers is worth saving an extra 20-30 minutes is up to you haha. Cheers!
That's a good tip! Thank you for your insight. I just took the route Google Maps said was fastest at the time haha. Sadly I do not have the funds to justify an e-scooter or skateboard, but I do think they're very useful in getting over the last mile problem.
you know our transit system sucks when no part of it connects LAX to downtown. although thats finally changing soon
but it is very unfortunate how unsafe it feels to use the metro, especially at night
I took this same LA Metro line in 2007. I was born in North Hollywood in 1954 and lived in the Valley until 1983. I'm in St. Louis now. When I got on the train downtown it was empty except me and this guy who was running up and down the next train car screaming at the top of his voice. I sometimes take the subway that St. Louis has, and there never has been a problem except once, when it was just teenagers goofing around.
Opinion: I think that the issue of safety can be solved by “simply” making public transit a real viable option to driving; as in a true competitor to cars. Once people start to use Metro in large volumes these trains will be filled with eyeballs that will deter undesirable actions, (I think the term is “visual security”?) much like how a walkable area is safer than a dark alley. That said, transit security (not police) should help. It’s hard to start this aforementioned virtuous transit cycle if no one wants to use an unsafe Metro system.
lol these people doing these undesirable actions don't care who's looking. They're on drugs. They've basically disassociated.
Nope. Take a look at New York City's subway. It's filled with riders and also filled with crime. In L.A., ridership is down because people feel unsafe, just as the young man in the video did. Ridership is also down in the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit for the same exact reason. Criminals, the homeless, gangs, rowdy youths, and the mentally ill are driving people away.
Your opinion is not backed up by observing other mass transit systems in the US. Stop being so idealistic and look at actual real world examples.
How strange I got your video recommended today because I’m in LA at the moment as part of a U.S. rail tour with the teen (aka Frog). We started at Riverside this morning and bought a Metrolink weekend day pass on the advice of the security guy at Riverside. That not only got us to Union Station but essentially gave us free transport round the city. We travelled to Venice beach and are staying near civic centre station.
First thoughts:
The buses are frequent and on time. They’re not the newest or most comfortable but they’re ok. The purple line feels old and a bit creepy - the lighting could be improved a lot! We also took the E line which was very good indeed - clean, bright and fast. Is it newer than the others?
An Uber to Venice beach and back would have cost about $60 but would have taken less than half the time.
Yeah the Expo line is much newer than the purple line (opened in 2012).
Those folks peeling the stickers off were probably just kinda weird. I live in Philly and I'll be honest I have seen significantly weirder shit go down on the Market-Frankford Line. They probably don't mean any real harm aside from the obviously irritating behavior of holding the train door open. That shit wouldn't fly where I live
Thanks for sharing your experiences in Philly - it's a great city by the way!
Yeah, it was the unpredictability of their behaviour which made me nervous - who knows how they'd reacted if I accidentally made eye contact for instance. The other train cars I walked through also people behaving very weirdly but I didn't capture all of it on the recording.
Nice video and observations. Subscribed. Good luck with your channel. Looking forward to more content in the future
Thank you I really appreciate that :)
I'm also a college student based in SoCal (but not LA) and visit LA frequently using public transit. I'm from Asia and I'm used to the type of transit in Asia. I appreciate you doing this kind of video, but there are some points I couldn't agree on.
First I'll agree on that public transit in LA SUCKS, but there's more to it.
1.The particular trip you chose was very much an outlier. 1)It's a Sunday MORNING trip. Weekend rides means there's no commuters and nobody in LA travels weekend morning. 2) The trip (start-destination) is also an outlier. Nobody takes regular trips between Westwood and Temple City, not even the ones with cars. Typically, people living in Westwood/Beverly Hills go to Ktown for food and entertainment, which would be your first bus ride and it was decent. People going to Temple City would be mostly from areas east of LA. 3)The east part of LA is the area with the worst transit coverage and service. People living there are known to be the most car dependent ones. Where as the situation on the west/south (mostly the west) side of LA is much better. A good example is that LA as a whole is not a city, it's an area. On the west side their are smaller sectors where it feels like a city, such as Ktown, Beverly Hills/Westwood, Santa Monica, Culver CIty, etc. On the east side, it's really hard to name any of them.
