I work just down the street from the Santa Monica station. It literally opened a week ago or so, and the author's complaining that people getting on downtown don't yet know which line to take. Well duh! It's brand new!
As for the complaints of old trains and scuffed up seats - the train isn't new. I've ridden it downtown occasionally for the last 3 years or so. What's new is the part from Culver City to Santa Monica. It didn't used to go out that far.
It's like the author didn't bother to check the actual facts or history of the project. This was a stupid article.
I totally agree. I too live in Santa Monica near the downtown station.
I took the train on the first day and everyone in my group was commenting "I can't believe there is graffiti already!! Hooligans" them we remembered that the trains have been running from downtown to Culver city for years and this is just a line extension.
Full of the stereotypical things the NY media likes to print about LA. Hollywood openings? Check. Advice to New Yorkers headed to LA? Check. Comparisons of any LA phenomenon with NY analog? Check. Lacking perspective on the city as a whole, beyond Hollywood, downtown, and the west side? Check.
Sigh. Yet, some truisms sprinkled among the retreads.
Author's about page: A New Yorker at heart (and by area code), I’m currently based in Los Angeles.
Most transit users in L.A. take the bus rather than rail, and there's a lot denser bus network. Weekday ridership numbers are about 1m for Metro Bus, 300k for Metro Rail (subway / light rail), and 40k for Metrolink (commuter rail).
Yes, you are right, rail service is (still) sparse in LA -- despite the new lines.
But that's not my point. My point is: Why do I have to read anecdotes about New Yorkers transplanting to LA when I'm reading an article supposedly about the new LA Metro line? It's lazy on the part of the author.
> "The work is sometimes referred to as A Parochial New Yorker's View of the World or A New Yorker's View of the World because it depicts a map of the world as seen by self-absorbed New Yorkers."
They have a market of potentially millions of potential readers who are interested in the parochial New York world view. Why produce articles for a more general national or international market where there is more competition and less ability to distinguish oneself?
It seems a little silly to equate a tongue-in-cheek New Yorker cover with the audience of the New Yorker. The vast bulk of the New Yorker is not written by, or intended for 'people interested in the parochial New York View'.
One would hope that their cosmopolitan and well-educated audience would tire of repeated regional stereotypes. I have apparently overestimated the aim of their editors.
That's why I subscribe to NY Review -- which can be parochial, but is more adventurous.
I can assure you there's a large audience of cosmopolitan and well-educated people who also want regional flavor. Nearly everyone wants to feel special, and many do not want the homogeneous world you seem to desire.
I used to subscribe to the "Santa Fean", which is "an art, culture, dining, history and lifestyle magazine in Santa Fe, New Mexico." If a city of 60K inhabitants can have its own city-centered publication, then a city of millions can certainly have its own.
I now live in Sweden, which has a smaller population that the NYC area. When Swedes cover international news, they often describe it with a Swedish viewpoint, or how it affects Swedes. Do you think Swedes are using "repeated regional stereotypes"? Or that Swedes are not a "cosmopolitan and well-educated audience"?
To wire it _back_ with rail, you mean. What is now the Expo line from Downtown to Santa Monica was, in 1875, the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad.
And in some cases it really doesn't make that much sense. I think there is definitely some urban vanity at play with the huge investment in train spending. Would personally love to see more bus rapid transit lines.
Commuter from Seattle here. BRT is an improvement here (I'm on it now) but vastly inferior to rail. Downtown to UW is 10 minutes on rail. My similar distanced BRT commute is 25-60 minutes.
Grade separated rail makes a gigantic difference and moves leagues more humans faster than BRT could dream of.
Unless BRT gets dedicated lanes it's no better than any other bus, except it stops is fewer places more often.
I thought, and wikipedia agrees, that BRT implies dedicated lanes, for at least the majority of the route.
There's lots of little improvements that could be made to bus transport, for similar money to trains, I think a big part of it is just wanting to be responsible for big construction, whether to get kickbacks or to just a more straightforward ego boost.
Apart from the relatively few places accessible by train, bus coverage is pretty extensive. If you live anywhere near a rapid bus stop (along Sunset, Wilshire, or Santa Monica for example) you'll be fine. Also, since Metro publishes real time arrival data, there is a healthy collection of apps that give you to-the-minute arrival times for the next bus.
source: I have lived in East Hollywood / Silverlake / Echo Park for the last 8 years, never with a car. I bike, walk, bus, train, lyft/uber (in that order).
