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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

#611

Post by sokoloff »

memco wrote: post #486
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,…

> The line made famous by clueless that everywhere in LA takes 20 minutes is completely true, with the caveat being, so long as you don't drive during traffic. Another way to interpret this is: nowhere you want to go is ever < 20 min. from your current location. This includes places like grocery stores or other neighborhood locales because even though they are close, traffic can still make a half-mile commute take 20…

If you have a half-mile commute that takes 20 minutes by car and you regularly do that commute by car, I don't think that traffic is the biggest problem in your life.

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

#612

Post by AnthonyMouse »

alkonaut wrote: post #598
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is bus lanes are hopelessly inefficient, because there aren't enough buses to fully utilize them. And if you are stuck in traffic in anything then something isn't right. If you want to spend resources to make buses more attractive, start by eliminating fares.

> The problem is bus lanes are hopelessly inefficient, because there aren't enough buses to fully utilize them That means there is a lot of capacity to add buses without causing congestion in the bus lanes. That's good. Obviously it might be tempting to say "look we can't sacrifice one lane of 4 here to buses when cars are jammed bumper to bumper in the other 3 lanes" but that's how bus lanes work. With too few buses…

> That means there is a lot of capacity to add buses without causing congestion in the bus lanes. That's good.

Only if you actually add the buses, and people actually ride them, neither of which is a given.

> Obviously it might be tempting to say "look we can't sacrifice one lane of 4 here to buses when cars are jammed bumper to bumper in the other 3 lanes" but that's how bus lanes work.

That's the problem.

> With too few buses, they are just an ineficcient demonstration to the people in cars that they really should be riding the bus.

That only works if they can ride the bus.

The problem in most of the US is that you have a big congested highway, and then you get off the highway and drive another five or ten minutes on side streets to your destination.

You can't just tell those people to ride the bus, there aren't regular buses on the side streets because there isn't enough traffic there to justify them. And a bus that only takes you to the edge of the congested highway and then leaves you with an hour walk to your destination is useless.

> Whether it costs $0 or $4 to ride the bus to work shouldn't matter

It does matter to the tune of $4, and eliminating fares increases efficiency because you don't have to pay for a fare collection infrastructure, as opposed to bus lanes which dramatically decrease it because you're paying the full cost of a lane and then wasting most of it.

> if parking, gas and tolls are 10 times that for one day of driving

Stop trying to make driving worse. First you have to make the alternatives to driving better, and as soon as you do that, you don't need anything else.

Nobody actually likes driving to work, the only reason anybody does is that the alternatives are broken and terrible.

In order to make driving as bad as the alternatives without making the alternatives better, you would literally end up causing people and companies to move out of the city to avoid the expense. It's the same logic as arguing that burning down the city will reduce traffic congestion. Even if it does, that doesn't make it a good idea.

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

#614

Post by pavel_lishin »

jessriedel wrote: post #355
pavel_lishin wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so this is just Uber where after you finish your short Uber shift, you go to work?

Sorta. Unlike a normal Uber driver, the carpool driver (1) specify their rough route, (2) can decline riders without penalty, and (3) isn't paid as much (basically enough to cover gas, I think). But yes, the pick-up/drop-off interface was supposed to be more or less the same.

Ah, thanks. I probably should have looked all of that up.

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

#615

Post by cholantesh »

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…

This has been done in the York Region adjacent to metro Toronto. Unfortunately, transit fares are quite high there and usage is low because of infrequent service. The lesson here, I guess, is that if you build it, there really isn't any guarantee that they will come. IE, there's still a cultural shift involved in convincing a car-centric culture to adopt transit en masse.

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

#616

Post by evgen »

talldan wrote: post #597
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.

That's definitely not the London commuter experience. Almost every train is crowded, and there's a very low chance that you'll get to sit on many trains. At some stations it's difficult to even board a train. Plus most trains don't have air conditioning. It's far from comfortable, but most of the time it does the job.

There is a wider variety to the London commuter experience than that experienced by people who don't actually live in London; sorry that you seem to be stuck on what I guess to be Southern, but if you are taking the tube it is not bad and on some lines can be quite pleasant. There is also a great bus system where you can almost always find a seat. London commuting is a dream compared to my prior one-hour each way drive via 85 & 101 in the valley.

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

#617

Post by alkonaut »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #612
alkonaut wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is bus lanes are hopelessly inefficient, because there aren't enough buses to fully utilize them That means there is a lot of capacity to add buses without causing congestion in the bus lanes. That's good. Obviously it might be tempting to say "look we can't sacrifice one lane of 4 here to buses when cars are jammed bumper to bumper in the other 3 lanes" but that's how bus lanes work. With too few buses…

> That means there is a lot of capacity to add buses without causing congestion in the bus lanes. That's good. Only if you actually add the buses, and people actually ride them, neither of which is a given. > Obviously it might be tempting to say "look we can't sacrifice one lane of 4 here to buses when cars are jammed bumper to bumper in the other 3 lanes" but that's how bus lanes work. That's the problem. > With to…

> The problem in most of the US is that you have a big congested highway, and then you get off the highway and drive another five or ten minutes on side streets to your destination.

> there aren't regular buses on the side streets because there isn't enough traffic there to justify them

That is the usual problem. But it's usually possible to have freeway buses connect to local buses that drive around an area. Driving around nearly empty buses might seem like a bad idea - but it's the best idea there is when people aren't in a car (because they just jumped off the train or freeway bus). A second solution is having people drive a short distance on local roads from their home to a public transit hub such as a train station, if there is no bus to take them near their homes - The problem is that once you get off a train or freeway bus you might not be at your destination. But that's where public transit can't solve the problem. Zoning and building also needs to change. Without that, people might still have to walk 30 minutes to the office.

The situation where a company puts up an office with a large parking in an "office park" (or whatever it's called) which might be 15 minutes from the closest public transit is the root of the problem. Since people have to use the car to their office anyway, they wouldn't be using the bus even if it existed, as you point out. So the solutuion has to be in both ends: offices and housing needs to be in denser, more walkable areas, for example. I don't think the traffic problems in LA can be solved without fundamentally changing how and where people live and work.

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

#618

Post by robotjosh »

People have no problem spending $20,000 for a car, $3k/year for insurance, thousands more for gas and maintenance. For some reason, people freak out when anyone tries to add or increase toll roads. If you want to see a comment get epic downvoted, propose a GPS based tolling system to replace the gas tax. Every road is passively tolled so everyone pays for what they use. People freak out, everybody feels entitled to free roads.

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

#619

Post by rtpg »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #559
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

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.

I made a multi-point route from Ikebukuro to.... iidabashi, then akihabara, then roppongi area, then down to shinagawa. It was mainly to get the 15 mile requirement while driving through downtown areas.

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

#620

Post by nkrisc »

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,…

I just got back from my first trip to LA and my impression is the same. I stayed with a relative in Venice, met a friend in Silver Lake, and went downtown the next day. The amount of travel was pretty crazy. I'm from Chicago and traveling 15 miles is pretty much going from the far North Side to the far South Side, a trip that no one would make just for brunch.

An analogous LA day in Chicago feels like it would be brunch in Schaumburg, coffee with a friend in Gary, Indiana and dinner in Winnetka.

Maybe I'm way off, I was only there for three days, but that was what I took away from the trip.

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