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Old Posted Jan 24, 2022, 5:18 AM
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Join Date: May 2019
Location: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Originally Posted by llamaorama View Post
One problem with American transit is it only serves centralized places of employment. It doesn't get people to sunday afternoon dentist appointments or that fun restaurant on the other side of town, and you can't take it to enjoy a day at the beach or go hiking. LA interestingly could be an exception to this rule, only because of it's awesome geographic location making leisure and "staycation" activities right there in the city, and almost-dense-yet-decentralized layout of the place where there's all sorts of stuff along major roads.
LA Metro's buses and trains are up to about 80% of pre-COVID ridership (best rebound among big agencies in the country), while NYC is hovering around 58% and SF is languishing around 45%, and it seems clear to me that the reason for those disparities is in line with your observation here.

Metro and the larger local agencies (Big Blue, Long Beach, etc.) are much more focused on local service than with getting commuters into and out of downtown LA. While downtown is physically the hub of the public transit network here and thus is very well served by bus and train, it is merely one of the larger of several employment nodes located around the city and region. And many other jobs aren't in a node at all, they're just scattered along major boulevards. Because of all that, LA's public transit system really was built in a way that gets people to the dentist and that restaurant across town, as the current ridership stats indicate.
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