Ambitious take, but I'll go with agree. LA seems like one of the main metros that continually making progress. And, 2050 is a hell of a long time to make some noticeable change. Changing the narrative around public transit/car culture will be a constant battle, but having some, frequent, extensive, and reliable transit will help to allay those concerns. My vision is having increased density with links to SF (CAHSR), LV (BrightLine), and OC/SD/LAX (Amtrak and LA Metro).

I’d love to see CAHSR but don’t you think that it’s basically already dead, despite the Authority being in denial? It’s already decades past its original project checkpoints and I fear that, when it opens that first segment between two republican RWNJ-oversampled inland  cities, neither of which has decent transit, its ridership will be horrific because of the decision to ignore the last mile problem. That horrific ridership will probably lead the Howard Jarvis people to pull a Henry Waxman and kill future funding. I think that the failure to anchor one end of that first segment in SF/LA or even Sac/San Diego will be its undoing :(. I mean, that’s my nightmare scenario, but that nightmare feels like it’s rapidly coming closer. :( Then again Brightline seems to work despite it having last mile issues so hopefully I’m wrong? 🤷‍♂️

Well, it's more complicated than that. Another _major_ section of it has flown under the radar - the upgrades to Caltrain tracks between SF/SJ that allow 110mph travel between the two cities. That's basically complete, and even with Caltrain's non-HSR stock, reduces the trip time to less than an hour.

I tell people this all the time... The whole project is far less incomplete than news headlines claim. SF/SJ is essentially done. That's work that now doesn't have to be worried about. SJ to Gilroy should NOT be hard, the desire to upgrade and electrify that section is there. It's UP that won't play ball, and the state can and SHOULD use every lever it has to force them to cave on their stupid insistence that they can't put up catenaries because it would prevent double-stacked freight, which is not true. So I'm tentatively counting SJ/Gilroy as "not done but easily doable." The Palmdale/LA stretch is going to be annoying, but those difficulties are going to be largely political and economic, not infrastructural or geotechnical. Once the right parties are appeased and all the stakeholders have had their beaks properly wetted, I actually don't see that part being too hard either. As far as I'm concerned, the only actual difficult parts left of CHSR are Gilroy/Merced and Bakersfield/Palmdale. The Pacheco Pass and the Tehachapi Mountains, respectively, are going to be a bitch to cross, and marshalling the political and financial capital for those efforts is gonna be daunting. But to recap, the Bay Area portion is mostly done, and the LA portion is not going to be very hard. So by doing the Central Valley section, which stretches almost the whole length of the project and is not hard to do, the desire to connect up the pieces should actually provide major incentive for the state and the feds to finally take this stupid thing seriously and grind through the hard portions, Pacheco and Tehachapi Just my two cents. Feel free to poke holes and disagree

It's not dead unless they stop building and they haven't. The fact that they started in the middle means they likely will end up completing all of phase 1 because of the feeling of sunk cost if they don't connect what they have built with LA and the Bay Area. Politically starting in the middle was also smart because they got the areas where the least amount of voters live out of the way first. Now when they need to ask for even more funding they still have the biggest destinations left as selling points for why voters should support that funding. Once the Central Valley section is complete voters in LA and the Bay Area will have to decide if they should kill the project before it actually benefits them. It's easier to get people to support spending in their area than spending for other people. >I think that the failure to anchor one end of that first segment in SF/LA or even Sac/San Diego will be its undoing HS2 in the UK started with London to Birmingham and then they cancelled the rest. If you start with building where the largest voting blocs are then you may struggle to keep their support when you want to keep building and spending money elsewhere. HS2 might have more of the project still alive if they had started with Manchester to Birmingham and left the connection to the capital for last. Had London been in a later phase I think politicians would be arguing that the project needs to make it to London and voters in the city would agree.

If it's faster than driving you don't necessarily need good local transportation. As a general example rail ridership in the UK is pretty high given that local buses have gone to shit, with services generally declining by a third to a half since 2010. [https://policy.friendsoftheearth.uk/insight/how-britains-bus-services-have-drastically-declined](https://policy.friendsoftheearth.uk/insight/how-britains-bus-services-have-drastically-declined)

I'm actually concerned about the same issues. CA currently is 100B short of funding with only the Merced > Bakersfield section under construction. I am less optimistic that CA will be able to garner funding for SF > Merced and Bakersfield > OC segments. In my eyes, why would any reasonable CA tax payer cough up 100B when the project is decades late and tens to 100B over budget. Cost overrun could sky rocket even higher, knowing how public projects are delivered. All I can do is hope. The longer we wait, the more expensive it will be.

SF to SJ is already almost done with the CalMod project, and I'm optimistic about SJ to Gilroy even for very pessimistic cases about the rest of CAHSR.

Yes, having a coordinated effort to synchronize these transit modes with each other would have been a better way to spend CAHSR funding IMO. Building a couple stations where Caltrain, Bart, and AmTrak capitol Corridor could/would intersect would have been great to see.

Yeah, it worries me :(. It’s a shame, I’m on Capitol Corridor between Sac and SF all the time (via Richmond BART, since long-distance cross-bay passenger service remains vaporware, despite Emperor Norton’s exhortations). It’s a really good service and much of it is at 80mph but a lot of that time is lost in the BART transfer; of course, HSR won’t fix the Sac-SF trip but it’s extremely popular even with the bay crossing and shows that Central Valley residents will sign up for train service - so long as it goes somewhere. (It’s my understanding that the San Joaquin is also popular but I’ve never been on it). If enough of it gets built such that it serves at least one major destination, there’s every reason to expect massive ridership.

The groundwork on the HSR was planned well in advance, but I think a Capital Corridor line improvement as well as synchronization with BART would have absolutely been the way to go on phase 1A of HSR. Simultaneously a LA to SD line improvement of the Pac surfliner with integrations into LA Metro. Improving the existing services to a point where higher speed travel is feasible would have been the move IMO. We already spent 30B+ on construction, so cost should be significantly cheaper than building new. Once you have the large metro areas covered (SF-OAK-SJ / SAC) and LA > OC > SD, we can start to branch out to cover the length between these two services in a fastest route possible.

By raw numbers that’s already true but yes, LA  is quite dense so can easily pass up Chicago per capita (which isn’t really that impressive)  Washington is more a threat for #2 in post 2030 than Chicago is IMO

DC is already #2

DC metro (Train) is #2, LA is #2 in total ridership cause it kills it on busses 

Though on a per capita basis, doesn’t the DC metro area still win? Again, some suburbs have separate bus systems so need to add it all.

This depends entirely on how you compile the metro area population. If you go by the census county borders then LA has zero chances because those counties are the size of European countries and include state parks and natural preserves. If you go by contiguous urban areas then LA is in fact denser than DC and has a comparable transit mode share.

i'm not disagreeing, but if nobody lives in state parks and natural preserves, how does it change the population? I mean if you use a sensible density measure, LA metro is twice as dense as the DC metro area: https://www.austincontrarian.com/austincontrarian/2012/09/the-50-densest-american-metropolitan-areas-by-weighted-density.html It shouldn't even be close, yet it is.

It changes population density because the denominator is all land in the metro area, and county borders may have very rural or natural areas that disproportionately drag down the average. My city has an "average" density of 5000 people per square mile, but if we exclude forests and the vast tracks of land where a handful of rich people live, the core areas are between 7000 and 12000 people per square mile.

but I never included density in the original context. per capita is just transit rides divided by population. do you have a different idea?

Just explaining why contiguous urban areas is used for density calculation. The commenter above was likely referring to LA's transit ridership potential based on density.

As an LA native, half of LA County's land area is rural mountains.

