Passenger Trains > Peter Gordon on LA Times & declining Metro ridership

Game-changers

Here is the L.A. Times noting that LA Metro ridership is still falling -- even though billions have been (mis)spent on extra capacity over the last 30+ years. By my count that's the second time this year that the Times has broached this tender topic. As a member in good standing of the LA "good government" (googoo) establishment, the paper had for many years chosen to tip-toe around the bad news.

Readers of this blog may know that some of us began flogging the dead horse in the mid-1970s. Go to the attached proceedings and read the contribution by the late UCLA Prof. George Hilton. He was among the first to write sensibly and clearly that LA is not NY -- and trying to make it so would be a phenomenal waste. But even LA Times coverage will be for naught. Billions more will be spent. Pouring good money after bad is what the great and the good in city hall do for a living.

We are in the the early years Uber/Lyft and all manner of ICT information sharing.  These are the game-changers. For the past two months, my wife and I have graduated from a two-car household to a one-car-plus-Uber-plus-walkable-neighborhood HH. The game-changers are here. Conventional transit was never a game-changer. http://www.petergordonsblog.com/2017/02/game-changers.html

LA Times article:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-2016-metro-ridership-decline-20170209-story.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/17 19:49 by Geodyssey.

Did you actually read this article?  It's about declining bus ridership, which is more than an LA phenomenon.  I'm not sure if you're saying that Uber/Lyft have anything to do with declining bus ridership, but if you do you need another think...  The big issue facing most transit and especially commuter rail systems is the satellite urban area and the need for reverse commuting.  Big systems like the LIRR and Metro North are really not well positioned and don't have the infrastructure to readily deal with that.

wtsherman100 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did you actually read this article?  It's about
> declining bus ridership, which is more than an LA
> phenomenon.  I'm not sure if you're saying that
> Uber/Lyft have anything to do with declining bus
> ridership, but if you do you need another think...
>  The big issue facing most transit and especially
> commuter rail systems is the satellite urban area
> and the need for reverse commuting.  Big systems
> like the LIRR and Metro North are really not well
> positioned and don't have the infrastructure to
> readily deal with that.

Why yes, yes I did read the LA Times article. It's about rail and bus ridership.

I'm not "saying" anything.  I just posted a blog post from a noted USC planning & transportation professor that links to an LA Times artice.

Professor Gordon's papers can be found here:
http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~pgordon/index.php

As a transportation planner, I'll say you don't know what you're writing about.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/17 19:51 by Geodyssey.

It's unclear that your original post is a blog quote.

The low price of gas and issues surrounding the undocumented/illegal/uninvited (namely the issuing of CA drivers' licenses a couple of years back & going forward, the expectation of coming crackdowns) are likely responsible for the bulk of the decline.

But gas never stays cheap, Los Angeles is rapidly densifying and millenials are far more open to transit than any generation since WW2.

As much as I'm not a fan of their plans for Union Station, my money's on Metro.

 

There are a lot of variables at play in Los Angeles.

1. Public transit is not an efficient mode of transportation in a metropolitan region built around the automobile. Low density sprawl does not lend itself to buses and trains that drop you miles from your destination. A trip across Los Angeles requires bus transfers with long wait times between rides.

2. Lyft and Uber may be taking a dent out of bus ridership. Travelers may use ride sharing services to reach rail stations, using trains for longer transiting before switching back to Uber/Lyft for the final leg. If your travel consist of mostly short distance travel Uber is entirely feasible in place of owning your own car.

3. Now that undocumented aliens can get licenses, many of these people will acquire cars or hitch with other aliens that have a car.

4. It use to be riders on Metro were the poor, mentally disabled poor, immigrants, and those that can afford to drive, but don’t for a variety of reasons. Those who chose not to drive moved onto car hailing services. The undocumented immigrants got their own wheels, leaving the mentally disabled and poor. The combination of the latter two remaining on buses accelerated the riding experience downward spiral. I have noticed that customers on public transit services in eastern metro areas to be higher caliber than what you find in Los Angeles and San Diego.

5. Also playing into the equation is cheap oil makes gasoline more affordable. That and a glut of used cars on the market caused by the easy finance of new automobiles. Automotive financing is the new sub-prime market that took over after the 2008 recession. Anyone living in Southern California can attest that traffic has gotten a lot worse the last two years.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Well if you miss those transit riders take a trip to North Hollywood at the junction of the Red and Orange lines and a have a drink/snack on the ~1894 Station  freight dock and watch the riders go from one line to the other.

---

So the chickens are finally coming home to roost.

I've been saying for years that the Metro system, in particular the light rail lines, were "sold" to taxpayers as a tool to "get people out of their cars" and "ease traffic congestion" but the reality is that they were built to subsidize the poor in low income neighborhoods, most of whom didn't have cars to begin with. The system has done nothing to relieve congestion. All it ever was was a social program for firms associated with engineering and construction, then for the poor, in particular, the illegal population. Hardly anyone in L.A. with any affluence or resources traded their car in for light rail. It was a farce all along.

And now it is backfiring. Cheap cars, cheap gas, drivers licenses for illegals, and they are abandoning the transit system like the plague. Leftist social engineering at its finest.

Here's what will happen next. The California Air Resources Board, which has no accountability to anyone, will implement some crazy, unrealistic standard on gasoline, or automobiles, or something that will push the cost of driving to the moon, just to make public transportation look attactive and viable again. More social engineering from the anointed because, well, they know what's best for us.

