How do you ease traffic in Los Angeles? Make it harder to park

>>1034213
Do you mean los angeles proper or la county?
The simple solution is to have 12 lane freeways everywhere with extra wide lanes.

>>1034213
That video reminds of how much I hate everything

>>1034253
No, that's the simplistic non solution as it would create more congestion on the roads leading to the freeways.

The real solution is to give everyone an alternative to cars that's better at getting them where they want to go. There are many options, mostly rail based.

>>1034258
>There are many options, mostly rail based.
Short of tearing up all of LA county and laying down a metro and costing dozens of millions of dollars and hundreds of billions of dollars in graft, idt that you can accomplish it.

But hey if they can do it for 'high speed rail' that goes from nowhere to nowhere, then they can do it for a metro.

>>1034262
>>1034213
Enjoy congestion if you dislike collection

>>1034262
That's what needs to be done to correct the problem.

The infrastructure itself is the reason for the bad traffic. The whole region can only be traversed by car at a reasonable time, so every person needs to have a car and it packs in the roads. When they add more roads and lanes, developers just add more sprawl.

>>1034262
This is the dumbest fucking post I've seen in a while.

>>1037326
>The infrastructure itself is the reason for the bad traffic.
No. The sprawl is the reason for traffic. Forcing more rail into Los Angeles isn't going to fix the problem in any significant way. It may help a little, but there will always be traffic.

Metro is already trying to build out more lines along the few common routes that exist. The reality, though, is that Angelenos' travel habits are too scattered to be served well by fixed routes. There isn't enough commonality in travel for most people to benefit from public transit.

Greater LA is a mash-up of literally dozens of separate municipalities that have grown into one another, over an absurdly large area. Someone lives in neighborhood A and works in neighborhood X, their neighbor works in neighborhood Y, and so forth- it's a many-to-many route graph that you can't run efficiently with trains or buses- nor is any place really "central" enough to work as a hub without being too far from too much of the city.

Current users of public transit are either fortunate enough to live relatively close to where they work, or happen to live along a line that goes where they need to go. The typical LA resident isn't lucky in that sense, and public transit just isn't practical.

You would need to destroy and re-plan the entire metro area, displacing literally millions of people, to make workable comprehensive public transit here. And afterward, no one would be able to afford the cost of rent anymore.

>>1037347
You don't have to destroy it and rebuild from the ground up. Sprawl can be built upon and densifyed.

We just need to nuke LA

>>1037347
>No. The sprawl is the reason for traffic.
WRONG

The sprawl started with the pacific electric. It has nothing to do with traffic.

Traffic is generated because too many people rely on automobile, and they do so because it's practically the only option.

Against what autists think you can perfectly cover sprawl with convenient public transit. Just take the same concept used in low-density areas with good public transit in Europe, and apply them to the sprawl:

>metro/commuter train/LRT network irradiating from the city
>bus lines irradiating from metro/commuter/LRT stations
>bus schedule timed with trains wherever this applies
>good bus frequency of 15' or better (use small buses if demand is low

buses can easily cover most of the sprawl, add some p&r to the stations and you're good to go

couple it with measures that make driving less convenient (like that's necessary with 2 hour commute times)

there's literally no reason why that wouldn't work. You just need the balls to go all out with public transit. also it needs money to be put into public transit, though not more than what goes into building one of those super highways.

>>1037347
>that idiot who thinks there's no cities with sprawl that still get good public transit

>>1034213
>>1034254

I agree strongly with what this guy is saying, and wish cities would move more to a model like this.

The problem lies with getting businesses and citizens to okay it. The anecdote at the end of his story is heartening, but I can't see most businesses thinking the same way, and he mentioned it did take them several years to finally hash out a deal.

Getting people to pay for something they've been getting for free forever is incredibly difficult, even if you explain the benefits.

We tend to be of the mindset that if something doesn't directly benefit us (that I can see right away), it's not worth it.

>>1037736

>metro/commuter train/LRT network irradiating from the city

>ir·ra·di·ate 1. To expose to radiation.
I'm not sure that would do much more than cause cancer, but it could lead to some sort of Hulk like super light rail. (I think you meant "radiate")

Part of the problem is that people are unwilling to switch over to public transit. They see taxes go up, and get mad there is still traffic on the roads. Even if you had great PT, people would still flock to freeways because there are suddenly less people using it. Why sit on a bus for 45 minutes when you can sit in a car for 40?

You have to create some sort of disincentive to driving in addition to creating a much greater network of reliable, fast PT.

less cars

>>1037695
This desu. Just nuke it and rebuild somewhere else.

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>>1038007
>greater disincentive than sitting in traffic 3 hours
kys

>>1037347
>You would need to destroy and re-plan the entire metro area, displacing literally millions of people, to make workable comprehensive public transit here.

Used to do that all the time in sim city 4 but it was one hell of a gamble.

>>1038113
Using Sim City 4 for real life urban planning.
Sounds legit.

>>1038007
>Even if you had great PT, people would still flock to freeways because there are suddenly less people using it.