SO, For a fair assessment of the system, I would recommend you taking another trip weekday afternoon (but not at night) from UCLA to downtown area, which covers a bus ride and a train ride. That would be a lot different.
2. Safety is a problem, but your experience is still particularly bad. Those people peeling off some stickers are definitely concerning but I've never seen any of those behaviors in my 20+ times riding the Metro subway. Perhaps you shouldn't change cars from the first one you got on. At 5:35, I don't know why some dudes wearing hoodie and pushing a bike seems like a problem to you. If there is more, please elaborate with captions. Personally, I wouldn't change to another car because at least there are other "normal" passengers such as that Hispanic lady. Of course, those are not regular standards of transit car environment when compared to Europe or Asia but I've seen much worse in the US. I've taken transit in many North American cities I've visited: LA, NYC, Boston, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and most recently Chicago. Therefore I can tell you there are definitely much worse transit in the US in terms of safety. In Chicago metro, you'll see people literally smoking weeds in train cars and peeing at the end of cars. And there's not just one or two of them. They're in groups/bunches. You almost feel like they are in gangs where as all you get in LA metro is mostly just homeless people. Yah it feels unpleasing but they are unarmed and won't hurt you. Yet it's still mostly tolerable/acceptable because there are enough of other normal passengers in the train. So again it goes back to the ridership problem which will be improved if you pick to use the system at a better time. Again, I don't disagree it's unsafe, but picking on LA for this problem is rather unfair. It's the US. If you choose to come, then get used to it.
Overall, I would say public transit in LA is usable, given that you use it in a way it's designed to be used. Transit systems anywhere in the US are not designed to serve 80% of the population. It's only there to provide an option for those who need it or prefers it over the other restraints of driving (parking fees, congestion, or not having a car/license) and are willing to accept some of the uncomfortable parts of the services. If a guy wants to commute with transit, it's possible to keep it under/around an hour. But he'll need to choose where he lives, which should be close to stations and require few transfers to his destination. For people who don't use transit regularly, it's not that easy to simulate the routine of those who do just be taking a random ride.
I've taken transit in LA since 2018 and after COVID, I can see a rise in ridership. My experience with LA's transit system has been mostly positive. They've allowed me to explore many places, visit my friends and take GRE tests in different parts of LA without resorting to rent a car, which could easily be $100 per day especially for an under 25 driver. They've got a long way to go but things are getting better. I'm willing to be encouraging and optimistic. And even there are so many problems, it's not the transit people to blame. It's the city. As I said in many other replies, it's a social problem, not a transit problem. Maybe you've just chosen the wrong city to live in. If you choose to live in LA and need to use the transit, use the transit!
I saw a guy once on the subway to dtla who had his arm, from mid forearm to fingertip, just rotting off. It was like the prosthetic makeup they use in zombie movies. Got off the next stop
Good video. Traversing 50 km from one side of a major metro to the other in 2+ hours seems pretty typical to me if the start and end are random and not both near a train station. Like say from Queens College to Paterson, NJ. Or somewhere in SE London to somewhere in NW London.
Thanks for watching!
I agree with this. I used to take the blue line from LB to DTLA for work right when the pandemic was starting. I used to see people get robbed, two stabbings, people shooting up and smoking meth, vomit, piss, blood you name it. I used to live in NY and never felt like I was in actual danger on any public transport there. Hell, just two weeks ago there were three stabbings on the platform in broad daylight with people just trying to get to work. I swore off public transport after going through it, it's quite dangerous. Not to mention takes FOREVER to get anywhere. Great Video!
Thanks a lot for uploading content like this since documentation of the actual quality and experience of taking certain public transit is rare and the actual ride isn't documented much on people's channels. I'd much rather see this than hear someone say "this is good and this is bad." Thanks.