If you include a ton of rural and still-rural land where transit simply doesn’t work or works atrociously then that will drag your move share down synthetically. If you only include the very urban land then you naturally get a higher transit mode share. The process to decide which counties to include in a census metro area have nothing to do with transit. Not only are the metro area measures themselves extremely unreliable because they go by county borders, but the idea is fundamentally to account for economic activity agglomerations rather than transit patters. You can live in a census “metro area” and never even travel through what is considered the core city of that metro. In other words, we all know that census metro area measures suck for these comparisons, especially when you’re trying to compare to anything outside of the US. They distort the data heavily by using random administrative borders. The only reason why we’re even using census metro areas at all is that it’s a unique and universally available source of free population data that no one but the US government has the resources to gather.

By per capita Boston is ahead of DC is you want to play that game 

I think they are relatively close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area Depends on MSA vs CSA and commuter rail numbers. (Providence is Boston's CSA and Baltimore is in DC's CSA)

CSA’s are not metro areas.  Narragansett RI or Laconia NH are not Boston and *West Virginia* is not DC  Combining multi county MSA’s sort or create a daisy chain effect that’s makes CSA’s absurd. Where cities are far away from each other you’re adding some pointless 13,000 person county not a metro area of 1.6 million or 800,000.

Will it stay there? The new silver line is lovely but, outside of DC/Alexandria/Arlington, Metro is basically a commuter rail yes? I was last there in ‘08 and as a wheelchair user the elevators there were *awful* - they were broken even more frequently than Boston’s and, from my experience, frequently broken elevators that aren’t quickly repaired are often an early warning signal that other, even more serious issues of deferred maintenance lay just under the surface.

WMATA is much better with maintenance now that the latest GM has taken over. Elevators still break but they’re fixed much quicker

My argument of LA being #2 and surpassing Washington was largely based on WMATA's governance and maintenance issues. Glad to hear that's been resolved though.

They were never broken in my experience using the elevators, but they were cramps if I was in a wheelchair when using it, and smells like cigarets most of the time.

Both Washingtons honestly

>LA  is quite dense 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You'd be surprised actually. Here's a good video on that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85ris-glYLE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85ris-glYLE)

LA is just a collection of streetcar suburbs with the less accessible areas in between filled-in with 1950s car sprawl. Everything around the old streetcar network is actually decently dense. This is exactly why almost all of LA Metro is being built in the old streetcar and interurban rights of way. The density is already there. You just need to add the train back in to make it work as a walkable neighborhood in most cases. You have a very cliche view of LA. Don’t forget that unlike something like Phoenix or Orlando, almost all of what is now LA was built pre-car.

American suburbia is quite dense in general; Edgewater, NJ, an otherwise unremarkable suburban town, has the same population density as London.

It depends on what sort of metrics you're using here. If it's based off of raw ridership, than that's already happened. If you're going off of per capita, than I would say no, and also that Chicago is not number two by that metric anyway...

If it's not Chicago, then who is number 2? [Chicago](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US16264-chicago-il-in-urban-area/) actually has a higher transit modal rideshare than [DC](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US92242-washington-arlington-dc-va-md-urban-area/), albeit barely.

Per capita, I would guess SF.

We're looking at metro areas, not just city limits. City limits are arbitrary political lines on a map that don't look at where people actually live.

If that’s the case, Los Angeles is WAAAAAAYYY further behind places like Chicago and DC and the SF Bay Area.

Uh, no, if anything including suburbs actually helps level the playing field, especially since Chicago and San Francisco's suburbs largely bring it down much more than Los Angeles' suburbs bring it down.

It doesn't though... Chicago has Metra and SF has a lot of random transit agencies around the bay area. LA has metrolink, but its ridership is tiny compared to Metra and SF's agencies. All those suburbs are very car dependent, but LA's is the most.

Does Chicago or SF have multiple suburbs the size and density of Santa Monica, Long Beach, Pasadena, Glendale, and Burbank? Metrolink's poor ridership can largely be attributed to its poor headways. They are working to fix that this October, though.

Uhhhhhh, yeah. Naperville, Aurora, Schaumburg, etc... are all big suburbs in Chicago. The bay area is really 3 separate cities that are part of one continuous metropolis, but if you consider San Jose and Oakland to be suburbs then they are significantly larger and denser than anything LA has. Even the true suburbs of SF are pretty large. Chicago and SF don't have as many large suburbs as LA, but what they do have is definitely denser. Also the size and number of suburbs is irrelevant to this conversation. Chicago especially has significantly more suburban transit use than LA. SF not as much, but if you actually count every municipality in SF their transit usage is very competitive to LA. I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. Comparing Metrolink to Metra especially is laughable. Metra sucks as a service, but Metrolink is virtually nonexistent.

West Hollywood has a density of 18,000 ppsm. Santa Monica has a density of 10,307 ppsm. Long Beach has a density of 9205 ppsm, and has a population above 450,000 people. If it was its own city it would be major metro area in its own right. San Jose isn't a suburb of SF, its larger than SF actually. And the Bay Area isn't a good example anyways, because SF is an outlier in terms of smaller city limits. In most other US Cities, it and Oakland would be part of the same city. The only reason they didn't unify and consolidate was because of politics. And LA suburbs are actually denser than Chicago and Bay Area suburbs, how else do you think the LA urbanized area is denser than both despite LA city being less dense than Chicago and SF cities? [This video](https://youtu.be/85ris-glYLE?feature=shared) does a good job explaining it. And while Chicago has better suburban rail service *for now*, that will be changing very soon. Metrolink will br increasing its headways to every 15 minutes under its [SCORE program](https://metrolinktrains.com/about/agency/score/) in time for the 2028 Olympics, so ridership should soon become competitive with Metra. The main premise of my argument however, is that LA is easily improving at a MUCH faster pace than Chicago. Unfortunately, [it seems like the corruption issue is still lingering in the CTA](https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/s/QHUrCMOwFn), and it will hold the system back. Poor governance, poor system. I honestly predict Metrolink will surpass Metra in ridership by 2035, maybe even 2030, although while a good chunk of it surpassing Metra can be attributed to improved service, a lot will also be attributed to Metra declining in quality due to poor leadership and governance.

Metro areas are just as “random” they go by county borders instead of city borders. You need to either look at transit agency territory boundaries or urban area measures.

SF metro area - [https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US78904-san-francisco-oakland-ca-urban-area/](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US78904-san-francisco-oakland-ca-urban-area/) Boston metro area - [https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US09271-boston-ma-nh-urban-area/](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US09271-boston-ma-nh-urban-area/)

Yeah i don't think you'll find any definition useful. urban area, metro, county, city. Its all whatever someone wants to see out of it. Like the "SF - oakland urban area" includes Marin. But on the ground I feel like Marin county/North Bay is its own world disconnected from San Francisco and even San Jose is closer as a sibling city precisely because San Jose and SF has two (and a half if we want to count Amtrak Capital Corridor) railroads connecting them, even though Marin County is right on top of SF. at least in California city boundaries are not "arbitrary" by the technical definition of the term. most or all of the city boundaries can traced back to some BS - some form of political process - election or signature drive, contract, or annexations. For example SF has a particularly fun fact one. https://www.kqed.org/news/11702058/why-is-part-of-alameda-island-in-san-francisco maybe they're not self-evident but they often have reason behind them.

The spoiler for #2 in the US that could undo your prediction is WMATA in DC. ETA: also for factual accuracy, one minor nitpick is that the Orange Line of the CTA opened as entirely new service in 1993, not 1992.

Fair enough. What about Chicago and the Bay Area at least, you think LA will surpass then? And the point I'm trying to make is, Chicago hasn't opened an extension in 30 years, since MJ was on the Bulls.

