The thing is that your average city council voting LA resident doesn't want to use trains. They were sold on a "vision" of lifestyle where they have a personal plot, personal vehicle for themselves, and use that everywhere. They see the congestion of LA and think the city needs more roads, not more transit.

This also inspires the pandemic of NIMBYism that keeps zoning so ostentatious. Residents of most cities don't want to live in a proper 21st century city - they want it all, a personal separated residence, the ability to go anywhere they want whenever they want via personal car, but also immediate and local access to arts, entertainment, and workplaces while not actually living near any of those because they don't want the people around them.

Its generally just not going to go away until the current populations of these cities age out of them. Its a cultural identifier hallmark now that you can't try to displace with facts and data.

> The thing is that your average city council voting LA resident doesn't want to use trains. They were sold on a "vision" of lifestyle where they have a personal plot, personal vehicle for themselves, and use that everywhere.

Yeah, hence the mention of the car centric culture of US. I personally can’t understand why one would like to use a car if the subway is faster, more predictive, cheaper, and less tiring, but looks like a cultural difference.

> Residents of most cities don't want to live in a proper 21st century city - they want it all, a personal separated residence, the ability to go anywhere they want whenever they want via personal car, but also immediate and local access to arts, entertainment, and workplaces while not actually living near any of those because they don't want the people around them.

Well, isn’t this the problem that subways are designed to mitigate? Like... if you want to go to a art center, go to the subway station, ride the subways to the desired station, and see the arts!

Not sure why you're being downvoted :/

That's a big problem in the bay area as well, there is no reliable and fast public transport if you want to commute.

Downvotes are probably due to jealousy / discomfort

> Looks like the TLDR is that LA only has subways in downtown

This is not really true. The rail system extends out to other areas but those areas are typically served by a single line.

While the rail system benefits many people, I also wonder whether it has led to more people moving here, increased rents, and ultimately more traffic as people realize they need the expense of a car to fully get around.

> ultimately more traffic as people realize they need the expense of a car to fully get around.

Well, IMO that’s an indicator of a misdesigned rail system. In a properly designed rail system, one should prefer using the subways instead of cars, and use them most of the time. They should not use the car most of the time, for example commute.

> I also wonder whether it has led to more people moving here, increased rents, and ultimately more traffic

This argument applies to anything that improves a city.

By that logic, any movement to decrease rents will degrade a city.

This inverse statement is not equivalent to the parent comment. The logically equivalent contrapositive is "something to degrade a city will decrease rents". Though, this might be an intentional confusion.

The same argument applies to highways or any other type of transportation infrastructure improvements.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been in LA 25 years, and the perennial traffic jam around downtown (say, the 110 west of DTLA, and the 10 west of DTLA) was getting bad long before the light rail system was built out. It’s the cars.

I've been in L.A longer than 25 years. I'm a bit confused by your comment as the the light rail system has been around for more than 25 years.

Additionally, traffic today is very different than what it was in 1995 and I would shocked if you disagreed. We also have another million people.

always thought the reason is LA is prone to earthquakes

No, it’s because LA’s subway system is relatively new and, since subways are so expensive to build in the US, not very extensively built out. To be honest, it’s a miracle that LA has a subway system at all, given how irrelevant it is to most people in the city.

The Blue line opened 30 years ago in 1990 and the most recent line ,the Gold Line opened 17 years ago. The four other lines opened between those years. It's only new relative to say New York's subway or London's but it's not really new to Angelinos at this point.

but construction hasn’t stopped. the expo line for instance opened in 2012 and was extended to santa monica in 2016. the purple line extension and the crenshaw line, to name a couple more, are highly anticipated and ongoing as well.

I know NYC has extremely construction costs per mile but I've never heard that about Chicago, Washington DC or Philadelphia.

Philadelphia hasn't really expanded its subway system since the 1950s as far as I can tell. Only a few renovations of certain stretches of track (much of which is actually elevated, not underground). Even then, its not a very extensive system; just a north<->south line and a northeast<->west line.

Mexico City is too -- their subway is extensive, heavily used and well designed.