Los Angeles: The Great American Transit Experiment
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- Опубликовано: 8 окт 2018
- Los Angeles is in the midst of building an unprecedented number of rail transit projects. Some are slated for potentially high ridership parts of LA’s urban core. Others are more dubious.
Today, transit use is down. Bus ridership is falling sharply. Rail use is flat despite strong ridership on the Expo Line, the city’s newest rail transit. L.A. is taking steps to reorganize its bus routes, but needs a variety of major street and service policy changes to make buses more attractive.
Also missing in L.A. are efforts make the city more walkable and more dense that correspond in scale to the massive rail building program. The city and region also still heavily cater to cars when decisions about transportation priorities need to be made.
“What we as a region have not yet done is have the sort of political fights that really make a transit system effective. Which are not fights over money but fights over space,” says UCLA professor Mike Manville.
I live in LA and I totally agree with the Bus lane idea. I think the reason why cars are so popular here, is that they are so much faster because busses are stuck in traffic just like cars but have to stop every couple of 100 feet. But a bus with no traffic is faster than a car stuck in traffic.
@Craig F. Thompson The other reason: once cars got popular, roads got congested, affecting trams.
A successful mass transit should be separate from roads. Although, buses are still needed as feeder routes to stations, though they can run on quiet areas.
Not only that, but LA is massive in surface area. If you happen to be stuck in traffic in a car, you can improvise. You can switch freeways, you can get off and take the surface streets, or you can get off entirely and go do something while traffic dies down. On public transit, nothing is at your own discretion because your waiting on someone else to come get you.
@@greg.anywhere Do you realize that this is only due to insanely car-centric design in LA? Usually, it's the other way around. In rush hour, large areas tend to become congested so people use subways, suburban rail, trams, bikes, scooters and combinations of those things? If one of those things fails, you always have options in any normal city outside of North America. Driving is heavily subsidized in America just like bullet trains are in China
@@greg.anywhere Jajaja Madrid 14 lineas de Metro mas de 300 estaciones, mas de 300km, 10 líneas de tren de cercanías, 4 lineas de metro ligero, por eso no te quedas atrapado en autopista porque la gente usa el transporte publico y deja su coche en casa, mas rapido cómodo y mucho mas económico y te olvidas de atascos y problemas de aparcamiento. ruclips.net/video/_BOdJGUFOVw/видео.html
@@greg.anywhere Esta Autovía es la mas centrica y aunque en hora punta puede ir con mucho trafico hay túneles que desahogan las zonas con mas trafico.
ruclips.net/video/LwhMRKUL_BQ/видео.html
Remember when LA had the largest electric rail network on the west coast? A equivalent system to the entire trolley network of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh combined. Private ROW and huge stations and didn’t even need buses. Then Ford and GM wanted more sales
Los Angeles is a car city.
Actually it was General Motors, Standard Oil, Firestone Tire & Rubber and Phillips Petroleum, and they didn't kill it, the sped up it's demise.
@@RobertPayne80 correct, alot of people fail to realize that Los Angeles had more rail lines than many European cities in the early 1900s, and same with every major American city. But The automotive industry lobbied and killed rail in America. Atleast the north east still held on to it
EVERY major city had that--it was all dismantled. Sickening. People are so fat now (75% overweight, 42% obese) they can't even walk to a station if they were built. I propose mandating bicycle commuting if you live less than 3 miles from work and make people stop having so many kids. Then the freeways will slowly unclog. Naive and fantastic and crazy--yes. But they do pieces of it in Europe.
@@dstuart2918 my little town in the Midwest used to have street cars throughout and they were all torn out long ago.
Was sitting at the same traffic light for 10 minutes straight today. Literally shut my engine off.
Get a hybrid, bro.
If you have more visible security walking through the transit lines more people will get out of their cars and use it. This is something still new to LA culture. Give it some time. In NYC people have been using the subway for generations. In LA they still equate owning a car as status. In NYC most people equate car ownership as a burden. There is nothing special about you sitting in a one hundred thousand dollar car if you are not moving in traffic. Make LA transit clean, safe, affordable and convenient and more people will use it.
Back up to NYC for a second...
In NYC the inferstruction of the over 100 year old subway system is crumbling.
So how they keep things running by slapping taxes to us Upstate people so that NYC subway keeps running
@@ralphabreu5022 Generations ago when it was first built, NYC subway was probably THE best in the world (don't even know whether I should add 'one of' in this sentence). And yes, it's in horrible shape, but it shouldn't mean that it's not the right thing to do
on average, most cars in L.A are priced around 20-30 K...i don't know what alternate reality you're living in, thinking everyone is driving around in 100 thousand dollar cars...? but i think you got it in reverse order...having a car in NYC is more of status symbol than L.A, as people in NYC don't need to drive with all the accessible public transpo.. on the other hand , most commuters in L.A don't have that luxury...so owning a car is more out of necessity than status in L.A...
You said living in NYC do not need a car I agree with you on that.
I live in Upstate New York where you can't live without a car why should I fund NYC s aged transportation system....
@D'Afrique Rousseau Lmao it fucking sucks paying city and state taxes.
The NYC subway may be dilapidated, but AT LEAST there are no at level grade crossing with cars here.
Coldpepper that’s due to the scale of the city and street level density. You could fit Manhattan into Los Angeles county 10 times over. That’s a different logistical constraint
LA is really spread out. The density doesn't always justify the cost for putting rail underground. Most of lines are a combination of at grade, elevated, and underground, with only two being completely underground, and 1 completely elevated.
At grade is not the problem from my experience. The trains run fairly quick. The ISSUE is the city not always giving priority to trains at some of the intersections. It seems like a no brainer, but LA politics and their love for cars is hard to shake.
Beyond the absolute mass of Los Angeles, Los Angeles has massive earthquakes to worry about throughout its history, hence why it has never had a traditional subway system like New York.
Avi Yashaya The New York Transit System is not limited to the BOROUGH of Manhattan....Manhattan is NOT a city, it is merely a section of the City of New York. Brooklyn, which is also part of of New York City, would be the 4th largest city in the country if it wasn’t part of NYC.....So your argument is flawed....
