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ChineseThe Private Auto Saves Time: False
This won’t be a long-winded breakdown on my part about how this (the title above) is a false statement but instead I’ll quote a small bit from “How To Be Free” by Tom Hodgkinson below.
…the Austrian writer and philosopher Ivan Illich once calculated that if you add up all the time you spend on the car, including the trips to the garage and the time spent earning the money to buy the fuel and maintain the vehicle, and divide by the number of miles you travel, then your average speed is 5 mph. You would be faster on a bicycle.
If nothing else it’s a pretty good way to look at the myth that private automobiles are more convenient and faster than public transit or biking.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
One night after a community meeting, the Militant and a couple of his operatives who were at the meeting decided to meet up at an unspecified nonfat frozen yogurt store some 1.5 miles away. The operatives, who were in a car, left before the Militant did, and the Militant got there on his bicycle.
When the Militant arrived at the Fro-Yo place and had finished locking up his bike, the operatives had just pulled up to the parking space, having spent the past several minutes searching for parking.
The Militant told them, “What took you so long?”
the militant wins and so do all those that give up their cars.
couldn’t agree more, on so many levels.
keep up the good work!
Here’s visual proof that the human powered bike beats both cars and buses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef2iXPUYPbI
If you have the guts, you can go as fast as the proposed Pink Line on a motobike through lanesplitting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MQVtEDd5Bo
Yay bikes. Why isn’t more being done to make LA bike friendly? We should look into a program similar to Velib’ in Paris or Bicing in Barcelona.
http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-jtw2004.htm
The US. Census Journey to Work data doesn’t take into account trips to the garage and the time spent earning the money to buy the fuel and maintain the vehicle which is what Tyke’s post was about. Thanks though buddy, we’ve never seen that data before. I’m going to go buy a car now. I’d like to send you some of the time I will save as a thank you, I’ll email it to you. Spend it as you please.
The JTW data doesn’t include all the extra money you earn by having more job choices and automobility either. Be careful what you snark about Fred.
http://www.bts.gov/publications/bts_special_report/2007_10_03/html/table_01.html
Now I’d be the first to admit there is a certain degree of dependent variability in the correlation/association but first I’d need an audience who understands the issues and is mature enough to listen so I could make that admission. Fact is Fred you didn’t know about the socioeconomic benefits of of auto ownership else you’d have never opened your smartass face to embarrass the people who have legitimate points that indicate an overlapping spectrum of modal benefits. And that unspent time you were going to send me? Keep it. Spend it on a clue.
i would argue that the people with that money got those jobs based not on the ability to own a car but their ability to have gone to university and get a higher paying job in the first place (not saying you need higher education for such money, but generally speaking, grads have higher paying jobs). furthermore, that they were raised in a higher income class and therefore were raised on the ideals surrounding the car. where as the the lowest of income classes on that statistic has never had such money to own 1, 2, 3 or more autos, and as we know in this nation, realistically won’t ever have it. them buying a car will not all of a sudden bring them to a higher income bracket as you’re trying to insist.
your stat might be true to some degree, rob, but i think it’s more transparent than you’d like to let on.
Tyke, one of the most effective anti-poverty measures in recent decades has been providing subsidized automobiles to the poor. Actually the upfront costs are not only small but quickly erased by getting people off assistance sooner and through their increased (taxed) earnings power. It isn’t really a controversial subject anymore.
“Fact is Fred you didn’t know about the socioeconomic benefits of of auto ownership else you’d have never opened your smartass face to embarrass the people who have legitimate points that indicate an overlapping spectrum of modal benefits.”
Posting a link to the JTW data is NOT a legitimate point in this case. Which was my point. Thus the snark. If it was the case you wouldn’t have had to make your next argument, but you did, didn’t you? Your further comment indeed could be considered a legitimate point. Of course, even that still doesn’t necessarily refute the point of Tyke’s post, which was about overall MPH.
“Tyke, one of the most effective anti-poverty measures in recent decades has been providing subsidized automobiles to the poor. Actually the upfront costs are not only small but quickly erased by getting people off assistance sooner and through their increased (taxed) earnings power. It isn’t really a controversial subject anymore.”
