TTC expansion - Lessons from LA and NYC

[Glen]

An interesting observation from the recent Land Lines.........

Providing effective transit service -- a smart growth policy -- requires residential densities of at least 30 persons per hectare. A review of census tract data for 447 U.S. urbanized areas in 2000 indicates that about a quarter of the urbanized population resided in areas with such densities, down from half in 1965. Fully 47 percent of the 447 areas had no tracts with a transit-sustaining density. But, transit ridership requires more than just dense residential areas. For example, New York and Los Angeles have similar average residential densities, but 51 percent of commuters in New York use transit compared to 11 percent in Los Angeles. An analysis of travel diaries from nearly 17,000 Los Angeles households indicates that accessibility to employment centers increases transit use much more than living in a high-density area. Alternatively, congestion toll schemes dating from the mid-1970s have yielded sustained increases in transit use and reductions in auto use and congestion. While such policies are likely to produce land use changes, theory is ambiguous about their direction, and virtually no empirical evidence is available.

The point I find most interesting is that LA and NYC have similar population densities yet NYC has dearly 5 times the transit ridership. Really, TC and other expansions should be shelved until the city gets serious about expanding its employment base (assessment).

 

[rbt]

The point I find most interesting is that LA and NYC have similar population densities yet NYC has dearly 5 times the transit ridership. Really, TC and other expansions should be shelved until the city gets serious about expanding its employment base (assessment).

One of the biggest complaints employers in the GTA have at this exact moment is congestion on roads, in TTC, and in GO.

Transit City, new subways, new streetcars, and installation of bike lanes are, oddly enough, good ways of tacking the number one complaint business has as they make more efficient use of land (more people per sqft for travel).

If you want a massive boost to the employment base, demand 10 minute service on Lake Shore East/West, and a full DRL from Eglinton East to Eglinton West IN ADDITION TO Transit City which targets future congestion which would otherwise be expected to double the cost of running buses on those routes.

 

[Chuck]

The point I find most interesting is that LA and NYC have similar population densities yet NYC has dearly 5 times the transit ridership.

It's quite wrong to say that two cities are comparable just because a particular statistic, in this case density, is the same. Consider that the average age between ten centenarians and ten newborns is 50 years old. Likewise, the average age between twenty 50 year olds is also 50. However, there's no comparing the needs or characteristics of the two groups.

You just can't compare New York and LA's ridership trends. 90% of New York's ridership comes from the third of the population living in the 5 boroughs.

 

[LAz]

I'm not even sure that LA has the same density as NYC. Check this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density
If you scroll down you will see that NYC metro area is way more dense than LA.

LA is not a good place to compare for transit... mainly because it is a class issue, and because it's so ridiculously expensive to tunnel anything there. It's the city where the car is king... their best hope is to expand their tram system, which is underused anyways.

 

[SimonP]

How and when a city was built also has a huge impact. In 1920, at the dawn of the automobile age, New York had 5.6 million people. It needed to have an urban form and a transit network to transport that number of people without using cars. This meant dense housing, walkable neighbourhoods, and an extensive mass transit system. Even after cars arrived, these elements remained in place, and much of the population continued to walk or use transit rather than drive.

Los Angeles is the opposite. It had only 600,000 people in 1920, and almost all the city was built up in the automobile age. The rapid growth that occurred over the next decades was built around the car and the assumption that everyone would drive anywhere they needed to go. Homes all had parking, were separated from businesses, and had access to a network of freeways. There was not much of any transit system, LA didn't have a subway until 1993.

Even if the two cities had identical densities today, which it seems they don't, they would still have very different transit patterns due to their divergent histories.

 

[Glen]

One of the biggest complaints employers in the GTA have at this exact moment is congestion on roads, in TTC, and in GO.

Transit City, new subways, new streetcars, and installation of bike lanes are, oddly enough, good ways of tacking the number one complaint business has as they make more efficient use of land (more people per sqft for travel).

If you want a massive boost to the employment base, demand 10 minute service on Lake Shore East/West, and a full DRL from Eglinton East to Eglinton West IN ADDITION TO Transit City which targets future congestion which would otherwise be expected to double the cost of running buses on those routes.

The BoT does not speak for all businesses, and even there warning about gridlock have been misconstrued by those pushing for transit expansion in Toronto. Businesses that are complaining about gridlock are not in the city. It is also incorrect to assume that Toronto's employment base would massively expand by adding more transit. To believe so would require that there are many jobs in this city that go unfilled because people can't get to them. That is absurd.

