What's wrong with L.A. Public Transportation?

Before you go off being an uninformed smart aleck again, consider this: In 1998, 65% of Los Angeles County voters approved a ballot measure sponsored by County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky that barred the use of county sales tax money for all future subway projects. What was your vote?

And the 20-year old federal law outlawing tunneling in the Wilshire corridor?

NYC subways were built by private companies paying people with near slave wages. The transit managers there are managing a grandfathered system, and guess what--The amount of service has actually decreased since the 1940s as many elevated railways were torn down, and finding funding for underground replacements has proven difficult.

They have added a total of 0 rail extensions in the past 30 years. LA Metro has added 78 miles in 15 years.

You are blaming current leadership for the mistakes of the past, just as you are crediting NYC leaders for the successes of the past. Doing either is wrong.

Pay attention to what's going on in the present and you might realize why the MTA has recently won it's APTA award. No other system in the United States has been aggressively expanding its rail services as much as LA has been doing. Money for both the projects you mentioned is not stored up and spent--it is granted by other entities. In both of those cases, the money came from the state--if the money didn't go to those projects, then the money would have gone to other projects in the state. It does not in any way preclude the possibility of a subway extension in the future.

The Green Line extension is not dead. 2 things: they have decided to reinitiate a commission that will look specifically at that issue, and the city has just ponied up money to study the possibility of linking the Green Line and Expo Line at Lincoln Blvd. Just look right here.

Knowledge is power. Power will prevent you from sounding like a raving misinformed person.
 

Metro-la wrote:
It should be asked whether the current build plans of the exposition line, along with the recent Orange bus line in the Valley are more bad than good. They're obviously good since any addition to the Los Angeles transportation network is urgently needed. Yet, thinking about the future, what can beat the subway? Why not expand the redline westward instead of building the exposition rail? Why not consolidate money for a subway in place of the orange bus line? Do they even think of that? I know the mayor does, as do a few others. But there still seems to be a short-sighted priority taking place of a long-term solution to traffic congestion and efficient populous mobility in the city.

These questions are being asked, and are studied thoroughly. The issues you bring up are not new.

Remember: Expo Line is a done deal. Construction is imminent, and is on track to open to Culver City in 4 years.

The Purple Line has momentum, but no commitment to study or implementation. Even though it is a decades-old idea, the Purple Line extension along Wilshire Boulevard must get a new major investment study, and then engineering studies can begin.

Is it the bus rider union that's forcing the MTA to up the ante rather than delay for something better due to often miserable conditions?

You don't know the Bus Riders Union well enough. The Bus Riders Union wants a bus-only system, and not only no new rail extensions, but also dismantling existing rail lines as well.

The Bus Riders Union is not a deliberative member organization. It is Eric Mann's prerogatives and an army to create the appearance of an organization. Eric Mann is a failed organizer at the old General Motors plant in Van Nuys, and when it shut down, he turned his attention to other Marxist causes. He hit paydirt with the Bus Riders Union. He had already laid out, in textbook Leninist fashion, a narrative of the past, demands of the present and visions of the future. It wasn't a group of disgruntled bus riders, but Mann and a cadre of paid organizers drawn from colleges and leftist organizations.

The call for more buses is more about Mann wishing to create the number of bus driving jobs that were lost when the GM plant closed.

The Green Line to LAX is already confirmed a loser because someone believed a bus from Downtown L.A was better.

The Green Line still needs a major investment study. It is still in the good idea phase.

The FlyAway is a service of Los Angeles World Airports, with some funding provided by Metro. They are different and unrelated.

Now the Metro Red line's extension is apparently also becoming a loser in favor of the exposition line.

No, because Expo is a done deal. The subway extension is not even formally studied. Getting one is not conditioned on giving up on the other.

Well, if NYC public transit was being managed by LA's public transit leaders, that's what might have happened.

We did have a CEO from New York. Franklin White. He was here during 1994, the year of infamy. He made the subway such a high priority that we nearly lost all weekend and night service. That was New York thinking at work. Among other notable things during his tenure was the killing of what would have been an electric trolleybus network in Los Angeles.

The damn asses in the MTA clearly never ride the bus or trains themselves.

A lot of them do, especially now, because they and their families can ride transit for free.

The problem is that you'd think empathy would change the system. It wouldn't. Metro employees would still look at the system as professionals, not as riders.

