Public transportation works best as a dense and highly interconnected network. When you're first building out a system, it's just a patchwork, and so not very useful. At some point you reach a certain "critical mass", and suddenly your low ridership turns into overcrowding. Low ridership doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of interest in public transportation, it just means that for most individuals it isn't the most practical choice yet. From this perspective, it makes perfect sense to support expansion of the network even if you don't use it.
To add to your comment about density of the transportation network itself, you also need housing/commercial density near those transit stops to feed people into the transportation network. Real estate developers aren't going to lead the charge in areas where housing/commercial density doesn't yet exist without an incentive (demographics, transit, etc.) and in the case of transportation density there is arguably no better incentive for developers because they can be guaranteed that people will "show up," en masse, at mass transit stops like moths to flame. Not hard to justify building at those locations (note that there is a difference, one I don't have the ability to quantify/source, between bus stops every block or two and light or heavy rail stops with the latter being much more compelling to the developer).
Specific to LA, here are a couple of projects where moths -> flame -> incentivized developers:
This exactly describes LA compared to places like Munich or Paris. In Munich I can easily get to most places using public transport without much planning and it will overall be competitive with driving time in a car. In Los Angeles there are a few lines here and there but it requires a ton of planning and often takes three times as long as a drive would take. My commute takes 35 minutes by car and would take more than 3 hours with public transport.
I'm a "sometimes" user of transport. I own a car and it's probably my most frequent form of transport outside my legs. I'm lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where I can walk to a grocery store, two restaurant/retail dense streets, a mall, and even a university, so that's fun. If I'm meeting/visiting friends across the city, though, there's rarely public transport options that aren't going to triple or quadruple travel time. So, I often drive.
But not always. Some routes have convenient travel times -- for example, I can get from LAX to my house for $1 on a bus. Metro to downtown LA or Santa Monica is pretty convenient and lets me skip parking hassles/fees. Throw a rideshare into the mix and you can get pretty great coverage.
And as a sometimes transit user, I can tell you that buses and trains are definitely not empty -- sometimes they're uncomfortably crowded. People are absolutely using them, even if not everybody uses them all the time.
So I was happy to support Measure M, be a sometimes transit user, and hope that I can become a more frequent one as options expand.
About the only real complaint I have isn't really a transit network one per se -- the modern society-wide issues of homelessness, mental health, and drugs spill over into every public space. Cars and curated neighborhoods can give you a bubble of comfort, but don't solve the problem. So I voted for Measure H (among others) in hopes of seeing solutions there, too.
Yeah, I'm in a similar position. When the Expo line was expanded to Santa Monica, I was actually working in the building next to the final Santa Monica stop. But my house wasn't on the train line, so I would have had to somehow get to the train to take it in, but I would have only been riding like 3 stops. It doesn't make sense to drive to the train in that case, and riding a bike wasn't a realistic options because of the traffic I'd have to get through. (There were parts that would have been dangerous for a bike.) On the other hand, my yearly mileage is around 4-6k miles, so I don't feel like I'm contributing too badly to the problem.
A coworker of mine was out in South Pasadena and tried taking the train one day. His normally 45 minute commute turned into an hour and 50 minutes one way. There's no way that makes sense.
I've since moved, as has our office. I still live about 3 miles from work, so overall very low mileage each year. I looked up bus schedules as both my house and work are near bus stops. My one-way commute time would go from about 15-20 minutes to 50-60 minutes. That's just stupid. I have a family I'd like to see and making my commute 3-4 times as long just isn't worth it.
I'm all for public transportation, but if it doesn't go where I need to in a timely manner, it's useless.
it's really annoying to read 2 conflicting accounts, the one in the article and yours, on ridership... the article makes it appear as if people voted for measure M in the hopes "that the rest would start using publiic transport" to have less traffic congestion in their cars.
Considering your karma I am more inclined to believe you than the article.
But even if the article were correct: it suggests that people in the cars don't mind if money is spent to persuade people to use public transport, perhaps a system can be set up such that gas taxes are levied and used to sponsor people to use public transit? Without the price of the ticket going negative of course, but arbitrarily low until congestion is tolerable?
Of course if both the roads and public transit vehicles are congested, then Measure M was simply not successfully executed or planned, as it promised to ease congestion...
I'm sorry, is this supposed to be some big "gotcha" or evidence of inconsistent decision-making?
