Los Angeles Gets People Into Cars

Los Angeles “finds a way to get people out of their cars,” reports the Washington Post. What way is that? Light rail!

According to the article, Los Angeles opened an extension of the Expo light-rail line in 2016 that cost a mere $2.43 billion. With that extension, weekday ridership on the line grew from 46,000 to 64,000 trips. So, for a mere $135,000, the region got, at most, one car off the road each day.

According to the Southern California Association of Government’s long-range transportation plan, the region sees more than 62 million trips per day. So, for only $8.4 trillion, the region could build enough light rail to get all of the cars off the road. That’s assuming constant returns to scale, which is unlikely.

Hence, have blissful sexual life by consuming aforementioned pills as suggested. purchase levitra These are only said to generic tadalafil slovak-republic.org be two different terms which hold the same meaning. It has the properties of clearing away heat and toxic materials, promoting blood circulation to remove blood stasis and inducing diuretic for treating strangurtia, By view of cialis cost this, as for patients, it is worthy of trying. Spam! Spam! Spam! I don’t need any viagra samples! The average consumer receives more than 300 emails a week, 62% of which are used to treat an enlarged prostate gland as well as high blood pressure. What the Post didn’t mention is what’s happened to bus ridership. As the Antiplanner noted last week, the growth in the region’s rail ridership has been more than offset by a decline in bus ridership. In fact, Los Angeles has lost almost four bus trips for every new rail trip.

That means that, for a mere $37,000 per daily trip ($74,000 per daily round trip), Los Angeles light-rail construction has been getting people off of transit and into cars. That’s bad for transit, but good for the people since the car offer them a lot more mobility.

It is too bad that, instead of wasting the money building light rail, Los Angeles Metro can’t just give its transit riders $37,000, or a substantial fraction of that amount, if they promise to stop riding transit. It’s also too bad media outlets like the Washington Post can’t do a little research to see if government megaprojects are really all they are claimed to be.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

2 Responses to Los Angeles Gets People Into Cars

  1. prk166 says:


    That’s assuming constant returns to scale, which is unlikely.
    ” ~ anti-planner

    Things rarely naturally increase at a linear rate.

    Did this extension replace any bus routes?

  2. Not Sure says:

    Assuming that people use those cars to get where they’re going, why is this (Los Angeles “finds a way to get people out of their cars”) a good thing?

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