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Old Posted Jan 10, 2022, 5:15 AM
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Doady Doady is offline
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What is the average distance of commutes in Los Angeles? Maybe that is the real problem. Los Angeles is the densest US urban area, but it's still huge, and if people aren't living near where they work, or their workplaces are not concentrated in particular locations, it is going to be hard for transit to serve them effectively and efficiently. You can build more rail lines and bus lanes to increase speeds slightly, add more buses and trains to reduce wait times and reduce the travel times further, but transit ultimately is not for long distances. That is for the car. Transit is about medium distances, especially in a polycentric urban area, with no strong hub for a hub-and-spoke system such as commuter rail. But even commuter rail stations are surrounded by huge parking lots, aren't they?

Walking, then cycling, then transit, then car, each progressively longer distances. Distance is the number one factor in what mode people choose. That's what TOD is all about, isn't it? Increase the density near bus and rail corridors, build pedestrian walkways to bus stops and train stations to allow people to walk in a straight line, reduce the average walking distances to and from transit. So a problem of car dependence is really a problem of long distances, and the long distances is really what Los Angeles should be looking at.

You can see the massive rail system in the Chicago area didn't stop CTA, Metra and Pace from losing 8.5% of their ridership from 2011 to 2019. Even such a rail network can't solve the problem of ever-increasing distances in an ever-expanding urban area.

If they can reduce the distances enough to get people onto transit, then maybe they can try to reduce the distances further to get people onto bikes, then even further to get them walking. One step at a time.
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