LOS ANGELES | Transportation News & Discussion

[ChrisLA]

Well it’s not all that safe on NYC subways and buses either anymore. I have a friend who lives in downtown Brooklyn and it’s got so bad since the pandemic that he bought a car and refused to ride the trains. I agree it’s pretty bad taking the subway in LA and it started getting bad about two years before the pandemic started but has gotten worse now. I’m not saying things never happened before, because certain routes going through rough areas of the city could be bad, but usually if you mind your own business it was still pretty safe. I used to commute everyday to work back in the late 90’s early 2000’s and never had a problem.

I stopped taking public transportation here in LA for that very reason. I think it’s probably gotten worse in most major cities in the USA. I even noticed the last two times I visited San Diego I took the trolley and there was definitely some sketchy people on the train more so than the previous years I’ve been on their trains.

[craigs]

Transit ridership is generally down across the country. When ordinary commuters disappear, safety drops and all of the dysfunction that was there the whole time becomes more obvious to the casual observer.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle article posted today, the Bay Area's transit ridership has dropped even more precipitously than ours has, and remains more anemic since the onset of the pandemic. The article reports that Los Angeles bus ridership is now 80% of pre-pandemic levels, compared with only 60% in the Bay Area. Trains are doing worse in both regions, however; as of December, LA's Metro was carrying only 57% of its pre-pandemic ridership, while BART was at only 38%. Train ridership in both regions was significantly higher in the months prior to December, however, so it's possible the numbers are reflecting holiday vacations for workers and students.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by ChrisLA

Well it’s not all that safe on NYC subways and buses either anymore. I have a friend who lives in downtown Brooklyn and it’s got so bad since the pandemic that he bought a car and refused to ride the trains. I agree it’s pretty bad taking the subway in LA and it started getting bad about two years before the pandemic started but has gotten worse now. I’m not saying things never happened before, because certain routes going through rough areas of the city could be bad, but usually if you mind your own business it was still pretty safe. I used to commute everyday to work back in the late 90’s early 2000’s and never had a problem.

I stopped taking public transportation here in LA for that very reason. I think it’s probably gotten worse in most major cities in the USA. I even noticed the last two times I visited San Diego I took the trolley and there was definitely some sketchy people on the train more so than the previous years I’ve been on their trains.

This. I have friends in Chicago who have been terrified to use the trains there since 2020. And Chicago reddit confirms this way of thinking. Those friends used trains every day to work. Not since the pandemic though. They drive.

NYC reddit does too, those people don't sugarcoat how bad NYC trains have been. And NYC tik tok has a gazillion scary subway videos the past 2 years.

[SoCalKid]

If anyone hasn't seen Fred Rosen's emails to Metro regarding the Sepulveda Transit Corridor that Numble has been posting on twitter, I suggest you go read them. I don't think I've ever seen more consistent nasty (non-anonymous) correspondence in my life, especially from a somewhat public figure. I have to imagine that those emails have destroyed any influence he ever had over Metro leadership.