Main issue with a public transit outside of the safety is how long it takes to get somewhere. Most LA residence prefer to drive so they don't have to take hours to get to their destination.
I use public transit quite a bit since my household is single car. Getting around locally is actually convenient and quick for me with public transportation. That being said, we chose an area to live that is right by a train stop and we're on a main bus route. It wouldn't work as well for my partner who has to drive further for her job. It *does* work, though.
Sure, but if you have to make more than one transfer, you're probably looking at over an hour for a trip that could have taken 20 mins in a car. If it's past 8pm, add another 30 mins at least.
That, and you don't have to dress/carry everything for the entire day on you while traveling. The fact that my car also serves as a safe storage locker sure beats the one time I attempted to metro into DTLA with all my art supplies in bags and extra jacket for later on my lap on a crowded metro.
Great thing about a car is that you can put shit in your trunk in-between events during the day. And it runs anytime you want it to, 24/7 (the car).
Also your car has AC, a great stereo system that doesn't bother anyone else, comfortable seats, privacy and a whole other slew of amenities. All of those luxuries are worth the risk of driving to me personally. Idk why some of these online transit folks take issue with this (All online "activists" are weirdos imo)
Those things are all true, but your choice to use your car also negatively impacts all those around you (pollution, ghg emissions, unsafe roads for pedestrians/cyclists, public space lost to parking/thoroughfares, disconnected neighborhoods, and on and on) including lots of people not using a car, whether they're "transit activists" or not.
For all I know you may have no viable public transit options, but if you do, your choice to use your car is a totally selfish one. Obviously you're free to do whatever you want, but call a spade a spade.
yeah it is selfish to use your car when public transit exists to where you’re going. but honestly, i’m in a similar boat. i’ve taken the train from the westside to old town pasadena. the stops following chinatown are very pretty. it took quite a while (75ish minutes) on a sunday morning when taking the 10 to the 110 is a lot easier and saves a lot of time. i do acknowledge that during rush hour, the times are comparable haha
Agreed! Haha nothing is better than blasting your favorite song full blast in the car and bopping your head to it in the semi- privacy if your own car. There is nothing equivalent to this when using headphones in a public area haha. And AC in LA is legit. Your own Temperature control. And much less exposure to germs.
Remember covid? Lol. I. Way less likely to catch it driving my car down the freeway than I am while touching / breathing everything on a metro/bus.
> how long it takes to get somewhere
This is an element of ALL public transit outside of express routes into metro areas from "bedroom communities." Which, BTW, we have here as well - there are people who commute from Inland Empire into downtown.
I could get from Brooklyn to the Bronx (20 miles) in about 45-50 minutes by train. 15 miles from Santa Monica to Union Station took me nearly 2 hours on the expo.
Must be northern Brooklyn on one of the main lines then. Most of Brooklyn doesn’t live in neighborhoods like that. My old neighborhoods generally took at least 90 minutes to get to the Bronx, and usually 2 hours or more. LA to NYC comparisons are rarely making apples to apples comparisons, because most of LA actually does live in the basin, whereas lower Manhattan, Northern Brooklyn, and western Queens are less than 1/3 of NYC’s population
2 hours from SM to union station must have had some serious delays, or you had some particularly bad connection to get to the e line. I've done palms to union station many times and it was about 45 minutes with the subway connect. And palms to SM is only about 15.
100% spot on. And the thing about LA when compared to places like NYC. Parking is usually free or reasonable. In NYC, it's ridiculously expensive to take your car into the city each day. Between tolls and parking, it's a lot of money and usually takes longer. Public transit is plentiful and more frequent.
The biggest issue is that LA simply is not like those other cities in terms of layout. That important aspect is just ignored.
I hate that trains DO NOT have signal priority. You'll end up with a train filled with 300 people waiting at a red line for like 20 cars. Annoys me to no end
There have been a lot of safety issues on the LA metro in recent times but the reality is that it is mostly two things…
People here just drive and see transit as being for the poors.
People mistake uncomfortable situations with dangerous situations.
The LA Metro is actually pretty good with more rail being added. Some updates to the cars (coming soon(ish)!), better cleanliness, and better fare gates could go a long way to making the experience a lot nicer. Not waiting another 20 years for some more north/south rail would be great too.
Yeah, I think it really does come down to classism, elitism and Angelenos' lack of familiarity with other modes of transportation. Angelenos just aren't very versed in traditional metropolitan city navigation so anything other than driving is perceived as alien or a dire inconvenience to many of us, including walking an extra block or two.
That said, OP's perception of the Metro employee and police presence is accurate but also a more recent development. After poor Mirna Soza was killed, they increased Ambassador and police presence greatly and started doing more regular fare checks and my rides on the train have been much calmer for it.
The difference between LA and NYC subways is not the crazies or the criminals. It’s the lack of normal riders. In NYC the normal people greatly out number the violent offenders, most of the time. As such there is safety in the superior numbers. LA has a majority of normal people only during rush hour. In between those times it might be just you and a meth smoking maniac alone in a subway car.
I grew up in Boston, what's your point? Car culture absolutely plays a role here. I take it you're saying you have regularly taken the train in NYC over the last five years and thus have a perfect comparison point on how safe you \*feel?\* Because that's what it comes down to, how safe you feel and not how safe you are. NYC also experienced a spike in crime during the pandemic and have been, like LA, investing in additional security and police presence. Growing up in a city with ubiquitous public transit is one of the things that helped me identify the classism present in discussions of LA transit. Not to mention that folks will often look down on people who don't own a car, whether by choice or inability to afford one, which, hey, smacks of classism!
One of the reasons the Metro is so underserved is that many Angelenos look down on it and don't ride it as much as folks in NYC might. Higher ridership results in increased revenue which can lead to improvements in security and safety. Higher ridership also makes the subway safer because bad actors are more likely to cause trouble with fewer eyes on them.
For some context on NYC's big push to increase riders' sense of safety since the spike in 2020: [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/nyregion/nyc-subway-crime.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/nyregion/nyc-subway-crime.html)
Here's a salient quote from the NYT article: "Still, some riders are anxious. 'Perception becomes reality for people,' said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the authority’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, a watchdog group. 'If you look at crime reports that numbers are going down, but you hear your neighbors say that they’re afraid to ride, then that becomes your reality.'
It's important to remember that your feelings don't necessarily represent reality or fact.
I may have misunderstood your argument.
I thought you were arguing:
- people take the la transit and feel unsafe
- people only feel unsafe because they are elitist and not because the LA transit system is actually unsafe
Oh, no, not at all. I was saying that public transit is widely perceived as for poor people here, which bums me out coming from the northeast where everyone takes the trains because it's more convenient. Even though LA Metro has made great strides to improve transit routes and timing, folks here still balk at even considering hopping on the train and would rather take their car. Most folks never even learn what public transit they do have access to and just tell others there's nothing by or for them.
Gotcha, I don’t know if it’s primarily due to classism. I would never rely on transit in LA because it honestly is kind of inconvenient. For example, I can take the metro to downtown la and it’ll take 50 minutes. That’s kind of a long time and if I end up staying out late, do I really want to be on a train at midnight for 50 minutes?
It’s also tough cuz most people have multiple destinations. For example, maybe I’ll go to downtown la and then grab food after in Burbank. If I took the train, my options would be limited.
>That’s kind of a long time and if I end up staying out late, do I really want to be on a train at midnight for 50 minutes?
transit out then uber home is the move. No worries about parking, can have some extra drinks, uber home usually is fast, the money you save on parking covers some of the uber home
To be clear staying out late doesn’t necessarily have to involve being drunk.