This is induced demand, and is why traffic speed in a sufficiently large metro area is dependent on the door-to-door trip time of the fastest available public transit, no matter how many new freeway lanes you build.

See also Smeed's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smeed%27s_law#Smeed.27s_interpretation

>>1034258
>No, that's the simplistic non solution as it would create more congestion on the roads leading to the freeways.
... removing a bottleneck can't cause a bottleneck further back, only further up.
The solution is just two lane offramps.

>>1038565
But then the cars will hit the nearest traffic light and back up onto the offramp.
The solution is just two-lane offramps leading exclusively to eight-lane divided boulevards with signal priority.

>>1037736
>Just take the same concept used in low-density areas with good public transit in Europe, and apply them to the sprawl:
>Europe
The problem is that la county is half the size of Belgium with the same population.

You can't apply a national solution to it because it's a city.
You can't apply a city solution to it because it's practically a nation.

>>1034213
you have to draw a line between urban zoning and more open zoning, no more fucking suburbs. they dont let you build up because they like their little queero special snowflake 'it's a form of expression' houses and when you do everyone moves away from you so the idea of centralizing goes down the shitter

>>1038573
it would probably help to take all the section 8 cities and confine all of them into one large apartment building, then the rest of society can get back to revitalizing the historical neighborhoods and have some spread out room to rework into something more efficient

>>1038574
>t would probably help to take all the section 8 cities and confine all of them into one large apartment building,
Detroit is already ruined, we could just turn it into an even bigger open air dump.

Or we could do the smart thing and just completely stop section 8.

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>>1038577
you have to do something with them in the meantime before the effects of stopping section 8 makes a difference

>>1037736
>muh pacific electric
how exactly did pacific electric fuck it up here when other parts of the world has rail and its not fucked up

theres no reason they couldnt have built the cores up instead of letting them grow out; that's not PE's fault. PE never went into the suburbs it only went into the cores. fuck outta here with that dumb shit

>>1038581
also the gold line has been incredibly helpful with the 210, things packed full every day

Get rid of on street parking and replace it with a bus and bikes only lane.
Increase bus routes and bus frequency two fold.
Electrify busses with the eventual installation of overhead power lines.
Increase the costs of all municipal automobile related costs including parking tickets, DMV registration, gas taxes, and driving infractions to cover these costs.
Ban (or permit with extreme costs) single occupancy non commercial autos in specific hot spots, especially down the central corridor.
Introduce more park+ride lots.

And fuck who ever has their silly ass architectural opinion of what buildings should and shouldn't be in LA.

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>>1037347
you could have an excellent transit system in this area if: each of these smaller municipalities took it upon themselves to have some accountability for their corrupt asses and they could focus on actually doing things for their community like public transit that serves as more than just a place for bums to waste time. when the area was settled there actually were foundations for local transit lines to be laid down like in pic related. there was all of like a thousand people in the cow towns back then and they could afford rail.

unfortunately since its corrupt upstream into sacramento, the local public offices do little but funnel votes and waste money in a nice kosher way. of course the inhabitants dont really care because theyre scattered as you said, and its not like the whole system of bringing in cheap votes from the other side makes it easy for people to have pride in where they live

>>1037347
The city is not carved in stone. It can change in response to transit, but only if zoning is liberalized to allow densification.

Start by connecting dense living areas to job centers. Everything in between will begin to densify. People that work in those job centers will move into the area covered by transit. Transit will necessarily run through less dense areas in order to connect denser areas. These areas will densify in response to the availability of transit. So on and so forth. Connect people to their jobs and the rest will follow.

This won't eliminate traffic on the highways, of course. In the short term, nothing will. It's not important. What important is the people can get to work without the highways.

>>1038587
And as for the low-density sprawl that can't easily be served by transit: fuck 'em. They can drive, or they can move somewhere that can be served more easily by transit.

>>1038584
>Increase the costs of all municipal automobile related costs including parking tickets, driving infractions to cover these costs
this is good, in that same vein they could also start enforcing traffic laws instead of letting off chinks because no one wants to deal with someone who doesnt speak english, and start making sure traffic schools actually TEACH people the traffic laws so all the peasants from china stop doing dumb shit like uturns down opposing traffic

>>1038587
the way youre thinking is on par with what created the problem. separating workplace and home is what created suburbs and sprawl. suburbs only exist because when the system formed, people didnt want to give up the farmer landowner mentality for a city one. with what you say, with keeping living communities and their workplace separated, doesnt even qualify as a bandaid solution. what needs to happen is, not just building codes but zoning laws need to be relaxed so people could live nearer or even in their workplace. no reason a mom and pop retail hobby shop owner who owns their own shop shouldnt be able to live in the same building; and thats how it is in the historical downtown sections but in the municipalities built since then, that doesnt happen. probably because theyre chartered and built to support other more influential municipalities and no one expected them to fill in and try to become communities on their own

>>1038591
Job centers are a natural result of businesses coalescing together, to enjoy network effects and economies of scale with regard to the services they need. Residential areas are a natural result of the fact that the above phenomenon makes it way too expensive for the average person to live in the business district; and, of course, on the industrial side of things, people don't generally like to live right next a factory. This creates nodes that need to be connected to each other. It's of course nice if a small business owner can live above their shop (or rent it out), and I said nothing to oppose that notion, but most people aren't small business owners, nor do most people work for small businesses.

