Didn’t know they are privately owned. Our case study (and I bet lots of US case studies on urban development) does appear to be more related to NIMBYISM and their hands on the throats of politicians. There is a separate conversation that public (or mass) transit has been wrapped around the axle of US political polarization.

All of those transit projects are being addressed. It takes time. Though LAX will have a Metro connection next year. The Coachella Valley Rail project has been proposed, and is being studied. CAHSR being built. Gondola project to Dodgers Stadium has passed initial EIR approval.

@@mrxman581 why doesn’t the train go right to the terminals at LAX? I have to stop short and take a bus? And even Uber/Lift is offsite. Ridiculous!

Do you know how large Los Angeles is? How large the County is? LA Metro is responsible for providing metro rail services for both. The city is 500 square miles, and the county is 4800 square miles. Paris, by comparison is 40 square miles. That's the difference. That is why LA will always have light rail lines as the main way to move people around the city and county. Much of our light rail is also grade separated, has aerial stations and subterranean stations. We also have the mild weather where the use of light rail is very convenient. However, we are building more subway too where it makes sense, but it will never be the majority of the metro network. There are 9 metro rail projects set to be completed over the next 12 years expanding the system from 109 miles to around 180 miles. It will consist of new subway, light rail, and automated elevated tram. BTW, Los Angeles operates 114 bus lines including a few BRT lines. There are more BRT lines being proposed too

@mrxman581 And Manhattan is 23 square miles, does it change anything one bit ? The size comparison is misleading, you took the smallest denominator to compare with the largest... Paris core or Paris "proper" is to the Greater Paris area like what Manhattan is to New York, it doesn't make sense to only count the core. And beyond that, the size isn't and never was an excuse to not have good transportation. Paris core hosts about 2.5 million people by night, up to over 6 million by day. The agglomeration has around 12 M and the entire metro area around 15 M. There are 16 metro-subway lines (plus 4 in construction, including a gigantic loop line fully underground), 14 tram lines, 5 main regional heavy metro lines with numerous branches, 8 main suburban train lines or "sectors", and 15 thousand busses directly under the city regional transportation agency, plus the busses under smaller local municipal agencies. It's not urban transportation per se but there are also 4 main radial high-speed lines that carry a great number of long distance HSR commuters every day. It is slightly different but similar in London, in Berlin, Madrid, Tokyo, etc. IDFM (Île-de-France Mobilités) is responsible for providing all types of transportation to the entire region (4,640 square miles), and sometimes beyond. The inner part of the agglomeration is called Grand Paris (not to be confused with the wider Greater Paris area) covers about 315 square miles and roughly 7 million people. The built-up area is roughly comparable in both LA County and Île-de-France. Yet, the capacity and coverage of public transportation are night and day. I could have taken London or Tokyo instead of Paris, it would be the sane. Right now IDFM is, in collaboration with SGP, doubling the length of the metro network (the subway), and also substantially expanding the RER network (regional express heavy metro) and tram network ,after having already opened a dozen new tram lines mainly for suburbs to suburbs journeys, in the last decade and a half. Between now and late June there are about 35 kilometers of new metro, tram and RER lines that are expected to open, 30km of which are underground. The goal is to reach a daily capacity for the rail networks of at least 20 million trips by 2030 or 2032, further replacing the need for a car for most people. Several lines carry between 750k and a million passengers daily, RER A carries 1.5 M, RER B 1.3 M and M14 is expected to soon carry well over a million daily. The lines under construction are expected to carry an extra 3 million passengers daily. Some of the tram lines carry well over 300k daily, even if their length is barely 10 miles. That is real mass transit, a true backbone network that makes the car the second or third option and not the default transportation means. I'm baffled by the choice of using light rail, which seems to be a bad habit in the US. Instead of solving the outrageous cost ballooning issues, the cheapest solution is chosen, despite not being the right one in many cases. In order to have proper public transportation that could make a real difference in the modal share, you need high capacity, full priority and high frequency... Light rail isn't exactly known for any of that. Sure, Angelinos also aren't known for their love of PT, but if LA Metro wants to change that, they need proper equipment that would be easier, faster, cheaper and better than driving. What I'm criticizing is the choice of not putting public transportation front and center. All of what is being developed is better than nothing, sure, but it is still keeping public transportation relegated as a marginal means of transportation, far behind the personal car. It remains like the third option after the personal car, and Uber or Lyft. The size is irrelevant, it's a false problem. Size should even be an asset, not a problem, because when you have space, you can build proper transportation much more easily and more cheaply. A city like Los Angeles should have heavy metro trains running both local and express services, regular metro trains running the usual metro lines and tram lines with full priority. Plus a network of busses acting as feeders to the main lines. Under, on, or over the ground is not the issue. The questions to ask are the following : Can the LA Metro network be the city's main means of transportation? Does it cater to everyone, rich and poor? Does it have enough capacity and speed to be able to take at the very least a 20 or 25% modal share? If any of the questions has no for an answer, then it's a problem... It feels like what is developed by LA Metro right now is a marginal system, aimed at those who don't have a car, who don't or won't drive. Like a minimum equipment. Instead of being the true arterial system of the city. In other words, the LA Metro network should have more capacity than the freeways. Just to give you an example : RER A, the main East-West line of the Paris RER network, has trains carrying more than 3000 passengers every 2 minutes each way on peak. M14 has trains each carrying 1200 passengers every 80 or 85 seconds, each way during peak hours. You can find pretty much the same kind of high capacity and high frequency in London, Tokyo, etc. It's not a Paris thing. The fact that the lines are underground or on the surface or elevated is irrelevant, what's important is that the transportation network is the true workhorse of its city, not the highway network. What I've hoped for LA is a network capable of moving millions from where they are to where they want to go. A network that is the lifeblood of the city and its primary means of transportation. Right now it feels like they are developing only a marginal network of mostly light rail for the price of heavy underground subway, with plenty of blank zones and far from having the capacity to become the main transportation means in LA.