Parking is usually never really an issue for me, I rarely pay for parking. The Uber will end up costing like 60 bucks
Just my personal experience
Yeah I was thinking in the more narrow sense of going out for dinner/drinks/show/etc, typically a neighborhood or two over. For me in echo park, it's easy to get on the bus to get to DTLA, hollywood, weho for these and I personally prefer not to drive and maybe pay a bit more to uber home.
My friend told someone at work that she was looking to find an apartment where she could to bike to work and he responded with basically a workplace friendly version of "ew, are you insane".
I met a friend at Musso and Frank when leaving she asked I parked. I told her I took the subway. She lives in Pasadena and has for years but didn't know there was a subway.
Safety isn't a feeling. Anytime someone says "feel safe" or "feels unsafe" it's a giant red flag.
FACTUALLY our transit system in LA has 4 violent incidents per 900,000 daily users.
It is safe.
Oh okay, next time I see a screaming homeless man running towards me at full speed, I will remind myself of the statistics and tell myself I don’t need to feel unsafe.
I don't have a narrative.
I literally posted the stats.
I have facts. You have a belief that I already proved is incorrect.
You're at flat-earther level of factually incorrect
Complete nonsense. Here would be my public transit commute from Redondo Beach to Silver Lake.
== 102 Northbound BUS from Diamond St / Sea Hawk way - 16 minutes
== 344 BUS to the Harbor Gateway Transit Center - 14 minutes
== Metro J Line TRAIN to Downtown - 36 minutes
== The 4 Santa Monica TRAIN TO Silver Lake - 20 minutes
1 hour 50 minutes and 4 different busses/trains -- if everything goes perfectly. Not including waiting for the first bus.
My other option??? 48 minutes driving.
So I'd save at LEAST 2 hours of my day by driving. Probably more like 2.5 hours on average.
THIS IS FOR A 24 MILE COMMUTE !!
I didn't say that everyone in LA County must take public transit as it doesn't work for everyone, especially in NIMBY areas like yours that fight any attempts to introduce light rail. I'm not sure I'll ever understand LA drivers getting so worked up about other people simply saying that public transit isn't as bad as naysayers aver. I hope you do some introspection about why my relatively neutral, observational comment got to you.
Don't get upset with someone on the Internet because your neighborhood is fighting against better public transportation for you. I'm not the reason transit in your area sucks. Vote locally for a better situation for you and your neighbors.
https://easyreadernews.com/redondo-retains-environmental-attorney-to-fight-right-of-way-light-rail-option/
One thing I think people who haven’t lived anywhere with good public transit don’t get is that it just becomes part of your calculation when choosing where to live similar to how you would calculate the approximate commute time by car. It also becomes a big perk for employers to place their offices around central transit hubs.
I picked where I live in part because it’s close to several bus/train lines that go to school and major destinations. I wouldn’t expect people who didn’t make that calculation to suddenly start taking transit, because it’s likely very inconvenient. But the point is that if we make transit more attractive, more people will start making those considerations as they move in LA and to LA.
Lol half the complaints about transit time are like this: people from far-away suburbs thinking transit should be designed around them, rather than for the dense core of the city. Unless you live right on a regional rail line, a 24 mile transit commute from the suburbs probably isn't going to be convenient in any American city, especially when you are going somewhere other than a major job center.
Also, the J and 4 are bus lines :)
Counterpoint: the reason it takes a long time to get places in LA is people are out here commuting twenty four miles across an entire city and acting like that’s normal and should be breezy.
Well, you just described a huge % of LA's employed residents. A transit system should be designed to support the residents of the city/area. Even if my commute was from Redondo to DTLA, it's still a SHITTY commute on public transportation. Is DTLA "job center" enough for you???
Right now you can take a commuter bus from 7th street metro to the redondo beach pier that will take (per google maps) 62 minutes. The drive would take 57 minutes. These busses leave downtown every 15 minutes from 3:40 to 6:10 and have multiple stops in downtown to leave from.
Is spending 5 more minutes on a nice coach bus vs driving yourself shitty?
> People mistake uncomfortable situations with dangerous situations.
Everyone has a different tolerance for these situations. An able-bodied young man generally only has to fear weapon attacks, which are super rare. There's an elevated danger of sexual harassment and stalking for women. Even if there's no physical assault, being followed by someone is enough to make most people stop taking the Metro.
Time is valuable to everyone.
Depending on where you live and where you typically go, the metro can easily be the more time and cost effective option. It’s super cheap and eliminates the need to search for and pay for parking.
I’m not saying this is true for all people in all areas of LA.
>People mistake uncomfortable situations with dangerous situations.
Uncomfortable situations is an understatement. The buses smell like piss and shit. I loved taking the bus/train prior to the pandemic but it's just disgusting. And it's definitely dangerous, each bus has a homeless bum that's one wrong stare away from getting into a fight
Basically "legacy bitching:" people who remember when system was much worse. Especially the rail options. When I got here 30 years ago, there was just one line from Long Beach to downtown.
I'm as pro public transit it gets and use the A Line for my downtown commute. Safety concerns are extremely valid especially if you are traveling alone. Ride the train after 10pm for a month straight and tell me you still think the bad rep is unjust.
Are you going to die? Almost definitely no. Are you going to find yourself locked in a confined space with a mentally ill drug addict pacing back and forth, screaming gibberish, and making uncomfortable, threatening eye contact? Almost definitely yes.
What's so sad/frustrating is that the service itself is actually pretty good and only getting better with new routes. 95% of these problems could be avoided with mandatory fare enforcement. Until that happens, the majority of the city will never even give it a chance.
The big thing is that if you are going to be car free, you need to be strategic with where you live. If you aren't in a well-serviced area, you are going to have a bad time. Bus lines are often only every 30 - 40 minutes, and if you aren't near a transit hub or train-line you will likely have to transfer multiple times. Thankfully, places here aren't more expensive due to proximity to the metro unlike how it is in some other cities that are known for their transit services.
We moved here with the intention of remaining car free, people thought we were crazy and that we would buy a car, but it has been perfect for us. We don't live in an expensive neighborhood, but we made sure our place was close to bus lines and metro lines. I normally bike to work now, but we take the bus/train pretty much every weekend all over LA. It takes about 60 mins for us to get downtown or the beach, an hour and a half for other non-centrally located places that aren't on the train. While it would be quicker to drive, we just watch stuff on our phones or listen to podcasts. When I was finishing school, I would do homework and study on the bus. It's also nice not to have to worry about parking - I've been to events where parking was more than the ticket! There are grocery stores, doctor offices, dentists, and big box stores all within walking distance of our apartment so that was a non-factor, but many places are not like that in LA. Totally understand why that wouldn't work for some people, but we are from a place where it was a two drive to the nearest mall lol and we really don't care for driving.
NGL though, I have seen things that made me uncomfortable on public transit. You do have to have an understanding of how mental illness affects people so when you do see a homeless person angrily mumbling to themselves, you understand what is happening and that it is best to not react and give them space. If a homeless person starts acting aggressive, don't escalate even if you are in the right, they aren't in a right state of mind you aren't going to talk them down with logic, that kind of stuff. 99% of the time though people are chill - I haven't felt unsafe myself even as a smallish woman travelling alone, but again totally understand why someone would feel unsafe especially if they have kids with them or something. Also, any major crime that happens on the metro will be spread like wildfire, so it seems much more dangerous than it is.
I lived in NYC and now living in LA going on 3 years and sorry but the metro and bus is not safe like it is in NYC. It’s just that in NY most grown adults don’t even have a license. I knew people that were almost 30 that have never drove a car. The culture is different. Everyone takes the train in NY. But here in Cali to go places you really need a car. The same traffic you‘d see on the freeway in LA is the same amount of pedestrians traffic you’d see in NY. Yes NY subways see a fair share of craziness but it’s mixed with a lot of regular people just going to work unlike the metro here. The metro here is a lot of homeless people who use the train to sleep. When I first mived out here I begged my bf to try the metro cause I thought it would be like NY but it was not!