This echoes what I said in a previous thread… that our car centric society offers very little in the way of freedom and choice. The environment is built in a way that makes life without a car very difficult.
What’s sadder about the Bureau of Transportation Stats you posted is 80.5% of “poor” people DO have cars! 32.6% of them have 2 or 3 cars! Hmm 2 or 3 cars probably puts a pretty nice dent in the budget when you’re making under 25k. Furthermore, I wonder if those “poor” without cars, but with efficient alternatives to get to work (walk, bike, bus, train) are better off financially (ie. able to afford more important things like food, rent, ipods) than those with cars? I would imagine so.
I got an idea. How about we not make owning 3 cars a prerequisite to success? Sound fair?
look everybody at how robdawg has yet again derailed the constructive conversation on this website.
the topic of this post is about how a bicycle is theoretically faster than a car and look what he’s done, altered the focus of the topic to that of his choosing by posting some nonsense data about the percentage of people who drive to work and arrogantly called someone a “smartass” in a desperate attempt to start a flame war.
the focus has now shifted from how great bikes are to subsidizing automobiles for the poor.
are there any moderators out there to make sure the commenters stay on topic, or at least have some class?
Technically I’m the moderator, but I don’t really like to limit anyone’s freedom to speak. I “banned” (in quotes because I simply told him he wasn’t welcome) Rob a few months ago after he called me a liar, claiming I edited the information in a post when I didn’t.
What I don’t understand is what drives someone to come to a site called “Metro Rider” and constantly post comments contrary to the very title and mission. It’s like if I went to the Car and Driver website daily and felt the need to constantly post transit propaganda. I guess I’m just not a troll.
But in the end, I’m to blame. Anytime he posts, I respond, and usually with a long ass comment that just gives him more bait. Sigh.
le sigh
he doesn’t even live in los angeles. i can’t see why what happens in la is even his concern anyway. so it goes.
Fred the problem is that people post things like synthetic 5mph effective speeds by throwing in the time spent getting gas and going to the repair shop and working longer to pay for all that. I posted that in the aggregate auto ownership more than pays for itself in greater income. The correct thing to conclude is that using the same synthetic mph calculation is that auto travel is even faster than is assumed not slower.
Thing is I don’t post propaganda, I refute it. The best way to get effective regional and it has to be regional) transit is to deal with the issues honestly. Commute by transit is generally twice as slow and costs 4x as much and generally results in its users earning less money even when taking into account the massive subsidies they garner as transit users.
There I just said transit is slow and expensive and has socioeconomic costs. Did I say get rid of it or it sucks or whatever?
Automobiles are dangerous, inefficient and have socioeconomic costs along with the benefits described above. I didn’t call for their elimination either.
When you start tossing around “buddy” and “emailing the time you saved” you set the tone. Clearly when the moderator sets the tone it is only expected that people expect it is an acceptable tone.
Nonsense. There are no high-income jobs in this town that couldn’t be commuted to by transit. There are countless wealthy people around the world who even if they have the disposal income to own their own car, chose not to use it to travel to their workplace where they earn that high income.
Furthermore, the fact that I don’t own a car means I don’t make car payments or pay for insurance, gasoline, maintenance, registration, etc., which means I have more money to spend on housing, travel and other areas. I think I have a higher standard of living because I don’t own a car, and I spend my traveling time reading a book/newspaper/magazine rather than looking at the back end of the car in front of me.
Most people in Manhattan don’t own a car and wouldn’t consider owning one and have much greater incomes than here. In London and Paris and most major metropolis’ of the world, car ownership does not increase one’s income and the high income job areas are primarily transit plentiful ones.
The more rail that is built in Los Angeles, the more travel by public transit to their job options people have.
The fact that NBC is moving to Universal City is case in point of how L.A. is changing and will continue to change as our city become more vertical and the quality of single-occupancy motoring continues to decline. That old complaint that “the subway doesn’t go anywhere” is being refuted by “anywhere” going to the subway.
As far as the “subsidy” issue goes, all transportation is subsidized. People who drive a car and think they are better than people who take transit because no one is “subsidizing” their transportation costs need to be reminded that they didn’t pave or maintained their own roads. When’s the last time anyone at the Ayn Rand instituted filled a pothole they drive on?