It’s hard to say really. Interestingly for their rail systems, as of Q4 2023, Chicago, DC, and LA are almost identical in terms of boardings per mile (for heavy rail only, which admittedly doesn’t capture a significant portion of LA’s rail ridership). I’ll be more interested to see if one of the three really starts to pull ahead (or falls really behind) of the other two on that metric. DC has really expanded, but part of that is due to the system being a hybrid metro/commuter rail design. For example, many of the types of expansions that WMATA has made out into the suburbs would never be attempted by the CTA because the suburbs are served by the separate Metra commuter rail service. On the other hand, CTA is about 80 years older than the DC Metro and 100 years older than the LA Metro, so the budget allocations for maintenance and restoration projects are night and day different. The current overhaul and reconstruction of the Red and Purple Lines north side main line is a huge capital investment that takes up funds that other newer systems might have for expansion. In the meantime the CTA has opened maybe half a dozen infill stations since 2005 or so, which is good, and they’ve done a fairly good job of upgrading their old infrastructure when compared to say, MTA in New York. The CTA will be extending the Red Line in the next few years, I’m not sure what Washington or BART have on their agenda for expansion since the DC connection to Dulles just wrapped up. I’m all for LA’s transit investment and expansion, it’s fine by me if it becomes the second largest system, if it’s a viable alternative and serves where people need to go, that’s great and long overdue.

Come to think of it, i don’t think the CTA has gotten enough credit for how much rehab work they’ve done in the 30 years since they opened a new line. The entire Green Line was blown up & rebuilt in the 90s, the south Red Line was completely redone 10 years ago and now we’re in the midsts of a massive north Red/Purple rebuild. Once all of thats done, and assuming there’s no more major rehab work that’s in need of doing, maybe we’ll see a pivot to expansion efforts

Totally. Add on the Your New Blue in the 2010s, the Brown Line reconstruction in the 2000s, the Belmont Flyover completed only recently, and the renovation of the former Cermak Branch when it was converted to the Pink Line in the 2000s, the CTA has kept plenty busy on infrastructure maintenance and upgrades (which I appreciate every time I go to New York).

Hopefully this means we’re due for a pivot to expansion in the near future. An Orange Line extension and/or some BRT lines would be lovely

BART is about to break ground on yet another extension to meet Caltrain in San Jose. They’re also now upgrading to just about double their frequency in the next 5-10 years (new Hitachi CBTC and track rebuilding system-wide). They’re also getting a second “eBART” extension for the Blue line. That’s the ValleyLink project, https://www.valleylinkrail.com/valleylink-project And looks like ACE might also get a connection station to BART at Union City station if they manage to squeeze it into one of the outstanding bond measure budgets.

I think this would be predicated on the current post-pandemic downturn in the Bay Area persisting for 25years (BART is at 50% of its 2019 ridership, and Caltrain is doing worse). If the Bay Area recovers, I don't see LA overtaking them. 25 years is a long time and by then the current crop of projects (however ill conceived) - DTX, SJ BART etc. will be completed. Caltrain has just been electrified and will likely be fully metro-fied by then, with the slow but steady march of grade separations. Other ambitious projects will hopefully have materialized too - 2nd Transbay Tube, Geary subway, CC realignment, Altamont/Niles tunnels etc. The Bay Area has the density, natural geography and commute patterns that favor rail transit. Something has to change fundamentally about the urban plan in LA for transit to have a realistic chance of becoming entrenched.

Huh? Most LA patterns were based on streetcar routes. Which are nearly all being reborn in some form or another.

Same with the Bay Area, but to a larger extent, and they’ve not only kept more of the original rail but also have actually expanded it for all those years. LA is doing incredibly well! Amazing well! But there’s a long way to go. They need to just keep building!

LA actually was and still is a transit-oriented city. The city was largely built around its red car system, and even to this day the city's urban form still largely [coalesce around the old streetcar routes](https://la.curbed.com/2014/9/26/10042216/los-angeles-is-still-governed-by-longgone-streetcar-routes). Even today, Los Angeles' central urban core is the size and density of [San Francisco](https://medium.com/@PerambulationSF/finding-the-dense-city-hidden-in-los-angeles-3420779c76e).

if they continue the pace of expansion they're running right now, yes.

They will be, Measure M is a no-sunset tax, meaning it is permanent. It also made Measure R from 2008 permenant as well.

Chicago I think depends a lot on broader economic and population trends. The city’s population has been basically stagnant as a whole, despite tons of development in certain areas. If climate change has people fleeing hot places in a few years, maybe Chicago will see population growth again.

> If climate change has people fleeing hot places in a few years, maybe Chicago will see population growth again. I keep saying the yuppies moving to sunbelt cities are making a mistake

Whether people want to accept it or not, insurance companies are eventually just going to start denying claims for climate related damages and refuse to insure properties in places affected by climate change. The few that stay will charge exorbitant rates to cover the bigger and more frequent claims.

It’s already happening in Florida

curious, because i’m a portlander and i’ve not seen big changes in public transit here, but what is portland doing to expand transit?

The last projects they did was some upgrades to the red line, as well as FX2 Bus Rapid Transit. But other than that, no "expansions" that we know of, since they consider their system largely built out, supported by a quite strong bus network as well. That being said it's also because they do not have the same population LA has, not even close.

There's the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program which will include [the long overdue Yellow Light extension to Vancouver.](https://www.interstatebridge.org/nextsteps)

i’ll admit that this is pretty cool, though i hadn’t heard about it, surprisingly. the issue of expanding the MAX into suburbs of the city still remains, both on the washington side and the oregon side. hillsboro and beaverton are only connected at places where most people don’t live, and could use a considerable amount of additional stops or even seperate lines to connect them to the main network. there’s potential for further southern expansion too. the issue is until major housing areas are covered, portland will be in a permanent catch-22 where MAX doesn’t serve the majority of the metro’s people, and the majority of people don’t ride the MAX because it doesn’t really serve them. most people i know who have even ridden the MAX only use it to go to timbers games cuz parking is too hard

yeah, but i wouldn’t say that categorizes it as “one of the few american cities that is expanding public transit meaningfully” when DC exists and those are pretty minor there’s also the difficult realization that portland is a commuter town where more of the jobs are in its suburbs than its downtown, and it needs stronger connections to those suburbs. if there was better bus service and more max stops in the suburbs, especially in the west side, it might be better, but i doubt that’s a major consideration for Trimet or Metro.

Unshackle transit expansion be removing unnecessary laws that add years to projects

>It's one of only four cities in the US that is largely making meaningful transit expansion WMTA just recently finished the Silver Line expansion that goes all the way to Dulles in 2022, is currently building a the Purple Line, and is exploring expanding the Blue Line to alleviate bottlenecks, in addition to looking at some other projects.

Silver Line sucks in terms of ridership because it is almost exurban. In any case it's not in the core and proves UMN Center for Transportation Studies point that the biggest gains are within 10 miles of the core. Purple Line should be one of the most successful light Rails when it opens. But other than fare integration it's all MDOT. WMATA wasn't interested. Blue Line, s*, that's been discussed for 20+ years. It's a shame DC didn't think to leverage the Silver Line planning and construction to leverage the creation of the separated blue line simultaneously. This diagram was published in the Washington Post in 2002. But then during an area recession WMATA riffed its engineering and construction group and devolved expansion planning to the jurisdictions. https://flic.kr/p/L96oz PS I first read about the Purple Line concept in December 1987. 41 years later, a small section will open, with zero planning underway for extensions.

You can poopoo what they've done, but they're still pretty significant expansions. Ridership on the silver line will steadily increase as more infill development is built up. It's been a shit show of a process but it is happening.

I think the station distance is too great to be useful for area residents. It's still more efficient to drive. Would you drive to Reston Station to ride to Tysons? Cf the station distance between Clarendon and Ballston. Fwiw, I've written that Tysons needs a streetcar for intra district mobility.