>Instead, the top predictors of whether a voter supported Measure M were their political party and their frustration with congestion.
You can believe the transit will be good for congestion even if you don't expect to personally use it. Are you confused if you're an East Bay-SF commuter who drives and also supports BART capacity expansion?
Edit: Furthermore, transit is hard to quickly scale up or down. It can be reasonable to support expansions now, even not realizing you might find it useful later as traffic gets more choked.
You are missing an important point of the article. Voters for this measure believed increased transit would reduce congestion for drivers, but it doesn’t usually work that way in practice. Even the most transit-friendly cities in the world have clogged freeways.
The benefits of increased transit is significant and worth supporting, but reduced congestion is not one of those benefits.
I've lived in LA for 3 years and voted to support Measure M. My take on this is that by increasing the capacity for public transit, we'll be able to support a continuously growing city. One of the ticket items that got me to support Measure M is funding for the Sepulveda Transit Pass, which will build a train route from Sherman Oaks to UCLA and down to Culver City and ultimately connect to the Purple Line.
The problem with the graph is that it doesn't factor in population growth, which seems to have grown from 3.2 million to 6.9 million from 1970 to 10 million 2013. If you calculated the miles travelled in transit per year, you'll interpret many folks in LA benefit from the Measures.
As a result, I believe the article is disingenuous by attacking a successful measures by relying on poorly interpreted data.
I don't see how the effectiveness for something like public transit could be measured so quickly, especially over a phone call. It's barely been 2 years.
After it's built it'll take a couple decades for housing developers and businesses to properly exploit the ease of transportation to them.
I agree. I’m certainly holding out lots of hope. It would be interesting to survey people who recently moved to or within LA, and figure out what % moved to anticipated subway accessible locations — that should at least be a leading indicator of willingness to use transit.
I think the article is not in disagreement with you - probably the headline was drafted to generate clicks, but the substance of the article is different in tone. Mostly the article points out that the transportation system is complex, and building capacity is a necessary but not sufficient step.
IMHO, the congestion that we see now in LA freeways - much worse than in, say, the 1990s - will provide a slow incentive toward re-orientation of business and homes along transit lines.
I would LOVE to have a viable public transportation option here in LA. Its not an understantement to say it would transform the city. Ridership is not going to increase though until the city deals with the massive safety and sanitation concerns that exist at present. I’ve witnessed fights, muggings, people defecating themselves, drug use, and open harassment while riding. The trains are unpredictable to schedule around and on the average, slower than driving. There’s also the last mile problem which is starting to get solved by scooter services and such but if you look at a city like London you get a glimpse of what could be.
Which lines? I mostly use the red, purple and expo lines whose schedule is fairly frequent and easy to schedule around. Also, I have not really noticed these concerns in my rides. The worst thing so far were some people selling incense on the train and some drunk people arguing on their way home.
> I’ve witnessed fights, muggings, people defecating themselves, drug use, and open harassment while riding.
+1
don't forget very loud music playing out of someone's boombox (no doubt for the benefit of all other riders)
another joyful aspect of some of LA's public transport lines is you never know what you're sitting on: some guy who's just pissed himself may have been the previous occupant of your seat, or someone was walking on it or propping their feet on it. OTOH, I've been quite impressed with the cleanliness and comfort of one of the Commuter Express bus lines.
A man was pissing on my bus stop at Venice/Centinela a few weeks ago. This bus stop is right next to a Starbucks, everyone can pee at Starbucks and he was pissing on the bus bench.
Roads are public transit. Used by the public for transportation. Roads that were open to everyone (the public) were the first major implementation of public transit. This allowed everyone with a good path for quick walking and carts (horses and carriages, if you were wealthy). Fast, private, point-to-point transportation is what people desire (that is what walking is) and I don't think they are wrong wanting that option. Historically people in LA love their cars and the fact that cars allows most people in LA to own a piece of land (your home is your castle) while still being part of one of the largest cities on earth.
Not every place needs to try and be like all the others. Los Angeles is not like London and should not want to be. Give me something different. How about a LA basin wide measure that supports the building of a huge network of tunnels that can carry electric trains, buses and small vehicles a la "The Boring Company". I bet people would get behind that if the city leaders could, for just a moment, get past the idea that evil "cars" (ie. their constituents) would use those tunnels along with "public" transport.
I can't say the findings presented in this article are surprising.