>>1038591
>Expliciting it's the Chinese that are the problem with congestion
Doggy, this towns mostly Mexican.

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>>1038595
yeah but not all of it. most of the beaners in the center are illegal anyways so if you start enforcing laws that exist like i said with traffic laws and others :^) they wont be a problem. you can tell the mojos by the natives by the way they drive

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>>1038594
nothing you said says people need to live miles away from where they work. if you have the eye to pick out old original buildings even fully industrial oriented buildings had living spaces in them back in the day

the bulk of the commuter traffic is indisputably from office industries too, where 1. they dont really produce anything and 2. whatever they do do, can be done through the internet

>above phenomenon makes it way too expensive for the average person to live in the business district
that's all zoning. it's not that its expensive to live by industrial parks, it's usually ghettos near them

>I said nothing to oppose that notion, but most people aren't small business owners, nor do most people work for small businesses
i know you didnt but thats the way things are; the complete opposite of it. even if you dont own a shop it's not like there's only enough room for one household above a shop. another trend down here alongside commuting is renting; most people rent, and i bet a lot more people would rent the space above their workplace if they could. i think zoning again is something hindering this but also thinking about the costs, its going to be expensive and that's not just because convenience is expensive.

yet another trend is that its already so acceptable to create suburbs and gated communities that theyre already built and commuting is just accepted as a part of the culture. like it's been hinted at itt youd have to destroy a lot of whats been built as a part of that suburb movement to create more self reliant communities, like how the core old towns originally were

>>1038598
>but also thinking about the costs
what i mean to say is that the housing market has been flooded with housing projects for decades, so theres not many of such shop and apartment combinations.

one thing ive noticed recently is airplane hangars; in the small airports people spend a lot of time in them and they look like living spaces and i wouldnt be surprised if they do live there often

>>1038598
Ok first off:
> if you have the eye to pick out old original buildings even fully industrial oriented buildings had living spaces in them back in the day
Wat? No they didn't. Provide evidence, please.

And second, believe it or not, zoning is not the root cause of everything you don't like. My city does not restrict residential development within the business district (in fact, it encourages it). Guess what? It's still the most expensive place in the city to live.

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>>1038603
>Wat? No they didn't. Provide evidence, please.
aside from grocers and shops downtown, plenty of industries put apartments above their shop. mechanics shops and anything downtown really since it was a staple practice of retail before retail stores and suburbs became a thing

these shacks here i'd date to the 20s or earlier and theyre on the same block as a slew of oil wells and their machine shops

at one of the quarries i go to, theyve got a box car on it that ive been told was converted to housing at one point; because it's only 2 axle i'd say it has to be at least pre 20th century. lots of industrial sites that are as old as the founding of the la basin often dont change much

>And second, believe it or not, zoning is not the root cause of everything you don't like
i thought i made it pretty clear that i didnt think it was the root cause.

>Guess what? It's still the most expensive place in the city to live
that's more than likely because of housing booms all throughout the previous decades that flooded the market.

>My city does not restrict residential development within the business district (in fact, it encourages it). Guess what? It's still the most expensive place in the city to live.
what city? how recent did they start encouraging this? pasadena began changing things around a lot for the better, i think they mandate that new construction needs to have onsite parking which is fuckin spectacular use of zoning laws imo

encouraging development could also mean building those bottom barrel bigass apartment buildings; i forget which one but one of the ones built only a few years ago in dtla is tilted. and i doubt you could build anything in dtla without """""encouragement""""", so thank god for that

>>1037347
>Angelenos' travel habits are too scattered
traffic's as predictable as the tide

>>1038607
-Industry-, dude. Steel mills. Chemical factories. Manufacturers. Not mechanics. Not a box car parked near a quarry. Not even an oil well. Stuff that employs large numbers of people and affects land use patterns.

>>1038615
the box car is on the quarry grounds, not near it

what exactly do you think i mean? beds next to lathes? industry built apartment complexes? i definitely gave you the second. believe it or not industries are more varied and unstandardized than your bubble society leads you to think

>one oil well
>ill just ignore the part where he said "a slew of oil wells and their machine shops"

i wouldnt doubt the huge industrial centers like the distillery complexes would have them but theyd be really hard to find since theyve been built up so much. plus thats not my industry (assuming quarries qualify as ''''''industry'''''', what would i know right)

>quarries dont affect land use patterns
man what are you on

>>1038615
even if you got something like the port, its not like people commuted to the port from say orange county the way they do today back before wwii. thats a soft example too; people today still live on ships or on the dock, you clown

>>1038617
You said that old industry had housing -in the same building-, which is completely false. I'm also talking about industry in a city, not a quarry out in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, sometimes company owners would make housing for their workers. This was generally predatory in nature. Workers, given the choice and the means, do not want to live right next to a factory. Factories are noxious and noisy and most people will commute for a few minutes rather than live next to that. Hence, a natural separation of uses, without any zoning.