With the disclosure that my girlfriend had a car, I did pretty well in Santa Monica without one for years (pre Uber). There were enough bus lines that went through there that it wasn't a big problem. However anytime you needed to get somewhere that required a transfer it really extended the trip.
Speaking from experience, you can easily get by without a car in DTLA, Santa Monica, Echo Park, Highland Park, Chinatown, Koreatown, and Venice (west of Lincoln Blvd). You could probably get away with it in Hollywood/Silver Lake/Los Feliz too.
I went carless in Pasadena and I could get around town, to downtown LA and to places on the northeast side OK using the Gold Line (5 minute walk from my apartment). Unfortunately many of the Pasadena stations are in less-than walkable areas. Making it to social events outside of the Gold Line's coverage area was hard (connecting through DTLA sucks, will be improved when the regional connector is built). I'm sure things would have been better with a bike and had Uber been around when I was doing that.
Good list. Pasadena, Silver Lake, Echo Park. I'm sure it works in Venice and SM too, although I don't have personal experience with it. K-town or mid-Wilshire might be OK too.
My experience was that buses in LA smelled like piss and were in disrepair. The two times I tried to give the buses a chance in Hollywood seemed to confirm this. Can you elaborate on the quality of bus transit?
You live in a different LA than I do, it seems. LA residents drive all over the frigging place all the time. It's not like the 405 is evidence of judicious use of private transportation.
Sure, you can choose one neighborhood - except your friends chose another one, your employer a third, culture happens elsewhere, and your doctor is always at the other side of the moon. You can make a no-car household work, but you're much more restrained in what you can do, compared to a city with even semi-decent public transport, like Chicago.
Yes, you can take public transport. Pre-expo-line, the 8 miles from my home to work were a 120-150 minute ride. One way. Now, with the expo line, I can do 8 miles in an hour. Whee.
LA residents unfortunately need a car for many instances, because that's the only way to get anywhere without spending a day.
you have the power to improve your own living conditions. you are not a victim of the city you live in. give it a shot, buddy. i'm rooting for you. i believe in you!
Uh, sure. I'll go fix public transit in L.A. Not going to happen in the near term. Plenty of people are trying to improve this, but it's a very slow process. L.A. will, for the foreseeable future, stay a car culture.
But continue rooting. Not that boundless enthusiasm without any plan does anything to change reality, but it's such an L.A. mindset, it's endearing.
Yup. When I lived in Venice I went to great efforts not to cross the 405 for errands unless absolutely necessary (and even then, tried to batch trips if possible). If Expo II had been around I might've taken that across the 405 instead of driving.
By the same token, if you move to the Westside from pretty much anywhere else in LA, you'll get tons of shit from your friends who now have to go over the river and through the woods to see you.
It's not worth it to cross the 405 much. If you stay west it's pretty easy to get around.
The ocean breeze is hard to leave and friends will come visit you all the time if you have adequate parking, live near the beach, and have decent space to hang out.
I rarely visit my buddy because he only has 1 of those things in Venice and I have friends drive upwards of an hour almost every weekend to hang out at my place.
In defense of the LA train system, most of the rolling stock on the Expo line are nice new trains, and Hollywood to Santa Monica via Downtown is almost the most pathological route between major destinations you can take in terms of car vs train.
I've been taking the Expo lately and it's already standing-only crowded during rush hour and heavily used off-peak.
Ya, it's pretty amazing as far as how quickly it gets you from downtown to Santa Monica, and I experienced the same thing. It's already in heavy use.
One complaint, tho, is that the cars don't have decent accommodations for bicyclists, which is really annoying. You basically have to stand/sit w/ your bike all the way.
Also, you still mostly take it in the bum on travel time in the transfers and many bald-spots of decent coverage. I found that to get from Santa Monica to Silverlake, for example, was more convenient on the 704 bus, because there's a spot for your bike, you can sit and work on your computer the whole way, and it's a closer fit for minimizing your talking time/distance, and it's a more direct route.
The train alternative is to find and descend into a red line station, transfer through the greater depths of Union station to the expo line, and then babysit your bicycle all the way to Santa Monica, which is the bulk of the transit time.
Gotta give Santa Monica props tho for the treatment they gave that Santa Monica train station and the surrounding area. I really like it.
Overall, nice stopgap improvement, and when the world improves and human-driven cars are outlawed, it could be paved over and made a thoroughfare that allows only self-driving electric cars to use it, and they could tap into the electric mains for a recharge along the way. :)
The transfer from red->expo is at 7th/Metro, not union station.