The golden age and best days of single-occupancy motoring are long behind us and there is nothing that Caltrans or anyone else can do to bring that quality of a single-occupancy motoring based life in Los Angeles back, no matter how much money is spent on roads. Sorry.
People who want that suburban, low-density, single-occupancy motoring lifestyle, and there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting that, will actually have to move to the suburbs to have it, just like every other major metropolitan area on the planet.
Nonsense. There are no high-income jobs in this town that couldn’t be commuted to by transit.
Neurosurgeon, firefighter, plumber.
That’s the problem with absolutes. When you are wrong you look foolish and damage the legitimate points of more thoughtful posters. Was the “nonsense” part necessary? Even if you had said “very few high-income jobs in this town that couldn’t be commuted to by transit” it would have just caused me to put together a list of hundreds such jobs.
Neurosurgeon, firefighter, plumber
and why couldn’t someone take transit for those jobs. The neurosurgeon can take transit to the hospital, the firefighter can take transit to the fire station, then plumber can take transit to the office (assuming they work for a plumbing company in a different area to where the live, if they have a van they park at their house and drive straight to their jobs, then they couldn’t use transit, but then again they are effectively working as soon as they leave the house).
Even if you came up with a list of hundreds, many of which could probably be refuted anyways, it would still be very few relative to the number of high-income jobs in Los Angeles.
i love riding my bike home from work. its fun and feels good and i can work off the double quarter pounder with cheese that i’m about to eat. cuz they taste like GOOD foods taste
who effing cares about average this and money that and this and that and that and this and blah blah and ANGRY WORDS RAAAHHH
i like it
as cities become more dense, property becomes more valuable(i learned this in real estate school, rob, did you?). chicago invented the skyscraper because of this. as the value of land increases, the need to add as many functions as possible to the land increases in the name of profit and efficiency, hence the need to build upward.
this is finally beginning to happen in los angeles. room to grow has run out in the suburbs, so now one must build upward. cities like new york(post-robert moses), chicago, san francisco, paris, tokyo and others realized that knocking down buildings to increase automobile throughput wasn’t an option because it lowers the density and permanently removes valuable, revenue generating land from the tax roll. so what do big cities do to keep human throughput high? they build subways and guess what, subways are much more efficient than any other form of transportation in dense cities. period.
the free market has decided that los angeles is going to become more dense and no amount of whining is going to stop it. so, you can either pay now or later, but you will pay. angelinos that is, not venturans, where density will remain low.
rob, you claim not to post propaganda, but data is part of propaganda - one uses data to establish that their point is “the truth” and data can be manipulated to anyone’s advantage. i mean who can argue with “the truth”? just because i see a bunch of numbers on a computer screen, does it mean that it’s true? are you that naive? “truth” such as the “data” about wmd in iraq, “truth” about why small communities “need” walmart, people with higher incomes drive fancy cars and own a macintosh and brooks brothers suits and go skiing in the italian alps, poor people needing cars and so on. as someone who claims not to believe in absolutes, your use of absolute data make me suspicious. also, correct me if i’m wrong, but saying that a group of people cannot commute using public transportation is issuing an absolute, correct?
still have no idea what this has to do with bicycles being faster than cars. go bikes!
Neurosurgeon, firefighter, plumber
and why couldn’t someone take transit for those jobs.
Because you’d die while waiting for the neurosurgeon.
Because you’d die while waiting for the firefighter.
Because it is illegal to transport half the tools. chemicals and parts a plumber needs to do his job even if he or she were strong enough.
Then when everyone gets their mind around the fact that there are some jobs that cannot be served by transit we can move on to just how much it would cost to serve others if we tried to serve them with transit commutes.
Clearly you don’t understand the profession of medical specialist. It isn’t possible to have enough trained and available that they are available all the time were we to also expect long arrival times and multiple coverage. Then the price goes up astronomically as the number and wasted resources flow to the bottom line of health care costs.