​​​@@KyrilPGThere's a few assumptions in your argument that weaken some of your points. LA is a much more complex story than the cities you listed for various reasons. Before I get into them it should be noted that LA today is building out a system much faster than any other U.S. city. And the light rail options have largely been built along existing right of way paths of previous defunct lines making it more affordable to do so. But subway lines are being built in parallel at the same time. As the video highlights, funding from the federal government or lack of, has been an issue. Cities like New York or Chicago built up their pt rail network in the early 1900s when they were already large populated cities and getting funding from the federal government. London, Paris, and Tokyo likewise were already big cities when they got their first pt rail lines. LA was not a very large city until after 1960. By that time as the video mentioned, federal funding for pt rail was dismantled. The federal government built a network of interstate highways instead from the 1940s-1970s largely for ease of military movement. However it quickly became the main mode of transportation as home builders built more cheaply on the outskirts of cities (where pt didn't reach), building homes that Americans could afford. That was the rise of the car commuting culture, not just in LA, but every major U.S. city. Even the biggest transit systems like NYCs were neglected and underfunded making them inefficient, dirty, and aethetically unappealing during this time. People abandoned inner city cores for cleaner suburban lifestyles. Today LA (still not getting the same amount of federal or state funding cities like NYC or San Francisco get despite LA being the 2nd largest city in the country) has managed to build out the 3rd and soon 2nd largest public rail transport network in the U.S. behind only NYC, largely through local funding. Sure light rail is not a complete adequate substitute for heavy rail, but considering the numerous underfunding priority from the national and state governments its done a pretty good job to be accessible to the largest geographic area possible. Size in an underfunded system is NOT an advantage or plus. As the other commenter noted LA County is 4800 Sq miles and the metro area has 13 million people (19 million conurbation). But LA is building the fastest it can, with the funding it has. And also LA is already a dense area, and also an earthquake fault zone, making it both trickier and more expensive to build above and below ground. As a side note, LA has one of the best planned and extensive highway systems in the world, so even a full subway system would likely not entirely replace them, even if portions were torn down. But most would likely not be torn down and here's why. The highways don't just provide commuters with a first transportation option. They're also vital arteries for the movement of goods for the U.S. The ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach are the busiest ports outside of east Asia in the world--busier than the port of Rotterdam which is Europe's busiest port complex. So there is a lot of cargo movement coming off the ships to inland warehouses on highways; cargo which is then redistributed to the rest of the country. Not even NYC ports are as busy (and NYC also has big logistical challenges for its retail sector due to lack of highway reach and street access). To make a fair comparison to a European city, it would be like combining the cities of London or Paris with Rotterdam. Try moving people and cargo efficiently on only a subway system. Not happening. Even with full rail yards taking some of those container ships away from the ports currently, there is still an army, a fleet of lorry/truck drivers that whisk away the cargo via highway to more inland warehousing areas. That is then distributed to other cities. My hope is that subway lines keep expanding over the decades. Maybe get a few HSR lines for the metro area alone given the geographic size, not just intercity HSR. Funding is pivotal for this though, especially from the federal and state governments, rather than just local and private funds.