LtSenpai More excuses for this garbage of a city....Then if that was the case, they should’ve built an ELEVATED train system like in Chicago...Why didn’t they?
It would be nice if Los Angeles could figure out that if 1 bus and 50 cars are at an intersection, the bus should go first. the bus will delay each driver about 4 seconds each, but the 50 people* on the bus will be delayed about 100 seconds each.
*a bus can hold about 50 people
That's how LA traffic lights should be programmed, to reduce the aggregate delay to ALL PEOPLE, not just people in mobile living roo - I mean cars.
Lol you obviously don’t live in LA.
chargr512 Lol I was gonna say the same thing.
There are already bus-specific traffic lights in other parts of the world. Gives buses a head start especially if the buses need to change lanes after the junction to make a turn.
Bus need to rent sirens
As someone who used public transit for 4 years & just got a car I have to say the biggest problem is frequency & travel time. I’ve literally freed up HOURS in my day with my car. It’s vastly more expensive to own & use a car but boy is it substantially faster.
i don't live in LA but i have also second your statement.
Same.
If I have time to spare. It's Metro all the way.
If I am tight on time, but can shell out a few extra bucks, then take the car.
But during morning and evening rush hours it's a toss up. It will take the same no matter what. BUT, cars will be much more expensive.
L.A. is a dump. It’s America’s shittiest “City” (and I use that term loosely in reference to Los Angeles). Thank you for contributing to climate change L.A. and it’s car owners. Thanks a lot.
@@Toast0808 That's a stretch. That you have a personal disdain for it is a different story.
It has it share of problems like anywhere else. Homelessness and traffic and housing costs...but it's hardly the shittiest city.
There are cities in the US that are MUCH worse.
J131 Sometimes cars are slower during rush-hour. I take the Goldline which runs between the freeway and often times I see cars are barely moving in rush-hour and we are zipping along.
How about building rapid transit (subway systems) instead of light rail? I know they are much more expensive but you are simply not going to get people out of their cars unless the transit you build is very fast, has frequent service, and reliable. Slow light rail for the second largest city in the country is not the solution (at least for the main lines).
I'm not a fan of light rail but its cheaper to build and maintain so more cities are doing it for that reason. At the very least it shouldn't have to sit in traffic
@Craig F. Thompson I've always heard it was the other way around. In my hometown of Washington, DC we have a subway but here in Minneapolis they have light rail. One of the reason reasons they gave for building it was that it was cheaper to build and maintain compared to a subway.
Will Snyder people aren’t really happy about being underground in earthquake zones
I agree. There are very few cities in the US were heavy rail makes sense. LA is definitely one of those cities where it makes sense. It has the population and density to justify it.
@@lincolnpaul1814 Ever heard of Tokyo?
I'm from New York and I don't have a car. When I come to visit LA I do not rent a car and I have to rely on public transport like trains and buses, or I take Uber/Lyft. My experience of LA public transportation is that it seems to have been left dysfunctional and ineffective on purpose. Trains are slow and do not cover any significant area of the city so you're often forced to take the bus. Trains don't run on consistent schedules, certain lines are out of operation for long periods of time, it's unclean and feels unsafe. Buses are very slow, often packed, there are always homeless people talking to themselves, or someone playing music or being weird. Sometimes people are forced to get off at a random stop because the driver says he's not completing the route and everyone has to switch buses. And it costs the same as the train. The entire public transport in LA is an insult to low income people who need it. But, indeed, thats how it was set up, so that you use more expensive and eco-inefficient private transportation instead.
“Unclean and unsafe, homeless people talking to themselves” so basically the same thing that happens in nyc public transit? Not sure why those things surprised you, unless you’re from upstate ny and not nyc.. If you couldn’t tell, LA was never supposed to reach this level of population density. As for the homeless problem, the other 49 states seem to *love* sending their homeless to the golden state via cheap greyhound busses. It has to stop.
@@glossygloss472 I'm from Manhattan born and raised. Visited LA and family in SF many times. Cali has a pretty extreme case of widespread homelessness, people camping along streets in tents, some avenues just full of people screaming and shouting at night, people injecting themselves right on the street. This simply doesn't happen in Manhattan. Of course New York has its own version of issues such as homelessness and drug abuse, but it's just not even comparable with LA, or more, San Francisco, as far as being widespread, blatant, and out-of-control.
@@kylewit924 Your comment is 2 years old but I agree with you. Public transportation is an insult to low income residents and its slow as hell. I wish we had more subways and more apartments to house more people in one area.
@@peskypigeonx You're kidding, right? I live in the Bay and regularly travel to NYC. You lot all believe that SF is supposed to be "the epicenter of homeless craziness". In reality, there's one rough neighborhood, the Tenderloin. The rest of the city is a lot cleaner than NY. Same thing with the transit. The lines that go through the Tenderloin get pretty crazy.
All the locals know to stay away from that one neighborhood. In NY you don't have such luck. Your nastiness is spread evenly everywhere. You can't run away from it. It's everywhere.
@@TohaBgood2 As a Bronxite , since NYC is so much bigger, from my POV you’ll have a few spots of activity where you don’t do good, and then the majority of the city that I go to, Bronx & Manhattan, is fine. Bronx, a little bit weirder. Those spots include 125th, certain isolated areas of the South Bronx, and just really bad areas that no one would go to anyways. Anywhere else, pretty fine. Also this was 5 months ago, my opinion now is to the theme of « I don’t know what’s happening in the Bay Area, so I won’t comment on it »
Putting stations in the middle of the highway, the least desirable place on earth (well, maybe next to a sewage plant), is so bad. What does it say ? it says...we hate you rider.
We have this exact kind of station too. It literally sits near the center of a 4-level interchange, with a two-level highway (which are treated as 2 different highways) traversing north to south and a major 10-lane road running east to west. The station itself is grade-separated and is accessible to passengers from a mixed mall-bridge that connects to a nearby condo on one side and an office tower to the other. I can't imagine how hard it is for the people to climb to that station especially that its clearance is way too high, like a 5-storey building.
