Downtown LA is nothing though. When you see it for the first time, it is super disappointing. Most medium size US cities have a larger downtown district. It is a meaningless place in LA. Los Angeles is the definition of urban sprawl for a reason. When most people talk about LA they actually mean everything around the entire LA basin from Santa Rosa to San Clemente and from the pass to Victorville down to Marietta. Many people commute daily across these entire regions. There is no effective public transit around Los Angeles. I lasted 4 years riding a bicycle everywhere in the basin. I was hit 6 times by 7 cars with the double anomaly disabling me. Bike commuting is a death sentence here. I’m literally on a doomed path to homelessness as a result of my bad luck. I was known for going out of my way to be safer than most, I simply rode 400+ miles on the road and trails every week for years. It is a numbers game. Someone will eventually make a u-turn from a parallel parked position in a way that a cyclist cannot avoid. As long as parallel parked cars exist, cyclists will die. Without public mass transit like Manhattan, ditching cars is nonsense. This is only a tax on the poor to toll troll the public and overload surrounding infrastructure on critical connectors to benefit the rich.
Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
on 23 Jul 18:06
nextcollapse
Idk if this would honestly be a good idea.
Never having driven in NY, and not commuting to DTLA much, I can’t imagine the traffic in the two are comparable.
2nd, public transit isn’t up to par, I would say. Yeah DTLA has the the best transit in California probably, but that may not be enough for the different places people may need to travel from to get to downtown. Also, it’s more likely that if you’re low income, you may be coming from way further out of in an area with limited public transit options.
If a vote came for this though, I would probably vote yes though, just to try something new
Non residents are not an issue - they are not around much. Even when they are in traffic, their habits different from the masses of residents doing their normal day to day activities and so it won't affect anything to get them off the roads.
If you want to make a difference in traffic you MUST do something about locals. That something may also be helpful for non-residents, but that is a side effect.
Anytime someone talks about non-residents it is safe to assume they are trying look like they are doing something without having to make any change to their own life.
This is a bad idea for LA. It is tricky even in NYC where a large number of people use transit. If you do this in LA the result will be voters vote anyone who proposed this out of office and then the new people not only eliminate the toll, they will be transit haters who will kill useful transit along the way. NYC is risking this same thing, but it is judged likely that enough people either don't care or see positive effects that they can pull this off - I don't think LA is in that situation.
If you want to do something in LA you need to start by making the transit system useful. There are a lot of projects underway, ensure they complete. There are a lot of proposed projects, select the good ones (many are bad - even the projects underway are not all good but sunk costs are enough that you may as well complete them now). Make sure costs don't get out of control so you can afford to build and run more. Don't let transit become about something other than getting people around LA (a few years ago the LA transit commissioner was asking US congress to put a train test track in LA for all the jobs it would create - this might be a good thing but it is a bad thing for the LA transit commissioner to be interested in because it is distracting from their real job)
threaded - newest
Downtown LA is nothing though. When you see it for the first time, it is super disappointing. Most medium size US cities have a larger downtown district. It is a meaningless place in LA. Los Angeles is the definition of urban sprawl for a reason. When most people talk about LA they actually mean everything around the entire LA basin from Santa Rosa to San Clemente and from the pass to Victorville down to Marietta. Many people commute daily across these entire regions. There is no effective public transit around Los Angeles. I lasted 4 years riding a bicycle everywhere in the basin. I was hit 6 times by 7 cars with the double anomaly disabling me. Bike commuting is a death sentence here. I’m literally on a doomed path to homelessness as a result of my bad luck. I was known for going out of my way to be safer than most, I simply rode 400+ miles on the road and trails every week for years. It is a numbers game. Someone will eventually make a u-turn from a parallel parked position in a way that a cyclist cannot avoid. As long as parallel parked cars exist, cyclists will die. Without public mass transit like Manhattan, ditching cars is nonsense. This is only a tax on the poor to toll troll the public and overload surrounding infrastructure on critical connectors to benefit the rich.
Idk if this would honestly be a good idea. Never having driven in NY, and not commuting to DTLA much, I can’t imagine the traffic in the two are comparable.
2nd, public transit isn’t up to par, I would say. Yeah DTLA has the the best transit in California probably, but that may not be enough for the different places people may need to travel from to get to downtown. Also, it’s more likely that if you’re low income, you may be coming from way further out of in an area with limited public transit options.
If a vote came for this though, I would probably vote yes though, just to try something new
There are so many ways to get into downtown. That would create crazy traffic.
What they should do instead is toll entry into California via major highways for non-residents.
Non residents are not an issue - they are not around much. Even when they are in traffic, their habits different from the masses of residents doing their normal day to day activities and so it won't affect anything to get them off the roads.
If you want to make a difference in traffic you MUST do something about locals. That something may also be helpful for non-residents, but that is a side effect.
Anytime someone talks about non-residents it is safe to assume they are trying look like they are doing something without having to make any change to their own life.
I’m thinking more about revenue, and you are right, I would rather have non-residents increase revenue rather than me.
This is a bad idea for LA. It is tricky even in NYC where a large number of people use transit. If you do this in LA the result will be voters vote anyone who proposed this out of office and then the new people not only eliminate the toll, they will be transit haters who will kill useful transit along the way. NYC is risking this same thing, but it is judged likely that enough people either don't care or see positive effects that they can pull this off - I don't think LA is in that situation.
If you want to do something in LA you need to start by making the transit system useful. There are a lot of projects underway, ensure they complete. There are a lot of proposed projects, select the good ones (many are bad - even the projects underway are not all good but sunk costs are enough that you may as well complete them now). Make sure costs don't get out of control so you can afford to build and run more. Don't let transit become about something other than getting people around LA (a few years ago the LA transit commissioner was asking US congress to put a train test track in LA for all the jobs it would create - this might be a good thing but it is a bad thing for the LA transit commissioner to be interested in because it is distracting from their real job)
New York is dense and LA is sprawl sprawl sprawl.