When Real Life Expectation Cannot Meet the Dreams of the Altruists

[schism666]

What BSG wants to do is return to the golden years when life was slower and everything cheaper.

ascriptors gotta ascript.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

The problem with rail is that it's terrain sensitive. It can't climb well so it has to wander and wind it's way upward.

LA isn't flat. Even downtown isn't flat. There's a funicular cable car, Angels Flight, which goes from 3rd street to Hill street - a distance of about 300 feet - with nearly 100 feet of elevation gain. The consequence of the non-level terrain limits the viability of any rail system to service the entire city efficiently.

Geographically, LA is located on an alluvial plain at the foot of the coastal mountain ranges of SoCal. The city encompasses those mountains as part of it's boundaries and residents live on the sides of and valleys in those mountains.

The result is that the rail lines are arteries in a city which is immense and sprawling well outside those arteries. To use the rail lines, or even the bus lines, Commuters have to drive tens of miles to get to a mass transit station, where there's inadequate parking for all of them, and then take the transit more miles to get to their destination. A total distance which is in most cases more than if they just drive from point A to point B. Very inefficient and that's without including the extra costs of the mass transit in the trip.

What BSG wants to do is return to the golden years when life was slower and everything cheaper. What she doesn't understand is that the life she romanticizes also included racism and segregation and that is was that racism and segregation which allowed mass transit to work because it moved segregated residents only within their "zones." Those uppity minorities had no way to get to the better parts of town because the rail system didn't go there. It had no need to because the well off had private transportation and weren't going to mingle with the unwashed.

One need only look at the city street map and overlay the mass transit rail lines to see that even today rail is unworkable. Even freeways do not go everywhere because the necessary Right-Of-Ways aren't there (Exhibit A is the break in the 210 freeway at Glendale/Pasadena - it has to use surface streets because the State doesn't have the trillions it would cost just to buy the land through condemnation.) If the State can't afford to do it for freeway improvements, the City rail system can't either.

In the end, the entire idea is just cray cray.

It’s true that if you want to go between the Valley and the rest of LA, you have to go through the hills. That’s why the 405 is such a nightmare, and widening it hasn’t helped. But otherwise LA Is made for biking and walking. Everywhere else is flat and it’s always sunny.

Angel’s Flight is great! I ride it whenever I have to go downtown for work. It starts right by the exit to the Pershing Square Metro station and only cost $1. Much better than hiking up Bunker Hill.

Speaking of racism, part of the history of freeways in America is that they were often built by tearing down black neighborhoods.

Even today, a lot of opposition to mass transit comes from white suburbanites afraid of black and brown people riding it out of the inner cities to their enclaves.

 

[Chobham]

~snip for brevity~

Speaking of racism, part of the history of freeways in America is that they were often built by tearing down black neighborhoods.

Even today, a lot of opposition to mass transit comes from white suburbanites afraid of black and brown people riding it out of the inner cities to their enclaves.

The first statement is true and will continue to be true. The government is going to run those roads/rails via right-of-ways where property can be obtained the cheapest.

The second is untrue.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

The first statement is true and will continue to be true. The government is going to run those roads/rails via right-of-ways where property can be obtained the cheapest.

The second is untrue.

Building a new rail line doesn't require tearing down neighborhoods, building a new freeway does. For example, the new Crenshaw line runs right through the heart of historic black LA and no residences were demolished to build it. Part of it used existing rail right-of-ways, some required removing car lanes from Crenshaw Boulevard, and a few sections are in a tunnel under Crenshaw. That's a big advantage of rail over private cars--the infrastructure requires much less space.

 

[ll74]

That's a big advantage of rail over private cars--the infrastructure requires much less space.

This is exactly it. Rails in Seattle and Chicago literally straddle the streets.