Not necessarily. It's ideal in terms of it not taking up space at street level and being grade separated all at the same time. No additional footprint running the Green Line in the middle of the 105. That was a great choice. However, they could have done a better job in designing those stations. Hopefully, they will be upgraded in the near future. I've never been to Paris but I've been told that some stations have a plexiglass partition that closes off access to the tracks from the platform. I assume they installed them for safety reasons so people don't jump on the tracks or pushed onto the tracks. Couldn't they do something similar with these stations not so much for safety reasons but to muffle the sound of the freeway? They could do it for the noisiest stations on both the Gold and Green lines.
Chicago has station stops in the middle of their freeways. And it's brilliant.
grade level stations and stations in the middle of a thoroughfare do imply the need for more obvious safeguards than do subway and elevated stations
Perth, Australia’s train stations are in the middle of freeways, and it’s great! Big walkways coming from either side and connected to the bus routes to specific areas
I love Expo line. It saves me time and money. It's actually faster for me and I lost weight.
Protected bike paths need to be added to the transit mix as providing first and last mile connectivity. In particular, the bike path that parallels the Expo Line needs to be made continuous.
Even partially separated bike paths would be a huge improvement, over here where I live we have a lot of bike paths that are raised up to sidewalk level with a kerb and they’re partially shared with pedestrians, you have a dedicated bike lane and a dedicated pedestrian “lane”, each slightly wider than a standard sidewalk, then you cross into each other’s space if you need to pass someone. They’re not perfect, but they need less space than a fully separate bike line but they’re less deadly than a painted bicycle gutter on roads that have high speed traffic. I think LA should use these instead of gutters as the default low-tier bike infrastructure.
There was a time when Los Angeles had more miles of metro rail tracks than any city in the world but lost most of it. Had city officials been smart they would have upgraded the rail right of ways and made improvements.
Without lamenting ad nauseum of the destruction of the LA Pacific Electric network (the world's largest rail network) in 1961, the trick is to emulate London in the quest for re-establishing mass transit.
1. Trains need to run frequently and past last call for bars. Even if it's 1 or 2 trains an hour overnight.
2. Trains need a private right of way -- NO GRADE CROSSINGS.
3. There needs to be a frequent and reliable bus network which takes people from rail to final destination quickly.
totally agree, I think the biggest problem is that last mile connection simply doesn't exist in most places.
Gadget buses need to come quicker
Have you been to London! The traffic is terrible and their double decker busses and the tube are terribly overcrowded, even worse than L.A! Of course their public transportation is better than L.A. by light years! But at the same time, given the amount of time London has had a public transport, they aren't in a better shape either!
I think at grade rail is fine if it is blocked off by crossing bars like freight trains. But having it run in the middle of the street is folly.
@@Geotpf The problem is people are stupid. Caltrain in the San Francisco CA Bay Area is an at-grade line and when someone stops their car on the tracks or goes around the barriers (pedestrians especially) the whole system shuts down for the police to arrive. A reliable network need to remove any potential traffic interaction.
What a great short!! We need more of these, and definitely more public transportation please!
Driving a car is painful. Traffic. Parking. Not to add the enormity of gas, insurance, etc...You get no benefit just sitting in your car all day. Metro is a lot more interactive and fun. Less stressful. Less expensive. And still, everyone wants to drive their cars. A habit that will remain hard to break.
Another thing is that even if transit is slightly slower than driving, you can do something productive
I recently lived in Singapore for 5 months and coming to LA in the Fall. I think Singapore really hit a home run when it comes to transportation, especially Mass Transit. They have decided that the number of cars on the road will be fixed (a number that is manageable given the current infrastructure) and they will pour all the money in public transit. The result is a massively interconnected and easily accessible public transit system. The only con is that the prices are a bit on the higher end.
Living in Sydney at the moment and the prices are ridiculous. Just took a 15min bus ride which costed 4 dollars. Most buses stop every block which makes the trips much longer than necessary. I miss Berlin when it comes to mobility.
I live in Prague and we have a really good city transport system. Annual ticket cost only about 10% of average month salary here (160$ vs ~1600$ average salary) In the last years they actually made the annual ticket cheaper to get more people from cars to public transport and it was success. The downside is that the ticket sells covers only about 20% of the running costs. Rest is pretty much paid by city itself which gets the money from taxes.
Eliseu Monar dos Santos sydney is a shit hole, a giant ghetto
@Eliseu Monar dos Santos Berlin’s S-Bahn is unfortunately incredibly unreliable. Also I find ticket prices in Germany rather expensive, except for students.
@Pika Pika Sydney is not a shit hole. I definitely prefer Melbourne tho, also Melbourne’s public transport is way better than Sydney’s.
This is the most crowded I've seen the LA Metro on youtube. I've been checking out videos from railfans and travel vloggers and it always seems so desolate and unused
Usually railfans film at off peak hours on weekends, because there's less people in the way. They intentionally pick the slowest time, because it gets a better shot of the station and the equipment, and there's also less chance of being hassled by a random transit rider (or potentially transit staff or cops).
Actual news crews will film at peak hours to show people actually using the system (unless the angle of the story is that nobody uses the system).
I tend to ride it at off peak days/hours and I see it almost this crowded so I agree with the person above me
We should send Metro higher ups to Tokyo so they can learn how to setup a train line
Amsterdam has a pretty good transit system as well.
@@alexismiller288 they'll waste our tax money on hookers and mushrooms there 😆😆
@@georgemitchel23 Mushrooms are never a waste. Engineers with an expanded state of consciousness? Surely can't be a bad thing!
Delhi Metro
The problem is none of these experts uses the public transport.
best response
Everyone wants to advocate for it which is fine I guess , but none of them actually knows how frustrating, inconvenient, and time-consuming it is.
As somebody who lives in the LA metro area and doesn't have a car, I feel so relieved when there is someone I know that can offer me a ride. I live about 8 miles away from where I go to school. It's 20 minutes by car, and almost two hours by bus. Worst part, I spend more time waiting for the bus than I do actually riding it. Few things piss me off more than being on my way and my connecting bus passes by and my current bus is stopped at a light, and I end up having to wait 15-30 more minutes for the next one to come. These "experts" don't know that frustration.