Care to see the retention statistics after a firefighter learns he’s been transfered and his 45 min transit commute turns into 2 hours except when his rotation has him getting off at 3AM and there is no transit? I’m not even talking about “Gee, chief I know you’ve got these winds and fires and stuff but this is my day off and I’m not sure when the next bus will be running by. Can’t this wait until Metrolink starts up again on Monday? I promise I’ll take the first train out.”
Hi, I’m Fred the plumber. This is Jesus, Ingrid, Tony, Seamus and Nikko my parts and tool carriers. Travel time today was 1 hr and 25 mins. I charge $98/hr and my carriers are only $30/hr. Each. Now if there’s any soldering or fitting sweating to do we’ll have to wait until a FedEx delivery can be arranged for the acid wash, rosin, torch chemicals, etc. Will you be paying in cash or tokens?
This is critical and vital point to keep stating to people who are still living in 1977. I see anti-transit posters on various blogs who state ridiculous things like “Los Angeles should remain a ‘horitzontal’ city” (which would mean restricting the free market, but at the same time laud the dismantling of the redcar systems and automobile/highway explosion of the 1950’s as free-market proof that because Los Angelenos chose cars based on the variables in effect in 1950’s, those variables would stay consistent forever, and the automobile would always be the preferable form of transportation expect for those unfortunates too poor to own a car.)
These people also have a sense of entitlement that the government should cotinue to engage in social-engineering to preserve these 1950’s variables so they can continue their single-occupancy, low-density, suburban lifestyle unabated in every neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Contrary to what these “free-markeeteers” in favor of the automobile assert, there is no grand conspiracy to take away their SUVs.
The variables that go into transportation and land use decisions, individually and collectiely, are changing as the addition of millions more to Southern California over the next few decades will bring vastly increased density, because even vaster sprawl is no longer an economically or environmentally sustainable option.
Companies that rationally chose to move out of downtown for cheap land a few decades ago will rationally choose to move back to transit friendlier locations that their customers and employees can get to, without any coercion. Corporations don’t do anything for the public welfare and the collective good on their own unless they benefit themselves. NBC is ahead of the government on this. They figured out where Los Angeles is headed in the future.
The losers will be those people who moved to or live in Los Angeles with expectation they could and should have a suburban lifestyle throughout all of Southern California because of five decades of social-engineering in favor of the car culture, has enabled a sense of entitlement about that lifestyle. While many people will still rationally or irrationally choose the automobile for themselves for all their transportation, the quality of that choice will continue to decline within parts of Los Angeles and there is nothing Caltrans can do to preserve the same quality of motoring these people have seen over the last five decades.
For those who still feel entitled to that way of life, Whittier, Ventura, Torrance and Santa Clarita are always available to residents of North Hollywood or Miracle Mile who feel entitled to government preservation of their suburban lifestyle. And, the Southern leg of the Gold Line might go to Whittier someday.
However, anyone who is upset that Los Angeles will have neighborhoods (like Downtown, Hollywood, North Hollywood, Century City, etc) where it will no longer be always convenient or practical at every time of day to drive and park a single-occupancy vehicle there to live/work/play, just like every other major metropolitan area on the planet, needs a time machine to go back 30 years more than anything else.
——–
There is no non-emergency job that could not be commuted to by public transit if a car was not available or desired. Unless a neurosurgeon has an emergency, or the firefighter has to go in for a five-alarm blaze off hours, there is no reason they couldn’t take bus/rail for normal hours to the station.
For every job Rob Dawg can come up with to disprove this, there are hundreds more that don’t require emergency use of a single-occpancy vehicle.
People who WANT to use a car for its perceived convenience are entitled to do so and will be free to do so based on the variables of cost, time, energy, available parking, that will exist now and in the future, not as those variables were in 1977.
There is no non-emergency job that could not be commuted to by public transit if a car was not available or desired.
The original quote was: “Nonsense. There are no high-income jobs in this town that couldn’t be commuted to by transit.”
Didn’t somebody just recently accuse me of steering the thread?
At last some progress. With the original claim refuted and acknowledged we can move on to latest modifed claims to see how they hold up. Can anyone explain why a neurosurgeon cannot use transit to get to work? Can anyone posit a scenario where a neurosurgeon could use transit to get to work? Either would be interesting.
To quote RobDawg, GIGO
Dan W., you just made my highschool english teacher cry.