I live in Chicago and it’s quite easy to get around the city without a car. Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) covers much more of the city than LA’s transit system and is way more frequent than LA’s. It does have its problems, like what you experienced on the Purple Line is also a pretty common occurrence on the CTA and a lot of the stations are old and pretty dirty. CTA frequency is pretty good. Most trains and busses run every five minutes during rush hour and every 10 minutes off peak which is pretty good by North American standards. I mean by European or Japanese standards, that’s not that great, but the CTA is still frequent enough where you can still get around easily just by using public transit. LA’s is just, well… marginal at best. LA is hosting the Olympics in 2028 so I kinda do expect their public transportation system will get better for the Olympics, but yeah, it’s just not great. I mean I don’t think it’s as bad as Houston’s but it’s still pretty bad
LA is just a crazy place and i dont think id use public transport there
Great review! I was a bit worried that you wouldn't get out of that metro without "incident", glad you made it out unharmed.
Laughs in Delhi metro, Singapore metro, Hong-Kong mtr, entire Japanese network, Taipei subway, Seoul subway, entire Chinese network
I take public transit everywhere and whenever I take longer trips than my usual commute and it’s pretty doable. It 100 percent should be better but it definitely could be worse!!
I have never felt unsafe on the trains in KitaKyushu, and the only time I would have to wait 15 minutes or more if it was really late or it was a local train going somewhere weird. Having to wait 23 minutes at noon on a sunday is insane.
This is why I, a transportation enthusiast, don’t use public transportation in the USA, it’s dangerous and uncomfortable. Officials need to look at the bigger picture, no matter how much you spend on lines and other things, the ridership will still be low. You could have the best stations and trains, but if I have a risk of getting stabbed by some maniac or have to be in the same space with people high off drugs, most won’t ride. There is a reason why there is a negative stigma towards public transportation in the USA, it’s being used a mental asylum on wheels, not a safe and efficient means to get from point A to B, even though it has that potential if things were cleaned up.
That's because politicians from a certain political party allow the dysfunctional behavior.
I think some of the commentors are slightly missing the mark. This may seem like an odd origin and destination pairing, but in an optimal system, any potential pairing of popular locations should be relatively easy to access. The problem in the U.S. is that the transit network is normally routed through central business districts and not from one edge city to another even though these are where most people shop and work. It is most certainly bad land use that things are so spread out to begin with, but that is more the reason to fix the transit network.
If LA was smart they’d build the public metro network to cover LA well like NYC does. They’d build a well connected bus network that links to those metro stations to complement it too. Are the miles long car jams not enough to make this happen?
Although this might just be a low-volume time of day, the train and two of the buses had very few passengers, and that last bus terminal was virtually empty. Safety on the train is an issue, and they might increase the bus frequency if that would improve ridership. I can see that at least in this instance, public transport in LA is dysfunctional!
All these facilities are much more populated during rush hours...you went in the middle of the day.
Hi. Thank you so much for making this video and showing the most important aspect of a transport system, which is safety. I'll be traveling to LA next week, and I was hoping I'd get by using the trains. After watching this video and reading some comments, I've decided to change my transportation options. Thanks again! 🙏 Do you have an external mic to record the audio, or is it straight from the S23 Ultra?
Thanks for the feedback, glad you found it useful! Enjoy your time in LA :)
The mic is straight from the S23 Ultra! The only edits I make are audio balancing and adding a high pass filter when needed
Nyc is really the only city in the USA and maybe a bit of the nj suburbs, that have public transport figured out.
man be serious for real think of people who can’t afford a car before you say a system is useless like your criticisms ARE valid safety and time in transit ARE issues but doubling down on the take that it is useless just because it was inconvenient for you doesn’t make it actually useless
Yeah LA is an absolute mess but the problem is that we’ve been this way for so damn long that we’re almost permanently set up like this. Of course change is possible and should occur, but it’s gonna take a HELL of a lot
if you work very early then public transport is almost a no go because it takes like 30 to 45 minutes wait time assuming the buses are not running the short routes.
Oh, one other thing. The subway cars are due to be replaced very soon, probably when the first part of the purple line extension opens. I believe the current ones are original to when the system opened in the 1990s and are therefore a bit dingy.