Buses and trains should always have priority. People in cars should be jealous of the metro riders.
People in cars don't have to share a vehicle with LA's vagrants.
That will not happen as long as people in cars pay for the Majority of Metro.
@James Davis In Europe peoples don't ask questions about priority to transports,they know that it's logic to give priority to metros.
@James Davis The government is not telling you what to do, it would just be giving priority to the damn train, that can transport way more people in the half a minute it is crossing than the cars in between. It's just logical to give priority to the train. It's not about forcing anyone to do anything.
@James Davis That's why you build an interconnected network of lines, so it gets everywhere, particularly downtown. Buses and personal cars should solve the last mile problem in less dense areas where traffic wasn't a problem anyway.
But the point here was really that giving priority to higher capacity modes of transport shouldn't even be a question...
LA once had the best Transit system in the country with the Pacific Electric, then GM destroyed it for freeways and car culture, LA will never recover from it.
I'm glad so many people care about the community and not just about themselves.
Thank you for creating this video.
I know it takes longer to build elevated lines, but I think this is something that LA should explore.
it would be more expensive but it is indeed something that the city should not only explore but implement
You say you need mote riders but make it hard to afford it. Overpriced park and ride costs and still have 3 street level lines that have delays on a a daily basis. Not enough buses makes ride coordination even worse.
And why is it so hard keeping the homeless away from using trains as hotels so hard? Lock the trains for gods sake.
LA is still about 50 years away from a serious traffic solution.
You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night. Soon, where Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food. Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful.
Last year (pre-COVID), my mother and I wanted to go from LACMA to Union Station on Saturday after 5 p.m. I thought that calling a Lyft rideshare vehicle would be faster than taking the bus and transferring to the subway. Guess What? It wasn't. The 10 Freeway and local streets were so congested that evening -- a Saturday! -- that driving took just as long as public transit, even though we went the most direct route. This is what "maintaining mobility" really means.
I'm from New York and for me it's ironic that LA which puts a lot of emphasis on green solutions for urban problems just doesn't seem to have the political will to do mass transit the way it's done in the Northeast. In Manhattan they are already contemplating congestion tolls. This will very likely be implemented soon.
@Craig F. Thompson no doubt
its because nyc is dense, while la is spread out. Its much harder to do mass transit in a spread out city than a dense one
@@thomasgrabkowski8283 it seems like LA and its suburbs do have the density to support it. I could be wrong. Idk
smoothjazzaxe you are wrong on that one. Most areas outside of downtown are spread out with a few exceptions like Hollywood and Santa Monica, but areas between them are also spread out. Cities with good public transport like nyc as well as European and Asian cities are far denser
DIPSHIT AKA ALL OF NYC IS 304 SQUARE MILES. ALL OF GREATER LA AREA IS 34000 SQUARE MILES. YOU BRAINLESS TWIT.
Los Angeles started building all of that stuff waaay too late! They should have started it several decades ago. Phoenix has the same issue, but their transit is much worse. (I moved from Phoenix to Oregon over two years ago.)
Yes, it should have been built already. What's your point?
People, i been living in Los Ángeles from 1975 to the end of 1977. Now looks like another city. Congratulations to the people of my loved L.A. Hug from Buenos Aires Argentina
Metrolink needs to be incorporated into Metro. Metrolink is too expensive and too infrequent service to be used regularly.
Metro needs to be extended way beyond it’s current lines. Greenline should be extended to the 57 freeway on the east and to Long Beach on the South. There needs to be more North South lines to create a network. Stop with building Metro in middle of Freeways. Commuters don’t live there except for the homeless.
Facts
Well, metrolink should have more frequent service and be double tracked along with the metro
@@akivaplutno electrified too
@@lucaspadilla4815 true
I pray for the sake of our planet, the health of the people in the Los Angeles region, and so many other stakeholders that they get it together. I have visited the L.A. region twice and was disappointed at the travel time disparity between driving and transit. Oftentimes transit was 3x as long time wise versus driving. I live in Chicago because I don't want to own a car. If Los Angeles made it easier to get around without a car I'd move there.
I'm an LA native and been taking the bus for 8 years. Yeah it sucks. We really need better service and more comprehensive lines
If there's such a huge issue with grade-level crossings in LA, maybe they should rip a page out of Vancouver's playbook and build an elevated rapid transit system. It's called the Skytrain. Go look it up - it's crazy popular.
pls no, elevated rail is loud and ugly.
@@kosskrit elevated rail built 100 years ago is, but new elevated rail is actually quite nice and quiet; search for some videos of the Vancouver sky train
The last guy from UCLA really knows whats going on, with a reasonable voice and sound thinking.
Could the drop in ridership have anything to do with the fact that the Metro train stations have become filthy homeless shelters with vagrants dropping trou and pooping on the ground? I used to ride Metro. I won't anymore.
That's a great point Reed! A lot of these stations now are shady
thats the problem. its a problem people don't want to address.
@@MrChickennugget360 Correction - It's something politicians don't want to address. People do want it addressed and corrected.
I vote Reed Berry for Mayor of Los Angeles
@@jnava1427 Thank you, but just about anyone would be a better Mayor than Eric Garcetti. He's a joke.
The city needs more bike paths as well. Moving away from car culture is the way forward.
This comment is much... Better... Than it seems. 'Cycle paths' lol...
@luis manuel So how is everybody supposed to get to work and school on time if they're riding a bike to a far distance location? This is why we have vehicles; So other people can get to important places ON TIME. #MATH2020 - Think Harder, AMERICA!
@@whdstudios2441 transit?
Consequently, the increase of vehicle usage will prevent people from making it on time.
Poor people often have the longest commutes, because they simply can't afford to live near their places of work. Cars allow people to reach their places of work in a reasonable amount of time. Public transport would help, but I don't see that Americans want to use tax money to help out strangers. Therefore trying to get rid of cars would hurt those who already have a hard time.
LA has certainly come a long way since I lived there over 10 years ago. Still, the fact is that car culture dominates and will continue to dominate until they confront the need to meaningfully reduce cars and car traffic. Zurich has some good ideas on how to do that.