>>1038607
Wait, you're saying that mandated parking minimums are a "fuckin spectacular use of zoning laws"? Hahahahaha.

>>1038621
>You said that old industry had housing -in the same building-
some of them did, yeah. particularly that would be apartments on top of mechanic shops, dunno why you dont want to call a mechanics shop industry. and if a quarry constitutes industry i dont see the major difference if quarry workers live on quarry property

and i dont know if the old industry im talking about qualifies as industry to you since all industry was smaller in the past. you might not know that though you dont seem very smart. i was going to check to see if the steel mill in cudahy applied but apparently it was built after the 30s so it doesnt show up in my archives

and railmen lived on the damn train too and you dont even have to be affiliated with that industry to know that's true so idk why youre so opposed to people living where they work

you never answered what city you're in. my quarrys not even 20 miles away from dtla

>This was generally predatory in nature. Workers, given the choice and the means, do not want to live right next to a factory
>i know what people want, particularly dead people 3 generations my senior, and they dont want low living expenses

>Factories are noxious and noisy
oh no :^(
>people will commute for a few minutes rather than live next to that
and many of them did, but the problem everyone in this thread is trying to mitigate is 30 mile 2 hour long commutes. i never said ALL industries and EVERYONE working in them should live on factory grounds u knobhead, some kind of suburb type housing or apartment buildings would be great but it is a system that is abused here. why do they all need to own houses? so their single child can have a puppy and the puppy can have a lawn?

>>1038622
as someone who works there frequently, yes i do :^) as a small government guy i thought i was being fair, if youre going to build a new building in a downtown area why wouldnt you want parking to go with it, is there a problem with that? what is your problem in general

>>1038625
Christ I'm being trolled. A small government guy who wants parking minimums. Jesus.

>>1038628
>you cant applaud a piece of legislation that did what it was supposed to do
>a small government guy cant appreciate something done by a municipal (small) government

1. Kick all the black people out of downtown LA
2. Hipsters move downtown
3. Make the public schools 7/10 on greatschools.org
3. Parents move downtown
4. Everyone moves to downtown
5. Suburbs crumble while downtown LA becomes an actual city and not the largest stripmall hellscape in the world

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>>1034213
Street signs that do not require drivers to be fluent in gibberish would be a good start.

>>1038629
Parking minimums distort the local building economy worse than use-based zoning. The only thing worse is minimum lot size.

Generally they're set ridiculously high, and often don't even make sense. Like, a bar will have a minimum parking requirement that mandates a parking lot three times the size of the building footprint, making the bar less profitable and harder to access on foot and by transit. It's like they're mandating drunk driving.

From a libertarian perspective, parking minimums aren't necessary. Developers and businesses know how much parking they need, and the tradeoff between a more attractive amenity (parking) vs. more rentable space should be their decision to make.

>>1038764
idk the details, maybe theres just an incentive or something but all the new construction has underground parking, even smaller duplex type buildings. i dont mean on the ground parking lots. its kind of a throw back imo; isnt a ground floor garage with the house above something the english do?

>From a libertarian perspective
doesnt really apply since roadways and city planning are already managed so heavily

>Developers and businesses know how much parking they need
these are the people that created the suburb system, besides i doubt developers developing downtown arent government buddies anyways

>>1038772
>these are the people that created the suburb system

That system was created under a regulatory regime that promoted mandatory onsite parking minimums and strong incentives towards non-connective cul-de-sac developments with a feeder-arterial-freeway road hierarchy. The "fuckin spectacular use of zoning laws" you're such a fan of was part of the regulatory environment which encouraged the suburban sprawl pattern of development.

I'm not against on site parking, even in downtown areas, but it should only be included in a development if it makes economic sense. By mandating onsite parking for apartments, for instance, the government denies renters the choice of reducing their rent by forgoing a parking space that they may not need, while also increasing the minimum market price of a housing unit by the amount necessary to build off-street parking.

I agree that free on-street parking and the Interstate highway system distort the market in favor of private car use, but parking minimums don't fix this - they exacerbate the distortion in the same direction.

>>1038774
>The "fuckin spectacular use of zoning laws" you're such a fan of was part of the regulatory environment which encouraged the suburban sprawl pattern of development.
sorry if i wasnt clear but i didnt mean open ground level parking lots, i meant parking structures incorporated into new construction. theres a huge difference there if you ask me

>By mandating...
like i said i dont know how it works, it could just be an incentive. and if renters wanted to be thrifty i doubt theyd pick a new complex in the first place

>parking minimums don't fix this - they exacerbate the distortion in the same direction
obviously they dont fix the whole system and its not something that should be applied universally but it does seem to be fixing the more narrow problem of people jamming up traffic in specific areas when they stop in the street to wait for a spot. theyve got other things going on in downtown pas anyways, light rail, pedestrian only zones that aren't just strip malls, the parking thing is only a part of what theyre doing. downtown pasadena is more than just office buildings and retail too; people there really seem to use it like a self contained community and already walk a lot so i wouldnt doubt if they used the garages to park downtown in general instead of just to use the building the garage belongs to. i dont appreciate overbearing government policy but when they do interesting infrastructure projects i cant help but be interested

have you been there?

