By: Diane Benjamin
While our city “leaders” are out in DC begging for money for Connect Transit they are ignoring facts.
Tax dollars are being used by government to change YOUR behavior, in Los Angeles it’s not working and it won’t work here either.
Source: Connecting Dots Transit – Los Angeles
Excerpts:
Over the past three years, the nation’s largest transit systems have endured a broad and unprecedented ridership decline. By far the largest drop has been in Los Angeles and this has resulted in justifiable consternation.
This is occurring as Metro has undertaken one of the most significant rail and busway building programs in modern US history.
After decades of trying to entice drivers to walk, cycle and jump on transit, with virtually no success, this “necessity” is not likely to be achieved without compulsion. Nor has it anywhere else in the world.
Low-income households seem likely to continue buying cars because of the mobility options they offer, not the least of which is that 60 times (not 60 percent, but 6,000 percent) as many jobs can be reached in 30 minutes by car than by transit by the average Los Angeles commuter, according to measures published by University of Minnesota researchers. Their data also shows that drivers can reach more than 150 times as many jobs by driving as by walking.
The reality is that the millions of Los Angeles households could not retain their standard of living if they rode transit, much less walked or cycled. Many more would be in poverty. People will choose transit (and walking and cycling) only if the travel times and geographical coverage are competitive with driving. Moreover, there is no point in delusions about radical land use transformations, especially where governments require the consent of the governed. In short, there is no roadmap to any transit utopia connecting sufficient dots, because none are feasible.
Note 1: US transit agencies count passenger “boardings,” which is the number of times a passenger enters a vehicle to travel from their origin to the destination. Thus, a passenger whose trip takes two buses and one train is counted as three.
Does Connect Transit count changing buses as TWO boardings? Is that why they claim lots of people are riding the obviously empty buses?
If the rider switching buses is counted as two – the return trip adds another two boardings!
If LA can’t make their bus system work, public transit decreases the standard of living, and ridership is artificial – a transfer station downtown will further lower the local standard of living and Quality of Life.
Add this to the long list of theft by government for what they want – not what you need.
The next budget STILL under funds fixing the roads – but it does raise your taxes!
Government “for the people” and “by the people” is dead unless people quit electing jokes to lead them.
.
.
.
It’s one thing to be a debt service , in that case you should try to cut that debt by maximizing being frugal , changing stuff to lessen waste and make efficient use of everything . but to say by enlarging buses , routes and building expensive hubs that will make everything click and magically improve conditions is not only wasteful and poor logic , but bureaucracy trying to justify its self by spending instead of saving . and look at the wonderful expense of the trip to lobby .. and i bet they eat well and stay at a swell place too . what a load of bs . plus the under over deal for the train was gingerly investigated using time and money , then they want do what they think anyway , what a load of bs on the side . i sometimes think they use a chicken with it’s head cut off running around on a yes no planning circle and where ever it dies , they go with that .
Having traveled extensively in past years, I found the BEST public transit to be in Tucson, AZ! what makes it so good. They have a CENTRAL hub, and SEVERAL lines have an “express” bus on the 1/2 hour which stops maybe every mile. You can go downtown to the bus you NEED in a short amount of time that way. Also their transfer is good for an extended period (maybe the whole day-I forget) I just remember that I could get anywhere in town (12 miles to the east side ) on a dollar..
So simple it boggles the mind. And they DO have a lot of folks ride the bus, WHY because they DO NOT waste a persons time or money.. Low income people have a life too! This is NOT to say that everyone on the bus is low income-maybe they are getting their car fixed or cannot get a ride from a friend that day.. or MANY other reasons..
They have 530,000 residents. Even if the same percent rode there and here the numbers are astronomically different.
California has more cars per capita than any state in the nation. No surprise public transport in LA is suffering, but it’s wrong to compare B/N to LA.
The article was about more than California. It states trying to force people to public transportation hasn’t worked anywhere. It also creates poverty by limiting where people can work.