Ban the private automobile
What did they do in Zurich? :-)
Zurich a few ideas?! Yeah right. Check out Bicycle Dutch; zillions of ideas. Cohesive implementation! American dysfunctional...
I lived in Zurich for 15 years and then moved to Los Angeles. This contrast really made me more dependent on cars.
comparing Zurich at 34 square miles to The LA metro area of 34,000 square miles? We're ONE THOUSAND TIMES LARGER. Rent an IQ Euro idiot.
Dear, LA
Here is how you make your transit system not terrible:
Demolish freeways in cities. Freeways should be used to merely connect cities and long stretches of empty land. It shouldn't be that there's some express road that cuts the city off from itself. Take away 2 lanes from a road for dedicated transit lanes, or for wider, tree-lined sidewalks and dedicated separated bike lanes. Make mixed use commercial/residential, or commercial/office projects the norm for any new development. Build more greenspaces, public plazas, and pedestrian/bike greenways to encourage more foot traffic. Expand your rapid train network to the far suburbs and have reliable local bus connections at every station. Build grade separated Metro Rail networks with high frequency and reliability, and with bus rapid transit complimenting the system, instead of the slow, sloppy middle-ground that is mixed grade Light Rail. Make sure every suburb has its own thriving downtown so that less people need to commute to the city, creating growth that is asymmetric and organic. Stop treating the car as some sort of necessity and work on proper urban planning instead.
Sincerely, Vancouver.
You have so many excellent videos could you please make, more playlists for topics like mass transit, bike and pedestrian bridges, protected bike lanes? Especially if the same theme is repeated example “protected bike lanes increased ridership by X percent.” It might drive home your message more. Great channel have subscribed for a few months. Good luck.
I've done a few on Vimeo. For example here are 109 Streetfilms that include protected bike lanes! vimeo.com/channels/protectedbikelanes
And here is essentially a grouping of Cities on the Cutting Edge! vimeo.com/showcase/4553672
Thank You
Rail transit (I'm not mentioning BRT because it rarely gets the priority it needs to meet LRT service levels) should not be promoted as a way to "reduce traffic," but to instead maintain mobility while the L.A./OC metro population steadily grows. In Honolulu, the new automated metro (HART) will achieve one thing above all -- provide reliable transportation from one side of the island to the other while traffic on the paralleling freeways and arterial streets continues to rise.
I stopped using it as much because I stopped feeling safe. Some of the bus drivers drive like madmen and there are so many people being creepy. The Dash is still great though.
walk then!
@MikeN Ike or move out of Los Angeles
Shut up metro shamer
The trick might be to build a LOT of state-run apartments with high densities in the central city and rent them cheaply, and at the same time make all freeways expensive toll ways, increase taxes on gasoline by $5 or more dollars per gallon, and increase registration fees on cars so that the cost increases exponentially with mileage. Convert more major streets to one lane in each direction, and mark off bike lanes wide enough for semi trucks to encourage people to give up and walk. Sometimes people just need a little assistance to understand what is best for them, and to make changes in their behavior. Other times they have to be forced.
A FAVOR TO THOSE COMMENTING!
Where are you seeing this video pop up of late. It is great to see so many more people watching this in the past two weeks than the entire year prior. Please let us know the article or website you saw it on. Thank you!
RUclips recommendations
Twitter, saw you asking this same question and realized I hadn't seen this video.
It popped up in my recommended videos because I am into city planning, transit lines, and networks. Its awesome because I live in LA and can add feedback that hopefully Metro leaders will read when they see your video.
@@kwebs10 Thank you! Thank you! The views have been insane. It has now quadrupled the number of plays in the last month than it did the 12 months prior. This is good news!!
Recommended to me too. I live in LA and am interested in transit, so it was an easy click.
"Bravo!" to Los Angeles for making colossal efforts to move its inhabitants by mass transit instead of cars. There is, nonetheless, a profound disconnect in California, one of the "greenest" states in the US. Too many Californians (like many other Americans) avoid walking, bicycling, and utilising mass transit--almost at any cost. A good many hesitate to support any measures for improving or creating public transport networks. Given the high percentage (60% of the population in the US) of overweight people and the very limited space available for expanding roads, Californians would be wise to rethink their approach to everyday life. "The car" is no longer the answer.
Considering that Los Angeles had NO rail based transit between 1963 and 1990 the city has come a long way. There are still many obstacles to overcome, such as ingrained car culture. I live in Toronto, which is much more transit friendly. I do own a car, but I only use it for trips and heavier grocery errands. What L.A. has built in 29 years puts most of North America to shame.
No, It's not "at all cost" -- That's the issue. I say this as someone who can't drive, you will EASILY spend twice as long on a bus than on most freeways. The moment transit actually DOES become faster consistently than driving, the scales will tip.
The only people for whom transit pays live in dense urban cores. This is simple math and will always be so. Alot of suburbanites I know actively HATE downtown, so we shouldn't see any mass migration soon.
We're coming along ..
The metro rail network has to grow rapidly. Not only an extension here or there, but like completely new lines out of the blue, kinda like how Chinese cities are expanding their networks. Also on roads definitely use one lane in each direction exclusively for buses to 1. increase the speed of buses and 2. reduce the capacity for cars... a high road capacity will always induce traffic.
I visited Toronto before and the transit system there is amazing. I'm from the Midwest where if you dont have a car you feel trapped wherever you are. Never felt trapped in while in Toronto, always felt comfortable there was going to be transportation when needed.
I live in Toronto and I can tell you that many people here feel otherwise. World class public transportation systems are in the UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to name a few. Toronto is not one of them. We're way behind with the rest of the other global cities with our public subway system.
Great content
I don’t think they are following the right approach. To get people to move from their cars, they need to feel flexible without it. And it so happens to be that people don‘t only drive to and from work, but also want to visit each other or get to another place that is not commonly located downtown.
