I did not know all that! Thank you.
In regards to LA’s modern mass transit system, I have no idea how it is.
I live in Portland, and here mass transit is excellent, in my opinion.
Okay, but you realize that the city doesn’t revolve around you, right?
What now?
“Welcome to the Monkey House.” Vonnegut, of course.
Of course the city does not revolve around me. And if 50%+1 of my fellow residents decide they want to tax themselves more to fund transit, I’ll cheerfully accept the result.
All I’m trying to do is to explain why those sorts of election results often do not happen.
Another reason is the history of corruption and mismanagement in some transit systems. Here’s the story of Miami’s (I lived there while it was being built)
tl;dr version: The original budget projections which were used to sell this system to county voters used a projected daily ridership of 200,000. It took 28 years to reach 100,000.
Every succeeding return to the voters for more money has been accompanied by similarly accurate numbers pulled out of someone’s ass.
The system has provided some nice college funds for the kids of local building contractors and their politician friends, so I guess it has not been a complete failure.
The thing I never understood is why we hold rail to different standards than roads and highways. Both are critical components of taxpayer-supported transportation infrastructure, but construction/funding/maintenance for roads is generally left to public officials who we put in office to make those kinds of decisions while every aspect of public transit infrastructure seems to be put to voter referendum.
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I took the Blue Line one a week for six months, traveling from Long Beach to downtown L.A. I loved it! I had to drive about 3 miles down the road to the station, but the parking structure was fantastic. The trip took a bit more than one hour total (including the drive and transfer). In contrast with a best-traffic-in-the-world scenario, it would have taken me 35 to 40 minutes. However, traffic is always screwed up and the first commute I tried took 1:20. Not to mention the a-hole who parked using my car as a parking stop.
Bonus: I got all sorts of reading and grading done.
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The auto, oil, and tire industries lobbied hard to get rid of any public support. Since traffic wasn’t an issue, and California was creating new towns, there wasn’t any real opposition.
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If there’s more than three of you, most metro journeys cost the same as getting a taxi there. Its only worth it if you’re going out of town. DB Regio want shot with shit.
(ETA: not to mention how horrible our local trains - on one of the first railways in the fucking world - are. Bastards)
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Probably because there is a lot more potential graft in new construction than there is in maintenance.
Those might all be great, but it’s not really public transport. Public transit should be cheap and readily accessible, even if the company running it is contracted by the state.
The problem has generally been that alternatives to public transit are often politically supported by the state, at the EXPENSE of public options. That privileges people with money. We all need to be able to get around. Even people with no resources/cash for an uber.
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No, actually they were driven out of business - at least some argue this is what happened.
The same happened with the first attempt to create an electric car.
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The US debate is surprising to witness from a European perspective. Our cities would collapse without (well, halfway…) decent public transport, and nobody would put their usefulness in question.
America has the advantage that there is a lot of ‘best practice’ examples to learn from, and that borrowing money for infrastructure investment is cheaper than ever. On the other hand, (afaik) most cities are very spread out, making servicing the suburbs with metro lines kind of difficult.
But the way things look, there’s little alternative due to declining natural resources and a still growing population. People need to get around, and for most of them individual cars won’t be an option. Cooperation and sharing instead of individualism and competition is the key, and I do think the progressive tech community has done an important job in promoting these new values. Esp. since knowledge/ information by definition can never be scarce and therefore doesn’t fulfil the basic premises of a capitalist commodity.
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