Also, I <3 the 704. It's kept me from having to move to the west side. I don't imagine there will be a better route than that unless the purple line actually gets finished some day.
Rail haters never seem to understand that point isn't to replace cars completely. The point is to serve the most heavily used routes in a highly efficient manner.
There was the recent article about how ridership has risen, which signaled great public transport stuff in the US.
Digging only slightly deeper, it was evident that if you took the massive rise in NYC public transportation out, public transportation in the rest of the US, including LA, actually dropped, despite the money being spent on it.
The reason while not established, appears to be because instead of making existing systems more reliable, and better connected, the money has been spent on vanity projects. An isolated light rail here, and a Park and Ride which doesn't connect to anything there.
As a carless person who's considering moving to SoCal -- specifically the San Gabriel Valley -- in about a year or so (only because upcoming legislation next spring is likely to force me out of Texas), articles like these are much appreciated. I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to get around if I move there. I'm used to public transportation not being super awesome (I'd call the public transit where I live half-decent, emphasis on half, and I get around fine), and worst comes to worst I can take Lyft or Uber everywhere, but more transit is always good, and I'd like to know what I'm getting into if I move.
Yes. The Gold Line extension is going to have a huge impact on the SGV.
I don't live in the SGV, but the impact of the Gold Line on the Chinatown-Highland Park-Pasadena corridor [which it reached years ago, before the recently-completed extension] has been very significant, including lots of denser housing within Pasadena and sharp increases in house prices along Figueroa parallel to the Gold Line. I expect the extension to have an even greater impact over time.
In California, tax measures like the bond measures supporting transit investment have to be passed with a 2/3rd majority. Yet Los Angeles County voters have steadily supported them. A ballot measure is likely coming in November, raising $120B for transportation. It includes highway funding, but it's a massive contribution to transit investment.
Angelenos are massively in favor of transit investment. Now their motive can be ambiguous, maybe they just want other people off the streets to alleviate their traffic. But still, they support massive investments.
They're slowly making progress towards the purple line extension from Korea Town west as well. Won a lawsuit against Beverly Hills trying to block it in 2015
But when I read that taxi companies and parking lot owners prevented the Green line from reaching the LAX airport, I'm like: wow. This is really a weird world, in which we live.
Uber ran a promo recently when the expo line opened to discount uber pool to or from a station. Uber/Lyft has already beaten the taxis opposition to picking up at LAX. They don't seem to think of these transit options as threat like the taxis do. Maybe more public transit enables more people to ditch personal cars and increase both public transit and uber. I know that my Uber use has increased after moving to more bike commuting.
The new trains and stuff are nice. Some of the other aspects of this "Mobility Plan" are really annoying. The main one I dislike is how some already incredibly busy streets have had a whole lane sliced out for a bike lane. It's usually empty, and not that safe, because of people turning right across it.
I get that everyone having a car in LA is not a way to allow greater density, but, it's reality for now and making everyone in that reality suffer isn't a great way to get re-elected. More light rail lines, awesome, making driving a car more miserable than it is, not so much.
The opposite of that, addressing current concerns, is what created the mess of LA to begin with. Here's some examples:
In the 1920s, to alleviate traffic on a specific downtown to miracle mile commute, macarthur park was split in half and wilshire was cut through the middle of the park. The park remains split in 2016 due to this 1920s era problem.
In the 1950s, due to a lack of downtown parking, pershing square was gutted to be a multi-level underground parking structure with a poorly accessible park on top. Now in 2016, when we want a walkable city, many lament that our one central park is really just a multi-level parking lot.
The central problem here is that when city policy crafts a solution with 80 years of consequences to alleviate a 3 year problem, the urban landscape becomes disjointed and short-sighted.
Instead, this concept, which includes things like bike lanes, high density dwellings, and trains, are people trying to come up with 80 year solutions that are forward thinking.
There's been a problem getting all the right funding and public support on board but it's far easier today then what it took to get that first train to long beach open in 1990. The newer high density housing is still not pedestrian accessible, but that is changing in the buildings that are being planned right now and will be complete in a few years.
I think LA is attracting the right people and fostering the right attitude for a workable city that will blossom with sustainability, creativity, and livability in the upcoming generation.
> In the 1950s, due to a lack of downtown parking, pershing square was gutted to be a multi-level underground parking structure with a poorly accessible park on top. Now in 2016, when we want a walkable city, many lament that our one central park is really just a multi-level parking lot.