There needs to be a light rail of any sorts that serves as a circle or non-centered connection line to reduce the need for people to connect downtown or sit hours in Busses just for a sub 10km ride. Here in Berlin we have a Circle Train line running very 5 minutes with branching lines around 6km away from the centrum and Trams in the former East like The M10 inside the Train circle and the M13 Outside it, both at least running in 10min intervals. Having a good connection to the City center is only a part of any individuals needs and it is the freedom to have connections to all around the city nearby that makes them really stop relying on their cars.
protip: dont make people wait 30 min between buses
It's not easy running 189 different bus routes your Lucky you have to wait 30 min instead of 1:30
You guys got it better than we do in Miami. Guys, every suburban city has massive amounts of cars and people are not going to leave it because this isn't New York City. Suburban areas cannot sustain as good public transportation as in urban areas for many different reasons. Los Angeles does have good public transportation. The trains go to each area of the county and then you have the busses that extend from those areas.These people are talking about these topics as if they're problems. They're not a problem, they're a by-product of suburban living and every major metropolitan city that is mainly suburban has them. You can't build subways everywhere because not all geographical locations support that and you can't reduce trips down to downtown time because living space aren't as dense.
What about the Antelope Valley? Isn't the valley apart of the county while the northern part are in Kern County
people often tell me that they avoid L.A. transit because of the weird and violent. A car is more secure
People thought self-driving cars would maintain the status quo, just like the supposed robot takeover, which was just like the Y2K hysteria.
Atlanta's mass transit sucks in a way but glad we have some rail and a subway in Downtown Atlanta.
I love LAs Metro, it is State of the Art, it is clean, convenient and practical It's too bad that a lot of the locals don't use it. Same thing with their bus lines. I ask people from LA if they take the Metro, and some don't even know there's a metro. The people I know complaint and complaint about the traffic, that it takes them 1.5 hr to drive a few miles. When I ask them, why don't you take public transit? They just smile, like saying (me using the metro or a bus?). Many don't know about their own public transit, but they have opinions about it and not a positive one even if they have never taken the Metro or a bus.
Having Hollywood in the city and plenty of public relation firms there as well, I am surprised that they have not done a campaign to promote public transit and convince a certain percentage of the population to leave their cars at home.
Solution : more trains, less buses
Protected Bicycle lanes. The weather is awesome year round in So Cal...
i disagree with your suggestion. i would say a possible solution for me would be to have dedicated bus lanes. if everyone stuck in traffic in their cars see the buses just keep on going, they might switch to bus
No. We still need bus as the feeder.
Stefanos Anastasi the buses and the cars would end up in the same kind of traffic, even with the dedicated bus lanes wouldn’t work
John Smith at least for parks and a little bit of dedicated bike lanes
How is it that expansion of transit results in increased ridership in, say, Seattle, Portland, New York, and DC, but in LA it doesn’t make a difference?
Because the incentive isn't there. Currently it's cheaper and more convenient to drive than to ride mass transit. The culture doesn't not want to let go. The view is one of a handicap rather than an option.
Considering how many people see California's air pollution standards "detrimental" to cars, I fail to see how cars are still the cheapest way to move around LA.
Cuz LA is nowhere near as densely packed as those places. I live in DC and it’s very dense, most houses don’t even have space between each other. people in LA live too far from transit to be viable
@@LouisSubearth Trips taken by transit are typically 1.5 - 3 times longer in duration than by private car, even during traffic. Here are my weekly numbers between Long Beach and Anaheim. This may help you understand.
The following is all for one week: I spend 7 hours in my car commuting for work. It costs me $40 for all car-related expenses. By transit, I would spend 20 hours and 40 minutes commuting, and $38 on the best value transit passes. This is nearly three times longer, or 13.7 additional hours, just to save $2. Personal time has real value, and nearly 14 hours a week is definitely worth more than $2.
@@HollywoodF1 This. I can't drive, so I depend on LA transit, and while it is better than bumming rides off of my family, the time is still punishing. For context, I am physically disabled, so driving will always be a no-go. Access Services aren't much faster either.
What LA needs is more mini-buses operated by the private sector to cut down wait times to more acceptable levels. It seems that LA's system is half-hearted at best coz gas consumption is a major source of revenue for local governments.
one of my biggest unpopular opinions - but as an la native i really love that we're a car city. there's a sense of agency with the car that you don't have with public transport. i'd like to have both ideally, but if i had to choose i'd pick a (fuel efficient) car every time.
The reason I don't use mass transit is it doesn't go where I want to go, it goes where the builders want you to go. My car will take me where I want to go, even if it takes going through heavy traffic, and even heavy traffic is faster than mass transit.
Elevate the lines and create subways. Chicago's system has worked well for a long time
The NIMBYs will complain about elevated lines. We have those in Miami & people complained about how they looked but don't say anything about how ugly highways are.
The elevated lines in Chicago look like crap. L.A. has tried in the past to incorporate them but they always get voted down by the public.
One of the major problems of the Metro plan is that it favors tourism over praticality and local care. For each station placed, there is basically 0 transient (riders) facilities. There are no bathrooms, there are no transient friendly stores. No way to "take a piss and continue on." Because, businesses and homeowners are troubled by the homeless issue. Parks even close down bathrooms to keep "drug addicts out."
And all this makes it not appealing to ridership.
You combine that with Metro being involved in real estate scandals, that exploit this "feature" of not needing to address public concerns, instead of addressing the concerns. And you get sales pitches without the keeping of promises.
On top of that metro creates these forums where people don't know what to ask, or load them with loyalist, or people that they didn't fire to join the local board, and ignore local concerns or push the concerns of Metro, the SCAG, or other tourism board, and over ride the public.
You have this issue of the pushing of manhatanization of LA, while the shear scope of LA is the size of a country, not a just a City. It is impractical to push for public transporation with out addressing that simplicity.
It is over 3 hours from 1 side of the City to the other.
Think about it in that aspect. Not just a neighborhood. In a local district. where you step on your self to claim what you just said was what you thought was reasonable.
LA decided it was now time to build better transit for the 2028 olympics smh. Chinese cities have better infrastructure than us
That young cop in lethal weapon 3 that said "LA has a metro" pretty much sums up public transport in LA.
La and California needs a new form of mass transit instead of the freeways. This system is old and there are two many cars on the road. Freeway expansion is not the answer. Every other developed country has high speed rail and other forms of reliable public transportation that their citizens use. Some places instead of making carpool lanes they use those lanes for buses only which is cheaper than putting in rail.
