Are LA's rail transit expansion plans enough to shift the city away from the car?

[ue]

Originally Posted by Quixote

LA needs a dense heavy rail system (think lines spaced 1-1.5 miles apart) traversing that geographic area. The problem with LA though is that while it has the population, the medium-high density isn’t enough to unequivocally warrant heavy rail. But at the same time, it’s too dense and congested for conventional at-grade LRT.

Do you have the stats for this? I'm not disputing you I just want to see at what thresholds HRT is necessary and where in LA that is. It seems like most cities are shifting to LRT, as it's much cheaper to build and, if you have long enough trains and frequent service, it can be not unlike HRT. The Paris Metro is known for being narrow, while the Calgary C-Train has higher ridership than a lot of American heavy rail.

Politics. WeHo supported Measure R by 86% (more than any other municipality), and they want rail. The original plan however was for there to be HRT underneath SMB starting from Hollywood/Highland and then interlining with the Purple Line in Beverly Hills. That alternative wasn’t pursued because it was deemed not cost-effective enough to be competitive for federal New Starts funding. The Crenshaw northern extension was viewed as a separate project going straight up La Brea.

Well, yeah, of course. Cities are cash-trapped and transit has undergone decades of austerity, which has produced councils and planning departments that want to pursue gentrification as a means for getting more tax revenue. All this means is that there's a focus on big projects that serve affluent areas or areas primed to be gentrified and also there's a desire to have one project do 3 things with mediocrity rather than one thing well. This is a perfect example of that. Rather than continue Crenshaw right up Western or La Brea, there's proposals to do ridiculously inefficient zig-zags to hit West Hollywood. Having a Red Line spur go under SMB into WeHo and then meet up with the Purple Line makes more sense. And for north-south connectivity, add another LRT line under La Cienega would be more costly, sure, but would produce a more comprehensive rapid transit system for that part of the Westside, which would give riders far more options (because, especially in a polycentric city like LA, people aren't all going to the same place) and more efficient routing.

Public transit is a public service so I truly don't get why it's being run like a business. It's point isn't to run a profit from a combination of high ridership and appropriately priced fares, it's supposed to provide the public with good access to their city. We don't do this with police or the military, which eat billions upon billions of dollars every year. It's just ideology governing why cities like LA are pursuing mediocre one-size-fits-all approaches to transit.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by ue

Public transit is a public service so I truly don't get why it's being run like a business. It's point isn't to run a profit from a combination of high ridership and appropriately priced fares, it's supposed to provide the public with good access to their city. We don't do this with police or the military, which eat billions upon billions of dollars every year. It's just ideology governing why cities like LA are pursuing mediocre one-size-fits-all approaches to transit.

You don't need to run public transit as a profitable business but you still should look at getting the best bang for your buck, so you can maximize ridership per dollar.

Otherwise you end up with white elephant American systems that barely get 25% fare box recovery ratio because they were built with little regard to ridership. From the perspective of a Canadian, American transit agencies are often well-funded and get revenue powers that few Canadian cities get (sales taxes, fuel taxes, selling bonds) but they mostly have wasted it.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by ue

Do you have the stats for this? I'm not disputing you I just want to see at what thresholds HRT is necessary and where in LA that is. It seems like most cities are shifting to LRT, as it's much cheaper to build and, if you have long enough trains and frequent service, it can be not unlike HRT. The Paris Metro is known for being narrow, while the Calgary C-Train has higher ridership than a lot of American heavy rail.

There are no stats, although I did mention ridership density for Crenshaw North being in the 10,000+ range. At-grade LRT works for geographically smaller cities with significantly smaller populations, Calgary being a great example.

For core LA, at-grade LRT is not a viable alternative for the simple fact that most arterials aren’t wide enough. And even if you were yo have street-running rail, think about how slow and unreliable it would be. It only takes one idiot driver to ruin the commutes of hundreds of thousands of people.

The difference between HRT and LRT is grade-separation, frequency, and capacity, not the rolling stock itself.

Manila:

• Video Link

[ue]

Originally Posted by Quixote

There are no stats, although I did mention ridership density for Crenshaw North being in the 10,000+ range. At-grade LRT works for geographically smaller cities with significantly smaller populations, Calgary being a great example.

For core LA, at-grade LRT is not a viable alternative for the simple fact that most arterials aren’t wide enough. And even if you were yo have street-running rail, think about how slow and unreliable it would be. It only takes one idiot driver to ruin the commutes of hundreds of thousands of people.

The difference between HRT and LRT is grade-separation, frequency, and capacity, not the rolling stock itself.

Manila:

• Video Link

That's simply not true. LRT can be grade separated and even underground like a subway, case in point the first LRT in North America, in Edmonton:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay/En...cember2019.jpg

These trains have greater frequencies than LA's D/Purple Line heavy rail subway (5 min peak vs LA's 10 min peak). Edmonton's LRT carries about 115,000 people per day compared with 135,000 on the LA Purple Line - not far off.

The difference between HRT and LRT absolutely is rolling stock (which is how it has higher capacity more easily), but not grade separation or frequency. You're confusing LRT with streetcars, which none of the LRT lines in LA are. All of LA's rail lines are separated from traffic, even if surface level LRT, allowing for speeds not much slower than max HRT speeds (which they rarely get to anyway). Meanwhile portions of HRT in other cities (like Toronto and Atlanta) are not sub-surface. Others still are above ground (as in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Vancouver), which is something that LRT has been shown to do as well (as seen in Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton).

You could easily build an extension of the L/Gold Line underground through DTLA and then down Avalon through South Central, also underground (or elevated). It would be LRT still but have similar grade separation to traditional HRT systems.

