Talk:Transportation in Los Angeles/Archive 1

Archive 1

Whether we need to revert an entire section...

I haven't looked at this article for a while. Now I come back from a trip to Europe and the section on the L.A. street grid (which I originally started) is a total mess.

The point of that section was not to mention every single arterial road in the City of Los Angeles, but rather to mention some of the more notable ones (and we all know that to keep WP to a manageable size, WP content is restricted under the systemwide notability policy).

Furthermore, the section as originally written listed first the boulevards and then the non-boulevards, but as rewritten, it is now an incoherent jumble listing many non-notable arterials like 3rd Street. Yes, 3rd Street is an important bypass for people in the Mid-Wilshire area, but no one who lives outside of L.A. knows or cares about it. In contrast, Santa Monica Boulevard has been celebrated in several movies and songs.

If no one objects in the next couple of weeks, I am going to move back just that section to the last good version (by copying and pasting from the old version in the article history).

--Coolcaesar 21:47, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

• Could you provide a dif so we might know the version you will be reverting to? BlankVerse ∅ 23:58, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course. Take a look at the section as it existed in this version: [1]

Okay, it's been a week and no one has come forth with a good reason why the current version of that section should stay. I'm copying over the old version right now. --Coolcaesar 13:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Move?

Wouldn't Transportation in Los Angeles be more appropriate than Tranportation of Los Angeles? Pacific Coast Highway ^{(blah • not even doom music)} 21:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

sure lensovet 23:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. On the one hand, transportation "in" is probably more grammatically correct, but transportation "of" is more consistent with the other L.A.-related articles. Anyone else have an opinion? --Coolcaesar 03:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well if it was something like Transportation systems of LA than it would be cool, but now that PCH points it out, it def sounds weird the way it is now. What other articles have this naming structure? Perhaps it's time to move them as well. lensovet 05:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:Streets in Los Angeles, California

I have proposed renaming Category:Streets in Los Angeles, California to Category:Streets in Los Angeles County, California at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 October 3#Category:Streets in Los Angeles, California. If you have any opinions on this renaming, please contribute to the discussion. ^BlankVerse 01:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• NO it should stay as is--Redspork02 22:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As you can see by the redlinks, the change was approved a couple of months ago. All the votes at Categories for discussion were for the rename. ^BlankVerse 15:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Disputing deletion of assertion by Loodog

User:Loodog just deleted an assertion that I originally drafted, regarding how the system is gridlocked because less than a third of the originally planned freeway system was finished. If I recall correctly, the source for that assertion would be the L.A. Freeway book by David Brodsly, ISBN 0520040686. It's widely available throughout the United States (just look it up on WorldCat at worldcat.org). Anyway, the next time I go to San Jose Public Library (probably within the next three weeks) I will take a look at Brodsly's book and get the exact page cite. --Coolcaesar 10:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

My fault, there was no obvious source so I assumed it to be some user's guess, though I'd still like to back that statement off to "David Brodsly blames the fact that LA's freeway system was never finished..." because, IMO, there is no scientific way to know something like this. Many freeway systems did get finished and jam anyway.--Loodog 17:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

We should try to see if we can find some planning maps for the original plans. My personal opinion is that there is no way we could have afforded to build all of the freeways that were planned, and if they were built, that LA would be a balkanized disaster of little enclaves separated by freeways. BlankVerse 10:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Some of them were impossible, but some of them really should have been built like the Beverly Hills Freeway and the 710 to the 210. (Phattonez 14:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC))

Pollution and Car Chases

Are these section necessary? (Phattonez 02:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

--I am removing these sections as I feel that they are not relevant to this article. (Phattonez 13:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC))

Phattonez, I reverted your removal. Reasoning: both sections serve to tell something about the magnitude of automotive infrastructure in the city and serve to distinguish its transporation from other cities.--Loodog 17:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I concur. I drafted the section on car chases. Few other cities in the world have as many car chases or such wild car chases. --Coolcaesar 17:12, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe pollution makes sense, but not car chases. That should be in an article entitled crime in Los Angeles, not transportation. (Phattonez 15:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC))

