Your piece is spot-on, Josh...I moved to LA from NYC almost 40 years ago and have grown to love LA for all the reasons you have stated in previous posts. Now in my senior years I work part-time for a tour company based in New York, and I do hiking and walking tours here...I use the Metro to get to my meeting points Downtown and in Hollyw…
Your piece is spot-on, Josh...I moved to LA from NYC almost 40 years ago and have grown to love LA for all the reasons you have stated in previous posts. Now in my senior years I work part-time for a tour company based in New York, and I do hiking and walking tours here...I use the Metro to get to my meeting points Downtown and in Hollywood. During the lockdown years LA suspended fares on busses and trains, and the trains, especially the Red Line, became, literally, a mobile homeless shelter...even now there is almost no fare enforcement, police presence is haphazard, and the city is now posting "Ambassadors," unarmed metro employees, mostly young people, who say "Thank you for riding Metro!" with cheery faces as you move through stations...that does nothing to ameliorate the conditions on the train...the sleeping, drugged-out people, the verbal fights, the smoking, eating and throwing food on the seats and on the floor, on and on...On my tours most of my American guests Uber around the city, but my foreign guests often take the public transportation system, because that is what they are used to doing when traveling through Europe and Asia...many of them have told me how disgusted and appalled they were at the nightmare they encounter on the LA Metro System...for a great city like LA it's a major embarrassment and the choice you laid out at the conclusion of your piece is exactly right...would that any of our local politicians would have the courage to confront that reality.
You didn't mention the Olympics, which are motivating major investments in transit, including the completion of the Purple line to the westside with a station at Wilshire and Westwood serving UCLA. What's going to happen when the city has a flood of international visitors?
It's worth noting that LA and adjacent cities have an extensive bus system, which has always been the primary form of public transit for people who don't drive. But it's in the traffic and therefore slower than driving.
Good point, Virginia...of course, the Olympics is going to require major infrastructure enhancement (and the Purple Line is a major component of that) and it will be imperative that Metro be clean and safe...but if Los Angeles official wants to increase ridership now as they say they do, there needs to be a major effort to make it clean and safe NOW.
I agree. It's just that they use the Olympics as a deadline and a spur, plus this isn't China. You can't clean up a month before the Olympics open. It will take sustained effort.
Your piece is spot-on, Josh...I moved to LA from NYC almost 40 years ago and have grown to love LA for all the reasons you have stated in previous posts. Now in my senior years I work part-time for a tour company based in New York, and I do hiking and walking tours here...I use the Metro to get to my meeting points Downtown and in Hollywood. During the lockdown years LA suspended fares on busses and trains, and the trains, especially the Red Line, became, literally, a mobile homeless shelter...even now there is almost no fare enforcement, police presence is haphazard, and the city is now posting "Ambassadors," unarmed metro employees, mostly young people, who say "Thank you for riding Metro!" with cheery faces as you move through stations...that does nothing to ameliorate the conditions on the train...the sleeping, drugged-out people, the verbal fights, the smoking, eating and throwing food on the seats and on the floor, on and on...On my tours most of my American guests Uber around the city, but my foreign guests often take the public transportation system, because that is what they are used to doing when traveling through Europe and Asia...many of them have told me how disgusted and appalled they were at the nightmare they encounter on the LA Metro System...for a great city like LA it's a major embarrassment and the choice you laid out at the conclusion of your piece is exactly right...would that any of our local politicians would have the courage to confront that reality.
I appreciate this comment for explaining why Covid changed the population of Metro riders. Because it rarely connects where I live with where I want to go, I haven't taken Metro since before Covid. I didn't realize what a mess it had become until the LAT piece, which was reminiscent of earlier articles on how Union Station has become a terrifying place for its workers. (See https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-04-29/assaults-at-union-station-strike-fear-in-janitors-and-retail-workers and https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-07/union-station-workers-to-get-more-security-after-outcry-over-attacks.)
You didn't mention the Olympics, which are motivating major investments in transit, including the completion of the Purple line to the westside with a station at Wilshire and Westwood serving UCLA. What's going to happen when the city has a flood of international visitors?
It's worth noting that LA and adjacent cities have an extensive bus system, which has always been the primary form of public transit for people who don't drive. But it's in the traffic and therefore slower than driving.
Good point, Virginia...of course, the Olympics is going to require major infrastructure enhancement (and the Purple Line is a major component of that) and it will be imperative that Metro be clean and safe...but if Los Angeles official wants to increase ridership now as they say they do, there needs to be a major effort to make it clean and safe NOW.
I agree. It's just that they use the Olympics as a deadline and a spur, plus this isn't China. You can't clean up a month before the Olympics open. It will take sustained effort.