I did not end my sentence with a preposition. My English teacher would be proud.
As Winston Churchill is famous for saying, “This is a situation up with we cannot put.”
Rob, it was true on la.transportation, and it is true here.
You live to troll and force arguments.
And I’m not going to fall for it anymore. Fred’s right. Taking (wasting, actually) time constructing arguments against your statements is pointless, because you will find a single phrase within that and post an irritating response that causes the vicious cycle to continue.
And when I lived in Ventura County (grew up there, lived there until I was 34) I did not presume to make proclamations that I knew what was best for Los Angeles County. I will thank you to adopt the same mindset.
interesting quote, though slightly off topic:
“…the Austrian writer and philosopher Ivan Illich once calculated that if you add up all the time you spend on the car, including the trips to the garage and the time spent earning the money to buy the fuel and maintain the vehicle, and divide by the number of miles you travel, then your average speed is 5 mph. You would be faster on a bicycle.”
Everyone’s commute is different, however, it just isn’t so for most Americans that commuting by bike is faster than driving, even when cost is taken into account. I would like it to be the case, because I sometimes bike to work (I need the exercise) but I’m paying extra to do so. While just anecdotal evidence, here’s my experience:
Commute length:
17.5 miles.
Commute time (one way):
bike: 85 min.
Car: 35 min.
Unajusted speed:
bike: 12.4 mph (slower than you might expect due to traffic lights)
car: 30 mph
Car capital, operating and maintenance cost/mile: $0.40
Bike operating cost/mile: $0.02
Financial cost of 17.5 mile commute:
Bike: $0.35
Car: $7
Time to make money for commute (at $30/hour after-tax rate).
Bike: 42 seconds.
Car: 14 min.
Adjusted commute speeds:
Bike: 12.3 mph
Car: 21.4 mph
So, in my case, the car comes out as a clear winner unless I really like riding my bike. In fact, for biking to be the same price as biking, I’d have to make $5.83/hour after taxes, which is just below minimum wage.
Winston, good analysis within the necessity of simplification. 40 cents is pretty cheap. While I don’t agree with the methodology of some that put typical auto costs up at 70-80 cents or more if you are commuting alone then 40 cents is something to be proud of.
Winston’s response is a perfect example of a opposing viewpoint that is not flame bait. Nice job
.
Of course, the main reason not to ride a bike on a 17.5 mile commute is that you have to ride a bike for 85 minutes - which can be exhausting (although healthy) for anyone. There are some interesting things I noticed from your data.
One, the bike only loses .1 mph when adjusted, the car loses 8.6 mph. Also, although financially a car costs 20x more than a bike, the unadjusted speed difference is only 2.5 times faster. The adjusted speed is only 1.7 times faster. So for 20 times the cost you get 2 times the speed.
Of course, information like this is irrelevant to the individual, because like I said before, not many people want to commute 85 minutes each way, especially not on a bike.
“interesting quote, though slightly off topic:
“…the Austrian writer and philosopher Ivan Illich once calculated that if you add up all the time you spend on the car, including the trips to the garage and the time spent earning the money to buy the fuel and maintain the vehicle, and divide by the number of miles you travel, then your average speed is 5 mph. You would be faster on a bicycle.””
Nice try JustMyNipples, but if you read Tyke’s initial post you’d realize this conversation is about the best transportation mode to force neurosurgeons to take, NOT the opinion of anarchist philosophers.
But, since you’ve already brought us off-topic I will provide you this link to a bit of writing by Ivan Illich, perhaps even the bit of writing that inspired this post, in which he rages against both cars and public transport in defense of walking and more importantly, the bicycle. Enjoy.
And let’s please get back on topic after this diversion.
Fred,
You’re right that 85 minutes each way is a long ride, it’s about as long of a commute as anyone is willing to put up with (although it is a better deal than commuting for 35 minutes each way and spending 90 minutes at the gym plus 10 minutes driving there). I was trying to point out that people are pretty rational about their commute mode of choice - most people choose something resembling the cheapest (in time and money) mode. Other factors, such as the ability to drive to places and at times where transit or bicycling isn’t an option and status consumption, play a role, but on the whole, people will chose the cheapest mode for them. So, what kind of incentives would it take to the rational, optimizing version of me to bike instead of drive?
