Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Blocking and Tackling and Transit

When I lived in Washington, I took Metro to work nearly every day--I took it so often that I didn't have a parking space at GW.

Now that I live in LA, I take transit about once a week, and part of the trip (a bus from Union Station to Campus)is subsidized by USC.

Before you yell sprawl, let me point out that in Washington I lived 9.3 miles from work while in LA I live 12 miles from work. So what is the difference?

For all that people complain about it, Washington Metro is well run. Connections are good, the buses and trains are clean, and the web site works great.

Transit in LA is not well run. The timing of the connections is often awful, and th web site is nearly useless. Many drivers on the Gold Line have a hard time figuring out where to stop in stations.

Could better management improve ridership in Los Angeles? Perhaps not, but it sure would be worth trying.

2 comments:

Katherine G. said...

Plus, DC Metro has the digital signs that tell you when the next train will be that have spoiled me for all other subway systems...

MJ said...

Let's bear in mind that LACMTA was the transit agency got itself sued by the L.A. Bus Riders' Union back in the mid-1990s. That tells you all you need to know about its management.