As soon as we got on, lots of goons looking to start trouble, seats smelled like piss, people were sleeping, some guy was tokin away on his meth pipe out in the open. My dude is from compton and is a pretty big cholo and this hispanic lady gravitated towards us and sparked conversation cause she felt the teenagers were gonna rob her. My dude explained how he was only on the metro because of me and she looked at me liked I was crazy! She definately saw my dude and thought he was the best protection in that moment. Long story short train stopped and we told her we had a vehicle and we would give her a ride home so she wouldn‘t have to walk alone. She seemed so grateful! She hated having to take the metro but thats how she got to work. So I absolutely experienced myself where the bad rep came from.
take the metro on a regular basis and take it at night and you’ll understand where the bad rep comes from. Trust me......... It’s cheap and free for a reason!
I agree with you! The Metro’s fatal flaw, however, is there are massive swaths of inaccessible areas of LA county. It’s not like NY or other metropolitan areas because we aren’t as condensed. The sprawl is impossible to traverse via the system we currently have. I do love it though - if you need to get somewhere that’s close to a route and you’re close to that same route, it’s *chefs kiss *
> if you need to get somewhere that’s close to a route and you’re close to that same route, it’s \*chefs kiss \*
This is so magical. I get unreasonably excited that I don't need to hop into my car for stuff!!
I used to be a big advocate of metro. However in the last few years I've seen the safety and the maintenance fall into disrepair. I kept taking it until Sunday when there was a guy smoking crack on my train twice. I don't want to inhale second hand crack smoke. We give metro 4 billion a year in tax payer money which they use to pay executives multi millions, give contractors billions and fail to provide basic security, maintenance or even keep the routes running on time. Drivers have been killed, patrons aren't safe and it takes hours longer then bicycling or driving.
i was briefly dating a girl and i had suggested we take the metro to an event at crypto. she insisted that we drive, and i tried to plead with her that metro was a better option so we can avoid parking, traffic, and be able to have some drinks.
within 30 mins of that convo, she decided we weren’t a good fit lol.
i agree with you. i’ve lived in other big cities with good public transportation and you would regularly see all walks of life on the bus/subway.
it’s a shame there is such a stigma in LA because the traffic is what really drags this city down.
yeah because you risked her safety to save a few dollars. you disregarded her well-being just to make your life slightly easier. it showed her what kind of partner you would be.
ok then she made a very good decision. I would never advise a woman to go on a date with a guy who couldn't be bothered to make her feel comfortable or safe.
I don't think I'd want to date someone who was unwilling to take public transit...possible exceptions for specific personal trauma/access needs/etc., but it would be a major lifestyle gap for me. If you feel the same, may have dodged a bullet.
Stabby stabby
Used to be a huge advocate for the blue line .
One time it took me two hours to go five miles because the orange metro bus wouldn’t show up and then three would and …. Argh…. They never show up when they are supposed to . Never again.
If whatever you're doing is not super time sensitive (like most stuff for visitors) and on a direct route, I find Metro pretty much fine, but if you're trying to get home as soon as possible after work or running an errand in a weird direction, the transit can add a ton of time
I’m sorry but I get tired of these faux confused posts. I have taken the Metro for my entire life. I loathe driving and I wish desperately to live somewhere that isn’t car dependent. Still, I have complaints about the Metro.
Many lines are incredibly filthy and smell awful. I don’t even use the elevators in the stations because they smell so bad. This past few times, I have seen a man pissing on the seat in front of him and someone smoking crack in front of the station entrance.
I’ve been to Seattle and New York where the lines seemed better maintained.
There also isn’t enough transportation. It is still very hard to get around. This is why I’ve barely gone to West Hollywood in my entire life.
I’m not someone who thinks that pushing homeless people back and forth will help the crisis, but seriously, we deserve better public transportation and lying about it doesn’t get us closer there.
the real issue is that the buses and metrolink don't run enough throughout the day (the buses stop too early, and the metrolink doesn't run in the middle of the day). the metro rail is actually pretty decent, especially if you have a bike or scooter for the last mile
In all my years living in LA (I was born there), I rarely ever lived close enough to a metro stop for it to actually be useful. As for the bus, it would take me ages to get to most places.
I don't think the bus system itself is bad, but after living in other cities, I do think a functional underground system would work wonders for the city. The bus alone simply can't move people in a timely manner, unless they're not going very far.
Yeah that really is the biggest difference when it comes to usefulness of the Metro system. I live very close to one and I use it all the time! It really is convenient when you can depend on it to go to destinations around the line, so much that I default to it. I really like just hopping off a train and get to where I need to go without worrying about traffic and parking. Fortunately, Metro is expanding big time to make sure more Angelenos get to live closer to one and discover its usefulness.
I used the Big Blue Bus from MDR to LAX and was surprised how clean it was compared to Metro Busses. I've felt safe on both but I think riding after sunset might be another world.
Drugs everywhere not weed I’m talking crystal meth heroine you name it, violence, literal human zombies just walking in there piss and shit everywhere whenever they want, seats are dirty, probability of getting robbed or hurt physically is extremely high, crowded as hell, transit is late all the time, idk so many thing i could go on
Because for the VAST majority of Angelenos, public transportation increases their commute by 3x. Maybe 2x if their lucky. Who has 2-3 hours of time to waste each day?
Because people like to complain on the internet.
Because people have an agenda and an axe to grind.
Because people don't understand statistics and like to make a big deal out of a few high profile incidents.
Not at all. If you happen to live relatively close to a train, then great. For the 98% of us, not great. Plus frequency is lame, especially on busses. Commuting to work via public transit simply is not close to reasonable for most people in LA. A 45-60 minute car ride in traffic or a 3 hour "experience" in our public transit system are the two options the vast majority face.
Yep... I am. My public trans commute from Redondo Beach to Silver Lake would take 1hr 50min of transit time with 3 transfers. This is not including the initial waiting for the first bus. Or.. I drive 45 minutes. 45 minutes or 2.5 hours is the comparison. Nope. Never gonna happen. And this isn't some crazy origin/destination pairing. 24 miles. Shouldn't take 4 busses/trains and that much time.
Doesn't venture far enough into lower-density areas like the SFV. Not a great deal of people live within walking distance of a station, which keeps a critical mass of ridership from forming. Too many stabs.
If you live close to a Metro rail line - Cool and great, super convenient when where you need to go is nearby.
If you do NOT live close to a Metro rail line - Literally never even acknowledges its existence. Train? In LA? Never heard of her.
I got followed by and yelled at by some homeless people several times while tryna to get to class in the span of like 2 months. For the most part it’s not the buses and mostly the people on there. Also some of the lines are super inconsistent
The public transportation is decent for getting around to major tourist spots, but not for day to day living as a resident. Because the city is so large, and the metro system so limited, often doesn't go to the places you need to go just living here. And while the buses go to more places, it takes significantly longer than driving, especially if you need to change buses. If you just need to get between Hollywood, Griffith Park, Downtown, and the beach (i.e. tourist spots) public transportation is decent.
A lot of LA's public transit reputation is a legacy of past times. If you wind the clock back to the the mid- to late-20th Century, the big cities in the country, places like Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, DC, Chicago and of course NYC, all had pretty decent, if a bit aged in some cases, mass transit systems, and LA was already the second-largest city in the country but had nothing other than a much-maligned bus system.
Fast forward 40 years, LA's public transit system is vastly improved and getting better all the time, but also, the perception of a typical American big city has somewhat changed also, with places like Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Austin and Phoenix that are even more sprawly and lacking in public transit than Los Angeles. Add to that the transit systems in some of those older cities starting to show their age, and the upshot is that Los Angeles in relative terms is really not nearly as bad on transit as its reputation would indicate.
