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Post by LAofAnaheim on Sept 20, 2010 14:07:27 GMT -8
None of the east-west arterial streets can handle it. Trying to solve these problems by re-routing the buses will work about as well as when you try to do it in your car. Wilshire Blvd. from West L.A. through Miracle Mile is now congested like in Manhattan. Buses are therefore useless along this or parallel boulevards. The only solution is to have a subway as the trunk, coupled with a system of local buses and taxis that connect to the subway and can get people the final mile from the subway to their destinations. I wouldn't say "buses are useless"..the problem is that in LA we don't give any advantage to the bus commuter over the private automobile. In other world-class cities, there's usually a nice amount of "bus only lanes" in which the bus is sometimes a preferred method. We need to start working on the complete streets and having bus only lanes on corridors that will not see mass transit for the forseeable future (i.e. Olympic, Pico, Western, etc...). Subways are for long-distance and the "trunk" of the corridor...but a network of bus only lanes would be significantly helpful as well. |
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 20, 2010 14:57:23 GMT -8
^^ Yes, buses are not useless, that was too far. But they are very bad in mixed traffic if you're traveling any significant distance. To use them effectively, Metro needs to either (a) do as you suggest and provide bus-only lanes, or (b) reserve buses for the short circulation routes that connect to the subway stations.
BTW, I think reserving bus-only lanes on the streets you listed (Olympic, Pico, etc.) is a great idea. This will definitely make traffic worse for car drivers, but it will make transit riders much happier.
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Post by LAofAnaheim on Sept 20, 2010 15:21:32 GMT -8
BTW, I think reserving bus-only lanes on the streets you listed (Olympic, Pico, etc.) is a great idea. This will definitely make traffic worse for car drivers, but it will make transit riders much happier. If we use the arguement that we are doing bus only lanes to make traffic worse for single-passenger automobiles and better for transit...it won't fly from the local "layman" off the street. They will get upset and confused that we are taking away their right to drive. We have to say it's for the benefit of all. Is traffic worse in the other world-class cities because of bus only lanes? Do the average people care there...no!? And that's because they have the option of a bus only lane. The person today won't use a bus because they see no significant advantage to their car..and that's the truth. If they see a bus speeding on by because of their dedicated lane....the perception will change and then they will come over to the bus. If we tell them this will make traffic worse...no politician will stand for this. That's what's giving the Purple Line extension a bad name to the average joe/jane. |
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Post by pithecanthropus on Sept 20, 2010 21:21:10 GMT -8
^^ Yes, buses are not useless, that was too far. But they are very bad in mixed traffic if you're traveling any significant distance. To use them effectively, Metro needs to either (a) do as you suggest and provide bus-only lanes, or (b) reserve buses for the short circulation routes that connect to the subway stations. BTW, I think reserving bus-only lanes on the streets you listed (Olympic, Pico, etc.) is a great idea. This will definitely make traffic worse for car drivers, but it will make transit riders much happier. Taking a lane away from drivers, under any circumstances, is just not going to happen. The people will not vote for it, and no councilman or other official who does will survive the next election. Bus service in any true world-class transit system is not, and cannot be, the incentive to choose public transit in and of itself. It works in those cities by providing very local transit solutions, and is not intended to be the backbone of the system. Instead, the buses are geared towards short trips, either because the entire journey is only a few miles, or because the rider is going to transfer to a train system on which they complete most of their journey. To ride the bus from Santa Monica to UCLA works great; from Hollywood, Koreatown, or Downtown not nearly so much. A passenger's tolerance for crowding is inversely proportional to the length of the trip; if it's just a couple of miles, so what. If, on the other hand, it's fifteen miles on a Friday afternoon it diminishes almost to the point of vanishing. What I think the BRU missed, essentially, is that a bus trip sucks much more when it's far too long, than when it's reasonably short because it feeds into a rapid transit line. |
