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

I agree advanced automation would be needed to maximize capacity. A basic system only needs cruise control, lights and cameras installed at the merge points and a transponder like fasttrak that monitors your speed and automatically fines you if you hit the brakes. Adaptive cruise control, lane assist, higher standards of maintenance and driver skill don't seem like too much to ask of a select group of people and vehicles licenced to use the lane and would help to maximize capacity and minimize incidents without getting too futuristic.

They can redirect the toll money to things that benefit the poor while allowing rich people to save their time which is objectively worth more.

20 minutes standing on a violently accelerating and decelerating train while strangers' bodies are touching you is much more fatiguing than 2 hours at a standstill in a car (BART is far and away the worst part of every workday, while even the slowest trips to Monterey or Tahoe are a blast, but maybe that's just me).

There are several reasons. I'll devide them into to groups.

Fundamental reasons:

  1) The tram is a heavy vehicle running on rails and uses heavy spring shocks with one degree of freedom of movement (to tilt side to side). The bus is a light vehical with softer shock springs which have 360 degrees of freedom of movement. That is, that the bus can shake up/down, side to side, forwards/backwards and anything inbetween. This is the biggest difference. It is much more comfortable to be in a stable vehicle than one that rocks like a boat. You can read much more easilly on a tram than on a bus.

  2) Related to the first reason, the tram has no rocking caused by breaking, as the forward/backwards up/down rocking motions are impossible due to the restriction of movement caused by the rails and the weight of the vehicle

  3) The fact that the wheels are hard means that it is much more efficient.

  4) Tram cars are significantly wider than busses and therefore have much more comfortable inside spaces.

  5) Since the rails are always in the same place, you can design a tram with almost no gap between the platform and the floor of the tram, so that a person in a wheel chair/with a stroller can ride in without any ramp!!!!

  6) Due to the heavy build of the tram, and the fact that there is no internal combustion engine or batteries that would wear out, trams last cca 3x longer than busses. This will always be the case. It is like the difference in lifespan between a brick house and one made of mud.

  7) The wheel wells of the tram are shorter, making for a much more open, less awquard space.

  8) Due to the width, stability, and length of the tram, it is possible to walk to the other side of a non-crouded tram to get away from an alcholic person.

Non-fundamental reasons:

  1) Electric is better than deisel. Deisel busses are noisy, vibrate, and make toxic fumes which give many people nausia. (this isn't fundamental to busses, you can have trolley busses, or electric ones)

  2) Trams have much larger windows/more window space making for a less claustrophobic ride.

  3) Trams use a cellphone based tracking software for determining which stop they are at, which makes for very very smooth audio indications of where you are. The anouncment system on busses is manually controlled and sometimes the bus driver forgets to announce a stop. We even have digital reader boards with the amount of time it will take the tram to arrive, and those numbers are accurate. For busses this system also exists, but it is worse.

  4) On rainy days, the bus comming into the bus stop may splash you with mud, trams never do that.

  5) The trams have closed cabins for the drivers, meaning that stupid tourists cannot be tempted to ask the drivers for directions, thus delaying the journey and causing everyone stress.

> Because they're not paying for the cost of the road capacity they're using.

Suppose it costs $3000/month for an apartment near where you work, because supply is constrained by bad zoning regulations etc. If it costs $1500/month + $400/month travel expenses to live an hour's drive away, lots of people will do that instead. If you add $1100/month to the cost of driving to discourage that, all that happens is that the $3000/month apartment goes up to $4000/month because you've increased demand for closer housing but not supply. If there is no housing for people to move into, there is no price that will get them to move into it.

But if you increase the supply of no-commute housing then people will immediately move into it independent of the cost of road capacity, because landlords don't want empty apartments so the price will fall to the level that causes the new units to be occupied.