Public transportation for a 4-5 day visit in April..... (Los Angeles: how much, construction)

[citizensadvocate]

Expo line does exist but is very slow compared to the red/purple lines that currently serve between DTLA and Hollywood as well as korea town. The expo line also passes through sketchy neighborhoods. They had been planning for a long time to extend purple line westwards but it keep hitting roadblocks.
If they are planning to stay in Hollywood and not downtown, the Expo line would do them no good. They are better off riding the stop and go bus lines that moves painfully slowly through LA traffic and stops often, but at least allows them time to see the sights of Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Century city from the bus windows. Though if they have a lot of time and the weather is not too hot they could also do the tourist hop on hop off tour buses that explains the sights and the famous buildings.

Honestly LA can be mean city in my experience, the Union station is no exception. Sometimes personnel and other people there may seem helpful but other times downright nasty and short tempered. If you are around there expect plenty of people camping out on the sidewalks around the station from time to time, habitual scammers who pretend to be real travelers in distress are not too rare a sight either. Sorry to be so harsh. The station is not very easy to use overall, rideshare staging areas keep getting relocated to different buildings which causes confusion for those ordering rideshare from the station.

[Losfrisco]

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

Expo line does exist but is very slow compared to the red/purple lines that currently serve between DTLA and Hollywood as well as korea town. The expo line also passes through sketchy neighborhoods. They had been planning for a long time to extend purple line westwards but it keep hitting roadblocks.
If they are planning to stay in Hollywood and not downtown, the Expo line would do them no good. They are better off riding the stop and go bus lines that moves painfully slowly through LA traffic and stops often, but at least allows them time to see the sights of Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Century city from the bus windows. Though if they have a lot of time and the weather is not too hot they could also do the tourist hop on hop off tour buses that explains the sights and the famous buildings.

Honestly LA can be mean city in my experience, the Union station is no exception. Sometimes personnel and other people there may seem helpful but other times downright nasty and short tempered. If you are around there expect plenty of people camping out on the sidewalks around the station from time to time, habitual scammers who pretend to be real travelers in distress are not too rare a sight either. Sorry to be so harsh. The station is not very easy to use overall, rideshare staging areas keep getting relocated to different buildings which causes confusion for those ordering rideshare from the station.

It's not really a revelation that a street running light rail is slower than heavy rail subway.

The Expo Line gives great access to a very dense stretch of central L.A. from downtown to the ocean. The Expo Line does not go through "sketchy" areas, and there are plenty of tourist attractions in SaMo, Culver City, South Park, Westwood, Baldwin Hills, etc.....all on the Expo.

In Hollywood, they can take a bus down any one of major arteries that connects with Expo.

Union Station is one of the nicest train stations I've been to in the world (I lived in Europe for 3 years)-both upscale and fast food restaurants in the station, Ben and Jerry's ice cream, Starbucks, a great mini mart, live music, Traxx Bar, and Imperial Western Beer which is always hopping, especially on Dodger game day. It's the ground transit hub of the western United States.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by mamainfl

Thank you to everyone for your honest opinions! We will try it out without a car. If we ever do move to L.A. , my husband is a big public transportation advocate. It will be a good test to see if L.A. would be a good fit for us, as we really do operate using public transportation, or walking most often.

I have always heard that L.A. is not doable without a car. But, I am happy to see that it can, and that real people really do it on a daily basis. Thanks again for the information!!

Wait till you have to walk 10 blocks with groceries.

On a hot summer day

[2Easy]

Originally Posted by HB2HSV

Wait till you have to walk 10 blocks with groceries.

On a hot summer day

I'm sure that could be done, but why would anyone wanting a car free lifestyle live so far from a grocery store? That's relatively far even for car dependent areas.

[vincenze]

Originally Posted by HB2HSV

Wait till you have to walk 10 blocks with groceries.

On a hot summer day

You can use a bicycle with a rack and bags.
10 blocks on a bicycle is easy.
Wind will cool you down.