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Post by jeisenbe on Sept 21, 2010 0:21:02 GMT -8
[quote author=pithecanthropus board=general thread=933 post=17510 time=1285046470Taking a lane away from drivers, under any circumstances, is just not going to happen[/quote] It IS going to happen, on Wilshire, and soon. Well, the "lane" will be taken away from parking, not from general-purpose lanes, but it is the same effect: www.metro.net/projects/wilshire/laist.com/2010/04/23/wilshire_bus_lane_project_could_be.phpIt will make a big difference in speed and especially reliability of the buses along this route, and will complement the subway (which does not serve all of Wilshire, and has widely-spaced stations) even if it is completed all the way to Santa Monica. |
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Post by pithecanthropus on Sept 22, 2010 20:28:48 GMT -8
Taking a lane away from drivers, under any circumstances, is just not going to happen It IS going to happen, on Wilshire, and soon. Well, the "lane" will be taken away from parking, not from general-purpose lanes, but it is the same effect: www.metro.net/projects/wilshire/laist.com/2010/04/23/wilshire_bus_lane_project_could_be.phpIt will make a big difference in speed and especially reliability of the buses along this route, and will complement the subway (which does not serve all of Wilshire, and has widely-spaced stations) even if it is completed all the way to Santa Monica. It'll work about as well as most cheap-it-out tricks, which is to say that just one jerk driver who decides to suck up the parking fine--and that's only if he's caught--can foul up the boulevard for miles just from the buses having to pull into traffic to get around the car. Which isn't to say that it's an entirely bad idea, but it won't help much by itself. Most of the arterial boulevards do have prohibited parking during the morning and evening rush hours, and it doesn't help the traffic flow very much. And then, ordinary buses will always be slow, particularly at rush hour, until on-board fare collection is eliminated. |
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Post by jeisenbe on Sept 22, 2010 21:57:15 GMT -8
Just one jerk driver who decides to suck up the parking fine--and that's only if he's caught--can foul up the boulevard for miles just from the buses having to pull into traffic to get around the car. That's definitely the risk of having the lanes on the right, rather than on the left (in the median). BRT in the median would be more reliable, but would require more expensive stations, and would not help out the very busy local buses. Fortunately, with a bus every couple of minutes on Wilshire at rush hour, the lane will not look entirely empty. I think the project should include proof-of-payment on the 720 bus, but that may not be in the plans, yet. |
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Post by wad on Sept 23, 2010 4:20:36 GMT -8
That's definitely the risk of having the lanes on the right, rather than on the left (in the median). BRT in the median would be more reliable, but would require more expensive stations, and would not help out the very busy local buses. They would also require brand new buses that have doors on the left. These are rare, but they do exist (Boston, Cleveland and Eugene-Springfield, Oregon have them). |
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 23, 2010 5:04:56 GMT -8
They would also require brand new buses that have doors on the left. These are rare, but they do exist (Boston, Cleveland and Eugene-Springfield, Oregon have them). Not necessarily. San Francisco has Muni buses in the median along Market Street. They do it with two side platforms (raised concrete standing areas). This would require more space to be taken than a center platform, and would eliminate all left turns (which BTW should be eliminated anyway at the major intersections). I don't know if this would be safe on Wilshire Blvd, which is a much wider street than S.F.'s Market Street. |
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Post by matthewb on Sept 23, 2010 6:17:43 GMT -8
Here's some information from the UK government about why dedicated bus lanes actually improve traffic flow, even when they "take a lane away" from private vehicles: www.transportpolicy.org.uk/PublicTransport/BusLanes/BusLanes.htmThese kinds of things really are well studied and documented around the world. The level of discourse over bus lanes in LA is a bit behind. We don't have to pretend that things are up for debate when in actuality we have solid information about best practices. |
