Los Angeles is far from ideal when it comes to transit expansion, but, by North American standards, they are doing impressive things. Foremost, the idiotic debate about what transit technology to use - which plagues Toronto and also plagues this discussion forum - is not something Angeleno transit planners waste their time with. LACMTA has utilized all transit modes wherever the demand warrants it:
- Express Buses with Premium Marketing (eg. Metro Rapid routes)
- True BRT (eg. Orange Line)
- Light Rail in the road median for medium-distance routes (eg. eastern leg of Gold Line, Expo line)
- Light Rail in grade separated ROW. or along rail corridor for long-distance routes (eg. Blue line, Green Line, northern extension of Gold line to Pasadena)
- Heavy Rail subway (along Wilshire corridor - LA's Yonge street - eventually expanding to Century City)
It also should be noted that LA Metro are better marketers. For example, they have the "
15 minute service map", which may seem funny to Torontonians used to 5 minute service, but is a big deal in a city like LA, and it benefits from being separately mapped and identified. Their Metro Rapid bus is also separately marketed, like Viva or Zum.
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One thing I've noticed lately is that the transit agencies making the biggest strides to improve service and expand rapid transit are located in Western Canada and the United States. When people talk about innovative transit operators in books and conferences, they usually cite Portland, Vancouver, Calgary, Denver, Salt Lake City, etc. The traditional transit cities of Eastern Canada and the US Northeast are mired in incompetence, labour problems, organizational inertia, political interference and cost overruns.