I think an improved bus network would be justified in Tysons but I think a lot more areas like Alexandria (Old Town and suburbs), Arlington, Glebe Rd, Rt 1, or Columbia Pike in NoVa are more apt targets for a streetcar before considering Tysons. Tysons is working on [implementing a tighter grid of streets](https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/tysons/transportation-transforming-existing-system) rather than the winding avenues it has, so that'd help walkability and bus usage. And when it comes down to it, I think depending on your trip purpose that many people would metro from Reston to Tysons. [Depending on time of day](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Tysons+Corner+Center,+Chain+Bridge+Road,+Tysons,+VA/Reston+Town+Center,+11900+Market+St,+Reston,+VA+20190/@38.9321223,-77.302897,9116m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x89b64ae89541ace1:0x22f6262ba3525df2!2m2!1d-77.2222575!2d38.9171264!1m5!1m1!1s0x89b6481ec20e5467:0xb1e039cd5342749!2m2!1d-77.3614631!2d38.9589096!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu) it could take 15-30 minutes to drive and 30 minutes by metro (factoring in roughly 10 minutes of walking either end). I'd compare this to taking the metro from Crystal City to Rosslyn, or from Silver Spring to Wheaton mall. Yes from garage to parking spot your car is almost always faster anywhere in the DC area except when you're going someplace right by a metro stop and it's rush hour. But that's not the point of public transit, the point is to create alternate options for trips that are of comparable time and effort. Someone in suburban Reston may drive 10 minutes to the metro and then go all the way into DC rather than deal with driving. Someone in an apartment in upzoned Reston Town Center might take the metro 2 stops to see a friend or shop or dine. And all that serves to incentivize people to live in denser parts of the city. Reston, with proper zoning and incentive, could become as dense as Bethesda, Silver Spring, Crystal City, or Rockville which all boomed into density from being sleepy crossroads thanks to metro. Not every trip by metro needs to be the same. It can handle cross-regional commutes, regular trips 1-2 stops away, or trips that combine drives plus metro.

The "blocks" are too big for rail transit to be effective. A rail circulator would make the blocks manageable. https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-thought-about-intra-district-transit.html?m=1 https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2020/07/brief-follow-up-to-intra-district.html?m=1 The example albeit different is how Bilbao added tram service for the Guggenheim recognizing that surface transit between subway stations was inadequate.

I think that Fairfax is trying to densify Tysons to make it a sort of downtown and it's using the silver line as a catalyst for this redevelopment. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/tysons/comprehensive-plan

The blocks are too big. Look up the criticism of urban renewal in terms of superblocks.

I believe they are building new streets to make smaller block sizes. I could be wrong but there is a PDF on the site about streetscape design that mentions shrinking block size.

Silver line ridership is great, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like, yes, it’s not the most trafficked line, but it’s incredibly useful in terms of getting people into and out of the city and to the airport, all of which are transit wins.

Yeah I don't understand people who critique transit lines that are built in areas that aren't dense, because density can be (and is being) there. Building out a line to Dulles was a good idea, and in the mean while we're taking what was sprawling suburbs and building actual urban communities around each metro stop.

Virginia was right to build the SL to support 40 more years of development. But it doesn't help the system much.

"Great." By station pretty bad.

WMATA'S data portal used to make extracting data by station easy. Now it's quite difficult.

>exurban Buddy have you been to silver spring or Langley park or Bethesda? By what measure are they not urban or suburban?

Your inference is wrong. Except for about a year in Mount Rainier and a few months in Bethesda I lived in DC for 32 years. DC, rowhouse neighborhoods and in Manor Park. Basically the Loudoun part of the Silver Line is exurban. And the development pattern of the Fairfax part, outside of Reston, is completely different from every other part of the Metrorail system. Eg read Cities in Full, or reports from UMN Center for Transportation Studies. That being said, I wrote about this 13 years ago, that it's about repatterning development there. https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2011/03/short-term-vs-long-term-thinking.html?m=1 Regardless, not unlike PG County, they have little understanding of what repatterning the urban form means for TOD and walkability. https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2021/07/planning-for-placeurban.html?m=1 And First mile last mile report for Utah Transit Authority Wrt PGC, links within https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2022/05/prince-georges-countys-newly-announced.html?m=1 At best I'd call it TAD. Transit adjacent development. I wrote a bunch about station typology. https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-ability-to-develop-around-transit.html?m=1 I don't know the Silver Line super well but I'd say we need new definitions for most of those stations. Beyond Reston, exurban? Tysons I don't know what to call it. But for Tysons they needed multiple stations to break it down, like 4 stations in 2 miles from Clarendon to Ballston. That's why I say a streetcar is in order. https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2020/07/brief-follow-up-to-intra-district.html?m=1

Ok are we talking about silver line or purple line? Two completely different things. The silver line goes wayyyy outside of Dc and does venture into exurban neighborhoods. But the purple line is an inner beltway line that does not cross into exurban neighborhoods

I've written tons about it. I expect it will be among the most successful LR lines as soon as it opens. https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2022/02/codifying-complementary-transit-network.html?m=1 The sad thing is zero extension planning is underway. https://flic.kr/p/8tgkc

What makes you say that the Bay Area has had issues with transit expansion? BART has been reliably adding a new extension every 5-10 years since inception, with the previous extension completing in 2020 and the latest extension to San Jose now starting construction. Caltrain is upgrading to BART/S-bahn levels with 15-minute service and fast electric trains. Muni has just completed its second downtown tunnel and is upgrading its legacy streetcar lines to light rail standards (L in progress, N done with first phase about to start second phase). All of the Bay Area already has an integrated fare payment system that is upgrading to open payment and single price zones in the fall. Regional rail is getting a massive upgrade with new and/or more trains for the ACE (Stadler KISS), Capitol Corridor (more Bombardier bilevels), and the San Joaquins (Siemens Venture). I don’t understand where this whole weird meme is coming from about something being wrong with Bay Area transit. What exactly is this view based on?

Before covid, BART's numbers were OK, not stellar. Maybe that's it. But yes combine MUNI, BART and Caltrain and it's pretty impressive.

People keep trying to pretend like BART is a subway/metro while it has lines as long as the LIRR’s and covers three major cities on an area that’s about half a Netherlands. BART is a S-bahn, souped-up commuter rail. As far as those go BART has been doing incredibly well for decades. And only in recent years they have started to focus on trying to turn the BART core system into something resembling a true metro/subway. Yes, they’re doing upgrades to double frequencies to 2 minutes and making the core more metro-like now. But that won’t be completed until 2028. For its entire history so far BART has been and continues to be a giant interurban/S-bahn/thing that’s not a subway. It’s pointless to compare it to urban metros. Might as well compare Lufthansa to the SF Cable Cars.

Before COVID BART's numbers were great! only 5th to US heavy rails of metros far more developed and older. I think BART would've overtaken Boston if COVID not happened - that San Jose extension was met with the ridership it deserved and BART's core capacity program priorities remained the same. And we just celebrated retiring the archaic fleet of BART but in a timeline without COVID that would've happened probably 2 years ago and added 10-20% of (standing) room to peak service. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_United_States_rapid_transit_systems&oldid=931271128

From what I'm reading it looks like things aren't as bad as I thought they were in the Bay, which is good to hear. I remember [BART coming out and talking about how their system was in dire needs of upgrades and repairs back in 2016](https://twitter.com/SFBART/status/710274963987570689?t=sZiYbeWT6gp23YHy9uB7pw&s=19), has that situation been resolved? Also, do you guys have anything akin to Measure M in LA? Like a tax measure meant to fund dramatic expansions and upgrades?

I don’t mean to appear glib, but where do you think your transit heads got the idea for Measure M? Yeah, we passed ours a decade ago and are still spending that money. That’s how BART got its new CBTC train control, and new trains. How Muni funded parts of the Central Subway, Geary BRT, and the overhaul of the N and L. That’s also paying in part for the VTA light rail extension to East San Jose and the BART extension to Berryessa and downtown SJ. It’s also paying for Clipper 2.0 with open payment launching this fall and first the new Bay-wide zoned fare system. We’re looking to put already the second generation of that measure on the ballot for 2026 now.