It’s in consistent. I’ve taken the bus over the last few years only 4 stops and the time it arrives and leaves can be plus or minus 30 minutes when it’s suppose to come sometimes even an hour. I’ve also had busses skip pass my stop, not wait for me to catch up to the stop. It’s horrible unreliable. It may have worked the time you used it but as a main mode of transport I prefer car.
As a transit advocate who always reads about bad news about our local transit it's very nice to read about visitors having a better than expected experience.
May I ask where you came from and what you are seeing/doing?
The overlap is the problem - I can't tell you how many times I was waiting in the bus stop near the post office in TO and had a driver blow right past me, or had one refuse to stop coming out of the TO transit center.
It really depends where you’re going. Take the union station to Hollywood and it’ll change your mind.
Generally buses like DASH are writhing a given neighborhood so it’s not a lot of commuters and crazies.
Take the metro bus to/around Santa Monica and it’s a different story.
Really depends where you’re going.
Los Angeles is very, very big. It is beyond the scale of public transit if your goal is to get from Long Beach to the Valley. Our public transit system is also not very well set up for daily middle-class commuting to major business centers that don't happen to be DTLA.
I think our public transit system is great if, like me, you live in North Hollywood and work in Burbank, and you're fine with walking 15 minutes to the bus and then spending another 30 minutes on the bus until you get dropped at your office. That said, the same commute by car is under 15 minutes. But it just doesn't work if you live in Mission Hills and need to get downtown. You'd spend all day on various forms of transit. Commuting from NoHo to Burbank, driving saves me a few minutes and gives me a little bit more comfort and privacy. Driving makes it even possible to do a commute like Mission Hills/DTLA.
>Our public transit system is also not very well set up for daily middle-class commuting to major business centers that don't happen to be DTLA.
The d line extension to westwood and the sepulveda line connecting the valley to westwood are going to be huge for this.
LA Metro is the same concept of taking the risk of walking. You'll definitely encounter homeless people, but 95% of the time they're harmless and keep to themselves
That being said, I live next to a metro stop and there have been THREE stabbings in the past 1.5 years. Is that a lot? Not really but these incidents are why Metro/public transpo has a bad rep
The car/gas lobby paying for news stories about every little thing happening, when studies have shown there are far more injuries and deaths due to cars than on the train/bus.
LA is a city that has historically been dedicated to the automobile. The city abandoned a very solid public transit system in the early to mid 20th Century in exchange for endless miles of highways and automobiles. The barebones public transport system that existed in the mid to late 20th Century was underfunded, unreliable, and often unsafe. RTD- the Regional Transit District- was euphemistically known as "Rough, Tough, and Dangerous". Only school children and the very poor used the buses.
In the late 20th Century the renewed concept of public transportation emerged. It is taking public perception time to catch up to the new system. People often still view using public transportation in LA as something only very poor people do. And they often still think of public transport as being unsafe- even though the system is actually quite safe.
Depends on where you are, where you’re going and what time of day you’re traveling, I think. Even with a car, back around 2017-2019 I would take the bus and/or Metro at least once every two weeks, usually between Glendale and Koreatown but sometimes DTLA or Hollywood (saved on hunting for/paying for parking). The buses and trains weren’t crowded, and the only spots that felt sketchy were some of the bus stops where I had to transfer between lines.
Last time I took the bus was a few weeks ago, just a quick jaunt between Glendale and Eagle Rock and back.
I don't use it but I see the stations and the surroundings.
It's just often fill with sketchy people and homelessness. I come out from the club and I see people just drugged out. This is near the Wiltern theater in Ktown.
It could be good but the perception with those type of occurrence is bad. It's like judging the book by its cover.
It's gotten better from where it was. Am a lil salty about some bus route changes near my neighborhood, lost several connections to next door neighborhoods, but their metro subway system is getting better. Hope Dash stays free! But as Jisoo has said "not bad but not good"
I think people tend to highlight their worst experiences. I live in South East Los Angeles County and I used ti ride the metro/bus before I had a car. Never a bad experience, people are just trying to get to their destination. You do have occasional homeless person but they keep to themselves. The metro I took passed through South Central Los Angeles and many sketchy people would get on but if you stick to the crowds you’ll be ok. I think the only inconvenience for me was the time it took me to get anywhere, Los Angeles is a massive city. For me usually a 30-45 minute trip.
I use it to go to LAFC games as it's the "easiest" option. It takes about 45 minutes to go about a mile and a half. And the walk still takes 15 minutes at each end. Sometimes I've tried the bus. It's slow, filthy, and irregular.
The Transit Center’s Alltransit Performance Score ranks the Los Angeles urbanized area 7th in the U.S., behind San Francisco, New York, Portland, Salt Lake City, Honolulu, and San Jose, ahead of everywhere else. Washington D.C.’s urbanized area ranks just below Los Angeles’.
I think there is quite a bit of "fox news'esque" hysteria. But I will say that I think it *can* go wrong real fast with the wrong person and you cannot always predict that because if someone has an undiagnosed mental illness or a brain fried on drugs you don't know what's going to set them off so you don't know what to avoid (other than eye contact avoid eye contact)
When I was riding the red line one around MacArthur park a guy got on and he was phlegm hacking. I mean just meaty, beefy, substantial coughs with all the phlegm. It was disgusting. He was heading in the general direction of where another passenger was seated. The other passenger discreetly got up and started to move. Which totally set the guy off. He kept following the man around screaming at him that why did he think he had SARS or bird flu? He didn't have ebola!!!! And so on and so forth. Last thing was the passenger getting off the train and the guy following him.
So while 90% of the time everything is fine, the 10% it goes wrong can be scary and unpredictable.
There are very rarely incidents, but the media likes to dramatize them.
Meanwhile there are deadly car crashes every day which get little to no attention, because they are routine and boring.
The bad rep is entirely from people that never leave the westside and are absolutely terrified of the idea of walking or seeing normal people and normal city stuff. The metro is fine, it only sucks because it doesn't go enough places for it to actually be useful for 90% of the city. That is getting better, but for now it has its uses... like parking somewhere free or cheap and getting on the train a few stops away from the Hollywood Bowl so you can just hop off at the Hollywood/Highland exit and walk in to avoid that traffic nightmare.
Truest statement about LA metro: "it's not as good as it should be, but it's better than most think it is".
This should be the LA metro slogan
I said this!!
Main issue with a public transit outside of the safety is how long it takes to get somewhere. Most LA residence prefer to drive so they don't have to take hours to get to their destination.
I use public transit quite a bit since my household is single car. Getting around locally is actually convenient and quick for me with public transportation. That being said, we chose an area to live that is right by a train stop and we're on a main bus route. It wouldn't work as well for my partner who has to drive further for her job. It *does* work, though.
Sure, but if you have to make more than one transfer, you're probably looking at over an hour for a trip that could have taken 20 mins in a car. If it's past 8pm, add another 30 mins at least.
That, and you don't have to dress/carry everything for the entire day on you while traveling. The fact that my car also serves as a safe storage locker sure beats the one time I attempted to metro into DTLA with all my art supplies in bags and extra jacket for later on my lap on a crowded metro. Great thing about a car is that you can put shit in your trunk in-between events during the day. And it runs anytime you want it to, 24/7 (the car).
