Video Calls Out L.A. Light Rail Trains for High Costs, Energy Consumption & Slow Speeds

Here's Metro's response to the video. Among the inaccuracies -- it's 29 miles to Burbank, not 17 (unless you can fly).

http://thesource.metro.net/?p=...

Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source

Here's Metro's response to the video -- and by the way it's 29 miles from LAX to Burbank, not 17.

http://thesource.metro.net/?p=...

Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source
www.metro.net/thesource

I'll believe in mass transit when Hollywood A-listers start using it as a first priority.

You think the Hollywood celebrity press would allow that?

I do not understand why the light rail is only used for passenger service.  Why not use it to move commerce around the city as well?

Federal safety regulations.  Of course, it's no problem for an 18-wheel truck to operate right alongside a SmartCar...

Libertarians (Reason, Randall O'Toole) seem to be in love with buses. I just don't get it. Understandably, the maintenance and build up of a bus system for transportation is cheaper. But Los Angeles has a lot of car drivers, so putting those buses on the same roads worsens the gridlock, making riding a bus even more undesirable for people. Plus, having to stop at traffic lights, being delayed by accidents, etc are all issues subways and trains do not have to face.

I do agree that Metro's bus system needs to be beefed up, not scaled back wherever there are trains. Santa Monica is guilty of that as well. They scaled back the Big Blue Bus in preparation for the arrival of the light rail, which won't be happening for years.

Frequency is a huge problem. I think it is unacceptable to expect passengers to wait an hour if they miss their bus - for the next one to arrive.

But yeah, everything done by our local government is ridiculously overpriced. It costs Metro millions of dollars to build a 1-mile-long freeway noise-blocking wall, and that's only on one side of the freeway.

I bet 99% of these bus-obsessives actually drive cars exclusively, and rarely if ever use buses.  Next time someone makes the argument for buses against rail, this person should be asked if they use buses, and if not, why not.  Their response will probably be (if they're being honest), because it sucks, takes forever, and is depressing.

Santa Monica scaled back their bus system due to lack of funding.

The problem I see with buses is that in most cases they have to travel on the same roads as cars. So until they invent a zero gravity bus that can levitate over traffic, the best option for beating the gridlock blues is to build more rail.

Ride a bike foo. 

Buses do lag and are always late... Probably because CalTrans keeps on spending millions on freeways that do not reduce traffic but actually enable more cars to drive on the road and congest the roads. LA keeps cutting bus lines too. 

Sincerely,
Guy who has been riding a bike, bus, trains, and more for the past 4+ years

In fairness his example is a guy who flies into LAX for an audition in Burbank.  It's not reasonable to expect people coming into LAX to fly with a bicycle.

 Wow, I don't know where to begin.

What I'm getting from this is, nobody was listening to the Reason Foundation when the Times published their stuff, so they hired an unfunny comedian to push their propaganda on the Internets.

Watt doesn't say what time he got on the train, other than it was "rush hour," which the annoying Pop-Up Video says could be any time from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m.  Reason F. has been wrong, wrong wrong about ridership numbers ever since the Blue Line opened.

There actually is a direct, express FlyAway bus from LAX to Union Station if you want to avoid the infamous Green-Blue-Red connection which writers tend to emphasize. He could have then taken Metrolink from Union Station to Burbank.

The video also seems to misunderstand what "average speed" means.

I'll admit that light rail isn't perfect. There is a lot of new construction still needed.  But the train is still faster and more comfortable than the bus.  Every new mile of freeway construction is also subsidized. 

This isn't even the tip of the iceberg of "what's wrong with this video..."

This really annoyed me - he did so many things wrong they pretty much purposely set it up for a commute fail.

The part where it says there isn't a route where a train is faster than a bus - what??? If i were to hop on the goldline right now from old town, I would get to union station in 30 minutes (barring wait time). If I were to take a bus (technically 2 buses) down to union station, it would take me 60 minutes - WITHOUT traffic.

How is 60 minutes between 2 buses (again, excluding wait time for 2nd bus which can bring you to 90 mins) better than 1 train at 30 minutes?

And buses get stuck in traffic.  
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Of Course!  This is the part they don't wanna mention.  Maybe on some days when there's less traffic, the buses could go really fast and beat the light rail.  However: if the traffic is bad then it doesn't matter, it's torture.  If Traffic is bad, the light rail doesn't get affected!  When you're on the train and you see the freeway next to you stuck in traffic not moving, it feels like you're part of a miracle and you're still moving!

Agree 100%

Cute but why didn't he just fly into Burbank?