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ChineseDaily Transit Links Roundup
Contributed by Fred Camino on March 6th, 2008 at 9:29 am
- Traffic accidents cost L.A./Orange County nearly $11 billion… add that to the $9 billion cost of congestion. Oh yeah, this is the yearly cost. The American Autombie Association conducted the study.
- CityWatch knows best: subways are not for L.A., “modern computer controlled cars suspended from or running on top of rails” are.
- City Beat looks at the absurdity and cost of fare gates.
- The Orange Line may be headed to Chatsworth… in six years.
Discussion
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That City Watch piece is one of the dumbest things I have read in a long time. All these automobile entitlement folks are looking for any solution that doesn’t involve themselves having to sit next or near a stranger in a mass transit carrying vehicle. Isn’t that what we have now? Individualized cars causing massive congestion on our roads and freeways?
And, he’s wrong about subways not working in a sprawl. London is proof that in built-up areas, subways are needed, which can then go above ground in less density areas (which is what happens in New York, and on the Blue Line is well. There is NO viable alternative to a subway on Wilshire Blvd.
The point about the city-watch piece i disagreed with, was the stance the author took regarding tax hikes. My guess (however unsubtantiated it may be) is that many southern california residents would support an additional gas tax or sales tax in order to fund effective mass transit projects.
yah, that piece was pretty profound in its weakness, especially the private cars on tracks or whatever nonsense that was about.
It’s trying to maintain the car culture via rail. It’s utterly insipid. We already have “personal” transit, called an automobile, and it’s causing the economic and environment problems we have from ever-worsening congestion. We need “mass” transit. God forbid someone have to ride the same vehicle as someone else.
selfish asses will be selfish asses it seems. it’s so annoying cuz the article tries so hard to make it seem like he really cares about the good of la and its people (always using “we”)–that is, so long as he never has to meet, sit next to, or know such people. wut a pointless article.
He also has the L.A. is too big to subway line (which isn’t true.)
Whenever, I hear the line, “This isn’t New York”, I usually say:
1) “No one said it was”;
2) “You should be so lucky to be in New York because New Yorkers are among the most generous, fun-loving people I’ve ever met”; and
3) Los Angeles could be London if it committed itself, which is living proof that a sprawling city can have dozens of rail lines, commuter/heavy/light, and a comprehensive bus system, and a high quality of life. London actually has several “Union Stations” (Paddington, Victoria, King’s Cross, Liverpool St., etc.). We may never be New York, but we COULD be London, were we to be so lucky. London’s tube lines run underground in heavily dense areas. (I wonder if there is a direct right-of-way from Union Station to LAX or the Harbor that could be used by Metrolink as an extension.)
You are dead-on about him being selfish on one had, yet using the word “we” on the other. It’s like those people who say that everyone who is riding transit would only drive a car if they could afford to own one. They presume to speak for people from whom they have no real perspective because they do not ride transit themselves. The author pretends to care about the issue, but wants to maintain his car culture way of life via public transit, and just dismisses subway out of hand without knowing any of the facts other than the untrue “L.A. is too big”.
I think fear of “people different than myself” is one of the fears that has kept down public transit for decades. Because I’ve ridden transit in several cities, I don’t have a gut fear of people of other ethnicities and cultures than me. Part of L.A.’s balkanization problem is due to people driving past each other is their isolated little metalic bubbles. I think mass transit may really help create a sense of “we”.
I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this. No-one wants suspended tracks above the street, no matter what sort of vehicles are running on them….
…besides the fact that nobody, that I know of, has ever gotten such a personal rapid transit system (as they are called) to work in a practical situation.