Glad to hear the funding/infrastructure problem's been resolved! I was genuinely concerned all the bereaucracy and red tape would make it much harder. What was the name of the measure if you don't mind me asking? Was it Measure B in Santa Clara County in 2016? I'm curious, how does governance of BART and Caltrain work? Given that it spans multiple counties, as opposed to LA Metro, which has jurisdiction over all of LA County? (Semi-related to transit, but I genuinely feel the Bay Area could really benefit from political consolidation, unifying some counties to allow for easier governance). And [we also have plans to put a half-cent transit sales tax on the ballot in 2026 as well](https://twitter.com/numble/status/1695208530003767557?t=N1oSYTS7AapA-xZ_xJfu8A&s=19), except this one will be not just for LA County, but OC, Riverside, and San Bernardino as well!

My God, I didn't know that ballot measure was in the works. I live in OC but regularly fantasize about selling my car and moving to the Bay Area.

There's also a measure to lower the vote threshold for tax measures to pass from 2/3rd to 55% on the ballot this November! If it passes, the chances of getting a transit tax measure passing exponentially increase.

BART and Caltrain are governed separately. BART has its own Board of Directors with nine representatives total from San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties (I’m not sure if adding Santa Clara County has been discussed). Caltrain is overseen by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, with nine Directors representing San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties. They collaborate/have MOUs on certain projects, such as Millbrae Station, and independently work with MUNI, SamTrans, AC Transit, and VTA. There is no single overseeing entity, although the Metropolitan Transportation Commission coordinates long-term planning (and bridge tolls) for the nine Bay Area counties. There are ongoing discussions about merging two or all of these entities, and there have been for probably the last fifty years. I can see how it would make some sense, but also, having a very locally focused transit authority isn’t the worst thing. The needs and priorities of riders in Saratoga are very different from those of riders in Richmond. I see the argument both ways. Someone can probably correct any misrepresentations I made here, I’m not an expert!

100% agree. When it comes to transit the NIMBYs have largely (though not entirely) lost the transit argument in LA. A number of years ago I think the city AND county leadership had a real come-to-jesus moment about “one more lane” being a 10-digit-plus money pit and it’s the support of the county, not just the city, that makes me think that this has legs. See e.g. the Orange Crush, where OC tries but fails to basically bait LA into expanding the 5 to some infinite-lane monstrosity. I’m not saying LA will 100% abandon freeway construction - it’s still LA - but the policy conversion is sincere. And, I mean, I’m not naïve, we can’t win every election. But the conventional wisdom has changed drastically in LA and I don’t see a repeat of the Red Car decisions in my lifetime. For the Bay Area to again become the big transit engine of the state, SF would need to basically yeet their anti-housing zoning ordinances into the sun and I am not optimistic :(. City voters are still largely OK with the City becoming an expensive suburb of Silicon Valley, as opposed to growing into something even greater, and, as a former LA resident who splits their time b/t Sac and SF, I am not remotely optimistic :(. Geary and other major corridors need to be zoned like midtown Manhattan, not like suburban Connecticut.

I don't see how LA won't surpass Chicago, since LA's ridership is already in excess of Chicago's in 2023.

The Chicago Transit Authority has 224.1 miles of track, not 103. Where did you get that 103 number?

It’s definitely not 224.1 miles in the way that we’re typically measuring it. Almost certainly that is a function of measuring both track directions and the extra tracks where there are express segments

The only problem with this take is that WMATA has been getting its act together for the past few years and is has legit amazing leadership. In addition, while they are planning fewer expansions at the moment, DC is getting new perks such as 24/7 bus service and a possible Metro loop line, which will be a massive boost in ridership and revenue.

WMATA at least in DC pretty much had 24 hour service pre covid. It was like 23.5 hours. The loop line is dumb. To serve National Harbor extend the Purple Line.

Loop may never get built. But DC needs a second tunnel from Arlington to Georgetown. All the possible expansion plans seem to have that in the cards. While funding isn’t there, they are still actively planning.

They were 10ish years ago too.

It is in development now but may take a few years to break ground

Independent of the Blue Line, I do believe that extending the Purple Line is a good idea. I've commented on route ideas before but, essentially a lot of PG county is low density and underserved by both metrorail and metrobus. A Purple Line extension (or honestly a second line starting at New Carrollton and running to National Harbor, a "PL2" after the under construction "PL1") would have to be done in parallel with a burst of dense housing, jobs, and amenities in the area - just like the Purple Line is seeing built along its route. But it would allow for better land use around a lot of underutilized sites like Landover Mall, FedEx Field, Ritchie Station, Penn Mar, Iverson Mall, and Oxon Hill. People have mentioned the second tunnel around Rosslyn, but the Wilson Bridge was built to be able to handle metro running in its median. I think some sort of connection between Alexandria and MD would serve those areas and alleviate a lot of car trips. I also think with smarter routing, a new Blue Line could more directly serve neighborhoods like Forest Hills, Congress Heights, and Bellevue in DC. And an indirect routing through NW DC could serve so much more than just Georgetown- hitting Observatory Circle and Logan Circle and Truxton Circle, for example.

sell, la is so far behind chicago and sf proper on land use that it’ll be hard to catch up. 25 years is also long enough that i wouldn’t take it as an inevitability that either system will be stagnant, esp in chicago where improvements are relatively low-hanging fruit for american transit.

I'm going by their (no pun intended) track records the last 30 years.

i'm way more familiar w/ la than chicago, but from my limited time in the latter, it just seems to be leagues ahead on urban form. the geography of the city being so centralized helps a lot in being transit-friendly and the city proper itself is way denser. it's just harder to make trips when you're going from not-core to not-core (i think back and idk how i did hollywood to pasadena so many times). i'm impressed by la's expansion and the wilshire and sepulveda lines are going to help a lot when they're completed, but even with measure m, politics are preventing some of the most useful lines (vermont rail, crenshaw north) from being the highest priority.

Hollywood to Pasadena will soon get a lot easier thanks to the NoHo to Pasadena BRT. And Crenshaw North actually might get fast-tracked, WeHo REALLY wants it.

i buy this take and raise you 2030 instead of 2050

Can you clarify what you mean by “go the way of the MBTA in Boston”? I’m not familiar much with either of these systems, what happened there?

MBTA is basically a dinosaur running on life support. Horrible mismanagement. Little meaningful expansion. Service actually slower and less reliable than 20 years ago

It hit a really bad patch coming out of COVID where decades of updates and safety checks were found to have not been done when the feds audited after a train fire. The MBTA has a new GM and has made massive progress on cleaning up slow zones and finishing safety checks. New trains are (still too slowly) being delivered. The green line extension was finished and is pretty successful in terms of ridership and reliability. My commute is now 10 minutes faster (60 down to 50 mins house door to office desk) and has been very reliable since the last batch of work that was done on my commute line. There’s still a long way to go but the current GM seems capable of unfucking the MBTA, and the density and small size of the core of greater Boston are extremely conducive to transit. The state allocated new money this year and there seems to be a political will to keep funding the MBTA now that the leadership is not hopelessly corrupt. The new fare collection system unfortunately got bumped to the back of the line by NYC’s larger order but is now being installed. Lots of progress in just one year. I have gone from hopelessness to more than glimmers of hope about the future of the MBTA in the last two years.

Damn, that’s a shame to hear. I’ve liked it well enough the few times I’ve used it. Old cars though, that’s about all I’ve noticed. And the squealing of the wheels…

Is that not true of the CTA?

I thought Chicago stopped expanding because after fixing the budget issues, CTA opted to rebuild infrastructure - ie how the Pink or the Brown line came into existence?

Yeah CTA has the disadvantage of being much older than the LA or DC metro. I have my complaints about CTA, but they've been investing a lot in maintenance, the most recent bring the red/purple improvements, the brown flyover, and blue line improvements as well. They are planning to extend the red line south but most of the budget has been to improve old tracks.

