reality vs idealism

it may surprise my non-angeleno readers that metro would even need to consider locking turnstiles or that it's even newsworthy that they're going to.  it's probably even more surprising just how recent the turnstile installation was (2009) and how poorly it was performing a year later.  personally, i think the money could have been spent much more effectively (snacks for the bus drivers to put them in a better mood, for instance).

another thing that is quite surprising is that from 1963 to 1990, l.a. county had no rail service.  to inspire people back into taking trains, fare enforcement was squarely in the background to encourage a sense of freedom.  well, sort of.  if you get caught without proof of valid payment, you can be fined $250.  but try collecting that from, say, the blind blue-line beggar

some policy wonkery

the brookings institution just put out this transit analysis.  it's worth a read if the general topic of transit policy interests you.  i know for most, it don't, so the main takeaways are there are a lot of transit riders in l.a., they are well-served by the various transit agencies in both coverage and service frequency and the average commute-time could use some improvement.  the details follow.

l.a. ain't really known for its transit commuters.  and yet, "Metro areas with a high number of transit commuters, such as Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Philadelphia, also stand out for having small per capita carbon emissions due to transportation compared with more car-dependent areas such as Nashville and Oklahoma City."  it's official, l.a. has lots of transit users.  i'd want some independent verification of the carbon emissions thing, but l.a. is no longer in the "more car-dependent" category.

as the city that created sprawl, there's a pretty strong notion that it's hard to find a bus or train stop in l.a., but that notion is just plain wrong.  "Transit coverage is highest in Western metro areas such as Honolulu and Los Angeles, and lowest in Southern metro areas such as Chattanooga and Greenville."  in fact, l.a. ranks second in both coverage and service frequency.  in the above map (click to enlarge), dark blue means there is coverage, light blue means there isn't.  i had to break it up by income (low on the left, high on the right) to avoid a solid mass of dark blue.  mid income isn't shown, so not all areas are represented.

what l.a. could improve upon, however, is trip time.  out of 100 metro areas, l.a.'s 25.6% is ranked 69th in percentage of jobs accessible in under 90 minutes.  in the above map (click to enlarge), dark areas can be reached within 30 minutes and light areas can be reached in under 90 minutes.  everything in between takes from 30-75 minutes. the left map uses downtown as a starting location (gray box, union station roughly).  the right uses the westside as a starting location (santa monica and the 405 roughly).

despite l.a.'s 69th place ranking, based on sheer number of jobs the average worker has access to within a 90 minute transit commute, l.a. is second.  in other words, a lot of jobs are really far, but there is no shortage of jobs that are really close.  also, despite l.a.'s seemingly low ranking, "Notably, Chicago and Philadelphia—home to two of the oldest and best-known transit networks nationwide—rank lower on job access via transit than Houston and Los Angeles, both of which are known as auto-dominated metro areas."

one last little tidbit from the report: "Only one of 64 transit agencies surveyed recently reported that it has not had to reduce service or increase fares in response to larger fiscal challenges."  there's been a lot of noise about mta doing this, but it seems budgetary pressures are being felt all around.

one last little tidbit for the nerds: "To make the full range of data behind this report more accessible and actionable, Brookings developed an online tool that enables users to examine the detailed results of this analysis."  i found it at http://www.brookings.edu/metro/jobs_and_transit/Map.aspx, where i generated all of the maps in this post.

of course, this is just one study and its particular idiosyncrasies are going to bias the conclusions some way, some how.  one addition i would like to see is "transit effectiveness," something along the lines of the ratio of average commute time driving alone in a car to average commute time on transit.  nonetheless, it's good to have some validation that the l.a. transit system actually performs as well as i've been telling everyone.

i know i've had a lot of news/policy posts of late, crowding out my usual "things you probably wouldn't see anywhere but the train" posts.  but i've got a soft spot for abstract policy discussions, so all i can do is hope the wonkery didn't put too many people to sleep.

first red line slaying

it's been a busy couple of days for la mta news.  first, there's been a bunch of jibber-jabber about bus bench contracts.  second, the bru adds to its long history of race-baiting campaigns and the la times once again takes the bait.  but the biggest news this weekend has to be the mta's first red line slaying (ok, technically it was on friday, but i've had a busy weekend).

this is, of course, a tragedy from which no good will come.  a person has died, another is on the run from authorities and dozens of riders have been emotionally traumatized.  additionally, nonriders' still-unfounded fears surrounding public transportation will only increase (already evidence of this in the la times' article's comments).  perhaps worst has been the mta's reaction.  their main page and twitter feed have yet to even acknowledge a death, simply citing "police act" for the cause of severe delays.  i can only imagine what the reaction in the coming days is going to be.  security companies will be lining up and lobbying to add their presence so such an act can never happen again.  worst case, we'll have a tsa-style organization patting people down before boarding the train.

as for the events themselves, there's simply not enough information out to know if the stabber was in fact defending himself as he claims.  i've never been threatened with a chain, but i can see how that might put one in a defensive mood.  the mta would do well to release the video or at least a solid mug-shot so that he can be identified.  beyond that, however, i haven't even heard of a chain vs knife rumble since playing "double dragon" at the arcade as a young child.  throw in the skateboards as weapons and, well, it's the first time i've heard of this happening.  also, the times staff witness, "waited for five minutes then left when police still failed to appear."  ok, dude, i know you're just the music writer, but did you really expect lapd or even the sheriffs to respond in 5 minutes?  and even so, it's a murder.  what could possibly be so important that you need to take off after a mere 5 minutes?

congress and the train

an interesting report on the topic of federal transportation funding recently came out with some accompanying congressional testimony.  you can tell by the name of the sources, both with "civilrights" in the address, just what the perspective of them will be.  while i find the hand-wringing over discrimination a bit overblown, i do agree with the conclusions.  spending 80% of our federal transportation dollars on car-oriented modes is too much. our trains and buses need upgrades and the systems they run on need both maintenance and improvement.  the united states' standing in the world regarding innovation, especially regarding trains, is pretty dismal these days. but, then again, i've got my iphone, product of the world's newest most highly capitalized company, which happens to be american.  i can still fly my flag with pride.

service changes

mta vs bru...again.  they faced off in court 15 years ago, bru winning.  i wasn't riding mta then, but as a discretionary rider, i can guarantee you i wouldn't be riding mta at all if not for the trains, which the bru does all it can to eliminate.  anyhow, here's the la times's article.  here are the service changes straight from the mta's mouth.

as an interesting side note, it appears the economics of the 450 (highlighted in this blog here) and silver line are netting the axe for the 450, resources being re-allocated to the silver line.

mta regional connector

i'm not generally one to echo the mta's claims of its own greatness.  far from it.  while i understand that there are many stakeholders on anything the mta touches and serving the diverse needs of sprawling los angeles is a huge challenge, you can almost always be assured that where there are so many dollars involved, corruption will follow.  i have no specific actions to condemn, but when you see just how tight a hold construction projects have on the city, well, even the victories can be a little sour.

nonetheless, i think the regional connector is a long overdue project.  it's always seemed crazy that a place called "union station" requires 2 train transfers to get to lax and being one gold line stop away from there requires 3.  the regional connector would bring some sanity, reducing the transfer count of both trips to just 1.  today, the project got some good news.  a lot of folks are gonna get jobs building the thing and when they're done, the rest of us get convenience to our travel.