Metrolink and California have the lowest ridership per mile of track in the country

I looked up California and for all the -passenger rail infrastructure it has built over the last 30 years it is something like only 100 riders per mile of track operated-99 riders per mile for 388 miles operated-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... _ridership compared to Boston MBTA which has 300 riders per mile operated for 388 mile of track. Seems that the legacy commuter rail systems like Chicago and Philly are actually doing quite well..

Not particularly surprising given the low-density sprawl that is California.

Chicago grew out along the rail lines. Boston pretty much the same.

Southern California grew along the interstates.

Transit in California has always been a solution in need of a problem. Yeah, there's lots of traffic congestion, but when you have omnidirectional commuter flows, that's going to happen.

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Los Angelos is supposed to be the second largest city in the Untied States but a google satilite of its downtown core shows a modest downtown hub . Detroit,New Orleans.Houston and Atlanta have downtowns 3 to 4 times the size of Downtown LA. Though LA surpassed Chicago as the nations 2end Largest city sometime in 1990 something in population and area I need to get accurate pop per sqaure miles stats coupled with census data from 2020

Let's keep this on topic. LA has never been dense. It has never had a real downtown or commercial core. So yeah, transit, and longer distance rail transit in particular, is always going to struggle.

And it's not just about density — it's about the literal sprawl of the city. Its land area is 2x the size of Chicago while having less than 2x the population. The larger metro has a population of 560/sq mi. NYC metro is 10x that and is 1/10th the area.

Agree on the density making LD difficult.

You've got three major airports (LAX/BUR/LGB) in LA County alone plus two others within 10 miles of the LA County border (SNA/ONT). If people can get to one of those in under an hour, they're probably not going to consider spending 60-90 minutes getting to LAUPT to hop on Amtrak cross-country. Certainly not at today's prices.

The same goes for commuting. Almost nobody already owning a car will chose a 90+ minutes on a 2+ seat ride to get to/from work if they can drive it in 30-60.

I need a side by side of a Red Car map and todays LA freeway system along with a map of LA Light Rail. The Red Car system from 1900 to 1961 had 1100 miles of right of way which is way bigger then NYC subway 400 miles of track. Some even credit the Red Car with the low density sprawl that is LA as the Ted Car owners were in the suburban real estate business. Also Downtown LA stank literally due to the sewage in the LA river which pushed many out to the burbs….Same with Chicago and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal

By the way Long Island railroad is busyest per mile at 1100 riders per track mile operated

No one had their own cars in 1960. People are not going to just give that up.

Lots of people had their own cars in 1960. The decline in the extent of Pacific Electric is traceable to the 1930's; the rail network of passenger service had shrunk to something like 50% by 1940, and the 30 PCCs they bought (by order of the regulatory authorities) were the first new equipment they had acquired for more than a decade. (For context, the fleet of 600-series Hollywood cars numbered over 100, and plenty of pre-WWI wood-bodied interurbans were still in revenue service.) By 1950 it was received wisdom that automobiles were the future -- GM showed people the future in their exhibit at the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940, and for those born too late to see it, just look at an aerial video of any major U. S. city today. One discrepancy is that in the exhibit the cars were whizzing along the freeways and through the cloverleaves without a care in the world.

Then GM bought the street car companies and converted them to buses.

Anyway, the point remains that there is nothing surprising about LA having the poorest per mile ridership. The density isn't there, there is no real downtown core to which people would be getting to, and people are much more culturally addicted to their cars than in most other parts of the country, because the infrastructure didn't have to deal with anything in its way and you could build 10-lane highways if you wanted to.

It is truly insane. I was there a few weeks ago and there was bumper to bumper traffic on a mundane saturday afternoon when there was nothing going on.

lensovet wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:07 pm Then GM bought the street car companies and converted them to buses.

You gotta admit, buying up Pacific Electric was a brilliant strategic move on GM's part...

You also can't ignore the economics of being able to expand bus routes practically overnight vs. trying to build new track and trolley wire to follow the growth of the post-war LA Basin.

Well what needs to happen is for LA to clean up its downtown and make it safe again and have regional planning to stop sprawl and push for more high-density development downtown. There is still a HUGE underground streetcar terminal and tunnel downtown.- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qur4bvY5GB8

As seen in the show V, in the 80s

I've read that the tunnel has been encroached upon by the basements of high-rises which were built sometime after the rail service ceased -- that may be it at 2:55 in the video. Moreover, the lines using it, with the exception of Glendale-Burbank, were all street running after leaving the tunnel, which wasn't all that long to begin with. (I believe that the closer-in hillside ROW of G-B has been built over, and the median in Glenoaks Blvd. between Glendale and Burbank, formerly the PE ROW, has been planted with tall palm trees, now over 50 years old, to which local residents may be counted upon to chain themselves should any attempt be made to replace them with tracks and wires.) All that remains is the Subway Terminal building itself, plus the empty space (shown in the video)above the platform area (5 short tracks). At street level is now the lobby of the apartment (formerly office) building above.
Forget it.