>>1038780
No, I've never been to Pasadena. The only time I've spent in California at all was two weeks in San Diego - which was very nice, especially with the light rail system.

I'm just expanding on the problems in parking minimums in general, because this is fairly well-tread ground and it is quite odd for someone with an apparent urbanist-libertarian mindset to advocate for them.

I agree with you that underground parking is the preferable form of on-site parking from a purely aesthetic perspective, but it is also the most expensive. Building design decisions necessarily involve tradeoffs, and if regulations restrict some of the least expensive decisions, like providing no parking or just less parking, then that imposes a minimum cost that gets passed on to tenants.

At this point I'll just link you to Donald Shoup's paper on the subject:
http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/HighCost.pdf

The upshot is that minimum parking requirements in Los Angeles add 32% to the cost of office buildings if an above ground parking garage is used, 45% if underground.

In addition to inflating the cost of new construction, parking minimums disincentivise non-automotive modes of travel by forcing even non-car-owning tenants to pay for automotive infrastructure.

In a free market for parking, some developers would include parking, and some would not. Excess demand would be met by parking garages renting spots out at the market rate - a rate which, when broken out into its own separate cost, most drivers appear unwilling to pay.

Or deport all the illegals.

>>1034213
By having the balls to do the job;
>increase taxes on new cars (especially gas guzzlers)
>impose vehicle age rules, where insurance cost and road tax implode exponentially after a set of time
>charge tolls high enough for private car users to seriously consider another mode of transport but low enough to not having a detrimental effect on freight industry (read: trucks)

However these thing can only be done after a proper, efficient public transport in in place.

It's kinda pathetic when second-tier cities in Japan and south korea (hell, even some of third world cities like Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and even some random chink cities) have better public transport than LA

>>1038785
downtown san diego is pretty similar imo though i dont know it as well. im pretty jealous of the light rail there and from what im watching it seems like we're moving closer to something like it in hopefully more places than just pasadena. what is your area?

seems like a lot of obvious stuff in there to me. when you own a car your adding a shitton of space you require for your stuff; its like comparing a 2 bedroom with a studio, and when youre downtown of course any additional space is going to be expensive. the only reason they cant do open parking lots anymore is because they ran out of old run down buildings to raze. just having full size cars isnt ideal but if youre going to need parking space putting it underground is a great compromise to keep an urban area habitable for those who want to use more efficient ways to get around. especially when most peoples plans involve banning cars entirely.

>urbanist libertarian
i dont subscribe to blanket ideas since even in one region, different parts of it vary so dramatically. time and a place for everything; it's just that for the longest time LA's been doing everything wrong so of course im surprised and impressed that a city is doing something that works from what i can tell.

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>>1038790
>implying you need to have those shitty laws after convincing the populace that the would-be streetcars are the best thing on earth
plenty of people dont even like driving as it is, and i bet theyd like it even less if they were held accountable for the shitty driving that most of them do

>not having a detrimental effect on freight industry (read: trucks)
you are after my own heart m8, t. local driver. even then, pacific electric was used for freight sometimes

>>1038801
>what is your area?

I live in Honolulu, which has its own similar issues with traffic, parking, and housing costs.

On the subject of parking, I've personally experienced how it can affect people's transportation and housing choices. I have a car and so I live in a small apartment building with my own parking spot.

Meanwhile, my office charges for parking. It's a government building and the cost is still subsidized; at only $8 a day, it's considerably cheaper than nearby private garages. Even so, that compares with $5.00 for a commute by bus, or free (plus exercise) if I ride my bike. Considering the trip is 15-25 minutes for all modes depending on traffic, I usually ride my bike. If there were free parking at both ends, I never would have had the impetus to try bicycle commuting (and presumably the cost of parking would be reflected in my salary). Several of my co-workers have made the same decision, and generally the only people who drive in are the ones who have a >10 mile commute in from the suburbs. Parking costs matter.

>>1038811
>I have a car
>I ride my bike
thats kind of what i envision happening in pasadena, they have a place for their car when they dont use it. or, i could be wrong and the new abundant parking just invites more people and traffic isnt affected even a little, which is still a win from the city's perspective. ill bet they are going to follow it up by using new newly freed up space for more pedestrian space though

>>1038630
If there is one good thing Hipsters have done, it's been revitalizing the inner city. Too bad you have to deal with hipsters though, but they're better than having to deal with niggers.