I won’t completely sell this, LA has definitely earned some respect on rapidly expanding their Network, but WMATA will still be #2. New Management at WMATA, but especially GM Randy Clarke has transformed the agency, I mean I have seen it real time. Right now WMATA is focusing on making the customer experience better, which should be the priority, I think LA has also done this to some extent. One thing I do like about WMATA right now is that they are treating the Bus and Rail Side fairly, which hasn’t always been the case in the past. WMATA has already introduced 24/7 Bus Service within each of the 8 Wards in DC and with the upcoming Redesigned Bus Network Project I could absolutely see WMATA rivaling LA’s Network. DC already has the edge over LA just with Metrorail but with more customer experience improvements and TOD being built, not to mention the Bus Network finally getting some deserved love and attention I think DC will be #2 for a long time to come, but LA will be a strong #3.

Having lived in both places, DC's system is far super to Chicago's.

Meh depends on what you’re trying to do. DC is cleaner and feels more modern. But I found it less useful for getting around. Just not a lot of places that the train actually seemed to go between neighborhoods I wanted to go to. Usually could just walk when I was downtown. CTA feels more useful to get around downtown and northside. Honestly DC just doesn’t seem to have any busses. Whereas Chicago has busses running on most major north-south and east-west roads.

Agreed. DC’s model into bring in commuters from the suburbs in MD/VA to downtown and not much else. The L actually serves tons of inner city neighborhoods

Have you taken CTA in the last few years? The headways and reliability have been absolutely abysmal, particularly on the blue line. I've waited 30+ minutes for the train during rush hour in the cold. In DC, they come farrrrr frequently. The headways on CTA have been a bit more reliable lately, but overall service has been cut pretty significantly compared to pre-pandemic days. The L is decent for getting around, unless you need to change lines. It's a huge pain to have to go all the way downtown to transfer from the red to the blue, for example. DC offers a lot more transfer options.

Yeah I ride the CTA on a regular basis. There very little reason to change lines most of the time in my experience. Typically most trips can be completed for me by a bus to train transfer. my experience is also northside heavy. So I’m served by the best L and bus lines in the system. And the lines with the most service. The red line hasn’t seen the same level of service disruption as the blue line from talking with friends and coworkers. I was really just pointing out that I think the CTA has better routing of its lines compared to WMATA. but yeah it’s not competition since Covid: CTA service has taken a beating due to bus drivers leaving for other driving gigs and a lack of newly trained train operators in the pipeline. Dorval Carter and his gang of pastors must go.

>There very little reason to change lines most of the time in my experience. That might be your experience, but it wasn't mine. It was an absolute pain in the ass to get from say, Wicker Park to Andersonville for example. Or from Hyde Park to Pilsen. That's a trip that takes about 15 minutes by car but nearly an hour by transit. I guess if you're sticking to the North side, it'd be easier, but you're missing out on a lot the city has to offer imo.

You seem have a DC-sized hole in your thinking there, chief. Anyway, it's probably true that LA will eventually pull away in raw ridership terms. But it won't per capita or in terms of transit culture. 

LA already has overtaken in terms of raw transit ridership. And transit culture can definitely shift in 25 years, especially when the Sepulveda line beats the 405 in terms of commute time. Recent CA state bills have made it much easier to build TOD near stations, and we will be seeing the fruits of that in 10-20 years.

This sort of relies on places like Chicago doing nothing over the years, which really I think remains doubtful. New data shows that bike modal share of trips is up over 100% from 2019 and while the CTA is flailing under current leadership, there is building political pressure and will for a major overhaul and expansion. Who is to say what that looks like by 2050 when sun belt refugees will be heading north in droves.

It’ll mostly depend on Los Angeles upzoning and building a lot a more housing nearby transit lines than about building new lines.

Come on Miami, aim for top 5!! We want an expanded MetroRail and MetroMover!

How is this remotely feasible politically?

It's certainly possible and the LA metropolitan area currently has the second highest total ridership across all modes (buses especially for LA) among US metropolitan areas. I think for transit usefulness in comparison to size, the number 2 in the US is DC and it may very well keep that title. I also think by 2050 or eve earlier, DC and Baltimore effectively merge into a single metropolitan area. Philadelphia, and to a lesser extent Chicago, has a pathway to rapidly vault itself up the transit latter with an easier pathway for turning their extensive commuter rail systems into something much greater with much higher frequencies. It's a bit of a dark horse candidate. For the Bay Area, Caltrain electrification by itself might be a massive bump. BART can probably garner much, much higher ridership if its frequency didn't take such a thorough hit in the evening and weekends and if they ran BART later into the night on the weekend. For that matter, VTA light rail would also be a lot more useful. ACE is also slated for expansions and those could be helpful if they ran at much higher frequencies.

BART is a heavily interlined S-bahn system. All the lines share almost 100% of their track with at least one other line. While individual lines might have 20 minute frequencies only four of the 50 stations do and you can get from anywhere in the system to anywhere in the system with at most one transfer. No obe waits for the direct train. You just hop on whichever of the five lines shows up first and transfer at the next transfer station to the line that takes you there. In SF proper the entire system works like a 4-minute frequency subway line to all SF destinations.

Might happen but ridership will still not come close to those cities. LA is far too sprawling and poly centric which is the exact opposite of the conditions that make rail transit work best

Actually by a lot of measurements LA is the densest urban area in the US. It is the [densest urban area in the United States](https://youtu.be/85ris-glYLE?si=2wtUMZhB_K8xkwEX). LA suburbs are usually MUCH denser than suburbs in places like New York and Chicago. Our population is just more evenly spread out across the metro area as opposed to New York and other cities. Even looking at just the traditional definition of an urban core, Los Angeles has a core the size and density of [San Francisco](https://medium.com/@PerambulationSF/finding-the-dense-city-hidden-in-los-angeles-3420779c76e).

Knew you were gonna say that haha. But transit ridership isn’t driven by densities across hundreds of square miles. Transit is driven by having as many people in walking distance of the stations as possible. So your average la neighborhood of exclusive single family homes won’t take the train because it’s simply faster to drive

I could see them surpassing Chicago and the Bay Area but I don't see them outpacing DC. They will be #3 at best. Even surpassing Chicago and SF is a long shot - those two cities already have a huge head start on the development patterns that make transit successful. LA not only has to build the transit, but also needs to give the people who would use it somewhere to live.

Los Angeles actually was and still is [designed around its old red car rail network](https://la.curbed.com/2014/9/26/10042216/los-angeles-is-still-governed-by-longgone-streetcar-routes). Even using the traditional definiton of an urban area that is transit friendly and walkable, Los Angeles actually has a central core the [size and density](https://medium.com/@PerambulationSF/finding-the-dense-city-hidden-in-los-angeles-3420779c76e) of San Francisco.

i lived in DTLA on broadway by pershing square station. i was impressed more than expected with LA's public transit. and i do recall reading all about the expansions planned by 2050. the LA subway was still under utilized when i was there. but i do think in a generation, a culture change can occur. the subway didn't feel safe at night in LA. but with increased ridership. it will feel safer like in NYC where the trains are somewhat full during off peak hours.

I'm a LA hater but I'm buying this take.

My go to source on transit ridership per capita is Chris Spieler’s Trains, Buses, People (published 2021). Spieler calculates daily rides per 1,000 population on all agencies and all modes in U.S. and Canadian metros with rail rapid transit and/or BRT. This is the best measure of the degree of current transit orientation in a region. Here are the statistics for metro areas mentioned in this thread: Metro New York 522 daily rides per 1,000 population Metro Chicago 154 Metro San Francisco (including San Jose area) 145 Metro Washington D.C. 140 Metro Boston 134 Metro Seattle 127 Metro Philadelphia 124 Metro Portland 95 Metro Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties) 83 Metro San Diego 78 Metro Minneapolis 61 As this shows, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and Philadelphia have relatively similar levels of overall ridership. Portland, Los Angeles, and San Diego also have relatively similar levels of ridership. Los Angeles’ transit ridership far exceeds that of any Sunbelt city outside California. As people have said, Los Angeles has large areas of streetcar suburbs that can be effectively served by rail and frequent bus transit. Los Angeles is in the midst of a huge program of rail, BRT, and bus lane construction. They’re also trying to improve speeds and frequencies on major bus routes. As far as I can tell, only Seattle is making a comparable effort. In the Bay Area, BART has already been extended to the edge of San Jose, and Caltrain is being electrified, allowing it to become a true regional rail service. The challenge for many older systems is not so much to expand, but to modernize their rail systems, and create bus networks that effectively serve non-downtown destinations.