The Bay Area has perfect transportation. BART, Caltrains, & ferries. LA needs to get it together, not California.
I gave up my car in Nov 2017. I’m doing my part. I have so many complaints - don’t get me started. But the no 1 complaint I have is that the buses that run north / south should join the buses east / west . It’s not so hard . The 217 & 212 should join the 20/720, 14 , 10 , 4/704 , 16,17,316... AND ITS HAPPENED ONLY TWICE !!! Fix the damn timetable !
Well timetable change might be needed but buses get backed up because of traffic and the loading and unloading of passengers which is why they dont line up most of the time
The real problem with LA transit system is not the infrastructure, it's how ignorant and stubborn the people of LA are about public transit. they rather stuck in traffic driving their beloved F150 for 2 hrs to move 10 miles than taking a bus.
A ha ha..saw a red Tesla model 3 at 5:21, I usually don't spot them but glad I did in one of these LA transportation videos
silver line should have been a train. that is my biggest complaint
But it's cheaper says or leaders
Craig F. Thompson Orange line is to be converted to light rail.
Maybe they should build underground? Or have a car ban like Mexico City where they can only drive certain days out of the week
Vancouver was at this point 25 years ago, as north America goes. Vancouver has one of the best rapid transit systems, and is one of the densest cities in North America, which makes for a great economy, short commute times, and the natural environment around Vancouver is left to be enjoyed. Sadly, it has become one of the most expensive. These are not new conversations, it seems people have to suffer in traffic before people get it. Just do it...build it. Europe understands this, China, Australia...so many examples of good planning.
The metro has to expand its bus and metro hours and frequency. Its like metro want people to go around there schedule.
Transit does not reduce congestion ever. What it does is is give people an alternative means of transport. It moves more people for the same amount of space.
Why doesn't it reduce congestion? Because if it did, more people would drive because the roads were more clear. When people switch back to cars, congestion increases.
To reduce car driving you have to have a cost increase for driving. Full cost of parking for instance.
Gary Powell yep. Cost alternative. You got it. Here in San Diego with one ticket you could switch lines (orange to blue to green) freely, now they charge to switch. Thus making it cheaper to drive, so I drive. Ultimately it’s about cost.
@@franwex It's also about time. The faster transit is, and the more frequent the service, the more likely people will use it.
I live and work near a bus line, it's a one bus trip which is optimal. But the time difference it 2x! It's 40 minutes to bus, and 20 minutes to drive.
Without a dedicated bus lane, buses are in the same traffic as cars.
If you have a bus that runs every 10 minutes you no longer care what the schedule is. That takes a certain amount of density along the route to make it worth it. That means more condo's, tiny houses, and apartments.
None of these things reduce congestion. I wish transit agencies would stop trying to sell transit as a solution to congestion.
@Gary Powell true, high capacity roads will always induce traffic. remove one car lane in each direction and replace it with a lane exclusively used by buses :)
Let’s address the elephant in the room: Let’s be real, Los Angeles metro system is unsafe. There’s never any security, people don’t pay for fare, and there’s always psychotic, homeless people on the trains. For those reason, people prefer to drive.
@@Cakerpie I don't think anyone who claims transit is dangerous has ever actually ridden on transit.
Yeah, I'll echo cakes. LA motorists are far more psychotic. As a cyclist, I'm seen as less than human if I happen to be in anyone's way.
Appable
I agree.
Plus! Vagrants and Transients of the homeless population know not to sleep on the Metro facilities because gangbangers will scoop them up and torture for their sadistic indulgences.
its because la is spread out and most people live far away from a metro station
Craig F. Thompson but that was way before cars were popular. The few people who lived in the empty outer boroughs needed to take the train to work in the city
Does anyone know what the song is in the beginning?
The end credits should list all songs.
@@StreetfilmsCommunity thank you!
Jakarta, one of cities with crazy traffic is getting better with Transjakarta (BRT) network. Learning from Columbia (if I'm not mistaken) Now it's the longest BRT transit system in the world. But the govt also introduce a lot of new rules like higher taxes for cars, increase fee for toll road, odd-even number policy in major roads, better sidewalks, bicycles lanes, etc. There are still a lot to do, but it's in the right path.
When there’s a will there’s a way... good luck my Los Angelinos
You guys need more lapd on every train station to much stuff going on
Like what? Plz let me know
Transit doesn't exist in a vacuum. Los Angeles needs to realize its zoning encourages sprawl and car usage and kills transit. Allow the places within a five minute walk from a transit stop to build denser and you'll see ridership go up. The more people and places within walking distance of transit, the more valuable that transit becomes. The more valuable that transit becomes, the more people and places will want to locate within walking distance.
I’ve been using the MTA system in Los Angeles for 11 years until 2019 when I bought my car. Where I was on the bus/rail for 90 mins to get to work, using my car only took 35 mins. And feeling not safe while riding on the MTA made the trip even more exhausting. Make the MTA safer to ride and MAYBE I would use it instead of my car. And that’s a big maybe.
What the hell is a “social justice planner” supposed to be?
Crush the gridlock patriarchy!
“Social justice Planner” LMAOo
Social Justice needs to not be a tern anymore. It is just a synonym for reverse racism and virtue signaling.
Spencer Graham-Thille reverse racism?🙄
no such thing as reverse racism. only idiots like you
When it connects to the airport and stadium, it will be used a lot more!
Public transit works well in cities where it was laid out before autos became popular. Most lived and worked near transit lines. Once the auto became popular, people and jobs spread out in a low-density gridwork, where autos worked well and public transit didn't. Now that we have too many cars going in too many directions, the solutions are very difficult and expensive, if possible at all.
america lost the chance at the end of WWll, detroit/madison ave. won over a transit system for the people
Dont forget many cities had their privately owned rail systems taken over by city government. Sometimes I wonder if the rail lines stayed out of government ownership, would they have innovated, maintained, expanded and not appeared dated compared to shiny buses?
Recommended reading: Vox- real story behind the demise of America's streetcar system.
