Saturday, April 23, 2011

Expo Line: Problem Solver?

riley stauffer (@rileystauffer)
Los Angeles public transportation is notorious for being inefficient and out-dated.  Growing up in close proximity to New York City my entire life before moving to Los Angeles for college, the one thing I've found increasingly frustrating about our beautiful sunny city is it's lack of viable and realistic public transportation options.  In New York, one can travel anywhere, in under twenty minutes, on the subway.  Moreover, the subway routes and lines are easy to understand and use, whereas in Los Angeles, the bus routes seem to criss-cross all over the city with no real objective, often skipping over many popular places someone might want to stop.  For anyone who isn't lucky enough to have a car in Los Angeles, public transportation is a constant annoyance.  Personally, I'm getting sick of having to beg friends to borrow their cars, shelling out $50-plus to cab drivers who don't even understand me, and am dreading this summer when I will need to take three buses for an hour-and-a-half commute to my internship, which is only a fifteen minute drive by car.  If Los Angeles offered a fast and easy public transportation option, that actually stopped in convenient places on a logical route, I honestly feel as though over 50% of my everyday problems would be eliminated.


The Los Angeles County Metro Rail System is taking a define step to improving the public transportation system in LA with the Expo Line.  The Expo Line will connect Downtown Los Angeles with Santa Monica and will run for 15. 9, mostly along Exposition Boulevard.  The Expo Line will be the first Metro Rail Line to serve the Los Angeles Westside.  It's being constructed in two phases; Phase 1 will connect Downtown LA to Culver City and is likely to be finished in 2011 or 2012, and Phase 2 will connect Culver City to Santa Monica, which is expected to be completed in 2014 or 2015. Although the Expo Line will take longer than it would by car, I'm definitely happy that the LA County Metro System has recognized their severe short-comings and are working to improve. However I still have my doubts about the Expo Line.  Once again, consider New York: the subway is at least twice as fast as driving, while the Expo Line will still take twice as long to get from Downtown LA to Santa Monica as it would in a car with no traffic.  Don't get me wrong, the Expo Line will be a great improvement to current public transportation and is a step in the right direction, but I think many improvements will still need to be made in the future.

R. Stauffer
(@rileystauffer)




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1 comment:

  1. while the Expo Line will still take twice as long to get from Downtown LA to Santa Monica as it would in a car with no traffic

    THIS IN NOT CORECT UN TRUE CHECK YOUR FACTS

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