>>1037736
>metro/commuter train/LRT network irradiating from the city
>from the city
>the city
>the

Yeah, this is the part that people don't get. It's pretty much *all* city. Downtown is just one of many dense patches- there's not a singular center of the city to start from. They're trying to add more lines to Union Station, but even downtown represents only a tiny slice of the Los Angeles population. Metrolink only starts to pay off time-wise if you're traveling a great (net) distance (popular with San Fernando Valley commuters, for example) or just happen to live and work very close to the lines.

Spreading that to most of LA's commuters would take dozens of transit hubs, and by the time it was all built out there'd be so many line changes to get from A to B that you'd still be better off driving.

>>1038007
>people are unwilling to switch over to public transit.
We don't like to sit in traffic here. The locals who have a workable public transit option are grateful for it. For most of us, though, PT is worse in every way, even compared to literal hours spent daily in traffic. Expanding helps, but we can't *all* expect to have one or two lines to get us from home to work and back.

>>1038573
>when you do everyone moves away from you
Gee, it's almost like normal people prefer yards and space, or something.

>>1038574
>take all the section 8 cities and confine all of them into one large apartment building
They're called prisons

>>1038610
Traffic is the aggregate, it's the individuals that are unpredictable. Hundreds of cars on the freeway are heading in the same direction, but not to the same place.

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>>1038596
Similar LA ethnic map.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/08/us/census-race-map.html?_r=0

>>1039246
Polycentric cities aren't inherently hard to provide transit for. LA even makes it easy by being, essentially, a giant grid (Thanks, US Survey system!). Polycentric cities are in some ways easier, since there will be a lot of traffic headed in all directions, which cuts down on deadheading and trains sitting in yards waiting for rush hour. It helps even more that LA isn't a traditionally 9-5 city. Connect downtowns to each other (which can be done with a few lines, thanks to the grid system), then start sending lines out into the single-family-detached boondocks. Upzone incrementally around lines, and there ya go. If there's enough density near the lines that people can afford to live near them and there's a lot of jobs near them (or within a short bus trip of them), people will move near the lines. You don't have a million transfers to get to work because you move to be on the same line as your job.

The problem is, nobody in LA ever seems to be able to wrap their head around the fact that the place is a capital-m Megacity. Include the IE and you're in the company, population-wise, of any number of massive Asian cities that have 20 times the transit that LA does. Not everybody gets to have a 4 bedroom house with a green yard and 2 dogs and a picket fence in such a place. That doesn't mean there has to be condo towers everywhere, but there should be very little SFD close to job centers or transit lines. Want a yard? Move to Antelope Valley...or Dallas. This won't change without pressure from the state level, and it won't change quickly, but it's essential to having effective transit. And, of course, the other half of that is that there needs to be lots and lots of transit. Of course you can't hit everything with a Kansas City-tier transit network, it's a massive city.

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You can have the perfect technical solution for fixing LA's traffic problem using mass transit, and it still won't work. Why? Because rich and middle class people don't want to sit next to poor people on trains and buses. The solution? Bring back the old timey 1st class/2nd class/3rd class passenger system to mass transit. It wouldn't be that complicated, either. Just make the 3rd class cars free and charge a small fee for 2nd and 1st class. This will effectively separate the classes on the trains and buses. If you can get middle class people and rich people to use the mass transit systems, the problem will be solved.

>>1034258
Nobody is using the rails we already have. They have to resort to stupid sales gimmick like giving free baseball or hockey games away to force people to use them. It's such a big hassle to use so. California's rail system, and the fact buses must also be used in conjunction ruins it. Coming from Hawaii where buses run 24 hours and stop every 15 minute with real time bus location indicator, Californian public transportation was a torture to adopt.

Provide a convenient, frequent, efficient alternative to driving: a decent public transit system comprosing metro & commuter trains, regional & interurban trains, and trams/streetcars/lightrail

>>1039666
Although that's the key thing it's not enough. You need to redo all the zoning codes, and get rid of spacing, parking, and minimum plot size requirements.

That will allow services jobs and homes to get denser and centralizing into more local areas, to get less people moving long distance and at a shorter time.

Even if you ever got the retarded city board and even more retarded public to go with it (which you won't) it would take who knows how many decades to build it up into something decent.

Essentially, it's fucked. Over a half a century of retarded planning and building has fucked not only LA, but every metropolitan area in the US.

>>1039370
My Los Angeles transit experience was that white people don't ride. I was downtown and asked a cop about the nearest station and he acted offended, seemed to be proud that he didn't know.

>>1034213
Is that Donald Shoup? I have his old bicycle.

>>1038598
The one best part of your post: it's unfortunate that many employers mandate they can see their employees in person when information economy jobs can be done solely through the internet. If you give everyone 10Gps upload and download, you can destroy all the roads and people can live inside their houses.

>>1038625
>puppy can have a lawn
Last year I visited the apartment of someone in a US city, and they had a dog living with them on the second floor. I felt so sorry for that dog. It's unethical to have a pet if your pet cannot exercise.