[citizensadvocate]

I sure wish LA could build a heavy rail rapid metro line between El Monte bus station and Santa Monica via UCLA. With stops at each major blvd Wilshire blvd and build it and the stations like how major Asian cities MRT/MTR lines do. Their trains and stations seems much older than their system age would appear. Than we can talk that LA have a real metro system. I bet ridership would be high enough they turn a profit on this line. Currently all that densely populated corridor has are slow bus lines and a short portion of Red and purple line subways. While the existing Silver Line bus seems a neat rapid freeway bus idea it skips most of the population who would otherwise ride it in San Gabriel Valley.

[vincenze]

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

Currently all that densely populated corridor has are slow bus lines and a short portion of Red and purple line subways. While the existing Silver Line bus seems a neat rapid freeway bus idea it skips most of the population who would otherwise ride it in San Gabriel Valley.

Are you kidding?
Is Wilshire really a densely populated corridor?
Only the area in Century city has many apartment buildings close to Wilshire.

Hancock Park, Beverly Hills - nobody uses public transportation there.

[citizensadvocate]

I always thought Wilshire Blvd was where they planned the purple line extension west of Koreatown,
Beverly Hills blocked it using Methane gas as an excuse. Should had proposed to just went around them on pico Blvd instead. Though I am not certain there are other east west corridors with that many continuous rows of high rise complexes of businesses and apartments. It seems more dense than the existing red line corridor outside of downtown proper. Monterey park, Alhambra, Rosemead, San Gabriel, and El Monte within one mile radius of i10 is also pretty packed and has a lot of resident commuters and students who commute towards the western parts of Los Angeles currently underserved by both freeways and transit, especially now with the proliferation of new urbanism dense residential retail projects being built Atlantic Times square of Monterey park being an example. Nowadays the existing Silver line bus and Metrolink trains pretty much neglects San Gabriel Valley’s densest population centers, it would really help if there are rapid transit stops at San Gabriel, Garfield, Atlantic as well. I be curious could a Asian style Metro heavy rail replace Metrolink and Silver line in the future for San Gabriel Valley Area? Metrolink could than focus on serving San Bernardino and Riverside counties?

Edit: it’s interesting how LA’s metro system’s age is about the same as Shanghai’s metro both started operation about 1993-1994 or so however Shanghai’s system and trains looks so much more advanced and well kept for some reason. Hks MTR is quite older than LA’s metro but but the trains and stations looks newer for some reason.

[vincenze]

This is Shanghai.


This is Alhambra.


Where will underground subways work?

[citizensadvocate]

Originally Posted by vincenze

This is Shanghai.


This is Alhambra.


Where will underground subways work?

Alhambra and Monterey Park are actually pretty dense suburban cities (and would just get more and more populated as time goes on), sometimes even compared to some parts of LA where red line runs along anyways. And denser than many city SFBay areas BART runs through.
If you combine it with CSULA neighborhood, DTLA, Koreatown, and rest of Wilshire, Westside, and UCLA(a significant number of San Gabriel valley area students commute there)/Santa Monica you would get more ridership than probably even the other existing lines combined.

Though what I mean is LA's metro/subway system is about the same age as Shanghai's subway system yet
i.ytimg.com/vi/vnCbU2sSBz8/maxresdefault.jpg
vs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caobao_Road_station underground built in 1993
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangh...1_Platform.JPG
i.ytimg.com/vi/9OT4tkckW38/maxresdefault.jpg with a train at an above ground station I am surprised in an other wise filthy environment with all that pollution and litter in an average Chinese city they keep the metro train that clean even though metro trains do travel above ground as much as they do underground, while LA's subway trains hardly ever emerge above ground yet looks like they are 50 years old and the exterior never been washed since day one.

To me LA's public transportation "boom" in the 1990s-2000s seems to be more of an "reinventing the wheel" or should I say "reinventing the streetcar" boom compared to ones in other parts of the world built in the same era. The subway trains/stations seems not too much different from the outside to the average rider than the much older Boston T subway trains I ridden.

By the way many Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai were more like this, which seem to more resemble Los Angeles outside of downtown LA, than Manhatton.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7241/7...75d88e88_b.jpg
back when they got their first subway lines.

By the way how did you get your pictures to show on Citydata.com?