Still not sources

I marked many places where citation is needed. If nothing is put there, I will delete it tomorrow. You have had enough time. Statements without sources do not belong here. (Phattonez 05:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC))

Victory Boulevard

The Victory Boulevard link points to a Vicotry Boulevard in New York state. Should the link be removed, or a Disambiguation Page added for Victory Boulevard. I don't think, however, that there is any page for the Victory Boulevard in Los Angeles. Lasdlt (talk) 20:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I just made an article called "Victory Boulevard (Los Angeles)". It is a stub, but it should be sufficient. - Phattonez (talk) 02:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Rush hour

Has anything been done by the city authorites to counteract the city's rush hours? why are they so bad in this city compared to others, considering its extensive transport network? What could be done. After reading the article and hoping to find out this info I dont think these have been answered. --Chickenfeed9 (talk) 12:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Mass Transit - Percentage of Trips by Rail

The statistic on percentage of daily trips by rail of 0.4% quoted by Loodog is incorrect. His source obviously has divided the number of trip on Los Angeles County rail by the total daily trips in the Southern California Region (65 million). This article is about Los Angeles, not Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside Counties which are also included in the 65 million denominator figure. See SCAG statistics on daily trips which clearly show it is for many more counties than Los Angeles [2] Also, the numerator and denominator should match... the source is obviously biased and used incorrect math to make a point. Furthermore, such an obscure statistic seems somewhat irrelevant... perhaps the percentage of mass transit trips as a percentage of total might be relevant, but otherwise why do we not have percentage of total trips taken on any one of thousands of street or highway arterials as part of the total trips? Arturoramos (talk) 03:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't know. There are myriad different ways to count trips so you can't just call the 65 million all of Southern California. And it's far from an obscure statistic. There are many people under the impression that no one rides the subway, and people who claim the subway is a popular way to get around. What better objective statistic to settle practical usefulness of the subway than its fraction of daily commuting trips?

Sure, we could list that in LA 10.5% commuter use public transit, but that doesn't tell how it splits. 131,000 ride the light rail, 133,000 are riding the subway, but the 1,224,100 are riding buses. Just using those numbers, you get:

(133 000 / (131 000 + 133 000 + 1 224 100)) * 10.5% = 0.938444997%

of all commutes being taken by subway. I don't see what's obscure about that.--Loodog (talk) 14:24, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, that the 0.46% number is incorrect. While there is a source cited has an incorrect calculation in that the numerator (number of rail trips in Los Angeles County) does not match the denominator (number of total trips in all of Southern California counties). I have not been able to find a source for the total number of trips in Los Angeles County, but census statistics put trips at less than 4 per person per day, so that would mean it would be in the 40-50 million range and the source I previously cites shows that the 65 million is certainly includes all Southern California counties thus the 0.46% number is certainly incorrect. I think that the 0.93% number is probably closer, but unless we can get a reliable (i.e. primary data source based calculation) I don't think it is worth including as it is not extremely relevant, i.e. why are we not including numbers for percentage of trips on the 405 freeway or on buses? Arturoramos (talk) 05:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The 405 is not equivalent because it isn't its own mode of transit. You could do all major free ways combined, but good luck finding the statistics. Buses is fine, that can be included, in which case you get:

(1 224 100 / (131 000 + 133 000 + 1 224 100)) * 10.5% = 8.6%

Of all trips being taken by bus. I don't see any problem with the sources I've cited. Three are APTA and the 10.5% comes from Census.gov.--Loodog (talk) 13:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, how up-to-date are those figures anyway? According to a factsheet[3] of LACMTA the avarage ridership of both light rail and subway has increased to 283,264 in May 2008. Gamgee (talk) 13:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

First quarter 2008. You can't get more recent data from a non-local source, which we should be using in the interest of consistency.--Loodog (talk) 14:06, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I left out commuter rail numbers: 40,400, so bus percentage is now:

