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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

#541

Post by jakecopp »

oulu2006 wrote: post #511
jakecopp wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, one-third of buses will still be required when the light rail starts operating in 2019 due to insufficient capacity, rising to 80% of current buses by 2031! http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-cbd-and-south-east-light-ra...

I never really thought that light rail would replace buses completely. One can't help but imagine how many more buses we would need without light rail, no?

True, but if we built any other sort of infrastructure (water, sewage, electicity) that operated at above over 100% capacity from day one, wouldn't we consider a solution with more capacity?

With the light rail already blowing out as of November last year from $1.6bn to $2.1bn [1] I can't help but think of the merit of heavy rail.

My understanding is heavy rail is very expensive, but how much more? I haven't been able to find a comparison of a heavy rail design on this route.

[1]: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/sydney-cbd-and-e...

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

#543

Post by encoderer »

closeparen wrote: post #465
eigenvector wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An hour reading, sleeping or just zoned out on a train is a lot less fatigue than an hour operating a car in stop-and-go traffic.

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).

Two hours at a standstill makes my head explode. I appreciate the biodiversity here. Also if you can possibly take a transbay bus they are usually better for me than Bart during rush hour. Just as fast and more comfortable.

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

#544

Post by steveax »

reillyse wrote: post #427

LA doesn't have a traffic problem. People just have overly high expectations. As someone who has also lived and commuted in lots of cities around the world, LA just doesn't have that much of a problem. What other major city in the world would you expect to be able to drive 15 miles through the centre at rush hour and get to your destination in under an hour (I'm using as reference Downtown LA to Santa Monica at 9am,…

> Downtown LA to Santa Monica at 9am

That's against traffic. What does Santa Monica to Downtown LA at 9am take?

A big problem in LA is that many people drive much longer distances than that, 30, 50, 70 miles one way in their commute.

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

#545

Post by Neeek »

tracker1 wrote: post #532
Neeek wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to have to disagree with the "wasting your life in a slow-moving vehicle" comment. I'd rather spend an hour and a half on a bus to work where I can take calls and work from my laptop/read a book/nap or whatever, than spend 45 minutes sitting in and/or dodging traffic where I am getting NOTHING done. Granted, if the bus is packed it can be difficult or impossible to get anything useful done also.

I get motion sickness, and have a hyper-sensitive sense of smell.. I'd rather be in my car enjoying music and/or taking calls. Also, I happen to like about a half hour or so of driving, as it is enough distraction to let work thoughts fall away.

A half hour isn't so bad, 45 minutes (more with traffic) both ways was getting pretty stale. As for the motion sickness, I'm certainly not implying the bus is for everyone, just wanted to speak up for those of us who have a role for it to fill in their commute :)

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

#546

Post by cvwright »

Balgair wrote: post #238
alkonaut wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a 20 minute commute by bus, or a 1hr commute by car then it's easy. You don't care what the next guy smells like. Or if the first 2h pay of your day is used to pay for parking, then a bus ticket is attractive.

Problem is, in LA at least, the bus and the car are about the same amount of time. Maybe a smidge longer for the bus. So most people that can afford to will take a car to avoid the cranksters, shockingly rude bus patrons, and the chance of a 'piss bus' on their way home.

> the chance of a 'piss bus'

Oh my. Is this a regular enough occurrence that there's a name for it?

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

#547

Post by rtpg »

ojii wrote: post #539
rtpg wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Google Maps[0], driving 15 miles through Tokyo (going through several high-traffic areas) seems to take 1h15. Agreed that if businesses aren't properly spread out, then rush hour traffic will always be bad. What else can you expect if your city effectively shrinks to 1/10th its size every day at 9 AM and 6 PM? [0]: https://goo.gl/maps/YSwaooCWK3y

Or half an hour with public transport (your route).

So it's a half an hour for this start and end point, but that's mainly because they're both on the border of the "city center" (Yamanote line).

I live just outside the center (to the north, Ouji-Kamiya), and my workplace is just outside the city center (to the south, Naka-meguro), and it takes me about an hour door-to-door to cut across the city (50 minutes station to station), with 2 transits.

This is probably the longest possible way to cut across the city in public transportation, but I think you can expect 45 minutes to cut across in general, given transits.

The other problem is that the center is less than 15 miles in diameter, so a bit hard to get the same "feel" as LA for the comparison.

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

#548

Post by andrei_says_ »

Osiris wrote: post #307

This is just a band-aid. Same with adding buses, lanes, trains, etc. When something goes wrong in software we usually try to resolve it by finding a root cause. There are a lot of cars on the roads. Why? People live far away from their work. Why? All the office buildings are in one central place. Why? ... Etc. The solutions to the root causes, whatever they are, are, unfortunately, a lot more complex and expensive th…

Many of my colleagues commute 2+h/day. That's 10-14h/week.

Most everyone at work communicates via phone and email most of the time.

Why are we not all tellecommuting but instead burning fossil fuels while waiting in traffic, risking our lives twice a day and actively speeding up an irreversible climate change that will take away everything we care about?

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

#549

Post by gyrgtyn »

steveax wrote: post #544
reillyse wrote: post #427

LA doesn't have a traffic problem. People just have overly high expectations. As someone who has also lived and commuted in lots of cities around the world, LA just doesn't have that much of a problem. What other major city in the world would you expect to be able to drive 15 miles through the centre at rush hour and get to your destination in under an hour (I'm using as reference Downtown LA to Santa Monica at 9am,…

> Downtown LA to Santa Monica at 9am That's against traffic. What does Santa Monica to Downtown LA at 9am take? A big problem in LA is that many people drive much longer distances than that, 30, 50, 70 miles one way in their commute.

I think my record was 3.5 hours from Brentwood to Long Beach on a Friday evening. I got a job in OC and then they kept giving me assignments on the west side. (How is there no train parallel to 405?)

I guess that's the difference that the OP isn't accounting for; It's not that downtown is crowded at rush hour - It's like a billion square miles of solid cars from 6am-10am and 1:30pm to 7pm. (The freeway might be OK at lunch time, but streets sure aren't)

The guy talking about Beijing... What a dystopia. How many years until LA is like that?

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

#550

Post by [deleted] »

steveax wrote: post #544
reillyse wrote: post #427

LA doesn't have a traffic problem. People just have overly high expectations. As someone who has also lived and commuted in lots of cities around the world, LA just doesn't have that much of a problem. What other major city in the world would you expect to be able to drive 15 miles through the centre at rush hour and get to your destination in under an hour (I'm using as reference Downtown LA to Santa Monica at 9am,…

> Downtown LA to Santa Monica at 9am That's against traffic. What does Santa Monica to Downtown LA at 9am take? A big problem in LA is that many people drive much longer distances than that, 30, 50, 70 miles one way in their commute.

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