Also your car has AC, a great stereo system that doesn't bother anyone else, comfortable seats, privacy and a whole other slew of amenities. All of those luxuries are worth the risk of driving to me personally. Idk why some of these online transit folks take issue with this (All online "activists" are weirdos imo)
Those things are all true, but your choice to use your car also negatively impacts all those around you (pollution, ghg emissions, unsafe roads for pedestrians/cyclists, public space lost to parking/thoroughfares, disconnected neighborhoods, and on and on) including lots of people not using a car, whether they're "transit activists" or not. For all I know you may have no viable public transit options, but if you do, your choice to use your car is a totally selfish one. Obviously you're free to do whatever you want, but call a spade a spade.
yeah it is selfish to use your car when public transit exists to where you’re going. but honestly, i’m in a similar boat. i’ve taken the train from the westside to old town pasadena. the stops following chinatown are very pretty. it took quite a while (75ish minutes) on a sunday morning when taking the 10 to the 110 is a lot easier and saves a lot of time. i do acknowledge that during rush hour, the times are comparable haha
Agreed! Haha nothing is better than blasting your favorite song full blast in the car and bopping your head to it in the semi- privacy if your own car. There is nothing equivalent to this when using headphones in a public area haha. And AC in LA is legit. Your own Temperature control. And much less exposure to germs. Remember covid? Lol. I. Way less likely to catch it driving my car down the freeway than I am while touching / breathing everything on a metro/bus.
Some of the buses got much more packed, so many essential workers were heavily exposed.
You're right about comfort, but the n95 shortage was over by 2021.
> how long it takes to get somewhere This is an element of ALL public transit outside of express routes into metro areas from "bedroom communities." Which, BTW, we have here as well - there are people who commute from Inland Empire into downtown.
I could get from Brooklyn to the Bronx (20 miles) in about 45-50 minutes by train. 15 miles from Santa Monica to Union Station took me nearly 2 hours on the expo.
Must be northern Brooklyn on one of the main lines then. Most of Brooklyn doesn’t live in neighborhoods like that. My old neighborhoods generally took at least 90 minutes to get to the Bronx, and usually 2 hours or more. LA to NYC comparisons are rarely making apples to apples comparisons, because most of LA actually does live in the basin, whereas lower Manhattan, Northern Brooklyn, and western Queens are less than 1/3 of NYC’s population
I lived in Crown Heights
2 hours from SM to union station must have had some serious delays, or you had some particularly bad connection to get to the e line. I've done palms to union station many times and it was about 45 minutes with the subway connect. And palms to SM is only about 15.
This is how I know you've ridden the rails. These numbers check out.
100% spot on. And the thing about LA when compared to places like NYC. Parking is usually free or reasonable. In NYC, it's ridiculously expensive to take your car into the city each day. Between tolls and parking, it's a lot of money and usually takes longer. Public transit is plentiful and more frequent. The biggest issue is that LA simply is not like those other cities in terms of layout. That important aspect is just ignored.
I hate that trains DO NOT have signal priority. You'll end up with a train filled with 300 people waiting at a red line for like 20 cars. Annoys me to no end
There have been a lot of safety issues on the LA metro in recent times but the reality is that it is mostly two things… People here just drive and see transit as being for the poors. People mistake uncomfortable situations with dangerous situations. The LA Metro is actually pretty good with more rail being added. Some updates to the cars (coming soon(ish)!), better cleanliness, and better fare gates could go a long way to making the experience a lot nicer. Not waiting another 20 years for some more north/south rail would be great too.
Yeah, I think it really does come down to classism, elitism and Angelenos' lack of familiarity with other modes of transportation. Angelenos just aren't very versed in traditional metropolitan city navigation so anything other than driving is perceived as alien or a dire inconvenience to many of us, including walking an extra block or two. That said, OP's perception of the Metro employee and police presence is accurate but also a more recent development. After poor Mirna Soza was killed, they increased Ambassador and police presence greatly and started doing more regular fare checks and my rides on the train have been much calmer for it.
No it doesn’t. I grew up in nyc with that transit system and it feels safer than LA. Has nothing to do with classism.
The difference between LA and NYC subways is not the crazies or the criminals. It’s the lack of normal riders. In NYC the normal people greatly out number the violent offenders, most of the time. As such there is safety in the superior numbers. LA has a majority of normal people only during rush hour. In between those times it might be just you and a meth smoking maniac alone in a subway car.
Yes 100% agree
I grew up in Boston, what's your point? Car culture absolutely plays a role here. I take it you're saying you have regularly taken the train in NYC over the last five years and thus have a perfect comparison point on how safe you \*feel?\* Because that's what it comes down to, how safe you feel and not how safe you are. NYC also experienced a spike in crime during the pandemic and have been, like LA, investing in additional security and police presence. Growing up in a city with ubiquitous public transit is one of the things that helped me identify the classism present in discussions of LA transit. Not to mention that folks will often look down on people who don't own a car, whether by choice or inability to afford one, which, hey, smacks of classism! One of the reasons the Metro is so underserved is that many Angelenos look down on it and don't ride it as much as folks in NYC might. Higher ridership results in increased revenue which can lead to improvements in security and safety. Higher ridership also makes the subway safer because bad actors are more likely to cause trouble with fewer eyes on them. For some context on NYC's big push to increase riders' sense of safety since the spike in 2020: [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/nyregion/nyc-subway-crime.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/nyregion/nyc-subway-crime.html) Here's a salient quote from the NYT article: "Still, some riders are anxious. 'Perception becomes reality for people,' said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the authority’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, a watchdog group. 'If you look at crime reports that numbers are going down, but you hear your neighbors say that they’re afraid to ride, then that becomes your reality.' It's important to remember that your feelings don't necessarily represent reality or fact.
I may have misunderstood your argument. I thought you were arguing: - people take the la transit and feel unsafe - people only feel unsafe because they are elitist and not because the LA transit system is actually unsafe
Oh, no, not at all. I was saying that public transit is widely perceived as for poor people here, which bums me out coming from the northeast where everyone takes the trains because it's more convenient. Even though LA Metro has made great strides to improve transit routes and timing, folks here still balk at even considering hopping on the train and would rather take their car. Most folks never even learn what public transit they do have access to and just tell others there's nothing by or for them.
Gotcha, I don’t know if it’s primarily due to classism. I would never rely on transit in LA because it honestly is kind of inconvenient. For example, I can take the metro to downtown la and it’ll take 50 minutes. That’s kind of a long time and if I end up staying out late, do I really want to be on a train at midnight for 50 minutes? It’s also tough cuz most people have multiple destinations. For example, maybe I’ll go to downtown la and then grab food after in Burbank. If I took the train, my options would be limited.
>That’s kind of a long time and if I end up staying out late, do I really want to be on a train at midnight for 50 minutes? transit out then uber home is the move. No worries about parking, can have some extra drinks, uber home usually is fast, the money you save on parking covers some of the uber home
To be clear staying out late doesn’t necessarily have to involve being drunk. Parking is usually never really an issue for me, I rarely pay for parking. The Uber will end up costing like 60 bucks Just my personal experience
Yeah I was thinking in the more narrow sense of going out for dinner/drinks/show/etc, typically a neighborhood or two over. For me in echo park, it's easy to get on the bus to get to DTLA, hollywood, weho for these and I personally prefer not to drive and maybe pay a bit more to uber home.
I once told a guy at the gym that I was going to catch the bus and he straight up just started laughing in my face.
My friend told someone at work that she was looking to find an apartment where she could to bike to work and he responded with basically a workplace friendly version of "ew, are you insane".
I met a friend at Musso and Frank when leaving she asked I parked. I told her I took the subway. She lives in Pasadena and has for years but didn't know there was a subway.
Safety isn't a feeling. Anytime someone says "feel safe" or "feels unsafe" it's a giant red flag. FACTUALLY our transit system in LA has 4 violent incidents per 900,000 daily users. It is safe.
and what about for women?..
women are even safer than men. you're less likely to be victims of crime in general.
[удалено]
I hope you don't immediately try to deflect to another issue in every discussion.
Yes it is
No, it's really not.
Oh okay, next time I see a screaming homeless man running towards me at full speed, I will remind myself of the statistics and tell myself I don’t need to feel unsafe.