(1224100 / (131 000 + 133 000 + 1 224 100 + 40400)) * 10.5% = 8.4%

And rail is:

(1224100 / (131 000 + 133 000 + 1 224 100 + 40400)) * 10.5% = .90%

--Loodog (talk) 14:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I have found a source for the number of average daily trips in Los Angeles County. The figure is for 2004 and it is 29 million according to the LACMTA 2008 Long Range Transportation Plan. [4]

So that would mean that Metro rail (not including Metrolink which included non-LA boardings) is (131 000 + 133 000)/29 million = 0.91% of total daily trips and buses would be 5.2% of daily trips. Your bus number excludes non-LACMTA bus ridership which is nearly an additional 300,000 boardings for a total of 1.5 million.

The discrepancy between the 10.5% public transit ridership figure and these figures is that someone can ride public transit (e.g. for work) but still make car trips (e.g. for errands when they get home). In other words, percentage of population that ride public transit does not equal percentage of trips made by public transit. Coincidentally the 0.9% for metro rail comes out pretty close either way. As I mentioned earlier, that figure is different (about double) of what was claimed in the article Loodog used as his source for the 0.46% figure.Arturoramos (talk) 15:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

But wait, you added the light rail and subway together combined. That .4% given was just the subway. Using your number, you get

133000/29000000 = 0.46% for subway, which is not so different from the original source you're contesting.

--Loodog (talk) 15:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The source you cited Loodog, and the phrasing of your cite of the statistic were clearly for "all rail"... and I quote from your source "In Los Angeles, the city with the worst traffic congestion in the country, rail transit's market share is 270,000 daily trips out of a total of 65 million." The 65 million is wrong and thus the 0.46% for "rail transit" is wrong. The 270,000 is clearly combined subway and light rail.

--Arturoramos (talk) 16:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I gave the article a reread. You're right. They're counting all rail together. I would accept your .9% statistic for the article.--Loodog (talk) 17:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually come to think of it, which is the more relevant number of total trips if you're trying to catch all commutes into/out of LA city? Would you say that the majority of LA commutes are from inside the county?--Loodog (talk) 18:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Loodog, this seems to be going in a circular argument. If you read my initial commentary, I noted that writing about the percentage of rail passengers in Southern California was not appropriate for this article since the article is clearly about Los Angeles and not Southern California. The metro rail runs only in Los Angeles County, thus using a metro rail number as the numerator and a SCAG number for all of Southern California number for the denominator is non-sensical and mathematically incorrect. The article you cited was clearly anti-rail and used such incorrect math to further their viewpoint. If you look at p. 90 of the Long Range Transportation Plan Technical Document, you will see that for most Los Angeles County subregions, only about 10% of daily trips include an out-of-county attraction or production (read origin or destination). 90% of trips are local commutes or errands to the local grocery store, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.160.139.155 (talk) 20:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

But I think you're just as much using incompatible numerator/denominators if a good fraction of to-LA commutes are from outside the county. You're counting all rail ridership, but only including commutes from LA county. To use the DC and Boston systems as examples, a huge function of their subways systems is bringing people to work who live in the suburbs and that's what gives them a large amount of their utility.

The fraction is (total number of rail commutes)/(total number of all commutes). I'm arguing that the numerator should be all rail trips, and the denominator should be all daily trips taken to LA from anywhere.--Loodog (talk) 21:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The Metro rail system only runs in Los Angeles county, thus someone cannot make a trip on Metro rail from outside of Los Angeles County. Therefore counting trips not originating in Los Angeles County simply serves to dilute the figure since it doubles the number of trips. Anyhow, the total number of trip attractions (trips ending in Los Angeles County) as opposed to trip productions (trips beginning in Los Angeles County) is 30 million as opposed to 29 million. Did you even read the LACMTA long range transportation plan from the link I posted? It is pretty clearly explained there. The other 30 million odd trips that add up to the 65 million quoted in the article you cited are trips that occur completely outside of Los Angeles County. And I reiterate, this article is about transportation in Los Angeles, not transportation in Southern California.

