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Amount of space required to transport the same number of passengers by car, bus or bicycle.
This poster, from the City of Munster in Germany, has been making its way around the internet this past week. Now, either an internet star or slut, it carries a simple message about congestion, urban planning and people: cars are great, but can really suck in certain situations and people will just deal with it anyway.
We often hear in the comments sections of transit posts about Wilshire Blvd. that the "billion" buses on the street are the problem. Just imagine all those bus riders in their car behind, next, in front and all around you. In fact, that could 30,000 extra cars.
Or just imagine if there were park-and-ride lots along Wilshire and the majority of people took buses. Then the only traffic the bus would sit through was of their own kind.
And then imagine if money actually existed to fund the Purple Line 'subway to the sea.'
Image from the City of Munster, Germany Planning Office (h/t MetroRiderLA)
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Ohh come on... what you are doing is thinking and being practical. That doesn't apply in the overspender "the more gas I consume and the bigger the better" mentality of southern california.
Subway and bus stops need to be spaced at reasonable intervals, but each stop imposes a time cost. In LA there's just no way to have enough stops AND have reasonable travel times.
Because of this, you have to have a car in LA (if only to drive to the subway), and if you've already sunk the cost into having a car you're going to use the car instead of public transit.
LA is just too sprawled out for practical public transit. The real solution is telecommuting.
Maybe the planning commissions and the city council need to STOP trying to seed an ideology that will not work in this town... What do they think the people who need cars should do? Do you think people like paying $2.50 a day to ride a bus round trip five days a week? Do you think people who already own cars are going to just stop everything and switch to riding Metro? LA is filled with hundreds of thousands of artists and musicians who need to transport equipment to gigs, valuable set ups and kits that they can't carry without a car, "people who do jobs Americans won't" that need trucks for gardening, landscaping, construction. People who run animal rescues have to transport endless amounts of supplies. People have big families and need the space in their cars. I can go on and on. It's friggin' Los Angeles. If you don't like traffic, this is probably not the place for you. Many corporations are allowing for more and more telecommuting...at least one day a week. This seems like the most practical campaign to wage while the government is too busy coming up with incentives that don't help anything, like access to a carpool lane even if you are alone, for buying a Prius. STUPID!