The EconomistFebruary 8th 2020 United States 25T
he expo line, a light railway which
connects the city of Santa Monica to
downtown Los Angeles, is a marvel. For de-
cades, Angelenos travelling to and from the
beach had to sit in traffic on Interstate 10.
Since 2012, when the line opened, repur-
posing a long-closed Pacific Electric rail
line, they have been able to catch a sleek
train instead. On board, Josh, clutching a
smart yellow bicycle, says that thanks to
the line he has managed to avoid buying a
car since moving back to the city from New
York three years ago. Instead, he commutes
by bike and train to his tech-firm office
each day.
Such stories delight urbanists, who
want to make laless dependent on the car.
The city is trying hard to throw off its repu-
tation as an automotive city. In 2016 71% of
voters in Los Angeles County approved
Measure M, a ballot initiative which im-
posed a sales tax to fund public transport.
That and older taxes mean for every dollar
they spend, people in the Los Angeles ur-
ban area now contribute 2 cents to public
transport. Several new rail lines are
planned. Last year the mayor of the city of
Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, announced that
he wants to reduce the number of car trips
there by half over the next 30 years.
Yet much more common than people
like Josh are people like Debbie, a 22-year-
old pharmacy worker. Standing waiting for
a bus in El Monte, a city in the east of the
sprawl, she looks sniffily around at her sur-
roundings. Today her car has broken down;
otherwise she would be in it. Driving “is
just so much easier”, she says. Even as its
budget has expanded, the number of peo-
ple actually using public transport in la
has collapsed. Total ridership is down al-
most a quarter since 2013. Three in four An-
gelenos travel to work on their own in a car,
the highest figure ever.
Half a century ago Reyner Banham, a
British architectural critic, mocked urban
planners who wanted to force la to readopt
public transport. “It will not be easy to per-
suade Angelenos... [to] climb into whatever
coloured rolling-stock the new dream sys-
tem offers,” he wrote. Some fear he may be
proved right: it seems to be easier to per-
suade Angelenos to pay for public tran-
sport than to get them to use it.
According to Michael Manville, a pro-
fessor at ucla’s Institute of Transportation
Studies, the driving factor behind the de-
cline is that public transport in la is mostly
a safety-net for the poor, not a service for
most people. In a typical year, the average
person in southern California takes 36 bus
or train trips. But most people take none at
all. And in recent years, as sub-prime credit
has proliferated and wages have risen, poor
people in the city have acquired cars. The
proportion of households without access
to a car fell from 10% in 2000 to 7% in 2015.
Among immigrants, the fall was even
sharper, from 14% to 8%. For a while the
opening of new rail lines balanced out fall-ing use of buses but no longer.
According to Mr Manville, providing
public-transport options is not enough to
persuade people to get out of their cars.
Trains and buses must be almost as fast and
convenient as driving. In sprawling Los An-
geles,with its extensive freeway system,
even the almost permanent traffic jams do
not slow people down to the speed of bus-
es. With over 100 square miles of parking,
over four Manhattans, there is usually
somewhere to leave the car.
What can be done to turn things round?
Jessica Meaney, who runs a charity which
lobbies for transport for poorer people,
says that the city’s planners have often
been too “romantic”, prioritising grand
new rail lines and trying to attract free-
wheeling yuppies. Meanwhile the needs of
poorer people, who mostly use buses, have
been neglected. She notes several simple
things that need improvement. Pavements
around bus routes should be less danger-
ous, so people do not feel scared of walking
to the stop. Rail stations need toilets and
baby-changing stations, so that people
with children (or without) are not caught
short. Police officers patrolling lines could
be less aggressive towards young men.
Modest changes are already under way.
Last month the Los Angeles County Metro-
politan Transportation Authority, which
manages most public transport in the la
urban area, announced that it will update
its bus routes, which have been mostly un-
changed for 30 years. Joshua Schank, the
agency’s chief innovation officer, explains
how a study of people’s travelling habits
found that buses were particularly bad for
short journeys out of normal commuting
hours—taking a child to a doctor, for exam-
ple. Make those easier, and some two-car
families might drop one.
Yet such tweaks will probably not be
enough to lessen la’s legendary traffic
jams. And as traffic worsens, it creates a
downward spiral, as buses slow down even
more and people switch to cars. Mr Schank
says the city will eventually need some sort
of congestion pricing. The roads “will nev-
er accommodate the demand as long as the
price is zero,” he says. A pilot is already be-
ing planned. That will be controversial,
however. Even removing a single lane of
traffic to create a dedicated bus lane can
cause a storm of anger.
For other American cities, or at least
those which look a little like la, all this
ought to be worrying. Among the fastest-
growing parts of America are sunbelt cities
such as Houston, Atlanta and Phoenix.
Such places also tend to have liberal leaders
who want to move away from space-hog-
ging polluting cars. Yet none of those cities
have anywhere near the resources lahas
put into public transport to such little ef-
fect. Money is important but to get people
out of their cars it will take bravery too. 7LOS ANGELES
Angelenos are happy to pay for public transport, but loth to use it
Public transport
In a jam