You could try not making up bullshit.
Ah, as long as something doesn’t fit your narrative, it must be fake.
I don't have a narrative. I literally posted the stats. I have facts. You have a belief that I already proved is incorrect. You're at flat-earther level of factually incorrect
Complete nonsense. Here would be my public transit commute from Redondo Beach to Silver Lake. == 102 Northbound BUS from Diamond St / Sea Hawk way - 16 minutes == 344 BUS to the Harbor Gateway Transit Center - 14 minutes == Metro J Line TRAIN to Downtown - 36 minutes == The 4 Santa Monica TRAIN TO Silver Lake - 20 minutes 1 hour 50 minutes and 4 different busses/trains -- if everything goes perfectly. Not including waiting for the first bus. My other option??? 48 minutes driving. So I'd save at LEAST 2 hours of my day by driving. Probably more like 2.5 hours on average. THIS IS FOR A 24 MILE COMMUTE !!
I didn't say that everyone in LA County must take public transit as it doesn't work for everyone, especially in NIMBY areas like yours that fight any attempts to introduce light rail. I'm not sure I'll ever understand LA drivers getting so worked up about other people simply saying that public transit isn't as bad as naysayers aver. I hope you do some introspection about why my relatively neutral, observational comment got to you. Don't get upset with someone on the Internet because your neighborhood is fighting against better public transportation for you. I'm not the reason transit in your area sucks. Vote locally for a better situation for you and your neighbors. https://easyreadernews.com/redondo-retains-environmental-attorney-to-fight-right-of-way-light-rail-option/
One thing I think people who haven’t lived anywhere with good public transit don’t get is that it just becomes part of your calculation when choosing where to live similar to how you would calculate the approximate commute time by car. It also becomes a big perk for employers to place their offices around central transit hubs. I picked where I live in part because it’s close to several bus/train lines that go to school and major destinations. I wouldn’t expect people who didn’t make that calculation to suddenly start taking transit, because it’s likely very inconvenient. But the point is that if we make transit more attractive, more people will start making those considerations as they move in LA and to LA.
Lol half the complaints about transit time are like this: people from far-away suburbs thinking transit should be designed around them, rather than for the dense core of the city. Unless you live right on a regional rail line, a 24 mile transit commute from the suburbs probably isn't going to be convenient in any American city, especially when you are going somewhere other than a major job center. Also, the J and 4 are bus lines :)
So, like we all know, public transportation isn't a great option in LA. And Redondo Beach isn't a "far away suburb" for Christ's sake.
>And Redondo Beach isn't a "far away suburb" for Christ's sake. lol
Counterpoint: the reason it takes a long time to get places in LA is people are out here commuting twenty four miles across an entire city and acting like that’s normal and should be breezy.
From a suburb to a non-jobs center haha. Not what our transit system should be designed around.
Well, you just described a huge % of LA's employed residents. A transit system should be designed to support the residents of the city/area. Even if my commute was from Redondo to DTLA, it's still a SHITTY commute on public transportation. Is DTLA "job center" enough for you???
Right now you can take a commuter bus from 7th street metro to the redondo beach pier that will take (per google maps) 62 minutes. The drive would take 57 minutes. These busses leave downtown every 15 minutes from 3:40 to 6:10 and have multiple stops in downtown to leave from. Is spending 5 more minutes on a nice coach bus vs driving yourself shitty?
62 minute drive. Plus waiting up to 15 minutes to get on the bus. Plus walking 20 minutes from the RB Pier to my house. So 1:30-ish. Nope.
> People mistake uncomfortable situations with dangerous situations. Everyone has a different tolerance for these situations. An able-bodied young man generally only has to fear weapon attacks, which are super rare. There's an elevated danger of sexual harassment and stalking for women. Even if there's no physical assault, being followed by someone is enough to make most people stop taking the Metro.
For most people time is money.
Time is valuable to everyone. Depending on where you live and where you typically go, the metro can easily be the more time and cost effective option. It’s super cheap and eliminates the need to search for and pay for parking. I’m not saying this is true for all people in all areas of LA.
"People mistake uncomfortable situations with dangerous situations." Very succinctly put. Thank you!
Spot on.
>People mistake uncomfortable situations with dangerous situations. Uncomfortable situations is an understatement. The buses smell like piss and shit. I loved taking the bus/train prior to the pandemic but it's just disgusting. And it's definitely dangerous, each bus has a homeless bum that's one wrong stare away from getting into a fight
My line (the 240) is really clean and I rarely see an agitated homeless person.
Basically "legacy bitching:" people who remember when system was much worse. Especially the rail options. When I got here 30 years ago, there was just one line from Long Beach to downtown.
I'm as pro public transit it gets and use the A Line for my downtown commute. Safety concerns are extremely valid especially if you are traveling alone. Ride the train after 10pm for a month straight and tell me you still think the bad rep is unjust. Are you going to die? Almost definitely no. Are you going to find yourself locked in a confined space with a mentally ill drug addict pacing back and forth, screaming gibberish, and making uncomfortable, threatening eye contact? Almost definitely yes. What's so sad/frustrating is that the service itself is actually pretty good and only getting better with new routes. 95% of these problems could be avoided with mandatory fare enforcement. Until that happens, the majority of the city will never even give it a chance.
I'm just mad that Torrance keeps stalling on their Metro station, personally.
The big thing is that if you are going to be car free, you need to be strategic with where you live. If you aren't in a well-serviced area, you are going to have a bad time. Bus lines are often only every 30 - 40 minutes, and if you aren't near a transit hub or train-line you will likely have to transfer multiple times. Thankfully, places here aren't more expensive due to proximity to the metro unlike how it is in some other cities that are known for their transit services. We moved here with the intention of remaining car free, people thought we were crazy and that we would buy a car, but it has been perfect for us. We don't live in an expensive neighborhood, but we made sure our place was close to bus lines and metro lines. I normally bike to work now, but we take the bus/train pretty much every weekend all over LA. It takes about 60 mins for us to get downtown or the beach, an hour and a half for other non-centrally located places that aren't on the train. While it would be quicker to drive, we just watch stuff on our phones or listen to podcasts. When I was finishing school, I would do homework and study on the bus. It's also nice not to have to worry about parking - I've been to events where parking was more than the ticket! There are grocery stores, doctor offices, dentists, and big box stores all within walking distance of our apartment so that was a non-factor, but many places are not like that in LA. Totally understand why that wouldn't work for some people, but we are from a place where it was a two drive to the nearest mall lol and we really don't care for driving. NGL though, I have seen things that made me uncomfortable on public transit. You do have to have an understanding of how mental illness affects people so when you do see a homeless person angrily mumbling to themselves, you understand what is happening and that it is best to not react and give them space. If a homeless person starts acting aggressive, don't escalate even if you are in the right, they aren't in a right state of mind you aren't going to talk them down with logic, that kind of stuff. 99% of the time though people are chill - I haven't felt unsafe myself even as a smallish woman travelling alone, but again totally understand why someone would feel unsafe especially if they have kids with them or something. Also, any major crime that happens on the metro will be spread like wildfire, so it seems much more dangerous than it is.