Well, my 7 year old truck averages 20 MPG, which isn’t far from the average vehicle’s 22 MPG, so at $3.25/gal, about $2.81 of my $7 cost* is gasoline. To get my vehicle operating cost up to what my bike costs in terms of time we would need my total cost to go up to $18/trip. This would mean a gas price of $17.87/gal.
Of course, if I were driving a new Escalade instead of my old compact pickup, then I would be looking at a cost of driving of $1.24/mile and it would already be cheaper to bike…
oops, I forgot to mention that the $0.40/mile, which includes depreciation, is based on $2.85/gal gas, so my actual cost of operation is somewhat higher.
“So, what kind of incentives would it take to the rational, optimizing version of me to bike instead of drive?”
Keeping all things the same in your case, and time being the key issue, there’s very little that would convince one to choose biking over driving. Your priorities would have to change from time to something else. You’d either have to be really into fitness, have a love for riding, get really into conservation, get really fed up with traffic, become a penny pincher, or face a wage decrease.
Fred, your last comments are spot on. Why aren’t you suggesting subsidies for bicyclists? From where I sit, bicycles are at least as societally beneficial as transit users. Perhaps you place them somewhere along the spectrum from auto users (private, nonprofessional, no fixed routes) to transit public, professional, fixed routes). That’s fine. No one doubts that transit is subsidized. Very few will say auto users are not subsidized. BTW, I am not one of those. Autos are subsidized. So, why not explicitly subsidize bicyclists?
Winston, if I lived 17.5 miles from work, I wouldn’t bike to work, either — I’d move. Remember, location and locomotion are two halves of an equation where neither is constant.
AAA estimates the national cost of driving in 2007 at $0.522 per mile, assuming $2.256/gallon gas. California has particularly high gas and insurance costs, so congrats on keeping your costs down.
Another interesting wrinkle: every minute you spend walking [or cycling] extends your life by three minutes.
The one neurosurgeon I know (who walks to work, since even his emergency surgeries are usually scheduled) might be inclined to agree. He sees a lot of stroke victims, after all.
Payton, that is one of those calculation sites I cautioned against using without being very careful. They depreciate the cost of a mid size (ex,Taurus 4dr sedan) over 5 years. Got any 2002 Tauri with 75k miles you wish to give me for free?
I full support the ideas of smart growth that encourage denser, more walkable/bikeable communities. As noted, the main problem with bicycles is that over long distances they are relatively slow, and more importantly, exhausting. If Winston’s commute was 5 miles rather than 17.5, a 24 minute bike ride might seem much more doable vs. a 10 minute car ride. I encourage businesses and job centers to provide ample bike parking and I personally like the idea of bike lanes. I think one of the best things about bikes is that the financial cost is relatively low, and thus subsidies can be minimized compared to transit or automobile infrastructure. A 9-bike rack costs $290, a single U-rack (that can park two bikes at once) costs $70. That’s such a small investment I don’t think it even requires subsidization, and business that wants to attract more customers on the cheap should be excited to be able to do that by only spending a few hundred bucks. How much does a single parking space cost? How much do 9 parking spaces cost?
If Winston’s commute was 5 miles rather than 17.5, a 24 minute bike ride might seem much more doable vs. a 10 minute car ride.
Do the math. 962 sq mi versus 77 sq mi. More than a 12x increase in density. LA is already the densest UA in the nation. Does this pencil out?
How much do 9 parking spaces cost?
That depends. If the parking space is privately owned it generates money and costs nothing. Surely that’s not what you meant. Urbanwise $15-30k per spot is a decent range. You can go havsies or double for extreme examples. What is the point? The most common examples of parking subsidies are transit nodes. I take advantage of this quite often as i park for “free” and infrequently use of Metrolink or LA transit buses. Oh dear, does my only infrequent use disqualify me from being able to comment? Careful. Infrequent use puts me well ahead of several voting members of the board.
The best way to get effective regional (and it has to be regional) transit is to deal with the issues honestly. Commute by transit is generally twice as slow and costs 4x as much and generally results in its users earning less money even when taking into account the massive subsidies they garner as transit users.