That said, I currently reside abouts Downtown Los Angeles and have no car. I find I'm in walking distance to most places I'd like to go, though I realize I have a much higher tolerance for walking than most people. I've found it usually takes no more than one bus/train route to get to places outside of my walking range, say an hours ride or so (which I don't mind as I usually read during this time). Public transportation has been serving me well. Granted, I'm in the densest part of Los Angeles. I'd like to see the survey results overlaid on a map of the county. Those in the more sprawled out portions of Los Angeles County probably don't feel any benefit to increased public transportation spending.
An aside: I find the typeface this website uses for its headings to be terrible.
What the fudge happened? This story was posted yesterday, as was my comment (shows one day ago in my profile [1]), but now that same comment is showing "1 hour ago" if you go directly to it[2] and this story, 3 hours ago.
I know mods move comments, but I've never seen them reset the timestamps.
Urban traffic congestion is a difficult, complex problem. So, instead of the nontrivial question posed by the proposition on the ballot of "Would this measure succeed in its stated goal, in the face of evidence that prior attempts have failed, and have the factor(s) which caused the prior failures been mitigated?" the simpler question that the mind solves is (and, given the results, answered in the positive) "I hate traffic. This measure claims it will help. Should I support it?"
Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" is a damned good read on these sorts of things.
Congestion is an unsolvable problem. If there's congestion it just means that those people have a higher tolerance (or less alternatives) for sitting in traffic (or standing on a clusterfuck of a subway platform) than whatever your threshold is for deciding what is and isn't "congestion".
Consjestion isn't just about cars. You can generalize it to all forms of transit (MTA anyone?).
You can't "solve" congestion. At best you can add additional capacity (of the same type or a different type) in order to reduce the amount of time when congestion is at its worst. Instead of "rush hour" being from 3-7 increased capacity (of any type, people will naturally load balance by choosing the least worst option for their situation) could potentially make it only from 4-6 by allowing the same number of trips to happen in less time.
If you add capacity (of any type) and congestion is unchanged that is still a win because it means more trips are being taken which is an indication of more stuff getting done, more commerce, higher quality of life).
> Demographically, the average Measure M supporter resembled someone with a very high likelihood of driving: They owned cars, enjoyed free parking at home and work, and had higher incomes.
Most people in LA drive. They own at least one car, and parking is not scarce. Are we supposed to be shocked and dismayed that people who want to fund competent mass transit don't use a system that fails to meet their needs?
> So party identity strongly swayed voters.
It might be fun to call transit supporters a bunch of party-first limousine liberals, but the dull conclusion is that Republicans reflexively vote against taxation measures.
The article does get at that, but the headline is clickbait and consideration of "likelihood to use transit" in a place with mass transit as messed up as LA is a red herring.
If I'm reading the chart correctly, rail trips have steadily increased since the city started building it. And that's with only 110 miles of track, which seems absurd for a city the size of LA.
For comparison, Denver's RTD has 90 miles of track, and I know from living there that it's not nearly enough. People would love to take it, but it's such a limited deployment most of the time they can't. We've even voted for tax increases to build track between Denver and Boulder, but RTD and the other government agencies are dragging their feet.
So the voter behavior seems completely logical to me. People want to use transit, but they can't until it's built up.
Uh, the graph in this very article shows rail ridership increasing from 1% in 1991 to 25% in 2016. So, if that's what "don't use it" means, ok, I suppose 25% is still less than 50%, so perhaps most trips aren't taken using rail. But It sure seems like progress to me, if we assume that a train can hold more people than a bus, and so do better at peak times.
This seems like an article trying to hold off an increasing support for transit rail, perhaps worried by the fact that urban support for it (in L.A. at least) seems to be increasing.
Has any metropolitan area ever gotten car usage to meaningfully decrease? Yeah there are cities that have high (and increasing) transit ridership, but they never had high car ridership.
Once someone starts tasting driving, they're hooked on it. The best bet for transit would be to market to the next generation.
Say two conflicting groups (perhaps one electrified light rail plan and one DMU plan that basically follow the same path) get their questions on the same ballot, and both pass. What happens?
[+] [-] thescriptkiddie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harmmonica|7 years ago|reply
Specific to LA, here are a couple of projects where moths -> flame -> incentivized developers:
https://urbanize.la/post/renderings-revealed-1200-unit-cumul...
http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2019/jan/22/1b-crossroads-...
