It's far too late in the game for public transportation to ever work for most people in LA. The place is far too big and dispersed. The Metro system doesn't even try to be a real alternative to the freeways--its only real goal is to get people downtown in the morning, and out of downtown in the evening. In general there's no way to go from outlying area to outlying area, so even if you wanted to ditch your car, you don't have the choice.

Same holds true anywhere west of the Mississippi, where a lot of us actually live. It's a big country, TimeZoneBoy.

With large enough parking garages located at outlying stations near major highway interchanges, you can increase the amount of park-ride usage in the urban sprawl cities, which pretty much includes any big city with an interstate loop around it, or any city other than water-surrounded San Francisco in the West.

But to intergrate the systems completely into people's lives and get them out of their cars at times besides 8-4 on weekdays, the systems need easy connections from outlying area to outlying area. That's where the shopping areas are now located, and even if Point A and Point B in those areas are connected to downtown, no one wants to go all the way into town and all the way back out again to get from their house to the nearest Best Buy, Wal-Mart or Galleria mall complex.

Joe,

True, but you shouldn't have let TimeZoneBoy think that the same thing didn't hold for most locations east of the Mississippi, too.

Tax them enough and they'll ride.

Because we want to shift people from a revenue source to a revenue drain?

You have all made me feel quite fortunate to live in a city where I can be anywhere within 20 minutes.

We've got money.

Because he wants you paying $5 a gallon but he doesn't want that $5 sending any signal to the market to do anything crazy, like, I don't know, drill some new wells or add refining capacity.

We do, but do you know why those with money have it? Because they don't spend it.

David:

What's the relative cost of operating all those cars that commute everyday versus a rail system?

I'm not sure what relative cost means. The cost to government of operating the rail lines is higher, because the ticket prices don't cover the cost of operating the rail lines. More to the point, the rail cars are less energy efficient because they spend most of the day running empty.

You don't run as many during the day.

Cost of gasoline, roads, parking, time lost, health (mental and physical), pollution, normal wear and tear as well as damage to vehicles, etc., etc., etc.

The most important cost is commuter time, which is greatly reduced by automobile commuting.

Gee, I bet that never occurred to the operators of any light rail line in the country, all but two of which (from memory) are less energy efficient overall than cars.

Plus, you get very little savings of capital costs from light rail. Everyone drives their cars to the station, so they still have cars, and you still need the highways for trucks and those not served by the rail system. Other than roads, about which more in a minute, and congestion, the costs of driving are born immediately by the driver.

Roads are not, in any meaningful sense, subsidized. We all benefit about equally from having roads, so whether we pay for them through general taxes, gasoline taxes, tolls or imbedded transportation costs, we all pay about the amount we benefit by.

If you don't run as many during the day then ridership plummets even further. People don't appreciate being stranded, so they'll find another way to get where they need to go when they need to go there.

Go here or here or here, and then here, and learn something, and stop pissing me off. This isn't Darwin-baiting or one of your other hobbies where you can talk through your hat without harming anyone. This is serious. We're talking cars here, for Christ's sake.

joe:

Ever notice that the HOV lane runs one way in the morning and the other at night and is only HOV at certain hours?

David:

Of course it occurs to them, but getting people to stop driving requires greater economic disincentives. London's congestion fees are a good start. NYC could crank tunnel and bridge tolls at work hours and get good results.

Orrin: HOV lanes are a (rare) example of a government innovation that does (very slightly) more good than harm. Usurious congestion fees, as in Red Ken Livingston's London, are the price one pays for the folly of travelling to the city in the first place. Light rail is neither more nor less than a normal boondoggle. The type of gas tax you're salivating for, on the other hand, is serious: it's an act of war against those of us who've escaped your little toy time zone. My advice, don't get between this dog and his dinner, or his pickup truck.

Joe:

Excellent links--thanks.

I disagree that HOV lanes work. I lived in DC for several years, a place ideally suited (concentrated employment area supported by an extensive subway system) to them.

So well suited, in fact, that an entire sub-culture built up around them: slugging (people waiting in line at specific places where drivers wanting the speed of HOV lanes, but lacking the passengers, could pick up a few)

Despite that, the traffic density on the HOV lanes was far less than the adjoining lanes. The result was HOV lanes carried far fewer people per unit time. Therefore, the HOV lane capacity would be far more fully utilized by simply making those lanes bi-directional and open to everyone.

Whether, OJ's rail nirvana, or the utopian hopes of mass transit advocates, the fundamental problem at hand is the nature of the network. With few exceptions, Americans live in cities characterized by widely distributed sources (homes) and equally widely distributed sinks (workplaces).

This sort of network only works if the system transports small packets. It is no accident the US ground transportation system is conceptually identical to the way information travels over the internet.

Rails would work fine. Cars vs. Rail is one of the Right's looney ideological issues.

Jeff: interesting analogy, hadn't thought of that but it makes sense. On an unrelated topic: you cited a book on rhetoric on your blog at one point, can't find the reference, does this ring a bell? Thanks.

Joe:

The book I cited was The Ethics of Rhetoric (I can't remember the author). I doubt if it is still in print, but would be happy to mail it to you--just email me your address.

There is a price though ;) --you have to give me some critical analysis of The Argument Clinic.

Which is only fair. After all, I wrote it largely because of several comments you made. OJ was the other reason.

I must admit to some disappointment I didn't hear from either of you.

OJ:

Given the network topology, Rail would not work fine; on the contrary, it would be a complete failure.

It is not a looney ideological issue, but rather a matter of fact, albeit perhaps not readily apparent absent some background in network analysis.

Unless, that is, you are willing to tolerate crushing inefficiency on a national scale.

Jeff: done, thanks and my apologies. I'll ask you for a copy if I can't find the book secondhand. I'd meant to follow up but didn't.