The first bus you took comes every 7 minutes so I think you actually took the one before your scheduled one
The Los Angeles metro system is projected to have 200 train stations by 2050. It should be a "satisfactory" system by then, compared to world standards. BART in San Francisco is underfunded and suffering crime problems. Service intervals are poor and there are only 50 stations in the network compared to the current 99 in Los Angeles. BART is bad for actual practicality. It doesn't work as a metro system because it was designed solely to bring commuters from the suburbs to downtown San Francisco and downtown Oakland. It's stations are often miles apart except for the downtown areas previously mentioned. It will hopefully become a better system but it's too different a system to compare it to the L.A. Metro.
What? With all the money LA has, it can do just that in five years, right in time for the Summer Olympics. But knowing how NIMBYs will block those projects, no wonder it will take almost 30 years to do what can be achieved in 5.
google map said 2hr 23min on bus. . I love taking the metro from the SFV to DTLA 30mins and I'm there. But yes metro needs to do better.
When you sit at the back of articulated bus, I almost thought you are travelling in prisoner transport
Wow! I'm an LA resident, and I did not know about the TAP APP.😅 That would definitely come in handy when I want to add funds or buy a pass but do not want to pay for the card. I'm glad I watched this video. I don't take the bus often, but do when my car is in the shop.
It really sucks that LA’s transit is just so bad. Come to San Francisco and ride Muni Metro! Curious your thoughts. Both in CA. Miles different transit systems.
Hi Anthony! Yeah I really do wish LA Metro wasn't so neglected, it's even more of a shame considering LA used to have one of the best streetcar networks in the US.
I'll be in SF/the Bay in a couple months and will definitely make a video on the public transport there.
@@freerangeasian nice! Looking forward to watching it
@@freerangeasian Please, make more videos about public transportation in California!
@@Alejandro-vn2si Will do! Thanks for your support
I would've skipped the Purple line entirely and taken the 720 all the way to Wilshire/Vermont. Not only are the trains more frequent there but staying on 720 is faster than waiting for the poor Purple line frequency.
Thank you for the tip!
Fellow Australian here - I find it fascinating that LA just overtook San Diego as having the busiest light rail network in the USA, LA also has the 7th busiest commuter rail network and the 5th busiest subway system per mile in the US. Yet most cities in Australia have better public transport networks and stringer ridership with less residents and less money.
It's so tragic how Los Angeles accomplished so little with so much.
You said that you've been all over the country, after this, I went to go watch the New York video. Turns out this is you're only video. It's a very decent video, that still supports my opinion on LA transit. San Fransisco always topped LA.
I've been to most of the major US cities but this was my first time really vlogging any of it haha
SF city or the bay area?
This video shows that the LA public transportation system is SLIGHTLY better than I previously thought it was. Slightly.
Still, its very clear that it is still mostly unreliable and its much better to get places via a car (such as driving, take an Uber, etc)
Wow. So here is a foreigner visiting our public transportation and this is what he sees. I mean, this just confirms what all the locals say. This guy saw it all on his first outing. Incredible.
Um, I’m not so sure. HART bus in Tampa,FL had very bad schedule priority (my bus was 15+ mins late due to the fact the driver wanted a bathroom break lol)
Lol that sounds pretty bad too
@@freerangeasian I live in the Bay area. Things tend to be pretty chill in Public Transit, if you’re in the cities, of course
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have had similar experiences on the metro trains basically every time I use it. They are always people with mental issues boarding the train and it just feels unsafe because they are unpredictable. However the busses are almost completely different and an article I recently read talked about one thing that fights things like these and crimes - ridership. Busses have less issues like these because there are way more people using it than trains. I agree because I feel safe on a bus. There are homeless and mentally illed people who get on the busses too, but it feels safer with other passengers.
Yes it's about twice as many people using buses than the subway system. It should change a bit once the 4 or 5 subway projects under construction are complete.
@@themoviedealers hopefully. I have travelled eastbound from the west side like marina del rey a couple times and that drive was horrrrrible. It seems like most people live somewhere east, and they may need to transfer to get to their west side work place, which is a huge deter for many. I also remember someone from Australia saying taking public transit is not about the time, which is one of the dumbest things I have heard. I am lucky enough to live close to a bus stop, so my ride plus walking is about 45 minutes.
It was funny seeing the apartment I live in be in your intro footage. Im guessing you are also a ucla student.