>>1041550
They've been trying this for decades, but it doesn't work. People work best when they work together. Having a skype conversation is not even remotely the same as 10 people in a conference room with a stack of papers and a whiteboard figuring shit out.

>>1038625
Are you...arguing against freedom of choice in housing from a small government perspective? Dafuck?

>>1038790
>freight industry
Why don't you want freight to move to trains? Why shouldn't there be single-car mail trains on metro lines instead of fleets of mail vans? Simply get the smallest EMU metro train and make it hold mail instead of people.
Road transportation should not be treated differently for cars and trucks.
>>1039370
Making class systems have a physical incarnation on trains isn't going to solve the fact that a class system exists. To solve the problem at its root rather than just applying a bandage, you have to eliminate the class system.
>>1041558
I don't mean Skype, I mean IRC and email, which power some of the most successful and important software projects on earth. If you enjoy things like OpenSSH and OpenSMPTD you enjoy products made by people who meet up in person less than once a year. As for an anecdote though, I knew someone online who only went to work once a month for meetings, and did the rest of his software development work from home, multiple hours away by car from his workplace.
The thing is simply that your post is wrong. Most important software is not made by people who live in the same country.

>>1038528

if you want to de-incentivize freeway usage, lower the speed limit. then travel time increases regardless of usage. lower and enforce it. remove lanes and replace them with alternative transportaion infrastructure, like bus only, carpool, bike etc. make driving take even longer regardless of how unused thouroughfares are

>>1041568
While I dislike driving and cars, handicapping roads is obviously just handicapping it. It's better to keep the speed limit high but to catch people going one mph above the limit. Where I live, everyone consistently goes 9 mph above the speed limit.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/08/13/introducing-the-worlds-first-million-dollar-speeding-fine/
Read this article too. If you base fines off of the criminal's income rather than being a flat fine, rich people stop thinking they can get away with crime. Speed limits need to be adjusted upwards perhaps too, such so that the limit is the correct speed to drive at, not ten mph under the correct speed to drive at.

>>1041566
If you consider OpenSSH and OpenSMPTD to be "some of the most successful and important software projects on earth", I think it's safe to say you have no clue what you're talking about.

>>1041586
How do you log into your servers, my man? Can you tell me about all the cool software developed by people who live less than a hundred miles from each other?

>>1041588
Well I'd say most of what Google does is both successful and important, and they as a policy discourage telecommuting.

>>1041590
What they do is also closed-source, so it's only mildly important.

>>1034262
The most cost effective solution is removing a couple of lanes from each highway and putting a rail line there. I mean, it's not convenient but it's something.

Otherwise it would be too expensive and require extensive eminent domain.

>>1039370
It's your job to make middle class willing to travel in PT like in rest of the world

>>1041869
How do you think the highways got built? By spending billions of dollars and blowing up neighborhoods. It's not a pretty process, but when you build transit, you create value in the areas surrounding the stations. When you build highways, you destroy the value of the areas around the highway, and you destroy the tax base of the community as people move to new suburbs.

>>1042058
I do not support bulldozing neighborhoods just for a train line. And I oppose new highways too. But with the existing highways, the damage is already done so why not use the same right of way for trains too?

Using existing highway right-of-ways, utility corridors, old/abandoned rail lines, and retrofitting/widening existing streets for the creation of new transit lines are generally the best options, followed by going underground or going elevated. Creating a new line out of scratch from flattening part of a city is generally a bad idea and should only be a last resort.

>>1042106
A rail line can be built in 30 feet, maybe a few more to elevate it, and for the most part eminent domain can be limited to building stations and cutting corners on turns. Loft it over one of the giant arterials that LA loves so much. (I might point out that when those giant arterials are widened, it frequently requires eminent domain and tearing down buildings.)

The problem with using lanes of a highway for rail is that rail needs density to work, and nobody wants to live near a highway.

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>>1038570
Why? This city is as large as and as populated as LA and they can still have a huge working transit system, which still does not have enough capacity

>>1039634
Hardly anyone uses them in my area (wilmington) since it's the most likely place to get stabbed...

>>1041566
>you have to eliminate the class system.
>days without proposal of ethnic cleansing on /n/:

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The answer is lane splitting and motorcycles.

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Free yourself from the cage.

>>1034213
Eugenics; active or passive.

>>1042383
>>1042387
I value my life too much to be riding one of those deathtraps on a highway full of dumb cagers, I'd rather stick to my own cage desu

>>1042390
Reply also meant for >>1042381

Not 1042387

>>1042381
>>1042383
It's fucking bonkers that the USA has such a hard on for blocking motorcycle travel, your roads are a million miles wide with snail crawling traffic, practically made for filtering.

>>1039370
Your population needs to seriously get over themselves, rich fucks can enjoy being stuck in a 5mph car choking on fumes while everyone else could be speeding along in a tram car getting to work in a fraction of the time.

Also newsflash, the "poor" people compose most of the population who coincidentally also need to get to work. Public transport isn't some circus where everyone tries to out pleb each other, people are fucking busy and just want to get to their destination ASAP.