@@Knightmessenger only if the profits were made forever. read " j as in junk economic's " , "debt-the first 5,000 years " . you like cartoons? watch " money as debt " on youtube my friend, good luck.
Even these achievements looks great.
Make local public transportation expenses (not long distance trains or buses) Monday to Friday tax deductible like here in the uk that will change your situation overnight, skeptics said in the beginning that it would cost too much however the government saved a fortune in the long run by not having to build more roads and widen other roads, in addition to this it allowed public transport to be expanded and in turn they needed less subsidies because the increased usage made it more financially viable and less reliant on government support, it’s a win-win situation
From an outsider's perspective, what I've seen so far from LA is that you've got lines that aren't fully grade separated which limits frequency and increases travel time. Frequency and travel time are easily some of the most important metrics peoples consider consciously or unconsciously when choosing public transit. You've got lines which have station in the middle of the highway which are loud, polluted and hard to get to. Building a lot of transit sounds nice, but it is all for nothing if it is a poorly planned half measure. You have to consider just how connivent a car is when trying to get drivers to switch out to public transit.
Montreal is building the REM for 7 billion. That's 67 kms of fully automated grade separated rail. So, how did Montreal manage this? If you have frequent service, your trains and stations can be smaller. Stations are one of the major expenditures of a transit line. There's also the fact that by being automated, any overhead costs will quickly be made up by the fact that there are no salaries to be paid for drivers. Fully automated systems do have a bit of a steeper price point initially, but they ultimately end up costing less once operating costs are considered.
The Bechtel proposition for the Sepulveda pass line is modeled on this idea and is definitely the better choice for LA.
6:31 bike-carrying bus :-)
We need direct bus lines from S.F. Valley to Santa Monica City. Left lanes on Sepulveda bl should be convert to reverse bus lines. A lot of people will prefer the bus lines if the bus will use the bus executive line
That will be interesting, or make it metro/tram and at the stop have the busses running circuits to that stops area so its covered with enough time to get off the metro and onto the bus thats going towards your destination.
I'm a train and I approve this video!.
Unfortunately when I rode on the light rail trains we would occasionally have to disembark and take a bus due to an accident or even a suicide on the rails.
The poor ghettos should be have a connection to the network to help them get around und give em access to jobs
I'd like to know which ghettos should have connections, because I want to agree with your idea but I don't know much about ghettos in LA.
I did live in the San Fernando Valley, and lots of people live there and work in and around DTLA and the westside. But there's only the 5 and the 405, and no Metro Rail that goes through the mountains.
Sometimes people traveling from the ghetto to other areas cause problems but that's what facial recognition software is for
then the poor areas get gentrified by hipster yuppies and they can’t afford to live there. Thanks a lot
@@PresidentFlip it's got to be something else at play here how many hipsters do you have in each City
It might be easier to just bring the jobs to the ghetto with Enterprise Zones or similar incentives. Alternatively, redo zoning laws to allow mixed use development. Zoning keeps everyone's residences segregated from their worksites. It just hits the poor harder.
So basically they want to eliminate parking and driving lanes, make owning a car so undesirable that people will be forced to use public transportation.
6:14 don't forget to pay attention to the little details
this looks like a very uncomfortable wait for the passengers
Either remove that road crossing, giving rail vehicles at least
or give priority with the guarantee of a green by the time it reaches the top,
or let the rail vehicle wait at the bottom, and coordinate with the traffic lights on top, giving the tram a green a few seconds before the lights stop traffic.
It’s weird, the green line that passes through the Compton station, doesn’t have those “right of way” debates that other lines do. People don’t think of the metro in a negative way here. It’s just another part of your day, like a stop sign. The train comes and traffic stops momentarily on all sides, then it goes again. No one curses at the train. If anything, people only get afraid of getting caught in the trains path.
I think if u give trains the right of way, people will adjust and adapt and will also have a positive effect on the way they drive
One of the reasons why ridership is down on the Expo line for example is the amount of street thugs, peddlers, vagrants, crack heads, homicidal crazies etc. that ride the rails. IOW people are afraid to take public transportation!
@Craig F. Thompson
But you have your car for protection. When riding the metro you have no protection against the crazies.
@Craig F. Thompson
Me thinks you're stretching it a bit too far bub. Ask any woman for example whether she feels safer behind a wheel of a car or safer riding the rails alone at night. Uh huh...I rest my case.
@Craig F. Thompson
How many women do you know fit the description of "depends on the person"? Think about it, 99% of the women out there would be frightened to death riding the rails alone at night. You need a dose of reality.
What is a social justice planner?
A libtard getting payed to screech
The biggest question I have right now is how do we make mass transit a feasable option for people who commute from the valley to Glendale, The Basin, or the West Side? How do we make it reliable and efficient like many places in Europe? How do we also create jobs that won't put out our residents who have made their livelihoods on our car culture?
That's a long way. We In Switzerland have one of the best public transport System worldwide. Here you can really live without car. Unlike the US, Switzerland has a space problem. We simply can't build a 4 line freeway. Switzerland was one of the first country who decided, that more place for cars ist not a solution. It started in the mid 1980er. The first 10 years we saw not a big change that people switch over to the public transport. The big boost coms in 2005. Ther Switzerland introduced the "Tacktfahrplan". All public transport systems in Switzerland, Trains, light Trains, Busses, even Ships are synchroniced. If you satart a journey, you have nearly never to wait on a station. You have a 3 - 7 Minute window to switch.
There are situations where the car is faster. especially if you have to go to several meetings with only 5 - 6 km in between. But you have also place you are faster with the train. For example if you go to Zurich, Berne or Geneva. In the years, peoples mind changed. Public transport is anymore a second choice option for people who can't drive or don't have the money for a car. It's become just an other solution to move with it's own advantage.
Fun fact, and probably unique world wide. Even the Swiss Parlament rides train. A load of the people from the Swiss Parlament uses public transport to go to their session.
Riderships will rise. It will take time but it will increase over time. I live in Kuala Lumpur. When we first had our first Light Rail System nobody used it. People were so used to car to travel. But overtime more younger people migrated to the city and they are more willing to use public transport.