FredCamino of MetroRiderLA wrote a great gust post on Emerald City about why we need rail in LA:
This past Monday, the LA Times featured an op-ed entitled “The MTA’s Train Wreck” by James Moore and Tom Rubin which made the claim that Metro has made a major mistake by investing in rail instead of buses. Both Mr. Moore and Mr. Rubin are well known transit experts and long time rail critics. I’m a lowly blogger. So why is it that I disagree with their assertion that Metro is making a mistake by investing in rail transit?
The gist of the opinion piece is that transit ridership has fallen even though Metro has invested over $11 billion on rail in the last 20 years. The authors imply that if expensive rail projects were scrapped and the savings were applied to add more bus service and lower the fares, transit ridership would increase. To be honest, I don’t disagree with this conclusion. However, I also don’t think it would solve any of the transportation problems our region faces.
I think rail, more than anything else, has the potential to reorient the city and solve its most notorious problems, most of which stem from what many would consider its number one problem: The Traffic Problem.
That, and much more here.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
It takes one big earthquake to end this one.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
It takes one big earthquake to knock down the 105….
But then again, it doesn’t take an earthquake for hundreds to die in cars anyhow….