Former LA transit guy says: The Barbie Dream House of Public Transit is not real.

Rhetoric always seems to trump reality in the headline department. This has been evident as a fawning press and commentators have made the most of the decline in driving from high gas prices and the related increase in transit ridership. As gas prices rose to their above $4.00 peak, driving in the nation’s urban areas had declined 2.0 percent over a year. At the same time, transit ridership rose 3.3 percent, leading to the impression that transit ridership increases had accounted for most, if not more than the loss in driving.

Now, as gas prices dip below $2.00 nationally, $1.50 in some places and to their lowest point since well before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there are indications that the new riders are returning to their cars. Here in the St. Louis area, where I live, prices are now $1.39, the lowest in the nation.

Wendell Cox,"From Rhetoric to Reality on Transit" New Geography

So according to Mr. Cox the reason that people were taking transit were not for green reasons or mother earth or for the reasons of global warming. Apparently public transit rise was directly connected to gas prices being high.

Oh my god!!!

So will public transit riders once again become that weird person who takes the bus or will we remain eco cool? Maybe that never exactly happened, for some odd reason public transit riders were never able to conjure up the cool vibe of the cyclist alt transportation crew (probably because most cyclist have cars so it truly looks like a choice and not poor, which is very uncool in LA).

My prediction is that cheaper gas will lead to the middle class set abandoning the bus in droves, since truly public transit in LA sort of sucks. In the larger scheme of things it is good, but if I were to be real with you, if you don’t have a higher purpose for riding it and money is the only reason you do it, as soon as you get a dollar over the amount that you need to get your own car, you’re probably going to get your own car, because public transit in LA totally sucks, especially most of the bus lines and the Blue Line.

What will we be left with in public transit after the middle class has left its toy of the big fancy train on the bedroom floor?

Cars with no seats, because of that whole bicycle phase in the early aughts. Ten years from now when the working class and disabled are still riding the bus everyone will have forgotten why in the hell we don’t have seats on the last car and I’ll remind them and they will tell me to shut and stop being negative.

We’ll have a train half way to a place that used to be somewhere until the construction and the hope of something EVEN BETTER pushed everyone out, but since nothing got finished nobody did any thing.

We’ll have even less busses and crummier service making it even harder on the working class in Los Angeles, because the Measure R money will do some weird thing where like with the school and the lottery the extra money became just the same money since the gov’t is like, “What do we need to fund you for? You have Measure R money, so we’re going to take away the funding we give you.”

But of course I’m negative.

by Browne Molyneux aka Raggedy Ann

 

Comments

[Gary K.]

I've never understood how supposedly eco blogs and news sites can salivate all day over hybrid cars with barely a peep about buses and other mass transit that are tremendously more efficient.

[writer]

Cause they are poseurs...lol...ok that's my LA thing. I love that word. Eco blogs (that are more commercially oriented) love hybrids because they bring revenue. You talk about hybrids, buying new "green" items you come off more "sane," and also it says, "hey I'm an active participant in green washing please put your product on my sidebar."

It is also more mainstream and not extreme. This no car talk is anti-american in some people's minds.

If you talk about anti-consumerism, which to me is how you would fix all of these environmental problems you come off as a "wack job" and who wants to advertise on a blog that is about not buying anything.

To me there is no way to truly be green without also being anti-consumerism, it goes hand in hand.

If you look at most blogs, the biggest blogs are owned by people in marketing, the blogsophere is a great way to get info on your product out there really super cheap and once people start giving you money, especially if you are in media especially blogs it's hard not to take that into account when writing. That's why blogging is so hard, because there isn't the sell your ad world and the editorial world, it's mixed together and that kind of thing kills true editorial media and which is why even eco blogs have this sort of slimy commercial quality to them, because those two things aren't suppose to go together.

Browne

[Leaf Lover]

HI - just found your blog. I'm so grateful! I just moved here from Portland, OR. I don't have a car, just moved downtown, and my bike was stolen over Thanksgiving weekend... I majorly need some transport wisdom. Thanks for your efforts and I can't wait to read more.

[writer]

If you are carless downtown LA is the best spot to be in.

Welcome to LA Leaf Lover!!
Browne

[Gary K.]

Sorry to hear bike got stolen Leaf Lover. If you don't already know of them, there are a few bike co-ops that will help you build up a new old bike from parts on the cheap if you need another bike and don't have a lot of cash. They are also just great places to meet other people who bike in the city and you can pick up good routes and local knowledge.

The closest ones to you are:

http://www.bicyclekitchen.com/ (Near the red line train)
http://bikeoven.com/ (Near the gold line)

[Bert Green]

My bike got stolen this year too, and I have not gotten a new one yet (it's been more than 4 months).

The good side to it is that I'm walking the shorter distances more, and using transit a lot more than before (although I have a monthly pass anyway, so that's a no brainer).

Browne, you are right about the eco orgs being clueless. There was a time when the Sierra Club considered city life unenvironmental, and defended life in the suburbs. The have since come around, but radical thought is not a virtue of most people, they are simply too self absorbed.

I don't see that changing anytime soon, although our recent brush with high gas prices brought a lot of people closer to realizing the truth. That will likely happen again with the next economic upturn, and it will likely be worse than last time (gas at $8 a gallon, anyone?).