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NOWHERE_TRANSIT

                                           October 30, 2001
Some figures on the popularity 
of public transit in LA, from 
"The Geography of Nowhere" (1993)             
by James Howard Kunstler:                      
                                               NOWHERE_MAN
                              
   "...the city has gone ahead an built the
   first 19-mile line of a proposed        
   150 mile light rail system -- 
   a pygmy outfit compared to the original 
   1600 miles of the Pacific Electric and its   
   ancillaries.  This first leg, called the
   Blue Line, opened in the summer of 1990.
   It runs from Long Beach north to        
   downtown, along an old railroad         
   right-of-way, through some of the city's
   poorest neighborhoods, including Watts. 
   Officials predicted a weekday ridership 
   of 5000 to 8000, but after a year of    
   operation it was up to 27,000."
                             p 215


A few skeptical questions:
       
    Is that ridership   
    number really that        How does that compare 
    large?                    to the car traffic 
                              doing a similar trip?
    What's the current                             
    state of the system,               Is the system anywhere 
    and it's current                   near paying for itself?
    ridership?
    
         Anecdotally: I've heard 
         from someone in SF that 
         they really like that 
         system.  They use it all 
         the time when in LA.


                                             By the way: I also 
                                             remember hearing about 
                                             someone in LA trying 
                                             to open a private 
                                             bike-highway.  Whatever 
                                             happened with that?

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