There I just said transit is slow and expensive and has socioeconomic costs. Did I say get rid of it or it sucks or whatever?
Automobiles are dangerous, inefficient and have socioeconomic costs along with the benefits described above. I didn’t call for their elimination either.
Earns a troll tag. Standards sure must be high.
Thanks though buddy, we’ve never seen that data before. I’m going to go buy a car now. I’d like to send you some of the time I will save as a thank you, I’ll email it to you. Spend it as you please.
Does not qualify as a troll. Stand proud. Stand proud.
“And when they came for me…” - Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
“Do the math. 962 sq mi versus 77 sq mi. More than a 12x increase in density. LA is already the densest UA in the nation. Does this pencil out?”
I’m not sure what those numbers are referring to, but barring any massive natural disaster or political downturn, the density in the urbanized area of LA is going to increase. It’s just a matter of whether it increases in an intelligent way. In my opinion, an intelligent way to handle mobility in an increasingly dense region is to offer transportation alternatives in order of effeciency. I think the most efficient modes in a densely populated region in order are 1)walking, 2)bicycling, 3)mass transit, 4)private multi-occupancy vehicle, 5)private single-occupancy vehicle. Obviously walking and bicycling are distant dependent, mass transit is density dependent, and private automobiles are space dependent. In a place with increasing density and decreasing space, it seems most prudent to A)reduce distances (allow mixed uses), B)encourage walkability (perhaps through subsidy?), C)encourage bicycling (perhaps through subsidy?), D)encourage mass transit (likely through subsidy although other countries have managed to have private/public systems). The idea is that this will orient a significant portion of density from single-person automobiles (which we’ve established take up the most space, and density is the ratio of people vs. space) to more efficient modes. What this does, in my mind, is leaves the roadways to the vehicles and people that NEED the power of the automobile (firefighters, emergency neurosurgeons, plumbers, etc).
Clearly, mass transit is mostly useless in low-density regions except as welfare, but as you mentioned LA is high density and because of that, in theory, mass transit could work very well here. What’s more, walking and bicycling could definitely work here given the region’s weather and terrain. It just requires an intelligent plan to account for the increasing density and make these alternatives viable (which I would argue they are not right now due to the massive investment in auto centered infrastructure).
My question is, how do you propose we account for the increasing density? And I mean this sincerely, I’d like to hear your ideas for managing congestion and mobility in a region with limited space and increasing density? I assume you want more freeways. Do you think other alternatives should exist? Do you think that walking and bicycling should not be considered as serious modes of transport since, for them to work, it would require residences and business to be close together? Should freeways be publicly subsidized? How is it possible to have growth without density, and more importantly, is it possible to limit growth without force?
You can take your time to answer, I’m going to be out of town for 2 weeks.
“Oh dear, does my only infrequent use disqualify me from being able to comment?”
Of course not. But you knew that.
“Does not qualify as a troll. Stand proud. Stand proud.
“And when they came for me…” - Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)”
I don’t know if the Nazi comparison stands, but I’ll fully accept that my comment was certainly troll level. It was mean and I apologize Rob. I modded myself down because of this. So I know for sure that comment has at least 2 negatives… 3 more and it’ll be flagged troll!
The other option is to move all of these people to the Antelope Valley, basically. Los Angeles is diverse enough to have a dense urban core and less dense hinterlands… like New Jersey (the Inland Empire, commuting basin for two metro areas: Los Angeles/Orange County and San Diego). I very much enjoy driving in Orange County, with the football-field wide freeways and extremely wide streets with plenty of free parking (unless you’re within a half mile of a beach, but that is within walking distance for me), but LA is dense enough and has enough destinations to have a viable transit system, and I support it there and oppose Metrolink to midnight in the OC because it will just be a parking lot shuttle, but worse because it assumes that one has a car at each end of the trip.
I have a feeling Rob’s proposal would play out like the “Autopia” ride at Disneyland. Anyone up for double-decking the 405? Something tells me that would cost a wee bit more than extending the Purple line.
In all seriousness though, it would be interesting to hear Rob out. He is certainly passionate about what shouldn’t be done, let’s see if he cares as much about what should.