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Post by matthewb on Sept 23, 2010 6:44:14 GMT -8
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Post by James Fujita on Sept 23, 2010 10:21:29 GMT -8
They would also require brand new buses that have doors on the left. These are rare, but they do exist (Boston, Cleveland and Eugene-Springfield, Oregon have them). Not necessarily. San Francisco has Muni buses in the median along Market Street. They do it with two side platforms (raised concrete standing areas). This would require more space to be taken than a center platform, and would eliminate all left turns (which BTW should be eliminated anyway at the major intersections). I don't know if this would be safe on Wilshire Blvd, which is a much wider street than S.F.'s Market Street. They also have the F streetcar line on Market Street, which helps justify those raised platforms. |
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 23, 2010 10:52:39 GMT -8
They also have the F streetcar line on Market Street, which helps justify those raised platforms. This is true, although the platforms were there before the F-Line started running. |
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 23, 2010 11:07:44 GMT -8
Rick Caruso, developer of The Grove and Americana, dissed the subway yesterday. Full article here. The former member of the city's Police and Department of Water and Power commissions called the L.A. transportation system "crazy," joking: "We're going to be underground for eternity. Let's spend our time when we're alive above ground." |
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Post by James Fujita on Sept 23, 2010 11:44:47 GMT -8
Rick Caruso, developer of The Grove and Americana, dissed the subway yesterday. Full article here. The former member of the city's Police and Department of Water and Power commissions called the L.A. transportation system "crazy," joking: "We're going to be underground for eternity. Let's spend our time when we're alive above ground." What an incredibly cheap shot at the subway. Man builds a bunch of Main Street USA imitations — parodies, really — complete with a rinky-dink trolley, and he thinks he can run a city the size of Los Angeles. The article says he was only joking, but you can tell a lot about a man by the sort of jokes he tells. Caruso sounds naive, superficial, childish. |
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 23, 2010 12:26:23 GMT -8
Rick Caruso, developer of The Grove and Americana, dissed the subway yesterday. Full article here. The former member of the city's Police and Department of Water and Power commissions called the L.A. transportation system "crazy," joking: "We're going to be underground for eternity. Let's spend our time when we're alive above ground." What an incredibly cheap shot at the subway. Man builds a bunch of Main Street USA imitations — parodies, really — complete with a rinky-dink trolley, and he thinks he can run a city the size of Los Angeles. The article says he was only joking, but you can tell a lot about a man by the sort of jokes he tells. Caruso sounds naive, superficial, childish. This guy is saying that his preference for being above ground is more important than the reality of crushing traffic on Wilshire Boulevard and the needs of hundreds of thousands of Angelenos who rely on transit. Rick Caruso as mayor of a real city (any city, really) would be a very bad thing. Shopping mall developers shouldn't run cities, IMO. That's because public policy should be based on the city's needs, not the mayor's aesthetic preferences. |
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Post by James Fujita on Sept 23, 2010 17:04:50 GMT -8
well, that's it exactly.
I have often wondered: Metro keeps designing its subway stations and subway entrances as wide and as round and as open as possible, supposedly to help Los Angeles overcome its underground subway phobia (which also adds to the cost of construction, and makes it harder to add entrances).
I have never understood where that concern or fear came from. While there are people who genuinely do suffer subway claustrophobia, I've never known that fear to be any greater here than in other parts of the country.
apparently, now we know: Rick Caruso suffers from subway-phobia. or at least, he considers them to be icky or something. and that's just not a rational reason.
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Post by spokker on Sept 23, 2010 21:27:58 GMT -8
From a purely visual standpoint, I prefer above ground rail to underground, but you go underground because there's no room topside.