[+] [-] maxxxxx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wwweston|7 years ago|reply
I'm a "sometimes" user of transport. I own a car and it's probably my most frequent form of transport outside my legs. I'm lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where I can walk to a grocery store, two restaurant/retail dense streets, a mall, and even a university, so that's fun. If I'm meeting/visiting friends across the city, though, there's rarely public transport options that aren't going to triple or quadruple travel time. So, I often drive.
But not always. Some routes have convenient travel times -- for example, I can get from LAX to my house for $1 on a bus. Metro to downtown LA or Santa Monica is pretty convenient and lets me skip parking hassles/fees. Throw a rideshare into the mix and you can get pretty great coverage.
And as a sometimes transit user, I can tell you that buses and trains are definitely not empty -- sometimes they're uncomfortably crowded. People are absolutely using them, even if not everybody uses them all the time.
So I was happy to support Measure M, be a sometimes transit user, and hope that I can become a more frequent one as options expand.
About the only real complaint I have isn't really a transit network one per se -- the modern society-wide issues of homelessness, mental health, and drugs spill over into every public space. Cars and curated neighborhoods can give you a bubble of comfort, but don't solve the problem. So I voted for Measure H (among others) in hopes of seeing solutions there, too.
[+] [-] similarInLA|7 years ago|reply
A coworker of mine was out in South Pasadena and tried taking the train one day. His normally 45 minute commute turned into an hour and 50 minutes one way. There's no way that makes sense.
I've since moved, as has our office. I still live about 3 miles from work, so overall very low mileage each year. I looked up bus schedules as both my house and work are near bus stops. My one-way commute time would go from about 15-20 minutes to 50-60 minutes. That's just stupid. I have a family I'd like to see and making my commute 3-4 times as long just isn't worth it.
I'm all for public transportation, but if it doesn't go where I need to in a timely manner, it's useless.
[+] [-] DoctorOetker|7 years ago|reply
Considering your karma I am more inclined to believe you than the article.
But even if the article were correct: it suggests that people in the cars don't mind if money is spent to persuade people to use public transport, perhaps a system can be set up such that gas taxes are levied and used to sponsor people to use public transit? Without the price of the ticket going negative of course, but arbitrarily low until congestion is tolerable?
Of course if both the roads and public transit vehicles are congested, then Measure M was simply not successfully executed or planned, as it promised to ease congestion...
[+] [-] SilasX|7 years ago|reply
>Instead, the top predictors of whether a voter supported Measure M were their political party and their frustration with congestion.
You can believe the transit will be good for congestion even if you don't expect to personally use it. Are you confused if you're an East Bay-SF commuter who drives and also supports BART capacity expansion?
Edit: Furthermore, transit is hard to quickly scale up or down. It can be reasonable to support expansions now, even not realizing you might find it useful later as traffic gets more choked.
[+] [-] r00fus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ninth_ant|7 years ago|reply
The benefits of increased transit is significant and worth supporting, but reduced congestion is not one of those benefits.
[+] [-] vamos_davai|7 years ago|reply
The problem with the graph is that it doesn't factor in population growth, which seems to have grown from 3.2 million to 6.9 million from 1970 to 10 million 2013. If you calculated the miles travelled in transit per year, you'll interpret many folks in LA benefit from the Measures.
As a result, I believe the article is disingenuous by attacking a successful measures by relying on poorly interpreted data.
[+] [-] RobLach|7 years ago|reply
After it's built it'll take a couple decades for housing developers and businesses to properly exploit the ease of transportation to them.
[+] [-] lincolnq|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mturmon|7 years ago|reply
IMHO, the congestion that we see now in LA freeways - much worse than in, say, the 1990s - will provide a slow incentive toward re-orientation of business and homes along transit lines.
[+] [-] vikingcaffiene|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diffeomorphism|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HillaryBriss|7 years ago|reply
+1
don't forget very loud music playing out of someone's boombox (no doubt for the benefit of all other riders)
another joyful aspect of some of LA's public transport lines is you never know what you're sitting on: some guy who's just pissed himself may have been the previous occupant of your seat, or someone was walking on it or propping their feet on it. OTOH, I've been quite impressed with the cleanliness and comfort of one of the Commuter Express bus lines.