--216.99.218.40 (talk) 00:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Someone can drive into line's terminus, park their car, and take the rail in, which is where a good fraction of rail commuters in Boston and DC come from, but whatever. I'm not adamant.--Loodog (talk) 01:20, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I live in DC and I can tell you that I have never heard of someone driving across a county or state line to park their car and take the metro. People who do this type of mixed commute usually drive to a nearby (read same county) rail station because there is not good bus service from their home to that station. The metro system in DC runs through five suburban counties in addition to the District of Columbia... the system in Los Angeles runs only in Los Angeles county. Anyhow, any trips originating outside of Los Angeles County and ending in Los Angeles County would be included in the trips attracted figure. Posting transportation statistics requires a basic understanding of how these are computed and what they mean. You are welcome to put whatever statistics you see fit but they should be sourced (to a reliable source) and computed correctly.

--Arturoramos (talk) 08:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that's fine then. I suppose there's no way of measuring the statistic I'm talking about.--Loodog (talk) 00:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Commuting Section Data Out of Date

The source for the commuting data appears to be the 1990 Census American Community Survey. There is updated data from this survey at least as recent as 2005. Therefore I am deleting the section because it has no citations and the data are clearly out of date and therefore incorrect --Arturoramos (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Whole article is biased

Can we please do something about this? For example: True to Los Angeles reputation, there is not high ridership on mass transit; worst traffic in the nation; road rage; running red lights; chronic police understaffing; etc. These are just assertions, there is no fact. Los Angeles does not have the worst traffic in the nation, and the source is old anyway. Los Angeles has very high ridership for such a new system. Road rage and everything I mentioned after are just assertions and are not backed up with facts. Can we please do something to fix this? This requires a very big revision. (Phattonez 02:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

Unbiased facts are there on the page. The only way to unbias it any more is the remove the phrase "true to reputation", which I thought added something to the article since many Californians I know both don't even know LA has a subway and repute low public transit ridership; thus, the statement "true to reputation" allows the reader to connect the article with something he has probably heard and wondered about the veracity.--Loodog 05:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

→However, Los Angeles' mass transit is very new compared to the rest of the nation. It is not fair to compare it to systems which have been around for many more years. There are many more problems besides the ones on mass transit. I marked those areas by saying that citation is needed. Obviously this article needs a total revision. (Phattonez 05:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

Through whatever circumstances have made it so, LA's mass transit system does not have high ridership. The ridership numbers comparing the T to the L to the NYC subway to the DC Metrorail system make no note of explanations for the differences in the numbers. These are all vastly different systems with any number of contextual factors about them being different. Age, size, population density, grade separation, political trends, demographics and poverty rates, ease of owning an automobile, etc... these things are all different for every system compared. It's just as "fair" to compare them to each other as to LA's system, which (with the exception of the Gold Line) was finished before DC's metrorail system anyway.--Loodog 05:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

→Are you kidding? The DC Subway has already celebrated it's 25th anniversary. LA's first line, the Blue Line, was finished in 1993, only 14 years ago. Other cities have had a head start. How can you compare a system that is already complete to a system that is still in its early stages of construction? (Phattonez 23:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

DC system was declared finished in 2001. Either way the point is moot as per my comments above. Through whatever circumstances have made it so, LA's system averages 276,900 trips a day, DC's subway has 699,599 trips, the T has 664,700 trips, the L has's 644,200, and the NYC subway has 6 million. Explanations for these facts could fill essays, which would be OR anyway.--Loodog 01:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

And Los Angeles' system is nowhere near done. Besides, if we compare these systems, then the buses need to be taken into account also, since it is a very important part of the mass transit system. (Phattonez 01:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC))

