LA getting serious about lifting parking requirements in downtown • Hacker News Board

Re: LA getting serious about lifting parking requirements in downtown

#171

Post by pavon » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #55

mktmkr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cars are the reason the buses are slow. 22% of LA workers travel to work without a car, which isn't great but it's not zero either. Metro LA added a dedicated bus lane on Flower and they are moving more than one bus per minute in that lane. As soon as you remove the cars everything else gets a lot better. https://twitter.com/metrolosangeles/status/11538072082299576...

Are they? It's always seemed to me that frequent stops, circuitous routes and long travel distances are the reason the buses are slow relative to cars. After all, cars have to deal with other cars as well. And for comparison, to the south, San Diego has much better traffic than LA, but the buses are still quite slow (e.g. I recently considered taking the bus rather than a 15-minute drive in San Diego, but it would ha…

There are different bottlenecks in buses depending on the situation, and I'm not familiar with LA. However, the places where I've tried using the bus, the latency involved in walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, getting off and walking to the transfer bus stop, waiting for the bus, then walking to my destination far exceed the delay added the stops the bus had to make. In many cases it exceeded the total time on the bus altogether. Increasing the frequency that buses run a route has huge impact on travel time, but there is a limit as to how much you can do that without adding a dedicated lane. The small improvement in speed caused by not having to deal with cars is just icing on the top.

Re: LA getting serious about lifting parking requirements in downtown

#172

Post by DannyBee » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 5:28 AM UTC

mktmkr wrote: post #24

DannyBee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the years i saw LA, everyone had a car, and used them religiously. Like, they would take their car to go around the corner. It's kind of ridiculous. Hopefully it's changing.

LA has and has long had fewer cars per household than the national average (1.6 vs. 1.8 in the latest census). 12% of households have no car.

1. I'm not sure why you think this is inconsistent with what I said. You seem to think it is?

2. I'm not sure what census blocks you are including in your definition?

For a very long time, LA was also very famously anti-pedestrian, both in laws and enforcement. It's trying to change for sure, but I would not say it's there yet.

Re: LA getting serious about lifting parking requirements in downtown

#173

Post by closeparen » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

obelos wrote: post #39

nostromo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a crazy idea: let the property owner and developer decide the correct amount of parking to provide. And the size of the apartments. And the number of floors to build. The regulations here should be based around things like structural integrity, egress, and safety. Not views, not density, not what size of apartment is “too big” or “too small.” All of those are things the market can sort out.

It's crazy because it doesn't work. All of those factors rely upon the use of common, municipal resources, and those municipal resources, especially streets, often can't be expanded.

There is a great deal of human civilization that works well despite looking nothing like the postwar suburban United States. This idea that anything outside status-quo zoning codes will lead to the collapse of civilization seems easily disproven by most middle-class people's travel experiences.

Re: LA getting serious about lifting parking requirements in downtown

#174

Post by kdot » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #55

mktmkr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cars are the reason the buses are slow. 22% of LA workers travel to work without a car, which isn't great but it's not zero either. Metro LA added a dedicated bus lane on Flower and they are moving more than one bus per minute in that lane. As soon as you remove the cars everything else gets a lot better. https://twitter.com/metrolosangeles/status/11538072082299576...

Are they? It's always seemed to me that frequent stops, circuitous routes and long travel distances are the reason the buses are slow relative to cars. After all, cars have to deal with other cars as well. And for comparison, to the south, San Diego has much better traffic than LA, but the buses are still quite slow (e.g. I recently considered taking the bus rather than a 15-minute drive in San Diego, but it would ha…

I was pleasantly surprised with LAs bus system the last few times I've been. They have both express buses and ones that hit every stop. I also find LA to be very walkable.