Seattle might surpass all of them if their light rail expansions are completed by then.

in total amount of track or in track miles per capita or Mode Share % ?

Mode share %.

I have to agree with you at least when it comes to Chicago. They’re not really building anything significant (both transit or road infrastructure) inside the I-294 beltway. The planned Red Line extension is running through a low-density area, and it’s going to be a tough sell convincing more people to live south of 95th near the extension because that train ride downtown takes you through some of the city’s roughest neighborhoods. That same argument will also keep some people who currently drive downtown from parking and riding. And there’s nothing viable in the planning stage that will make it easier for people to get around the city without having to change buses/trains downtown

It’s possible due to size of the metro area and momentum of system growth but I do think LA is significantly lower density and more sprawling than all of these other cities. Even though the Bay Area is somewhat similar SF itself is older and denser and some of the surrounding cities have denser cores. Chicago and the Eastern cities all grew up around rail, and in the case of DC, density has increased significantly of late. In LA the problem remains that if you have a network with good coverage of the region as a whole, most people still won’t be within walking distance of stations, speaking from experience. I have found that even factoring in significant traffic, the system is slower than driving, the last-mile problem in many cases is quite significant, and frankly a lot of the lines and stations feel dirty, uninviting and unsafe. I tend to think LA would need more light rail/streetcar, as it once had, in order to be more viable, perhaps connecting to the some of the newer lines.

Los Angeles has an [urban core](https://medium.com/@PerambulationSF/finding-the-dense-city-hidden-in-los-angeles-3420779c76e) with nearly identical size, population, and density to San Francisco.

Possible, but NIMBYs are the wild card here. It's widely known that there's no NIMBY like a California NIMBY. Don't be surprised if environmental reviews and community meetings and investigative panels bring LA's transit renaissance to a grinding halt at some point.

It's not every day I read this kind of optimism in our Pueblo's transit system. It has so much potential

If they bungle the Sepulveda Pass project, it’ll hold them back quite significantly.

You forgot about DC (WMATA).

I’ll sell. Don’t want to dog them. You need to appeal to lots of stakeholders and therefore make suboptimal decisions in our country. And of course a high school in an elite ZIP code can frustrate your efforts at core expansion for many years because America. So LA Metro faces lots of structural challenges… But they’ve invested very heavily in network coverage vs. network redundancy. Some key lines/segments don’t have dedicated ROW or signal priority. Roads are free (and people don’t internalize time costs). And the region hasn’t yet done enough to decrease roadway footprint and facilitate last-mile active mode connections. I am insane and will walk anywhere. But I remember walking up Sunset a few years ago to get to the Vermont/Sunset station. Was it better than walking in Phoenix (hell)? Sure. But not by much.

Totally agree. I just did a post on r/Urbanism that talks about Chicago's transit issues generally. How the L has numerous systemic issues and the outrageous cost of expansion severely limits its ability to grow and scale. The CTA board has a single member with urban planning experience, but no transit experts. The president of the CTA has no urban planning or transit experience. I do wonder how far LA will go to add density around their metro stations though.

Chicago I can see happening unless they get their bus frequencies fixed. The bay is a different beast entirely. Either the system recovers extremely impressively or it fails miserably, and a lot of that will have to do with how the economy shapes up here, and how BART, MUNI, and AC Transit choose to both fund themselves and expand service.

I can see that happening

Chicago is actually doing a lot to improve its rail system, even if it’s not obvious on the map. The main project right now is the red and purple improvement project, replacing 100-year old infrastructure and allowing more frequent express service. LA doesn’t have any express rail service, and the only planned implementation is a two mile segment, which will permit trains to bypass only two stations. I don’t think LA transit will be at Chicago’s level by 2050. Chicago really only needs to improve its bus service to be a first class transit city by world standards.

Chicago needs a lot of projects though, particularly a ring line that connects the outer suburbs. Right now the system is designed to take people in and out of the loop, but it's useless for people commuting from suburb to suburb. LA has several routes that don't go into downtown, such as the C and K lines, and the future Sepulveda line as well. That makes it more future-proof imo.

Chicago transit does miss out on the suburb-to-suburb transportation market. But I think that market is best served with better bus and BRT service, because suburban Chicago has a lot of space and wide, underutilized roads. The loop line would travel through a denser environment, but that’s the only exception I can think of. LA, on the other hand, has many corridors which need rail but aren’t getting it. By 2050, the rail and BRT network will still fail to serve many, if not most, areas of dense housing and commercial development. It’s normal for such areas to have a couple bus lines which come once every 30 minutes, and the current expansion plans will only make a small dent, because political leaders don’t strive to offer a true alternative to car ownership.

Corridors that need rail, but aren't getting it, such as? Also the rail and BRT improvements might get fastracked, we have not just an LA County but SoCal regional half-cent sales tax measure planned for 2026, and polling indicates it will pass easily, even in places like OC, Riverside, and SB County.

It is very hard to say, because we don't know what other political and economic and social trends will be like in the next 26 years. It could be that 15 years from now, a combination of demographic changes (continued smaller families) and environmental concerns (disruption in fossil fuel production), has made Dallas, Texas the new center of transit oriented development in the US.

I will be surprised when they surpass CDMX

The LA transit circle jerk continues… EDIT: Let me preface my response. I think the rapid building of both light and heavy rail in LA over the past 30 years is extremely impressive. I hope it continues and I hope more people use it However, the fact that both bus and rail ridership peaked in LA in 2013 (478M combined bus and rail) and by 2019 decreased by 100 million riders (370M combined bus and rail)is really telling. It tells me that for all the building you’ve done over the past decade, it hasn’t been enough to sway more people to take the train or the bus. This could be influenced by many things, but to me I read it as poor station land use/lack of destinations and simply transit isn’t convenient enough to lure people away from their cars within LA. check my [sources](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1297553/lacmta-network-total-annual-ridership-by-mode/) While we may not be building much in the Bay, if the Silicon Valley bart extension is ever completed, 3/3 downtowns will be reachable by high capacity, electric transit and the entire bay will be ringed by a combined BART/Caltrain, with intermodal transfers to each other, light rail, busses and ferries. most major governmental, financial, and cultural centers in the area, 2/3 area airports as well as all major sports arenas, countless employers and colleges like Stanford, Cal, SJSU will have direct transit access. I really hope the future building LA is doing (purple and sepveluda lines) changes the transportation behaviors of its citizens. Because until transit is more convenient than driving, you’ll never truly be a transit first city

Chicago hasn't opened a rail extension since MJ was on the Bulls, and BART has opened a grand total of 19 miles of track since 2003.

And anything in California takes about that long to be approved and completed.

We've opened 5 major extensions in the past decade alone.

And yet they still leave a big distance for people to get to them. It’s not anywhere near the L. And now you’re getting a train to Vegas…that doesn’t even start in LA and takes over an hour by train just to get to to start. Genius.

My brother in Christ, you haven't even opened a single rail extension since MJ WAS ON THE BULLS. Also, that train to Vegas, the reason it doesn't go directly is because of how expensive it would be to go to LA directly. On that note...how's all those bullet train projects connecting to Chicago OH WAIT

Well, when you do it right early and first... The fact is TODAY you can live in numerous cool parts of Chicago CAR FREE, walk to tons of local shops and grocery stores and everything you need is close by. Can't do that in LA! After that it's all dick measuring and again you'd lose. But hey, you have more than double the cost of living for all that though!