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 24, 2010 7:03:04 GMT -8
This just showed up in la.curbed.com today: an image of 7th Street in Downtown L.A. from the 1950s. Note the bus/streetcar riders waiting on platforms in the street.  |
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Post by James Fujita on Sept 24, 2010 12:28:09 GMT -8
This just showed up in la.curbed.com today: an image of 7th Street in Downtown L.A. from the 1950s. Note the bus/streetcar riders waiting on platforms in the street. That's a lovely scene (hey look, Bullocks, not Macys!), but you can already see the inevitable conflict between cars and streetcars which the automobile ultimately won. I'm not much of a nostalgia buff, anyways. We're a lot more enlightened today (on the environment, on transit, on traffic, on race, on gender...) Getting back to Market Street, it's worth noting that they have streetcars (and buses) on top, Muni Metro below and BART below that. The combination of streetcars and subway makes a lot of sense.... |
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 24, 2010 13:59:58 GMT -8
This project will only get built with continuous sustained support of the people of Los Angeles. Right now, the media is pummeling this project. The latest salvo is this discussion on NPR. Transit supporters need to get out front on this issue and make sure to get on the blogs and the talk shows, and make sure people understand the benefits of this absolutely critical project. This is what I was worried about. Streetsblog reports on the anti-subway movement building up steam in the press. Earlier this month the L.A. Times headlined its coverage of the release by Metro of the draft environmental studies for the Purple Line westward extension “Proposed Westside subway will do little to relieve traffic congestion, report shows” as if this was a searing revelation. Just proof again of the sad decline of the Times these past few years.
The follow-up anti-subway drum beat started up immediately. Richard Lee Abrams is a lawyer who has been of late placing ranting opinion pieces on the CityWatchLA website denouncing mass transit as 19th century technology and a scam to aid and abet developers and their evil plans to densify the city. His article on the subway draft environmental report doesn’t merely carry the ominous title “Westside Subway Study is Defective” but has the subheading “The Manhattanization of LA”. His solution is telecommuting which he claims is on the cusp of being a real way to do most of your business from the convenience of home. He calls it Virtual Presence. I call it a pipedream.
Then the L.A. Weekly engaged in a hit piece on the subway, quoting well known anti-rail zealots James Moore and Wendell Cox along with a smattering of statistics bent to make it appear the project is an utter disaster in the making.
The latest to join the anti-subway dogpile is Mark Lacter, who writes on business for LA Observed. As a long-standing critic of the project it is no surprise his commentary is titled “Cracks start to appear in subway boondoggle” while the piece itself includes such words and phrases as “nonsensical”, “this project is as good as dead”, “ supporters are desperately looking for cover” and “politically inspired flim-flam”. He even hints a Republican takeover of Congress resulting from the upcoming midterm elections would spell doom for the project. I guess he doesn’t remember the original Red Line was able to get federal funding in the midst of the very anti mass transit Reagan administration. Given the cost effectiveness numbers prospects for federal funding are fairly good if and when the transportation trust fund situation is resolved (hopefully next year).More than a few have asked who said the purpose of rail transit is to solve the problems of auto congestion? Also I see the entire argument as a strawman: Traffic is not a static situation. Any relief would be unnoticed as latent demand (drivers who otherwise would decide not to drive due to congestion) refilled the roads. New York has a stupendous subway system yet still suffers from gridlock. Does that make the subway a failure?
Congestion pricing like they have in downtown London is the real means by which to solve the problem of crowded roads and the subsidies that create same. But don’t hold your breathe for that one here any time soon–it would be truly visionary and challenge the status quo if a leader promoted pricing for L.A. Moore in the Weekly promoted expanding road capacity when if he had any understanding he’d have instead touted pricing. And note the critics say zero about ridership, therefore obscuring what a tremendous amount of use this subway line will have from day one. That truth will soon reassert itself and the collection of naysayers will go back to their grumbles and gripes while the process continues to move forward. We cannot afford for these people to set the agenda. This opposition has the potential not only to derail the Westside Subway, but also other projects by Metro. Politicians have noses that are highly sensitive to this sort of shift in public sentiment. Whoever hasn't gotten out to one of the meetings, be sure to go soon, go often, and be very, very clear about why this subway is needed. Metro is using these meetings to measure the community response, in terms of percentage of supporters vs. opponents, as well as quality of arguments. Whether you go to a meeting or not, be sure to type up your comments and get them to Metro. Don't forget to explicitly state your support for the subway. |
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 24, 2010 14:10:39 GMT -8
One more thing. Lest anybody think this is just a few crackpots spouting their extreme libertarian views, think again. Many, many people are too-easily swayed by the words boondoggle and wasteful spending. I saw this happen in the mid- to late-1990s, when rail construction was systematically shutdown by these loudmouths and their zombie followers. On the other hand, the farther along in the process this project goes, the more inevitable it becomes. So it's absolutely critical, right now, to ensure that the subway project is fully supported by the Metro Board, and that will only happen with vocal public support.