In NYC the mayor rides the subway to work. You couldn't blame him for being out of touch with NYC's transit realities.

That same mayor also engineered a buyout and takeover of a half dozen private bus companies who had franchises in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx.

It is a great idea on paper, but has produced a financial and operational crisis.

My dog could do a better job in his sleep. He'd make sure that people at least got to and from their jobs reliably.

You owe it to your readers to actually follow through on this idea. Think of all the page views you would get. :>
 

I'm don't deny your facts, and even knew about some of them. I don't even deny that much has improved during the past years.

I'm venting on the basis of experiences on the ground. Connecting the dots of what is obvious incompetence, neglect, results in a picture that forms the platform for "rant".

You provide the reasons, and the facts. But everything has a reason and anything can be explained 'factually'. So what? Say, for instance, if a killer gets away with a shooting in South Central, do you think the victim's family will care that LAPD is underfunded? No, they will conclude that something is wrong and that it needs to change, right away.
If the status quo remains, now that can be explained by apathy or other less than defendable grounds.
See, what I'm saying?

Consider this:

At Metro Bus line No 'X', the crowds keep congregating at the stops. Still, after years. Now, why can't a couple extra buses be added to that line for? If the funds are lacking then where's the lobbying? It appears that nobody cares.

As for empathy not making any difference. Well, how about decency? If a flight company discovers that the airconditioners of their boeings are dysfunctional during takeoffs, and that their passengers are perspirating, they might not feel "sorry" for those passengers, but if they had decency they would feel embarrassed enough to do something about it quick. Sure, that might also be about profit. But if the MTA cares neither about profit nor about passengers, then what the hell Do they care about? Is their purpose solely to win awards? Then perhaps they came to L.A for the right reasons but to the wrong field.

I, for sure, will care less, once I return to the car.

Also pete. NYC has no reason to add 78 miles of rail extensions, as their rail network is adequate. Los Angeles MTA did a great job in building the subway. But what if they didn't, but continued to neglect the issue? It would be undefendable rather.
 

Do you remember that voters in LA voted against increasing sales tax to be used for more police just 2 years ago?

Or that voters voted 8 years ago to deny funding for subway construction?

Or even in the 70s, when voters denied funding for a creation of a comprehensive BART-like system in LA?

You keep talking about the public outcry that should demand MTA do more. Or even your example about the underfunded LAPD. I say, just look at the way Angelenos have voted over the years, and it is much more likely that there is outcry AGAINST expanding MTA services. The voters show that they very much like the status quo. If you look at all the roadblocks that citizens throw up everytime the MTA wants to create a new line, you'll see even more of that.

Those are the facts.
 

It's true. Voters are not much better. We've also seen it in miniscule tax increases that would increase police officers, but 'no, not in my backyard'.

So, for sure, voters are idiotic in that sense and surely a reason for many lackings. But that still doesn't excuse MTA for behaving like a prick, got it?


Rather, Because public transportation is so underfunded, the more attitudes weigh, and the more amplified misbehavior or bad services become.
 

This discussion was originally focused on the way Metro pursues it's capital projects. Once anybody brought up relevant facts on the issue, you responded by moving the discussion away from the original subject, and start stressing things like an overcrowded bus stop or current bad services. None of your comments even references the original issue of your post.

"Also pete. NYC has no reason to add 78 miles of rail extensions, as their rail network is adequate."

That was my point: you can't compare apples to oranges. LA transit leaders are focused on building a network, something that NY transit leaders have no experience in since they operate a grandfathered network.
 

It's possible that I diverted from the original post. But the vein through this blog is that of how MTA meets and treats its customers. The post was in relation to that.

You appear to be defending the MTA. That also leads to divertion. So MTA focuses on building a network. What am I supposed to say then. That everythings fine?
That appears to be your point, therefore I must underscore the things that I'm taking issue with.


Much of the post were not statements, but questions. You answered them and I see no need to continue asking or arguing about it. I didn't intend to make flat out statements, but more of a questioning type. If that didn't come across clearly, then, well, it's my bad.

Also, I agree that it's unfair to compare apples with oranges. But it's not unfair to ask why the disparities exist in the first place. I've said it a trillion times, that if the MTA managed its current services reasonably well, there wouldn't be an urge to compare them to better ones. But as it stands with all the rude drivers, delays and overcrowding, as well as the inadequate network, it's not the case.
 