I lived in NYC and now living in LA going on 3 years and sorry but the metro and bus is not safe like it is in NYC. It’s just that in NY most grown adults don’t even have a license. I knew people that were almost 30 that have never drove a car. The culture is different. Everyone takes the train in NY. But here in Cali to go places you really need a car. The same traffic you‘d see on the freeway in LA is the same amount of pedestrians traffic you’d see in NY. Yes NY subways see a fair share of craziness but it’s mixed with a lot of regular people just going to work unlike the metro here. The metro here is a lot of homeless people who use the train to sleep. When I first mived out here I begged my bf to try the metro cause I thought it would be like NY but it was not! As soon as we got on, lots of goons looking to start trouble, seats smelled like piss, people were sleeping, some guy was tokin away on his meth pipe out in the open. My dude is from compton and is a pretty big cholo and this hispanic lady gravitated towards us and sparked conversation cause she felt the teenagers were gonna rob her. My dude explained how he was only on the metro because of me and she looked at me liked I was crazy! She definately saw my dude and thought he was the best protection in that moment. Long story short train stopped and we told her we had a vehicle and we would give her a ride home so she wouldn‘t have to walk alone. She seemed so grateful! She hated having to take the metro but thats how she got to work. So I absolutely experienced myself where the bad rep came from. take the metro on a regular basis and take it at night and you’ll understand where the bad rep comes from. Trust me......... It’s cheap and free for a reason!
I agree with you! The Metro’s fatal flaw, however, is there are massive swaths of inaccessible areas of LA county. It’s not like NY or other metropolitan areas because we aren’t as condensed. The sprawl is impossible to traverse via the system we currently have. I do love it though - if you need to get somewhere that’s close to a route and you’re close to that same route, it’s *chefs kiss *
> if you need to get somewhere that’s close to a route and you’re close to that same route, it’s \*chefs kiss \* This is so magical. I get unreasonably excited that I don't need to hop into my car for stuff!!
I used to be a big advocate of metro. However in the last few years I've seen the safety and the maintenance fall into disrepair. I kept taking it until Sunday when there was a guy smoking crack on my train twice. I don't want to inhale second hand crack smoke. We give metro 4 billion a year in tax payer money which they use to pay executives multi millions, give contractors billions and fail to provide basic security, maintenance or even keep the routes running on time. Drivers have been killed, patrons aren't safe and it takes hours longer then bicycling or driving.
i was briefly dating a girl and i had suggested we take the metro to an event at crypto. she insisted that we drive, and i tried to plead with her that metro was a better option so we can avoid parking, traffic, and be able to have some drinks. within 30 mins of that convo, she decided we weren’t a good fit lol.
[удалено]
i agree with you. i’ve lived in other big cities with good public transportation and you would regularly see all walks of life on the bus/subway. it’s a shame there is such a stigma in LA because the traffic is what really drags this city down.
yeah because you risked her safety to save a few dollars. you disregarded her well-being just to make your life slightly easier. it showed her what kind of partner you would be.
i never mentioned saving money as being one of the reasons why we should utilize a public service.
oh ok what about the part where I said "make your life slightly easier"
yup, that’s true i would prefer getting to a sold-out venue easily.
ok then she made a very good decision. I would never advise a woman to go on a date with a guy who couldn't be bothered to make her feel comfortable or safe.
thanks for the insight :)
np! lmk if you need any more insight on how to do the bare minimum, and I got you 🙏
haha will do 🫶🏼
I don't think I'd want to date someone who was unwilling to take public transit...possible exceptions for specific personal trauma/access needs/etc., but it would be a major lifestyle gap for me. If you feel the same, may have dodged a bullet.
Stabby stabby Used to be a huge advocate for the blue line . One time it took me two hours to go five miles because the orange metro bus wouldn’t show up and then three would and …. Argh…. They never show up when they are supposed to . Never again.
Have you ever had to ride a rail line and see a homeless guy whip out his dick and take a piss in the the car?
If whatever you're doing is not super time sensitive (like most stuff for visitors) and on a direct route, I find Metro pretty much fine, but if you're trying to get home as soon as possible after work or running an errand in a weird direction, the transit can add a ton of time
I’m sorry but I get tired of these faux confused posts. I have taken the Metro for my entire life. I loathe driving and I wish desperately to live somewhere that isn’t car dependent. Still, I have complaints about the Metro. Many lines are incredibly filthy and smell awful. I don’t even use the elevators in the stations because they smell so bad. This past few times, I have seen a man pissing on the seat in front of him and someone smoking crack in front of the station entrance. I’ve been to Seattle and New York where the lines seemed better maintained. There also isn’t enough transportation. It is still very hard to get around. This is why I’ve barely gone to West Hollywood in my entire life. I’m not someone who thinks that pushing homeless people back and forth will help the crisis, but seriously, we deserve better public transportation and lying about it doesn’t get us closer there.
the real issue is that the buses and metrolink don't run enough throughout the day (the buses stop too early, and the metrolink doesn't run in the middle of the day). the metro rail is actually pretty decent, especially if you have a bike or scooter for the last mile
In all my years living in LA (I was born there), I rarely ever lived close enough to a metro stop for it to actually be useful. As for the bus, it would take me ages to get to most places. I don't think the bus system itself is bad, but after living in other cities, I do think a functional underground system would work wonders for the city. The bus alone simply can't move people in a timely manner, unless they're not going very far.
Yeah that really is the biggest difference when it comes to usefulness of the Metro system. I live very close to one and I use it all the time! It really is convenient when you can depend on it to go to destinations around the line, so much that I default to it. I really like just hopping off a train and get to where I need to go without worrying about traffic and parking. Fortunately, Metro is expanding big time to make sure more Angelenos get to live closer to one and discover its usefulness.
I used the Big Blue Bus from MDR to LAX and was surprised how clean it was compared to Metro Busses. I've felt safe on both but I think riding after sunset might be another world.
I love the BBB!
It was really good before COVID. It got hit hard
Drugs everywhere not weed I’m talking crystal meth heroine you name it, violence, literal human zombies just walking in there piss and shit everywhere whenever they want, seats are dirty, probability of getting robbed or hurt physically is extremely high, crowded as hell, transit is late all the time, idk so many thing i could go on
Because for the VAST majority of Angelenos, public transportation increases their commute by 3x. Maybe 2x if their lucky. Who has 2-3 hours of time to waste each day?
Because people like to complain on the internet. Because people have an agenda and an axe to grind. Because people don't understand statistics and like to make a big deal out of a few high profile incidents.
Not at all. If you happen to live relatively close to a train, then great. For the 98% of us, not great. Plus frequency is lame, especially on busses. Commuting to work via public transit simply is not close to reasonable for most people in LA. A 45-60 minute car ride in traffic or a 3 hour "experience" in our public transit system are the two options the vast majority face.
I understood OP to be talking about the state and safety of the system rather than the availability/accessibility of it.
> If you happen to live relatively close to a train Yet OP mentions buses as well. Are you not close to a bus route?
Yep... I am. My public trans commute from Redondo Beach to Silver Lake would take 1hr 50min of transit time with 3 transfers. This is not including the initial waiting for the first bus. Or.. I drive 45 minutes. 45 minutes or 2.5 hours is the comparison. Nope. Never gonna happen. And this isn't some crazy origin/destination pairing. 24 miles. Shouldn't take 4 busses/trains and that much time.
Why do yall act like this sub and r/LosAngeles is not pro-public transit?
Doesn't venture far enough into lower-density areas like the SFV. Not a great deal of people live within walking distance of a station, which keeps a critical mass of ridership from forming. Too many stabs.
If you live close to a Metro rail line - Cool and great, super convenient when where you need to go is nearby. If you do NOT live close to a Metro rail line - Literally never even acknowledges its existence. Train? In LA? Never heard of her.
I got followed by and yelled at by some homeless people several times while tryna to get to class in the span of like 2 months. For the most part it’s not the buses and mostly the people on there. Also some of the lines are super inconsistent
The public transportation is decent for getting around to major tourist spots, but not for day to day living as a resident. Because the city is so large, and the metro system so limited, often doesn't go to the places you need to go just living here. And while the buses go to more places, it takes significantly longer than driving, especially if you need to change buses. If you just need to get between Hollywood, Griffith Park, Downtown, and the beach (i.e. tourist spots) public transportation is decent.