Uber and Lyft sit in the same traffic as everyone else, so I fail to see how they are an alternative to congestion.

Posted from iPhone

Why on Earth is someone who broke the law (entering our country illegally) entitled to a drivers licence?  I seriously doubt I would be able to get a drivers licence in say Germany if I somehow managed to sneak in. 

Agreed 100%. Doubt if I broke into someone's house and started using the resources of that person's house thry would also say "here, I'll also give you this and that, Mr. Robber".

It's all insane. But what do I know. Flyover people like myself are uneducated and just don't understand.

andersonb109 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why on Earth is someone who broke the law
> (entering our country illegally) entitled to a
> drivers licence?  I seriously doubt I would be
> able to get a drivers licence in say Germany if I
> somehow managed to sneak in. 

Posted from Android

cabsignaldrop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Agreed 100%. Doubt if I broke into someone's house
> and started using the resources of that person's
> house thry would also say "here, I'll also give
> you this and that, Mr. Robber".
>
> It's all insane. But what do I know. Flyover
> people like myself are uneducated and just don't
> understand.
>
> andersonb109 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Why on Earth is someone who broke the law
> > (entering our country illegally) entitled to a
> > drivers licence?  I seriously doubt I would be
> > able to get a drivers licence in say Germany if
> I
> > somehow managed to sneak in. 
>
> Posted from Android

do a search on what states offer illegal immigrants driver's licenses.  remember the results the next time u vote..................

66

I have to bring in the moral side of the equation.  in this country we kill 40,000 of our citizens each year in auto accidents and a million are injured in auto accidents.  That is a horrible preventable tragic loss.  It is like an airliner crashed every day for a year, killing all the occupants. 

We need extensive public transit in this country.  We need a huge gas tax to pay for it.  Over 20% of America cannot drive and should not drive.  The rest of us are selfish drivers who do not want to pay the true cost of private auto transportation.

I would be very glad to not have to share the road with people who don't how to drive, and I do not want to pay for that many more of them to be on welfare because they don't have public transit to get them to work.

This may have a little to do with it too: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-ol-blue-line-delay-expo-line-20170216-story.html

TAW

What is all the fuss about?  This article is very FAVORABLE to rail,

​The article plainly states-- subway & light rail is up +4.4%  -- and since 2009, rail ridership has soared 21%

As a railfan, who cares if bus ridership is down.

Yet, nearly all of those people chose to get into automobiles despite knowing the risk of an accident.  Many of them doing so even though they had public transit options available.  Why do you suppose they chose to take that risk?

In 1950, around the peak of public transit utopia, the average life expectancy in the US was a long ~68 years.  Since the rise of the murderous automobile, that's been cut down to its current paltry ~78 years.  Are you certain that widespread immediate access to flexible transportation has nothing to do with that?



MEKoch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have to bring in the moral side of the
> equation.  in this country we kill 40,000 of our
> citizens each year in auto accidents and a million
> are injured in auto accidents.  That is a
> horrible preventable tragic loss.  It is like an
> airliner crashed every day for a year, killing
> all the occupants. 
>
> We need extensive public transit in this
> country.  We need a huge gas tax to pay for it. 
> Over 20% of America cannot drive and should not
> drive.  The rest of us are selfish drivers who do
> not want to pay the true cost of private auto
> transportation.

40,000 road fatalities a year is not going to put a dent into a population of 326,000,000, so doesn't have an impact one way or another on average life expectancy.

I think long term, rail will become the shining star for public transit in Los Angeles.  Street congestion will only get worse in the coming years as the California legislature recently passed a new law allowing conversion of all single family residences to duplexes.  State law overrides local regulation that previously hindered conversions. Garage conversions to residential units are now legal.   As a result, densities will climb and road networks designed for lower densities will be unable to handle the increase.  People will turn to alternative transportation because the road system will be overly congested.  I would expect for people to move towards car services combined with rail out of necessity to get around.   If we as society allow for self driving cars the cost of car services will become cheaper as a driver will become unnecessary.  

The coming electric car revolution will make driving super cheap, further adding to congestion.  You think oil is cheap, wait until long range electric cars that allow you to drive 40 miles for about $1 in electricity become common place.  The Bolt with its 238 miles of range is the tip of the iceberg for what is to come. In less than a decade the price of these cars will plummet as the price of manufacturing batteries gets cheaper. The problem will be roads in metro areas will be gridlocked. 

 

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

I have never been to LA. But if a giant city is laid out in a sonewhat logical way with a high density of population and a wide array of things to do, transit makes more sense in many cases. In Chicago, many people who could have cars don't, any many people who do use them less than they use transit. While bus ridership is down slightly, rail ridership keeps going up on CTA. And bus and rail are used by a wide segment of the population.

Posted from Android

From what I've heard a major part of the reason traffic has gotten so much worse in Los Angeles the last three years is due to Uber and Lyftt. While they have taken some folks (like one of the earlier posters) out of their own cars, they have still put multitudes on the road in cars who normally wouldn't have been there.

The advantage of rail lines is and has always been longterm (going back to the construction of the subways in New York City and London). Where you build raillines housing will be built in walking distance. Of course that itself creates other issues, but it does allow for higher density land use without increasing vehicular traffic.

Anyone who ever said new trains would take cars off the road was kidding themselves. But it does keep new cars from entering the roads and it does provide a legitimate alternative (we take the LA Metro Rail now whenever we are going downtown and it's a dream).