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To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

latimes.com

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Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#201

Post by twblalock »

P3R3 wrote: post #10

The article falsely assumes that the HOV lane has spare capacity. During rush hour here all lanes are equally clogged, and sometimes the HOV lane is actually slower than the other 4 lanes. The only way to fix LA traffic with current infrastructure is self driving car pools. If/when they can get to the point in which they are safer than normal drivers, and safe for the riders (crime inside of self driving cars) LA tra…

If the HOV lane is gridlocked, that means the price to use the HOV lane is not high enough. Keep raising the toll until traffic in the HOV lane moves at the desired speed.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#203

Post by wavefunction »

uberduber wrote: post #137
nickthemagicman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA is getting better with mass transit. The problem is it's not running 24 hours. It shuts down around 1am so you it's not really good for doing things at night like in NYC. Also, there's a TON of crazy people riding, literal homeless crazy people, or kind of thuggish people. There needs to be some sort of loitering code enforcement on the train along with more security. I feel uncomfortable as a dude, I bet women fe…

This. The homeless crazy problem has gotten much worse with the introduction of spice. They were much more harmless before but now you don't know when one will just start stabbing you without warning. Also doesn't help that now everyone has expensive cell phones which attract thieves. Once I was telling my friend about how I saw a woman pass out and start seizing on the subway at 5pm on a weekday. I pressed the emerg…

@MrLeap

"Synthetic weed" is a misnomer. Spice/K2/etc. are plant material that has been soaked with one or more "research chemicals" in clandestine manufacturing facilities. The research chemicals are drawn from a pool of partially identified but poorly understood substances that have very little in common with cannabinoids.

It's a crapshoot what chemical a spice user will end up ingesting and it may be a completely different compound than the last time they used the stuff.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#204

Post by avn2109 »

kkitay wrote: post #145
bit_logic wrote: post #109

The true solution to LA traffic will never happen. And that solution is buses. But not the current underfunded system that barely limps along. A massive number of buses, like 5x the current number. And combined with tolls for cars to get cars off the road. The large number of buses is critical because it greatly reduces wait time between transfers. It also allows adding express bus lines between major areas. But buse…

There's a middle ground between buses and rail: building defacto rail lines by transforming far-left lanes and middle dividers into dedicated bus tracks and semipermanent bus stations. Urbanized (Gary Hustwit, 2011) highlights the TransMilenio bus system, which serves the city of Bogota. It specifically covers elevating the experience and status of taking the bus by adopting positive aspects of rail systems: covered…

Bus themed solutions would definitely be an improvement over LA's status quo.

However a better idea would be to reduce the need to travel long distances by building denser. LA roads are super wide right now, so the easiest way to raise density would be by putting buildings in the middle of the road, leaving a Really Narrow Street (tm) along either side. Ground floors of new buildings could be commercial, upper floors residential. (Some LA roads are so wide we could put 2 or more blocks of Really Narrow Streets in the space consumed by a single car-oriented surface street).

This would reduce housing prices by bringing a crazy amount of inventory online, and would greatly lower maintenance expenses by severely curtailing the number of square feet of publicly-funded roads, traffic lights, signage etc. If we structured this correctly, the city could make a giant pile of money in both land sales and new real estate taxes. Maybe they could then use the surplus money to build a real train system or just reduce taxes. Lastly, there would obviously also be large environmental benefits such as smog reduction, CO2 emission reductions etc.

Yes, I realize this will never happen, and yes, I realize I'm proposing turning LA into old Paris. Old Paris is great, we should copy it more.

I stole these ideas from [0].

[0] http://newworldeconomics.com/the-eco-metropolis/

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#205

Post by photojosh »

kkitay wrote: post #145
bit_logic wrote: post #109

The true solution to LA traffic will never happen. And that solution is buses. But not the current underfunded system that barely limps along. A massive number of buses, like 5x the current number. And combined with tolls for cars to get cars off the road. The large number of buses is critical because it greatly reduces wait time between transfers. It also allows adding express bus lines between major areas. But buse…

There's a middle ground between buses and rail: building defacto rail lines by transforming far-left lanes and middle dividers into dedicated bus tracks and semipermanent bus stations. Urbanized (Gary Hustwit, 2011) highlights the TransMilenio bus system, which serves the city of Bogota. It specifically covers elevating the experience and status of taking the bus by adopting positive aspects of rail systems: covered…

Ditto for Quito, Ecuador: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Quito

I'm now back in Australia, and despairing because my small city is putting in a light rail solution when a bus rapid transit option would be so much cheaper, given our low ridership. But buses aren't cool. :(

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#206

Post by sampo »

ghaff wrote: post #76
nickthemagicman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA is getting better with mass transit. The problem is it's not running 24 hours. It shuts down around 1am so you it's not really good for doing things at night like in NYC. Also, there's a TON of crazy people riding, literal homeless crazy people, or kind of thuggish people. There needs to be some sort of loitering code enforcement on the train along with more security. I feel uncomfortable as a dude, I bet women fe…

Almost no cities have 24 hour mass transit including many that are considered to have good transit systems. That's a very high bar you're setting.

It's pretty much enough to run some lines till 4am on Fridays and Saturdays, so people can go and party.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#207

Post by Nav_Panel »

antognini wrote: post #192
Nav_Panel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the bad reputation of buses Buses have a bad reputation compared to other modes of transit because they're so easily re-routable. A political whim could shut down a whole bus route in a day, leaving commuters stranded. Rail signals long-term investment, and neighborhoods will grow around rail because they can guarantee it'll be there for years to come.

> Buses have a bad reputation compared to other modes of transit because they're so easily re-routable. I've always thought that was an advantage for buses. With rail, you have to plan it to go through areas that are not only popular now, but will be popular in 30 years. If some neighborhood suddenly becomes the happening place 10 years from now, you have to build a whole new, expensive line. But with buses, you can…

> With rail, you have to plan it to go through areas that are not only popular now, but will be popular in 30 years

It's more like, with rail, you build the line, and if it's a useful line then the neighborhood around it will become popular. In NYC throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, they built rail lines through farmland and the (medium/high density) neighborhoods followed. In LA, we're seeing better rail access revitalize areas like DTLA (or at least contribute to it). It's always a hard sell building rail lines through areas already connected by highways/roads, but if we watch LA over the next few decades we'll see what happens.

If you build a bus route into the middle of somewhere, even a good/reliable one, it probably wont change the neighborhood or stimulate nearly as much development. But hey, now you have a bus line. I used to ride one from my suburban high school in upstate NY into the small city's downtown, and it was fine.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#208

Post by gozur88 »

l1ambda wrote: post #134
bit_logic wrote: post #109

The true solution to LA traffic will never happen. And that solution is buses. But not the current underfunded system that barely limps along. A massive number of buses, like 5x the current number. And combined with tolls for cars to get cars off the road. The large number of buses is critical because it greatly reduces wait time between transfers. It also allows adding express bus lines between major areas. But buse…

Well, buses and rail attack the congestion problem on the demand side, while tolls attack the problem on the supply side. So they're really complementary.

There's not a lot of point to instituting tolls unless you have an viable alternative for people to use, which isn't the case in Southern California. Well, unless the point is to raise money.

Re: To fix L.A.'s traffic, we need tolls

#209

Post by dumbfounder »

UberPool is going to lead us to the future. It kind of sucks right now, but when self driving cars are prevalent, it will make ridesharing ubiquitous and cheap and way better than driving your own car. The more people use it the closer to optimal the sharing will get.
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