eric and will have already weighed in on yet another clueless public transportation versus car article in the los angeles times, and now i’ll pile on. one obvious thing the author missed is taking the dash “d” line from the los angeles times building to union station. and the times for the north hollywood to union station trip are obviously wrong. (it takes thirty minutes from station to station.)
you have to wonder what goes through the head of the editors at the times when they decide to do yet another iteration of this article. why not an article about people who actually rely on public transportation (by choice or not)?
I'm kind of conflicted about this.
On one hand, the public transit system really needs some end-to-end thinking; it's clearly undercapitalized and without leadership -- or at least without someone whose ass is on the line when it's useless. the article does a reasonably-good job of exposing the little stupidities that make public transit use unviable for many people.
On the other hand, paeans to cars really drive me up the wall as someone who *has* experienced the pleasure of a working, well-oiled public transit system ;). If LA *was* to have one of those, it'd be fantastic... and too often, these kind of articles, when written from a naive viewpoint, fail to give an impression that this stuff is fixable, leaving naive readers with the assumption that public transit is the worst possible means of getting around.