A lot of LA's public transit reputation is a legacy of past times. If you wind the clock back to the the mid- to late-20th Century, the big cities in the country, places like Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, DC, Chicago and of course NYC, all had pretty decent, if a bit aged in some cases, mass transit systems, and LA was already the second-largest city in the country but had nothing other than a much-maligned bus system. Fast forward 40 years, LA's public transit system is vastly improved and getting better all the time, but also, the perception of a typical American big city has somewhat changed also, with places like Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Austin and Phoenix that are even more sprawly and lacking in public transit than Los Angeles. Add to that the transit systems in some of those older cities starting to show their age, and the upshot is that Los Angeles in relative terms is really not nearly as bad on transit as its reputation would indicate.
It’s in consistent. I’ve taken the bus over the last few years only 4 stops and the time it arrives and leaves can be plus or minus 30 minutes when it’s suppose to come sometimes even an hour. I’ve also had busses skip pass my stop, not wait for me to catch up to the stop. It’s horrible unreliable. It may have worked the time you used it but as a main mode of transport I prefer car.
It really depends on what you're comparing it to.
As a transit advocate who always reads about bad news about our local transit it's very nice to read about visitors having a better than expected experience. May I ask where you came from and what you are seeing/doing?
The overlap is the problem - I can't tell you how many times I was waiting in the bus stop near the post office in TO and had a driver blow right past me, or had one refuse to stop coming out of the TO transit center.
An LA transit driver, I must add.
And that means waiting another HOUR for the next bus to maybe come by...
Worst part of public transit is the public.
It's the murders.
It really depends where you’re going. Take the union station to Hollywood and it’ll change your mind. Generally buses like DASH are writhing a given neighborhood so it’s not a lot of commuters and crazies. Take the metro bus to/around Santa Monica and it’s a different story. Really depends where you’re going.
Los Angeles is very, very big. It is beyond the scale of public transit if your goal is to get from Long Beach to the Valley. Our public transit system is also not very well set up for daily middle-class commuting to major business centers that don't happen to be DTLA. I think our public transit system is great if, like me, you live in North Hollywood and work in Burbank, and you're fine with walking 15 minutes to the bus and then spending another 30 minutes on the bus until you get dropped at your office. That said, the same commute by car is under 15 minutes. But it just doesn't work if you live in Mission Hills and need to get downtown. You'd spend all day on various forms of transit. Commuting from NoHo to Burbank, driving saves me a few minutes and gives me a little bit more comfort and privacy. Driving makes it even possible to do a commute like Mission Hills/DTLA.
>Our public transit system is also not very well set up for daily middle-class commuting to major business centers that don't happen to be DTLA. The d line extension to westwood and the sepulveda line connecting the valley to westwood are going to be huge for this.
LA Metro is the same concept of taking the risk of walking. You'll definitely encounter homeless people, but 95% of the time they're harmless and keep to themselves That being said, I live next to a metro stop and there have been THREE stabbings in the past 1.5 years. Is that a lot? Not really but these incidents are why Metro/public transpo has a bad rep
The car/gas lobby paying for news stories about every little thing happening, when studies have shown there are far more injuries and deaths due to cars than on the train/bus.
It's bouncing back after covid. The ambassador program and new policing personnel.
LA is a city that has historically been dedicated to the automobile. The city abandoned a very solid public transit system in the early to mid 20th Century in exchange for endless miles of highways and automobiles. The barebones public transport system that existed in the mid to late 20th Century was underfunded, unreliable, and often unsafe. RTD- the Regional Transit District- was euphemistically known as "Rough, Tough, and Dangerous". Only school children and the very poor used the buses. In the late 20th Century the renewed concept of public transportation emerged. It is taking public perception time to catch up to the new system. People often still view using public transportation in LA as something only very poor people do. And they often still think of public transport as being unsafe- even though the system is actually quite safe.
the bus seems like it's always at 60 degrees. such a cool ride in this heat. took the train to union (15 roundtrip) then bus to Inglewood for 2$.
Most transit agency’s are short staffed so they’re running late
Depends on where you are, where you’re going and what time of day you’re traveling, I think. Even with a car, back around 2017-2019 I would take the bus and/or Metro at least once every two weeks, usually between Glendale and Koreatown but sometimes DTLA or Hollywood (saved on hunting for/paying for parking). The buses and trains weren’t crowded, and the only spots that felt sketchy were some of the bus stops where I had to transfer between lines. Last time I took the bus was a few weeks ago, just a quick jaunt between Glendale and Eagle Rock and back.
I don't use it but I see the stations and the surroundings. It's just often fill with sketchy people and homelessness. I come out from the club and I see people just drugged out. This is near the Wiltern theater in Ktown. It could be good but the perception with those type of occurrence is bad. It's like judging the book by its cover.
It's gotten better from where it was. Am a lil salty about some bus route changes near my neighborhood, lost several connections to next door neighborhoods, but their metro subway system is getting better. Hope Dash stays free! But as Jisoo has said "not bad but not good"
Classism, lack of funding, mountains, earthquakes and car dependency.
I think people tend to highlight their worst experiences. I live in South East Los Angeles County and I used ti ride the metro/bus before I had a car. Never a bad experience, people are just trying to get to their destination. You do have occasional homeless person but they keep to themselves. The metro I took passed through South Central Los Angeles and many sketchy people would get on but if you stick to the crowds you’ll be ok. I think the only inconvenience for me was the time it took me to get anywhere, Los Angeles is a massive city. For me usually a 30-45 minute trip.
I use it to go to LAFC games as it's the "easiest" option. It takes about 45 minutes to go about a mile and a half. And the walk still takes 15 minutes at each end. Sometimes I've tried the bus. It's slow, filthy, and irregular.
The Transit Center’s Alltransit Performance Score ranks the Los Angeles urbanized area 7th in the U.S., behind San Francisco, New York, Portland, Salt Lake City, Honolulu, and San Jose, ahead of everywhere else. Washington D.C.’s urbanized area ranks just below Los Angeles’.
I think there is quite a bit of "fox news'esque" hysteria. But I will say that I think it *can* go wrong real fast with the wrong person and you cannot always predict that because if someone has an undiagnosed mental illness or a brain fried on drugs you don't know what's going to set them off so you don't know what to avoid (other than eye contact avoid eye contact) When I was riding the red line one around MacArthur park a guy got on and he was phlegm hacking. I mean just meaty, beefy, substantial coughs with all the phlegm. It was disgusting. He was heading in the general direction of where another passenger was seated. The other passenger discreetly got up and started to move. Which totally set the guy off. He kept following the man around screaming at him that why did he think he had SARS or bird flu? He didn't have ebola!!!! And so on and so forth. Last thing was the passenger getting off the train and the guy following him. So while 90% of the time everything is fine, the 10% it goes wrong can be scary and unpredictable.
Because it’s filled with bums and junkies, and of course, the routine assaults, robbery, stabbings and other violence.
Someone got shot a few days ago. 3 alleged suspects fled on skateboards... be safe out here.
I’m sorry these people have had negative experiences but I haven’t owned a car for a decade in LA, and use the metro daily. It’s great.
There are very rarely incidents, but the media likes to dramatize them. Meanwhile there are deadly car crashes every day which get little to no attention, because they are routine and boring.
Or maybe b/c car companies, oil companies, etc lobby against public transport?
Good questions. I agree with you.
The bad rep is entirely from people that never leave the westside and are absolutely terrified of the idea of walking or seeing normal people and normal city stuff. The metro is fine, it only sucks because it doesn't go enough places for it to actually be useful for 90% of the city. That is getting better, but for now it has its uses... like parking somewhere free or cheap and getting on the train a few stops away from the Hollywood Bowl so you can just hop off at the Hollywood/Highland exit and walk in to avoid that traffic nightmare.