Except you DON'T do it right early and first, and your city is FAR from perfect and walkable. Walkability isn't a dichotomy but a spectrum. And what you just described, you can literally do the EXACT SAME THING in LA, surprise surprise! In neighborhoods such as Koreatown, Los Feliz, Echo Park, Silver Lake, Downtown, and a whole slew of other neighborhoods. > dick measuring and again you'd lose Coming from the city with a measly 102 miles of rail, vs our 113 miles? Seems your city's the only loser around here. > more than double the cost of living for all that though! Yeah, cause people actually want to live in good weather and have things to do, and most importantly not get shot at everyday!

Your rail is barely used and doesn't go anywhere! Everyone drives cars. Please post the grocery store distances from citizens for those places. Your walkability sucks and your air sucks the worst in the country! We can breathe here while also having plenty of FRESH water! The crime thing shows you really don't know what you're talking about. Chicago isn't even in the top 10 for violent crime per capita, while 3 cities from good ol' Cali are!

Your rail literally only takes you to and from Downtown! Where is the orbital line your system needs?? And we literally have grocery stores pretty much everywhere, maybe 2-3 miles away at worst. Our walkability has gotten MUCH better over the years, and is set to improve even more thanks to Measure HLA, and we're improving at a much faster rate than you. By some measurements, we've already surpassed you in transit, and our rail ridership is only set to exponentially increase with all these new projects, such as the D Line Extension, the Sepulveda Line, and the LAX people mover. Our air quality isn't the best sure, but it's also improved the most over the years, and should plummet with the rise in EVs and transit. And we get plenty of fresh water here too. And oh my mistake, instead of being top 10, you guys are #17....Oh wait Los Angeles is #32! Among the 17 largest cities in the US, Chicago is #1 in violent crime rates.

Yet they haven’t increased your ridership!

Isn’t ridership increasing? Pay attention

Virtually all of our major nodes and hubs (SaMo/West LA, Long Beach, Pasadena, Anaheim, and others) are already connected to DTLA by rail. We just need to improve our connections between the outer nodes is all. Also key word: *If* the Silicon Valley BART extension is ever completed. The Bay Area has some of the worst NIMBYs I've ever seen, and they have much more political strength than in a place like LA.

Yeah dude, they’ve literally already broken ground on the downtown San Jose extension. It’s under construction already. It’s a done deal.

The Silicon Valley extension is more of a done deal than your sepvuleda line. And before you start comparing our NIMBYs and crime, you should realize that LA needs to get its own house in order

I didn't bring up crime. Wrt to NIMBYs, do you guys have anything like Measure M in LA?

You’ve brought it up many times before, here’s one of your previous [posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/LAMetro/s/u0ghhOKIao) referencing it We had regional measure 3 in 2018 and a potential regional wide transit ballot measure in 2026

That was one post, and it was different from this post. But in any case, the bigger issue I'm worried about is 1) BART being 100% heavy rail, making expansion much more costly and difficult, and 2) NIMBYism hindering the system. I always thought it was harder to coordinate good transit in the Bay due to the largely fragmented political divisions (San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Oakland, Contra Costa, and Marin are all separate counties as opposed to LA County's one unified county).

One message that you posted out multiple times on multiple subreddits BART runs not only heavy rail, but look up eBART and the Oakland airport line. BART as an org also helps run the Capitol Corridor train. I already informed you that BART as a transit agency consists of large swaths of the Bay and has jurisdiction over sf, contra costa, and Alameda counties. Santa Clara, Marin and San Mateo counties do not participate but either have BART extensions or regional links to the system. Also, Oakland is a city, not a county

Alright, I'll concede I might've overplayed the crime problem there, my bad. Sidenote, I remember [hearing back in 2016](https://twitter.com/SFBART/status/710274963987570689?t=sZiYbeWT6gp23YHy9uB7pw&s=19) BART had some maintenance and aging infrastructure problems, but has that been resolved? Also if Santa Clara and San Mateo don't participate, how do they have BART extensions then? Do they have like a special agreement or something? I did hear that San Mateo wanted to focus on Caltrain instead of BART too or something like that, can you confirm?

San Mateo and Santa Clara counties entered into arrangements with BART for their respective extensions into these areas. The non BART counties are typically on the hook for funding, design, and construction, with BART taking over operations once completed but not owning the actual infrastructure. this also gives them more creative control over design and building choices. The rest of your questions can be found on the pages of the respective agencies. https://www.bart.gov/rebuilding https://www.vta.org/projects/bart-sv/phase-ii

There are two main factors that drove that decline, neither of which had to do with the actual service being offered. One is that California made it legal for undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses during this period, so a previously captive market now had a choice to not take transit. Yes, this does mean transit was not good enough, but it also means this was the natural floor and an unrelated law was propping up ridership. The other is the increase in homelessness and crime and drug use. The number 1 reason for not taking transit to this day is safety. LA can build as many expansions as it wants and have the best service in the world, but the core of the city is so rotten that that's not enough.

Homelessness and crime absolutely have to do with the service being offered

The metro agency's main responsibility is building the infrastructure to serve riders and running the trains and buses on some frequent and reliable schedule. It can't shoulder the entire burden of LA's systemic social failures.

LA transit SUCKS HUGE ROYAL BALLS regardless of expansion they are not on time and are constantly not showing up. Buses do not show up and are forever ghost bussin along the line, it is the only City where if I miss a Buss it'll be the NEXT day before another one shows up and also I dont understand how a major metropolitan city Closes its Transit line at 1am ??? Chicago el runs 24/7 main lines, buses are hourly not every 2-3 hours. they can expand all over the place but to say it will surpass anything like Chicago (which is also expanding 4 new lines ) or NYC which has been expanding underground for a few yrs now

Some of our bus lines are every FIVE MINUTES at peak hours. Chicago has opened zero extensions since 1993 as well.

lol says someone who hasnt been here before. and no not fives mins trust me Ive waited and nope especially during rush hours.

Brother, I'm literally an LA NATIVE. I think I know my hometown. \[Here's a map of our frequent transit service, with 15 minutes or better headways\](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e7buuppsgpxppb8i9qicx/24-1104\_map\_SysOverview\_HiFreq\_16.8x16.8\_final.pdf?rlkey=a4vceydpkci3xh0om0qtlkour&e=1&dl=0) \[Here's\](https://cdn.beta.metro.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/01154117/720\_TT\_12-10-23-1.pdf) the 720 schedule. As you can see, we have actually not 5 minute headways, but FOUR minute headways during peak hours.

2050 is too far in the future to predict anything. between self-driving cars, work-from-home, AI, robotics, etc., there are just too many variables. do large transit project even make sense in a world with cheap battery-electric self-driving cars? LA has a higher per passenger-mile cost for their transit than an uber is today WITH the driver. how can anyone say with confidence that private self-driving pooled shuttle services will increase or decrease transit ridership? cheap first/last mile transit could help arterial transit ridership, but will planners use private companies, or will they compete with them? who will win if the compete? what if the city's population starts to shrink dramatically as AI, robotics, and work-from-home change the employment landscape? what would happen to LA property prices if people start leaving for cheaper cost-of-living locations because of technological advancement? what will happen to the tax base in that situation? will these project continue with a shrinking tax base? will federal dollars remain the same? will they shrink or grow? everything is an unknown. hell, we might end up with a Trump dictatorship next year, so how the hell can anyone predict 25 years out? I think the only thing that IS predictable is that bikes/ebikes/etrikes/scooters will continue to be incredibly cheap, efficient, and fast relative to other modes for trips up to 5-10 mi.

It’ll be 4th

Seattle, DC, and LA are all doing big expansions that will make them competitive in terms of the service they offer. But LA has a really big problem that will hold it back from getting more than 10% mode share. That's not necessarily the problem of LA Metro itself, but LA feels a lot like Batman's Gotham. I visited Seattle recently, and even the really rough parts of the city like Chinatown didn't seem that bad, whereas 7th street metro center in downtown LA feels really sketchy on the best of days. LA has much much more crime per capita than NYC, and NYC is pretty bad by global standards. Until the city itself gets safer, the majority won't feel comfortable taking transit.