When I arrived at USC as a freshman, I was amazed by two things: how spread out everything was geographically, and how terrible the public transportation is. These things make for a city that is very hard to get around, especially without a car. Before I came to LA, I was told it’s a “driving city”, meaning if you want to work, have fun, or get anywhere, you’ll need a car. Of course, even with a car you’ll find yourself in brutal traffic in the beating sun, forcing you to either waste gas idling with your air conditioner on, or crack the windows and breathe in the freeway fumes. As much as driving in LA sucks, the city ensures that getting somewhere without a car sucks even more. The rail system is pathetic; as opposed to Boston which has 1.42 rail stations per square mile, or San Francisco which has 1.08, Los Angeles only has 0.18 train stations per square mile. Rails are important in public transportation because they bypass traffic and are easy to schedule; LA has some electric railways, but gas powered buses make up most of public transportation. It never made sense to me why city buses that I didn’t think could physically exceed 40 mph were hurtling down the express lane at 80 mph, or sitting in freeway standstill traffic filled to the brim with people. Commuters deserve better.
It turns out, from the late 1800s to about 1950, LA had one of the “best public transportation systems in the world”. A vast and well planned electric rail system for trolleys called red cars once made getting around a lot easier, cheaper, more accessible, and more sustainable. Since these rails were introduced early in the development of now populous neighborhoods in Los Angeles, people naturally placed themselves where they could easily access the rails, forming their neighborhoods based on a rail system that made sense. The city and transportation system was developing together, and the city was on track to not be a shithole. Then came in some greedy bastards that would change the city for the worse and make a lot of money on the ride.
In the mid 1900s, the automobile industry had ramped up production and the quality of car design, aspiring to become the future of travel. The ideas of 5 lane highways running across the country were glorified as a new addition to American freedom, instilling the culture of American teens cruising in beautiful cars to drive in restaurants. This cultural vision was pushed almost entirely by the automotive industry; they wanted people to buy cars.
One method of selling more cars is getting rid of other options for transportation.
Between 1938 and 1950, one company purchased and took over the transit systems of more than 25 American cities. Their name, National City Lines, sounded innocuous enough, but the list of their investors included General Motors, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and other companies who stood to benefit much more from a future running on gasoline and rubber than on electricity and rails(Marshall, 2016).
By 1950, joint efforts between all corners of the automotive industry gave people no option but to buy cars to get around. Los Angeles red cars went extinct and the healthy city planning around the graves of red car stations made no sense. The automotive industry would continue to push their agenda by lobbying to influence city planning and the construction of massive freeways within the next two decades, leading LA to the wasteland it is today.
It’s safe to say that the electric rail systems in Los Angeles could have developed into a global model for sustainable and ethical transportation, allowing the city to avoid their air pollution and fuel consumption crises. Instead, it’s a “driving city”.
This is a great post and rises an interesting question. The driving situation within Los Angeles is actually horrible. If you're not fortunate to drive a reliable car, then you're pretty much screwed. Even then the traffic will someone driving for hours on end. I can count a number of many times that I had to drive <5 miles within the Los Angeles area and the drive was at least more than 30 minutes. The metro is an option to individuals that do not have access to any type of transportation, however, it does not eliminate the time aspect. This was a great post and brought up a lot of different points.
I’ve been looking at this a lot this sem mainly because of how badly the Metro is failing as a commuting service. My studio professor is working on repurposing the blue line to transport healthy foods around LA, which is a super interesting idea. It just sucks that because of how impossible (& costly & unsafe) it’s become to get around LA, we have to look into recovery solutions for the damage its infrastructure did to the community's health crisis. Plus, I don’t get why LA chose to put zero effort into its metro stations which are just open, uncomfortable pavilions, when other states utilize this space for commercial use, etc.
This semester I'm commenting from Pasadena. During non traffic hours, my time to get to USC is about 20 minutes, however, during peak hours, I'm looking at an hour in traffic, sometimes even more. I feel like there should be policies, new roads, something or anything to make this less of an issue. It takes so much time away from doing other productive things. And let me tell you, when you get home from that drive, you really have no desire to do anything else which throws off your whole day. Los Angeles needs to do something!
Los Angeles is such a shitshow when it comes to circulating around the city. It can take several hours to get from one place to another that could be a couple miles apart. For me, I have to commute from Orange County this semester and let me tell you, it's been hell! LA's freeways are constantly filled with traffic jams and accidents. I think the city needs to fix this circulation issue before everyone starts getting lazy and never leaving their home unless its an obligation. I also believe public transportation should be better prioritized and done in a safer way; maybe this could be a solution to this ongoing issue.
Coming from New York to USC, near the city that is just as busy as LA, I immediately noticed the poor functions of public transportation. It is surprising to me the lack of effort to try and change or improve the methods of public transportation. Even though it did not seem necessary to include underground transportation it would totally change and improve the dynamic of public transportation in LA. I felt that before being around people with cars, I rarely ever left campus, and took me a while to realize the life outside of campus because I would most likely be sitting in traffic and spending too much money on an Uber.