>>1044047
>Public transport isn't some circus where everyone tries to out pleb each other, people are fucking busy and just want to get to their destination ASAP.
The thing about LA, Atlanta, and other flyover places is that they design their mass transit to stay out of "nice" areas and serve the very poorest exclusively. And even still, that transit is pretty horrendous so only homeless people and the very desperate ride on it. Then they point to those systems as proof that mass transit is a freakshow, and people believe it.

The sad alternative is what you see in places like NYC where some of the poorest areas are simply avoided by the network, so you actually do see a mix of well off and middle class people riding. You still get a few bums and homeless people but they represent a fraction of a percent of total ridership vs. somewhere like LA or Atlanta where it's the majority.

>>1044070
Metrolink in Los Angeles recently completed a line running into Santa Monica, and is now working on an underground line that will route through Beverly Hills and Century City before also making its way into Santa Monica.

Even the upscale residential areas usually have some amount of bus service- housekeepers gotta get around somehow.

The point being that public transit networks will follow the commuters, regardless of income level. It makes perfect sense that working-class neighborhoods would integrate PT the fastest.

Poor people aren't a problem with respect to the "freakshow" issue, most of them are just trying to get to work like the rest of us. It's just a small number of people that ruin it for everyone else- and out here, even some affluent areas have their share of homeless people. It'd help a lot to just kick off the riders who stink up a whole car.

>>1044047
>It's fucking bonkers that the USA has such a hard on for blocking motorcycle travel, your roads are a million miles wide with snail crawling traffic, practically made for filtering.
Lanesplitting is legal here (CA) and I can understand why no one wants it. It's unfortunate- I'm fine with the practice in principle... the problem is that for every rider who splits properly/safely, there's about 4 squids splitting at unsafe speeds and doing other stupid shit.

Make bus only lines and install traffic spikes to stop cagers from using them, buses would have switches to lower them so they aren't affected. PUT THE SPIKES EVERYWHERE ESPECIALLY DTLA

>>1044273
>and I can understand why no one wants it.
lol you are a fucking idiot and I can smell the transplant on you. Natives like lane-splitting because we know it encourages people to ride which means less cars on the road.

The cancer killing LA is the amount of fucking morons that think they can coast at/below the speed limit in the left lane. Get the fuck over you pussy I got someplace to be and I'm trying to get this green light.

>>1044278
Given that everything you say is entirely car-oriented, YOU are the cancer killing LA.

>>1044278
What part of "I'm fine with it in principle" is beyond your comprehension exactly? Yes it takes cars off the road, but in practice it also creates more hazards on the freeway. The traffic benefit is negated by lane closures that ensue every time a squid ends up painting the concrete.

Also
>Implying that your left-lane speed is determined by anything besides the car ahead of you, be it at 20 or 80
>Calling anyone else a transplant

I bet you drive an Audi you polesmoker

>>1044070
Funny thing is here in Manchester, UK when our Metrolink system was expanded from the city center outwards to residential towns people were legit excited and property values all went up.

I mean no one is particularly thrilled to ride a tram but they aren't the cesspits some think they are. Yeah you get the occasional tramp or idiot, but if nobody steps up to deal with them the driver will just call in the bouncers or the police to pick them up at the next stop (assuming they aren't on already).

>>1044273
Well the beauty of squidding is that it leads to an early grave, solves itself really

>>1044570
Tramlink (London/Croydon) saved a area called new Addington from emptying like some northern city's are

>>1037695

we're going to nuke Atlanta first. it's what Kubrick would have wanted.

>>1042390

all cages are deathtraps

if you didn't practice driving it on a track, you shouldn't be driving it on the street

'Murika values her nine to fives more than she values a few delicious organs smeared on the insides Two-Faced Boxes

>>1034213
charge the same amount for the petrol you'd find in the UK or elsewhere.

>>1044289
Yeah I own and drive car cause I'm not a fucking loser. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've used public transportation in my life. Deal with it.

>>1044498
>The traffic benefit is negated by lane closures that ensue every time a squid ends up painting the concrete.
Prove it, stupid.

>>1044907
You're the one who has to deal with it. I don't live in LA and I have no intention of moving. Enjoy your 90 minute commutes.

>>1034213
One way to get people out of cars

Raise gas prices enough so they fully pay for roads

Even if its only a 25 cents increase, I'd bet it be enough to get a decent amount of people to decide to use other systems of transport

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>>1044907
>as you can see from my polluting, dangerous, inconvenient, third-world status symbol, I am a winner
wew lad, next thing you'll expect us to believe you have achieved ownership of not only a television but even a piece of apparel decorated with the logo of your favorite local sports team. how do you expect us to believe such preposterous stories?

>>1044932
Not an argument.

>>1044907
Cuck.

>>1034213
its too late now. the only way to get cars off the road would be some kind of incentive. you have two options, would class, useful transit or wildly outrageous congestion pricing. there are 20 million people in that city and detroit and los angeles wrote the playbook on auto oriented development.