[+] [-] angmarsbane|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] njarboe|7 years ago|reply
Not every place needs to try and be like all the others. Los Angeles is not like London and should not want to be. Give me something different. How about a LA basin wide measure that supports the building of a huge network of tunnels that can carry electric trains, buses and small vehicles a la "The Boring Company". I bet people would get behind that if the city leaders could, for just a moment, get past the idea that evil "cars" (ie. their constituents) would use those tunnels along with "public" transport.
[+] [-] byproxy|7 years ago|reply
That said, I currently reside abouts Downtown Los Angeles and have no car. I find I'm in walking distance to most places I'd like to go, though I realize I have a much higher tolerance for walking than most people. I've found it usually takes no more than one bus/train route to get to places outside of my walking range, say an hours ride or so (which I don't mind as I usually read during this time). Public transportation has been serving me well. Granted, I'm in the densest part of Los Angeles. I'd like to see the survey results overlaid on a map of the county. Those in the more sprawled out portions of Los Angeles County probably don't feel any benefit to increased public transportation spending.
An aside: I find the typeface this website uses for its headings to be terrible.
[+] [-] SilasX|7 years ago|reply
I know mods move comments, but I've never seen them reset the timestamps.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=SilasX&next=18968338
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18968338
[+] [-] ravenstine|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] james-mcelwain|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HillaryBriss|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] T3OU-736|7 years ago|reply
Urban traffic congestion is a difficult, complex problem. So, instead of the nontrivial question posed by the proposition on the ballot of "Would this measure succeed in its stated goal, in the face of evidence that prior attempts have failed, and have the factor(s) which caused the prior failures been mitigated?" the simpler question that the mind solves is (and, given the results, answered in the positive) "I hate traffic. This measure claims it will help. Should I support it?"
Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" is a damned good read on these sorts of things.
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|7 years ago|reply
Consjestion isn't just about cars. You can generalize it to all forms of transit (MTA anyone?).
You can't "solve" congestion. At best you can add additional capacity (of the same type or a different type) in order to reduce the amount of time when congestion is at its worst. Instead of "rush hour" being from 3-7 increased capacity (of any type, people will naturally load balance by choosing the least worst option for their situation) could potentially make it only from 4-6 by allowing the same number of trips to happen in less time.
If you add capacity (of any type) and congestion is unchanged that is still a win because it means more trips are being taken which is an indication of more stuff getting done, more commerce, higher quality of life).
[+] [-] futureastronaut|7 years ago|reply
> Demographically, the average Measure M supporter resembled someone with a very high likelihood of driving: They owned cars, enjoyed free parking at home and work, and had higher incomes.
Most people in LA drive. They own at least one car, and parking is not scarce. Are we supposed to be shocked and dismayed that people who want to fund competent mass transit don't use a system that fails to meet their needs?
> So party identity strongly swayed voters.
It might be fun to call transit supporters a bunch of party-first limousine liberals, but the dull conclusion is that Republicans reflexively vote against taxation measures.
The article does get at that, but the headline is clickbait and consideration of "likelihood to use transit" in a place with mass transit as messed up as LA is a red herring.
[+] [-] jlarocco|7 years ago|reply
If I'm reading the chart correctly, rail trips have steadily increased since the city started building it. And that's with only 110 miles of track, which seems absurd for a city the size of LA.
For comparison, Denver's RTD has 90 miles of track, and I know from living there that it's not nearly enough. People would love to take it, but it's such a limited deployment most of the time they can't. We've even voted for tax increases to build track between Denver and Boulder, but RTD and the other government agencies are dragging their feet.
So the voter behavior seems completely logical to me. People want to use transit, but they can't until it's built up.
[+] [-] northerdome|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rossdavidh|7 years ago|reply
This seems like an article trying to hold off an increasing support for transit rail, perhaps worried by the fact that urban support for it (in L.A. at least) seems to be increasing.
[+] [-] inetknght|7 years ago|reply
Show advertisements demonstrating how long it takes to get from A to B and when the service is available to accomplish that.
[+] [-] gok|7 years ago|reply
Once someone starts tasting driving, they're hooked on it. The best bet for transit would be to market to the next generation.
[+] [-] MiddleEndian|7 years ago|reply
Say two conflicting groups (perhaps one electrified light rail plan and one DMU plan that basically follow the same path) get their questions on the same ballot, and both pass. What happens?
[+] [-] gamblor956|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vkou|7 years ago|reply