Numbers compare rail trips only. In the part of the section talking about rail transport. The sentence makes no assertions otherwise: "True to reputation, Los Angeles' rail system...". Feel free to add compare bus ridership and total mass transit usage additionally, if you deem it important.--Loodog 02:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I have to concur that L.A. has a reputation as a city making relatively minimal use of public transportation, and that reputation is well-deserved. The fact that L.A. is playing transit catch-up is great, but belongs to its future, meanwhile Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Just today L.A. news stations have announced that Congressman Henry Waxman's recent promise to lift the decades-old ban on the extension of L.A.'s Red Line subway is beginning to make headway -- but the city's ban on subway funding, effected by Zev Yaroslavsky, and the feds won't underwrite subway consrtuction without local matching funds. While it's true that some people in L.A. have always relied on public transit and it is getting better, most locals still consider L.A. an "auto" town: for instance, few middle-class L.A. residents would let a relative or friend take public transit or a taxi (if you could find one!) to or from LAX -- "it's just not done". Lethiere 00:49, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Dude, what reality do you live in? I take the bus to work every day, and it's always full during rush hours. Los Angeles has a very high transit usage, in fact, lookin at total system usage, it's one of the highest in the nation. And for the love of God, plenty of people take taxis to and from the airport. Donald Hosek 21:29, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Since this is a city where 10.5% of commuters (see page 12) take public transit to work and 65.2% drive alone, Los Angeles is in the company of other auto-heavy cities such as Housto, San Diego, Dallas, and Phoenix. Obviously, this is a different dynamic than New York (53%), Chicago(30%), Boston(31%), Philadelphia(29%), or San Francisco (33%). Maybe you know a good number of people who take public transit, but in LA, they are in the minority by a ratio of 10 to 1.--Loodog 02:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Loodog on this point and disagree with Donald Hosek. --Coolcaesar 06:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

So what has been the resolution on this NPOV? I have tried to take out biased language and cite all statistics from primary sources, i.e. APTA and Census, have created comparative charts on publica transit use, etc. There are still a number of uncited and somewhat non-NPOV statements in the article but otherwise I think it has improved greatly since Loodog's and my rewrite of the mass transit and commute sections. Can I get some opinions as to what to do with the NPOV tag and the remaining missing citations? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arturoramos (talk • contribs) 12:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. It was my contention above that these were cold hard statistics, worth reporting.--Loodog (talk) 15:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

History

Can someone get to work on a brief section documenting the history LA transportation? Jkfp2004 (talk) 04:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

This article

I've lived in several places in the US and the UK. I spent 5 years in boca, a year in NY and most of my life in london. So let me tell you: I'm about to move to bethesda maryland from london. it's just over the DC line. I will not be purchasing a car when I move to DC. I don't really need one in the northeast corridor.

LA on the other hand is basically like boca. yes, in principle you can use public transit. but not in practice.

This article strives terribly to give the impression that LA is not a car based, car centered system and culture. I'm sure 10% of people ride busses. but the truth is it's the 10% that have to. in DC or new york (or london, obviously) people use public transport because it's good. The DC metro is very good.

this article simply misrepresents the nature of transport in los angeles in practical terms, and it seems to be because specific people want to use raw, context free statistics to defend the cities repuation.

the net result is that the article misinforms a naive reader about transportation in LA. Perhaps the most telling thing of all is that I'm the first person in 3 years to bother to comment about this. I can't speak to whether the article is neutral or what "neutral" means. But I think there is an implcit bias that misleads. And that helps no one.

Read the frst paragraph. It sounds as if LA is like Tokyo or New York. and it's not. you need a car. if you can afford one you buy one. 81.151.78.176 (talk) 00:43, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Freeways

The freeway section opens with saying that there are "a dozen major freeways" (a precise number) and then goes on to list significantly more than 12. Which of those from that list are the 12 major ones, or can we get rid of the silly "a dozen major" qualifier altogether? CTA MART (talk) 16:35, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Outdated and exceptional traffic

The traffic in the LA area is exceptional, beyond any other city/metro in the US, even NYC. LA is the only metro to regularly have at least widespread "yellow" slow moving traffic on Google Traffic, with "red" traffic jams prevalent as well, on weekends, holidays, and other off hours such as late nights and late mornings and mid day. A lot of this article hearkens back to the late 2000s at best. B137 (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)