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Post by Jason Saunders on Sept 27, 2010 8:08:36 GMT -8
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andop2
Junior Member
Posts: 70
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Post by andop2 on Sept 27, 2010 10:38:24 GMT -8
In some ways, I think subways should be compared to HOV lanes....
Do carpool lanes eliminate traffic? Hardly. No one expects them to. Qualified vehicles (carpools, vans, first responders, taxis, low-emission vehicles) are rewarded with a faster pathway to their destination (usually). Non HOV-lane cars stuck in traffic eye the results with envy and may aspire to qualify to use the lanes by joining a carpool etc.
Subways and LRT similarly reward those who are able to get to their destination by leaving their cars behind a chance to get there faster, and avoid other consequences such as parking fees, high gasoline prices, and the like.
Another point, if you aren't sure what effect transit has on traffic congestion, just remember the mess for everyone when there is a major transit strike. It is bad in LA, but it is crippling to New York. Yes, New York still has traffic congestion--but if you want to see total gridlock, shut down the subways!
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Post by matthewb on Sept 27, 2010 15:25:47 GMT -8
I especially like The Source's statistic that the subway can carry 12,000 people each way per hour, while a freeway lane can only carry 2000 cars per hour. I forget the average car occupancy in Los Angeles, but I'm pretty sure it's under 1.5. That means that for a freeway to carry 12,000 people each way per hour, we would need to build at least an 8 lane freeway (12,000*2/(2000*1.5) = 8). That's simply not going to happen, and I guarantee you it would cost a hell of a lot more than $4 billion. That's not even counting the cost of all the cars that would have to drive on the freeway (purchase cost, repairs, insurance, gas, lost productivity, accidents, public health issues such as obesity, etc.). The subway is dirt cheap by comparison.
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Post by Jason Saunders on Sept 28, 2010 9:54:29 GMT -8
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Post by metrocenter on Sept 28, 2010 11:06:16 GMT -8
I especially like The Source's statistic that the subway can carry 12,000 people each way per hour, while a freeway lane can only carry 2000 cars per hour. I forget the average car occupancy in Los Angeles, but I'm pretty sure it's under 1.5. That means that for a freeway to carry 12,000 people each way per hour, we would need to build at least an 8 lane freeway (12,000*2/(2000*1.5) = 8). That's simply not going to happen, and I guarantee you it would cost a hell of a lot more than $4 billion. That's not even counting the cost of all the cars that would have to drive on the freeway (purchase cost, repairs, insurance, gas, lost productivity, accidents, public health issues such as obesity, etc.). The subway is dirt cheap by comparison. Not to mention the fact that the subway is a lot cleaner than a freeway, with practically no impacts except at the station and construction staging sites. In fact, the subway will even have fewer impacts than all the light-rail the rest of us will get. But the way these people are acting, you'd think they were building an 8 lane freeway through their backyard. These Beverly NIMBillies have absolutely nothing to complain about. |
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Post by matthewb on Sept 28, 2010 15:48:25 GMT -8
It's even worse, they're Beverly NUMBillies, and it seems that money isn't necessarily correlated with intelligence.
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