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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

#631

Post by Arizhel »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #346
Touche wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I horrible person to want higher end trains again (like there used to be)? So I can pay double but have the confidence that my fellow passengers have jobs and families they care about and don't have voices in their head. Does this make me a bad human to want this?

Bad is subjective. Implicitly in this, you want to pay money to avoid seeing the problems of other people instead of seeking to fix them. That might be worth thinking about.

How is he, personally, going to fix those problems? Those problems are only "fixable" (or ameliorated) by societal action, which basically means you need government social services.

As far as we know, he might vote for candidates who promote such social services at every election. But there's nothing he can do if the politicians don't do what they promise, or other voters vote for politicians who work against this goal.

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

#632

Post by lightedman »

stevenleeg wrote: post #555
erispoe wrote: post #537

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.

LA county alone has a higher population than 42 states in the Union.

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

#633

Post by zymhan »

SippinLean wrote: post #628
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,…

Measurably false, LA has the worst traffic in the world. >The average [LA] driver wasted 104 hours sitting in gridlock.... New York motorists spent 89 hours on average...San Francisco...83 hours on average in 2016. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/02/20/los-angeles-n...

You then proceed to list only US cities to back up your claim, disregading GP's point that other countries have much, much worse traffic in their biggest cities.

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

#634

Post by zymhan »

lightedman wrote: post #630
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,…

"LA is a victim of having too good a car infrastructure" I live in the area. I guess you've not seen the potholes lining Ventura. The infrastructure, bridges included, are garbage.

Not the best maintained, but extremely extensive, is what they were going for

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

#635

Post by maxerickson »

lightedman wrote: post #632
stevenleeg wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

LA county alone has a higher population than 42 states in the Union.

Compare to Long Island which has ~70% of the population in about 1/3 of the area.

If LA County is a metro area, I think Long Island is in the comparable NYC metro area.

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

#636

Post by simplehuman »

trome wrote: post #605
praneshp wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is just plain stupid, short of being a giant asshole, you don't lay on the horn cause someone respected a light/stop sign. Sounds like a city to avoid.

It's clear you have not been to most Asian cities.

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

#637

Post by SippinLean »

zymhan wrote: post #633
SippinLean wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Measurably false, LA has the worst traffic in the world. >The average [LA] driver wasted 104 hours sitting in gridlock.... New York motorists spent 89 hours on average...San Francisco...83 hours on average in 2016. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/02/20/los-angeles-n...

You then proceed to list only US cities to back up your claim, disregading GP's point that other countries have much, much worse traffic in their biggest cities.

>in the world

The article mentions Moscow as the second-worst city for traffic

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

#639

Post by OrwellianChild »

revelation wrote: post #593
OrwellianChild wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This interpretation assumes that buses don't have their own right-of-way. Give buses their own lane, and suddenly they start looking like very cheap, quick-to-implement light-rail substitutes...

No, they still have terrible capacity. Does nobody do basic math anymore? And having bus lanes, which can still be blocked, does not make them cheap light-rail. You also need to upgrade all lights at intersections to allow the bus to override the current signal.

Great suggestion! Add light timing to the list.

I'm not sure I understand the "terrible capacity" argument. An articulated bus can seat 50-60 people without standing passengers. Are you suggesting that a light rail train holds more? This seems like a solvable problem - just run buses at twice the frequency, no? The point is the right-of-way prevents them from getting stuck in traffic without having to lay expensive off-grade track.

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

#640

Post by OrwellianChild »

trome wrote: post #606
OrwellianChild wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bus Rapid Transit expansion is a near-term fix that can happen in a year or two. Rezones and construction to densify a city take longer. I don't think these two solutions are incompatible - they address the problem at different time scales.

Zoning is inherently racist, designed to keep the poor and working class out of areas of the city. It stunts economic growth to boot, and should be done away with entirely. That being said, the roadways are public property, and should be redesigned to be on a road diet, but building structures in the middle is perhaps not the best idea. Parkifying some sections, expanding others into plazas (while infilling parking t…

Not sure where you're going with the "zoning is racist" comment - I'm not talking about redlining here. In places like Seattle, much of the city is still zoned single-family, which is exclusionary to the poor and working class.

The rezones happening in our city boost the building density permitted in most of the city while requiring that some of that extra capacity be dedicated to low-income units. It's net positive for those in need of affordable housing and lets developers build bigger, which hardly hurts the economy.

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