Trasit City and other expansions will only serve to reduce gridlock if they are able to provide service to the destinations peopole require. Toronto can build all the condo's it wants but without increasing employmet there will be little use for it.

 

[Glen]

SimonP,

Good point. It does raise the issue though, at some point does a sprawling city like LA behave more like a number of smaller cities that just happen to be side by side?

 

[ssiguy2]

You still have to give L.A. credit for trying to make the city more accessible and livable through transit. It has been building rapid transit at a furious pace since 1990 and it's expansion plans to 2030 would give any transit supporter wet dreams. Kudos also for the citizens who are willing to put their money where their mouth is by consistently endorsing, by referendum, increasing gas and sales taxes to pay for it.
A lot of the damage is done but they have made a concerted effort to turn things around. It is also note worthy that, while most US transit systems have seen declines in transit usage in the last 2 years mostly due to the economy L.A. ridership has continued to increase despite the fact that California has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the nation.
Hats off to L.A.!

 

[doady]

An interesting observation from the recent Land Lines.........



The point I find most interesting is that LA and NYC have similar population densities yet NYC has dearly 5 times the transit ridership. Really, TC and other expansions should be shelved until the city gets serious about expanding its employment base (assessment).

Yeah, the difference in ridership has nothing to do with the fact that NYC has 10 times the amount of rapid transit that LA has. Transit expansion clearly makes no difference.

 

[Glen]

Yeah, the difference in ridership has nothing to do with the fact that NYC has 10 times the amount of rapid transit that LA has. Transit expansion clearly makes no difference.

The point is that transit expansion makes little difference if it cannot serve a purpose. Let me put this to you. If you could add as much rapid transit to LA as there is in New York where would put it? Furthermore do you really believe that doing so would increase ridership levels to equal that New York?

 

[Second_in_pie]

I think that was kinda glen's point there.

 

[nfitz]

Fair enough ...

 

[valkoholic]

Good transit tends to follow good land-use planning. Areas of Toronto (and likely any City) that can support high levels of transit (because of good land use) tend to provide high levels of transit. Areas with crappy land use distribution tend to have poor transit because it's not worth it to run empty busses on 5-minute frequencies.

The GTA could get more benefit out of taking a close look at how we're planning communities (a real look, not the crap that happens now) than it would out of spending billions more on transit.

For example, RBC builds a call centre with 4,000 employees in suburban Mississauga. 95% will drive to work, an average of 20km each way. The transportation infrastucture required to support this is actually massive (crudely two lanes of expressway, 20 kilometres long at a cost of maybe $50-100 million).

It's not as exciting, but we'd get way, way better bang for our buck as a society by not allowing bad land-use. Right now even with the province committing billions to transit we are still effectively going backwards.

 

[GTS]

LA has invested a lot in transit since 1984. LA only had buses before that and had lost all of its streetcar lines in the early '60's (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?). LA's current system has a total length of 126.5 km. with two subway lines (Red & Purple Line) and three LRT lines (Blue, Green and Gold Lines). I got this info. from UrbanRail.net. I hope Toronto starts heavily investing in transit like LA has, a lot of this money is coming from the State of California as well, the Bay area already had the BART system up and running now LA is getting its own system. LA was the birthplace of the 'Freeway' but we all know nothing is 'Free' and our gas taxes pay for a lot of our highways, now California like Ontario is toying with the idea of tolling our 'freeways'. If they do this some of this money could be used for transit expansion as well as road maintenance and expansion. Another way to generate revenue is to do the evil thing and introduce a new tax. All of European countries pay a lot more for fuel because it is heavily taxed. I read that a certain percentage of their heavy fuel tax goes into public transit projects. This seems to be working because a lot of cities over there put North American cities (except NYC) to shame by how extensive their transit networks are.

Wherever it comes from, Canada (and the US) needs to find more revenue for transit expansion in all of our larger cities. This type of investment will help our economies and our environment at the same time.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I don't think there's another city in the entire world that would benefit more from massively expanded commuter/GO-type rail improvements than LA. They'd probably have to create quite a few new rail corridors, though, which means tunnelling/expropriating/razing/elevating. It's easier said than done...but at least LA is trying to do it.