I think [Grand Park] might be the New Central Park™. But it is, to your point, divided into three sections by streets cutting through the middle of it. =(
The upper two levels have been parks and plaza space since 1966 when it was called El Paseo de Los Pobladores de Los Angeles or just Civic Center Mall. Prior to that the lower level had been a parking lot and there was a road that cut through the center, leading to city hall. They cut the lower parking lot into the park in the 2010 project you talk about.
So yes, grand park has been gradually growing in size for about 50 years. It certainly now has a more memorable name. It's going in a good direction...
Cars make surpassing a certain level of urban density really difficult. As parts of LA are getting there, people are finding out they really can't do it and at the same time allocate enough space for everyone to have their own car. The divorce of the 60s onward happend as a physical necessity. I think LA is growing past such reactionary urban planning. I hope so
Very true. I also hope all of this finds some sort of equitable way to de-sprawl somewhat. Transit in LA does have such an interesting history of missteps. Can you imagine what things might be like if they never got rid of the red car system?!
The red car was a loss leader for real estate development. It was hastily and cheaply constructed for short term profit, not carefully planned for long term growth and utility.
Almost all crossings were at-grade and rail was being converted to bus as early as 1925.
Trains were being pulled up after the property was sold and many lines averaged under 13 mph as the density and car traffic increased.
The rail lines themselves were cheap material. Many lines were closed when they became too costly to repair.
The anarchy of free market competition is a poor substitute for thoughtful urban planning.
Biking is a way more efficient way of getting around a downtown core. It makes more sense to ban cars downtown (except freight and emergency) than to effectively ban bikes by not having bike lanes.
Not sure how many people bike there, but if they make driving even worse, and people notice an empty bike lane, maybe it will encourage them to try hoping on a bike instead, whenever possible?
Pretty much with bike lanes it's a "build it and they'll come" situation. If you don't have protected bike lanes and biking is unsafe, you don't get a lot of cyclists. The bike lanes may look empty now, but you have to build some degree of a complete network for the whole thing to work and for bicycling to become an appealing alternative to driving a car.
Looking at it another way, how many people would drive from A to B if the road narrowed to a single lane and became a pothole filled dirt road? It probably wouldn't be an appealing commute.
>Pretty much with bike lanes it's a "build it and they'll come" situation
not just with bike lanes - this works for most transportation infrastructure, and in both directions. If you take away a car lane, less people choose to drive. If you add a car lane, you don't get less congestion, you get more people driving. People choose the optimal route, and there's a lot more people going places than the current road network can accommodate. you can keep widening roads for a long time without having much impact on congestion. If you want to actually fix the roads, you need to improve the more efficient means of transportation, like bicycle lanes and mass transit.
I would say the main deterrent to riding a bike in LA is the fact the city is not dense, not the lack of bike lanes. Very few folks can afford to live anywhere close to where they work in LA. I don't know how one would solve that fairly, but, I don't think making bike lanes where they have little use (e.g. where it is a bedroom community) helps.
I wonder how many people are actually in the situation that they commute some unpleasant distance to work, wishing they could live nearer, while meanwhile someone occupying a pleasant apartment near there work is doing the reverse every morning?
Actually, yeah. They added them on Foothill Blvd in Tujunga a while back. I seriously have never seen anyone ride a bike in one, and I drive around there at least weekly. Vineland between Lankershim and the 101 is also a good example, but that's a bit denser. The lane is just huge though.
Quite a few people bike here in my anecdotal experience. However, LA suffers from the same problems as SF. Certain areas are becoming impossible to afford, so if you work in or near those areas you have to live very far out and commute a distance that's not realistically bikeable. (And also some people have disabilities that make biking unrealistic.) People in my office are commuting from over 30 miles away. In fact, some are commuting from Orange County up to LA's west side.
Unprotected bike lanes are scary. I avoid them whenever possible for the reason you mentioned.
Long Beach has the right idea when it comes to bike lanes. They are protected by raised pavement so distracted or aggressive drivers can't just merge into them.
In the case of the trial DTLA Broadway road diet, auto lanes were removed for a bike lane, yes, but also to allow for wider sidewalks. This space is being used (e.g.) for sidewalk tables outside of the Grand Central Market.
> I get that everyone having a car in LA is not a way to allow greater density, but, it's reality for now and making everyone in that reality suffer isn't a great way to get re-elected.
Got any great advice for changing the status quo? ;)
As for the complaints of old trains and scuffed up seats - the train isn't new. I've ridden it downtown occasionally for the last 3 years or so. What's new is the part from Culver City to Santa Monica. It didn't used to go out that far.
It's like the author didn't bother to check the actual facts or history of the project. This was a stupid article.