You said:
At Metro Bus line No 'X', the crowds keep congregating at the stops. Still, after years. Now, why can't a couple extra buses be added to that line for? If the funds are lacking then where's the lobbying? It appears that nobody cares.

Here is yet another reality check for you. One of the reasons Metro got the APTA award is because it has aggresively added bus service over the years as demand grew stronger.

Let's take, as an example, one of the highest ridership corridors in the San Fernando Valley, Line 163 across Sherman Way. In 1992, right before RTD was replaced with MTA, the weekday midday service (called "base period" in transit operations, because all levels of service are based on what midday ridership is and then adjusted upward for rush hour and downward for night service) was 20 minutes. Weekend service was 30 minutes. Rush hour was also 20 minutes.

Fast forward to today. Base is 15 minutes, Saturday is 12 minutes, rush hour is 7-10 minutes, Sunday is 20 minutes. That is an increase of one bus per hour middays and Sundays, three buses per hour Saturdays, and more than twice as many weekday peak hour buses. You call that "less bus service"?

Now, as to the reality about how passengers think vs. how you think they should think. When additional service is added to a line, it does alleviate the overcrowding ... for a while. But then, the passengers realize service is running more frequently and they start riding more because they can depend on there being more service. And, unlike you and the BRU, they will cram onto a bus that is already overcrowded, just because it is there.

Add more buses and they will fill them to overcapacity within a few months. I guarantee it.

The perfect example is the one the BRU keeps pointing at as the "problem with Metro". Line 720, the Metro Rapid line on Wilshire, started in 2000 with around 40 buses in service during rush hour. Today, it has close to 100 buses on the street -- most of which have a capacity of 50% more than the buses used in 2000 -- and even with rush hour service scheduled every two minutes those buses are overcrowded. The reason is that you cannot get the passengers to buy into the concept of leaving some capacity for other passengers.

To paraphrase an old saying: Add more buses, and they will come more.
 

It's true that buses would be filled up, somewhat, as you added more of them.

But whatever, the issue is that as of Now, there isn't enough frequency between bus arrivals. It's not that the schedules are crammed and each bus is full, but when buses arrive after a 40 minutes wait, well, it's quite obvious that there is a problem to stride against.

On lines where buses run with adequate intervals, people can sense that, and it's much easier to accept a packed bus when you know the next one will arrive in just ten minutes or less. Because you know the city is doing its best. But when it takes 30-40 minutes for a bus to arrive, well, you can't blame those who complain that the MTA sucks. Clearly more buses would alleviate the crowd, if not eliminate it.

The sights of passengers standing idly at bus stops in big crowds, is somehow unique to L.A. In many other great cities people get picked up fast, and at least, certainly, don't have to wait 40 minutes on top of having to ride on an overcrowded bus. One could reason the way you're doing now, and simply stop adding buses, as well as trains, all together on the basis that they'll get crammed sooner or later anyway. But first, let's not ignore that waiting time is also a huge issue. Having to wait ruins the day as it breaks people's daily rythms.
Moreover, more buses do make a difference. If you hadn't noticed, before they added buses on Wilshire, it was common that riders almost fell into the rider's seat, because the buses were totally overfull. It was directly unsafe. Nowadays, most people at least have seats, or when they don't, at least have room to take a step to the side or the other. Earlier on, that was impossible, especially on the Wilshire corridor.

As for rewards. The whole point is that no-one is interested in MTA winning awards, what they are interested in are results. If the service was already good, those awards could be like an extra snack. But it's not the case. MTA's service still sucks, ok. And having to read about an agency patting itself on the back for winning awards, is almost more of a provocation than any form of happiness. You wait 40 minutes for a damn bus, and tell me you'll jubilate when the MTA wins awards, once you've already lost your patience. And it happens over and over again.

I know you love the MTA, and have a right to do so. But realize that this blog was spawned out of frustrations with the MTA, and that I don't invent problems here.
I don't deny that the MTA has done some good things, but writing about what's good with the MTA wouldn't make any sense, since a transit agency OUGHT TO be good. And if it was, then why blog about it.
Also, the MTA already takes so well care of highlighting what's good about them, so it's yet another reason for why I should do the opposite. Yet, sometimes I do write about positive things too.
 

Great discussion!
 

Thanks for your comment lastraphanger.