When street parking was plentiful in Los Angeles

Mondegreen aside,

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As an aside, that first Missing Persons LP really is a pretty solid piece of new-wavish pop.

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No one has mentioned that free and cheap street parking has been identified as a major source of traffic as people circle blocks waiting for a space to open up rather than pay to park off street. This is why, in an effort to balance things, meters have become more expensive and this probably contributes to approvals of neighborhood permit parking also. Free street parking is not a right.

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None the less, people who don’t or can’t afford to live down town, want to come downtown (which cities encourage, local tourism, and all), not to mention people coming for jobs. But you’re not at all wrong. I’d like to see more cities double down on in town transportation of a variety of kinds - light and heavy rail, more public bike racks that people can take advantage of, and top that off with having certain sections of the city banning cars altogether in favor of those publicly available bikes, walking, light rail, etc, for both people working and people visiting. In ATL, I’d love to see the entire area inside the belt line car free (with some exceptions, of course), but an increase in buses, light rail, bikes, scooters, walking trails, etc. Build out some well spaced public decks around the belt line, and I think that would encourage people to both come visit, and to commute using public transit… of course, that transition would take years, but it’s a workable future, I think.

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I’ll have a twist of lemon.

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That’s what my first skateboard cost. Sure, they’re more now, but still cheaper than a parking space. Especially in Tokyo where, before buying a car, you buy a space to put it, or so I have read.

US cities could sell or lease street spaces. Sold spaces could be taxed forever, beyond Prop13 limits.

Another parking solution: antigravity backpacks. Get cracking on that, all ye makers.

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You know you live in Sydney where finding a street park reduces you to tears.

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There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of public transportation in L.A.

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Ah, yes, the map. When I came to LA in 1995, I did not know how to drive (from Manhattan). I biked to the MTA office and asked for a system map. They said they didn’t have any. When I asked when they would be getting them in, they specified that they weren’t out of them, they actually didn’t make any maps.
But you’re right, there are a tremendous number of bus lines. If you’re willing to walk half a mile to the bus stop, wait 20 minutes, have the bus go by because it’s out of service, then wait another 20 minutes… In that case, you will be pleasantly surprised by the system here.
They need a lot more buses in order to make the system convenient and reliable, which of course costs a lot of money.

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Do other world cities on L.A.'s geographic scale have adequate working public transit systems?

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Nice for the environment, but pretty off-putting for people with mobility issues.

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Oh, I wasn’t suggesting we all adopt them. I agree about mobility issues, too. Pretty much anything we do with public transit, cars, etc, need to take that into account. There is no silver bullet for these problems, generally speaking.

I posted that mainly because of that show (Grounded for Life). I wish I could find a gif of it, but there was a running gag where the character on that show (the younger brother) who had one of those and every time he’d arrive at the house, he’d run in with a long power cable to plug his car up.

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That came off more anti-MTA than I intended. I use the transit here whenever I can and encourage my young-adult kids to do so too. The MTA is trying hard in very challenging environment, geographically (enormous area, spread-out population), fiscally (the usual resentment taxes and fees), and culturally (reluctance to mix and mingle with people of different class/background). They put a lot of money into the metro system, which I love – it was designed, after all, with customers like me in mind, white people – at the expense of the bus system, which is used by people who can’t, or can’t afford to, drive – the young, the poor, the disabled. Mass transit is like insurance in that you need all kinds of people participating to make it really work.
My commute is West LA to Pasadena, and takes 2.5 to 3 hours by transit… When they connect the Expo line through to the Gold line, I’ll try again. But I take the Expo downtown on weekends, and I run errands by Big Blue Bus.
So if you live in LA, take the bus, take the metro! It’s an important part of living in a city.

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