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

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

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one main difference, though. No one is forcing you to use car, but you'd like to force others not to.

And you force me to breath the fumes. Driving a car is not a human right. It is actually a very expensive service provided you, almost for free, by the government. It is your largest entitlement.

Given the taxes I pay, I have a much different definition of "free". I also pay an ecological fee to clean the air and scrap the vehicle when it's done.

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

#552
One thing I've noticed about some freeway systems is that they add more lanes, but don't plan correctly. For instance, in my home city, there's a connector that runs from downtown to the main interstate. When the two meet, 8 lanes have to merge into four. This creates a crunch situation, one that it seems LA suffers from as well.

Instead, the lanes should be decreased ahead of time, before the merging occurs. Lanes can be reduced by making the rightmost lane exit-only at upstream exits, or through an upstream merge of the leftmost lane into the lane to its right.

By reducing these two roads to two lanes before the merge, they can completely avoid this crunch.

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

#553
post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trams are more comfortable for the passenger, as the ride is smoother. It's on rails, so no bumps, and acceleration/deceleration generally doesn't have abrupt jerks. On the other hand, buses are far more flexible; a minor glitch like an accident or someone unloading their moving goods stops a tram on the street totally, because it absolutely doesn't go round any obstacle. Buses do.

Also, no diesel fumes on an electric street car make the journey much more pleasant for many.

True, although buses are going hybrid/electric, for instance in my town electric buses started on one line over a year ago:

https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2015/first-fast-charging-electric...

Then neighbouring Helsinki:

https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2017/helsinkis-first-fully-electr...

It's very small still, of course, but seems to progress without major problems. (They make a point about the exceptional arrangement for the risky investment, i.e. the municipal company bought and operates these buses themselves; normally they just organize the procurement of transport services from private companies who own the buses and hire drivers.)

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

#554
post #434

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,…

>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 It takes thirty minutes to go a mile in traffic where I'm at (West LA, near Brentwood and Santa Monica). Then an hour to go 5 miles in any direction on the 10 or 405. It's really bad.

Which direction? I live near you and regularly commute to the South Bay. It usually takes under half an hour to go 20 miles on 405. If you live and work on the wrong traffic pattern (ex. live in South Bay, commute north) then yes, you're going to have a bad time. If you move somewhere where your commute is against traffic then it's really not bad at all.

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

#555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I am from europe and visited a few north american cities in the past, including LA. No or bad public transport was the norm but LA was a whole other level. You get out of the airport and there is a endless line of car rental places after each other. That makes it clear to you that you won't get far without a car. Going into the city or out takes you on a ridiculous wide highway which is basically a perm…

LA is actually very suitable for public transit: it's a city with multiple, reasonably dense urban centers. The greater LA as a whole is also pretty dense, denser than NY metro area. And the city is investing like crazy in new transit infrastructure. Give it 20 years and, at least in the central parts of LA metro, it will be much more convenient to move by transit.

Could you provide a source which backs LA's metro area being denser than NYC's?

I've yet to see any sort of metric (certainly not the US Census) that supports that claim.

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

#556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA is actually very suitable for public transit: it's a city with multiple, reasonably dense urban centers. The greater LA as a whole is also pretty dense, denser than NY metro area. And the city is investing like crazy in new transit infrastructure. Give it 20 years and, at least in the central parts of LA metro, it will be much more convenient to move by transit.

Could you provide a source which backs LA's metro area being denser than NYC's? I've yet to see any sort of metric (certainly not the US Census) that supports that claim.

Whenever I go to LA, it seems like an urban slum with no significant development of note (above 6 story) in most of LA. Its as though the land is worthless, even Oceanside has taller buildings than Long Beach or Riverside, and Oceanside is literally the middle of nowhere California!

With that low density style of development, your not going to be able to justify a rail line that can move 20k people an hour, as there aren't enough people who can get to a station to feed it.

I blame LA's zoning that keeps it as an urban slum. Dezone the city and you'd see areas around existing mass transit densify over the next decade.

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

#557
1. I see nice cars in the carpool lane with one person daily. Why are they breaking the law? Because they can afford the ticket.

2. We don't need tolls. If we do decide to have tools; the toll should be based on income.

3. We been to base fees/fines on annual income. As a poor person, I am tired of being nickeled and dimed daily.

4. I honestly wonder why so many foreigners want to live here. It's not the greatest anymore.

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

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes car is king in LA. In recent years though Lyft/Uber have changed the game a lot. I'd say it's cost effective to not have a car at this stage, especially when you add in the cost of parking.

It depends on what you mean by LA. LA itself actually has fairly decent public transit (by US standards, not NYC, but by nearly every other city) -- the RapidBus busses are actually fairly rapid (they can control stoplights so they always hit green) and the Metro is quite nice where it goes.

I'd rather be anywhere in Seattle or Portland trying to use mass transit rather than in LA, its so spread out due to zoning (requiring abundant, unused parking, and limiting building height) and all of my past experiences there have been piss poor with mass transit in LA. San Diego is slightly better, but it has the same issue as LA with zoning.

I do not think I could reliably take the bus to work in LA or San Diego, whereas in Seattle or Portland I grew up riding it and I know I'll get there reliably.

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

#559
post #536

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,…

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

So strange enough that route made no sense (it made a Y). What options did you pick? Switched to the train and it said 36 minutes. Switched back to car and it was 35 minutes (18.5km) and the route had corrected itself. You did something wrong. I lived in Tokyo and the routine in the link you shared is not correct.

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

#560

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,…

Delhi is a bad example. I'm not saying Delhi's traffic is any better. You have an alternative to driving. Delhi has some respectable public transit. The Delhi metro is rapidly growing and expanding to cover every facet of the city. If you want to truly experience terrible traffic please come to Bangalore. It'll take an hour to cover just 5 miles, if you are lucky. One of the absolute worst cities to commute. The publ…

Starting 2011,I used to go to Bangalore once a year. The number of trees cut down, the number of new cars on the road, and the terrific traffic all boggled my mind. Car after car of software engineers, probably perfectly pleasant to work with, would just lay on the horns despite knowing perfectly well that the first car was stopped at a red light. If I ever go back to India, Bangalore is the first city that's off my list of places to live in.
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