they have built metros in earthquake-prone areas such as Tokyo, Naples, San Francisco, Santiago de Chile, Istanbul and many more without much issues. The technology exists, the bigger obstacle is the political inertia.

Subway stations are actually safer to be in during an earthquake then above ground inside a building

Not true. Things got bad during Covid, but that has changed dramatically over the last 6 months. It has gotten much better and ridership went up every month in 2023.

Air quality was also very bad throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. I grew up with Smog Alerts when we couldn't play outside. It was vehicles, trucks, and buses. Remember, having to roll up the window in the car when next to a truck or bus. It was horrible.

Indeed. Especially during rush hour in the morning and evening. I rode the E line recently during rush hour and the 10 fwy was at a standstill as the E line zoomed by at 55 mph.

The Sepulveda line is set to go from the valley to LAX. It will likely connect to the B line at the VA. The extension of the B line to the Sea has been proposed for a long time. Too expensive to do now considering other areas that still don't have any Metro lines. At least SM has the E line that terminates past Lincoln closer to the pier.

VOTE BLUE; WON'T YOU?!

Ya damn him for wanting a profitable effective system

@@stenbak88 "Trickle-down economics" was neither "profitable" or "effective"....

@@stenbak88profitable and efficient like freeways and roads aren’t? it’s supposed to be a public service in the very same way why are anti transit people so adamant abt transit generating a profit when roads are unprofitable inefficient and increasingly ablative which makes them grow more and more expensive over time. but no, train need to make money

Transit plans have not failed. Perfect, no, but not failed either.

NIMBYism. Fiscal conservatism.

@@foreignparticle1320 aka capitalism

@@handsfortoothpicks Negative.

@@foreignparticle1320 "nimbyism" is just a form of reactionary though and conservatism is a liberal ideology which makes it bourgeois

Yes. I do not see the point in investing at grade light rail. To me, it has almost no advantages to a much cheaper and quick to construct dedicated ROW BRT. The only rail worth investing in is elevated or tunneled high capacity rail.

​@@usernameryan5982Light rail moves more people, cleaner, and less expensive to maintain compared to BRT. LA's light rail lines are not designed like low level trams or streetcars. That's why they are vastly superior to BRTs.

@@mrxman581 You're not understanding what the original commenter or myself is saying. There are very few corridors that BRT does not have the capacity to handle in America. And if such a corridor does exist, it's better to invest in a much higher capacity form of rail so it can handle even more growth, mainly metros that can be automated. And you're claim is not universally true, it depends on the context. I've read plenty of data on transit.dot.gov that are completely contrary to your claim.

@@mrxman581 I already responded to this but for some reason it’s not showing up. A Quick Look into the data of operating cost per passenger mile and you’ll quickly find your statement is almost completely misleading or false. It’s rare to have corridors that BRT can’t handle but that doesn’t mean they should build light rail when there are much greater forms of capacity to handle the growth.

Good thing Toronto is extending Line 1 and Line 2 and building a new rapid metro line, Line 3. Line 4 might be extended as well when they have the funding.