Thanks for this great informational video! Me and a friend are going to LA in october and I've never been to the US or such a major city before(Except London and Amsterdam). Would you say public transit like the metro line to Santa Monica feels safe? Is it sketchy at night? We'll probably stay in Hollywood, would be nice not to have to Uber if we wanna go to ex Santa Monica etc.
From the video the metro did look kinda sketchy even during day
No worries! Thank you for watching.
I mentioned this briefly in the video but the Expo line to Santa Monica is actually pretty decent. It's one of the newer ones and definitely feels a lot fresher than the Purple Line. If you're taking PT at night, I'd probably recommend a bus. Purple and Red lines can definitely get even sketchier than what I saw.
Very uncanny video to watch as I've taken the exact same route between Temple City and DTLA down to the same El Monte Transit Center/78 bus line and the storefronts along Las Tunas Dr at the end 🤣
LA as a whole does have nicer transit options and it's not all bad if you're lucky with where you live. The Gold Line for example runs along the northern edge of SGV to Downtown LA and is a lot nicer/faster with an above ground light rail-type fleet. You get to zip past highway traffic and get good views of the San Gabriel Mountains!
I think the main issue is heterogeneity across LA; downtown areas aren't served badly at all and will probably improve tremendously with the 2028 Olympics, while some areas, usually car-dependent exurbs like the San Gabriel Valley, get dealt a bad hand with poor coverage all-around unless you want to take a transfer to a better light rail stop or bus hub. It makes it harder for immigrants and working class people without car access (like my grandpa in Alhambra back in the 90s) to travel on good-quality transit when their neighbors have already sworn off even looking at a public bus stop.
Definitely spot on about living along a train corridor! Otherwise coverage does get spotty
I’ve been on the LA Metro many times and it’s never not been disgusting.. and I’ve never seen anything like it in NYC
I agree, but there's reasons for that. New York's is much older and ridership is in the millions per day. LA is new, and ridership is relatively low.
Thanks so much for this. I try my very best to ride the subway everywhere I go and incorporate into my videos. But I have to agree with you, I rode the LA subway for 2 stops and I got off. I was afraid to film and the situation was so unfortunate. I do hope to return in the future and hopefully things will turn around. 🙏🙏
Things are noticeably better now on LA Metro.
@@mrxman581 I’m so glad to hear that. Thanks for sharing. I’ll certainly try it again when I get back there.
That is why I love Chicago! You can take the el and subways and ,ect and bussus any where at all pretty much
Great video. And I thought transportation here in Melbourne, Australia was awful. This is horrendous for such a large city.
Thanks! I'm from Sydney and I also thought Sydney transport was pretty lacklustre, but after moving to LA, I realised how good I had it there.
If you ever get to San Francisco and the Bay Area, you see a massive difference in public transportation from LA's system. You're talking to the guy who went from the Valley to Downtown LA to Disneyland and back. A very long bus/train ride . It's possible to do it but it's so long to get to anywhere. For the last mile my Uncle picked me up and dropped me off from to and from the station. That was 18 years ago!! Like a few people said here LA. used to have an extensive street car system that they tore up for all the highways. While it's good that they have a Subway and light rail route, it's laughable for a guy like me that's from New York as used to being on the Subway is going from everywhere. When I went in 2005 it was a pretty small system and they were planning to build those extensions. I'm glad they built some of them in the time. But still small and practically useless to most people. LA is so spread out bad people's still opt to take the car regardless. I'm glad they still building more projects but they have to show the public that you can get from point A to point B faster than being in a car. It will take a whole lot of convincing. As for the homeless situation take it from a guy that works in the New York City Subway that is a city issue that they will have to solve. But it makes using public transit so run down and scary from people who are not used to that.
i am waiting i the flying Ubers. problem solved.
Los Angeles is 500 square miles. For it to have the same density of Metro stations as Paris, for example, Los Angeles would need over 3,700 stations on 195 separate lines.
You could had done this with just two trips. The 720 , getting off at grand , walking to olive and 5th and transferring to the 78 to las tunas and temple city. The train and silver line transfers just add to the trip times and the 267 only runs every so often and you’re backtracking on top of that. I never use Metro or Google directions bc they generally suck.