[iheartthed]

Why would they bother to grade separate a light rail system?

[ue]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why would they bother to grade separate a light rail system?

To do the same things that HRT does but for less money. Do people in HRT-centric cities like New York really think that every LRT system is basically a streetcar??

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by ue

The difference between HRT and LRT absolutely is rolling stock (which is how it has higher capacity more easily), but not grade separation or frequency.

No, it’s really not. That’s a very US-centric view of what’s heavy rail/rapid transit. You yourself brought up Paris Metro’s (one of the best in the world) mostly narrow-body trains — they’re even narrower than LA’s LRVs, which are about the same width as the NYC Subway’s A Division rolling stock. London Underground and Madrid Metro also have trains with narrower profiles, with the latter running on overhead catenary lines. Capacity comes from greater frequency, which is made possible by grade-separation in areas with lots of vehicular traffic.

LA's Kinkisharyo P3010s, which will eventually constitute the bulk of the LRT fleet, feel quite spacious inside. And this is without bench-style seating.


https://lbpost.com/news/place/public...ars-of-service

[ue]

Originally Posted by Quixote

No, it’s really not. That’s a very US-centric view of what’s heavy rail/rapid transit.

You're conflating HRT with rapid transit more broadly. Yes, HRT is rapid transit, but so is LRT. They both function similarly in their respective cities, LRT is just relatively newer technology and tends to be built in smaller and/or newer cities, like San Diego, Portland, and Ottawa.

You yourself brought up Paris Metro’s (one of the best in the world) mostly narrow-body trains — they’re even narrower than LA’s LRVs, which are about the same width as the NYC Subway’s A Division rolling stock. London Underground and Madrid Metro also have trains with narrower profiles, with the latter running on overhead catenary lines.

This just further proves the greater overlap in abilities between HRVs and LRVs.

Capacity comes from greater frequency, which is made possible by grade-separation in areas with lots of vehicular traffic.

And yet, you conveniently ignore a stat in which an LRT system beats LA's heavy rail for frequency. Even within LA people subsequently have pointed out the C Line, an LRT line, is faster than all of LA's other lines, and all of the DC metro lines.

And tell me, if both LRT and HRT are grade-separated, how is that specifically contributing to greater frequency (which I've already debunked anyway)?

In terms of speed, the DART LRT runs at an average of 30 miles (48km) per hour while New York's HRT subway runs at an average of 17 miles (27km) per hour and Chicago's L has an average of 23 (37km) miles per hour.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by ue

You're conflating HRT with rapid transit more broadly. Yes, HRT is rapid transit, but so is LRT. They both function similarly in their respective cities, LRT is just relatively newer technology and tends to be built in smaller and/or newer cities, like San Diego, Portland, and Ottawa.

...

This just further proves the greater overlap in abilities between HRVs and LRVs.

...

And yet, you conveniently ignore a stat in which an LRT system beats LA's heavy rail for frequency. Even within LA people subsequently have pointed out the C Line, an LRT line, is faster than all of LA's other lines, and all of the DC metro lines.

And tell me, if both LRT and HRT are grade-separated, how is that specifically contributing to greater frequency (which I've already debunked anyway)?

In terms of speed, the DART LRT runs at an average of 30 miles (48km) per hour while New York's HRT subway runs at an average of 17 miles (27km) per hour and Chicago's L has an average of 23 (37km) miles per hour.

So what exactly is your point about rolling stock vis-a-vis capacity? How does it represent a fundamental difference between "HRT" and "LRT" if some LRVs are wider than some of the HRVs running on three of the world's top 10 metro systems and LRT lines having the capacity to draw the same ridership as HRT lines?

You said the following:

The difference between HRT and LRT absolutely is rolling stock (which is how it has higher capacity more easily)

Does that mean BART is more of a HRT system than the Paris Metro?

As for frequency, LA's two "HRT" lines are limited to 4-minute headways because they interline between Union Station and Wilshire/Vermont. More to the point, frequency/headways and ridership are correlational, not causal. And ridership is not a reflection of capacity, but rather more locally specific factors such as the nature of the corridor itself, demand, quality of service, overall transit appetite, etc.

You're painting with a very broad brush and totally ignoring important physical, cultural, and logistical differences.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Quixote

So what exactly is your point about rolling stock vis-a-vis capacity? How does it represent a fundamental difference between "HRT" and "LRT" if some LRVs are wider than some of the HRVs running on three of the world's top 10 metro systems and LRT lines having the capacity to draw the same ridership as HRT lines?

You said the following:



Does that mean BART is more of a HRT system than the Paris Metro?

As for frequency, LA's two "HRT" lines are limited to 4-minute headways because they interline between Union Station and Wilshire/Vermont. More to the point, frequency/headways and ridership are correlational, not causal. And ridership is not a reflection of capacity, but rather more locally specific factors such as the nature of the corridor itself, demand, quality of service, overall transit appetite, etc.

You're painting with a very broad brush and totally ignoring important physical, cultural, and logistical differences.

The rolling stock used in HRT and LRT is generally different. You said:

The difference between HRT and LRT is grade-separation, frequency, and capacity, not the rolling stock itself.

Light rail vehicles and heavy rail vehicles are different. Yes, some HRT vehicles are narrower, but generally speaking, they have higher capacity per train car, and the technology is different (for one thing, it's much older).

We've already disputed your claims of grade-separation and frequency being the distinction. LRT is generally in a dedicated right of way not unlike HRT. Frequencies can be greater and trains can run faster than HRT systems (not exclusively - merely it can happen).

So what's left? The rolling stock and how that functions in terms of station design and so forth. If anyone is ignoring anything, it's you - myself and others have clearly destroyed your points and yet you still latch onto your same talking points.