Editorial: Southern California mass transit for the ages, not just today – San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Pasadena Star-News/Los Angeles Daily News

The following excerpt appeared in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News and Los Angeles Daily News on February 8, 2016. To read the full Editorial, click here.

Editorial: Southern California mass transit for the ages, not just today – San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Pasadena Star-News/Los Angeles Daily News

Mapping the Metro Gold Line. (Staff photo by Walt Mancini )

Mapping the Metro Gold Line. (Staff photo by Walt Mancini )

By The Editorial Board

February 8, 2016

[Excerpt]:

Metro ridership is down in recent years across the mass-transit platforms — bus, light rail, subway, Metrolink heavy rail. Should Southern California, then, reverse course and go back to simply building more freeways and widening boulevards?

It should not. Been on a new section of freeway lately? They go to gridlock as soon as they are opened. “Rush hours” that used to be just that are now the all-day norm rather than exception. There is a tiny driving window around noon; otherwise, as the radio traffic reporters say, it’s red tail lights from San Bernardino to Silicon Beach, Porter Ranch to the far OC.

The reasons for the rise in driving rather than busing and training are several, and complicated, and truthfully not fully understood. But lower gasoline prices, the availability of driver licenses to immigrants without legal residency and relatively inexpensive cars and car loans are certainly among them. Also, mass-transit fans note that compared to mid-1980s numbers, ridership is up almost 30 percent.

To read the full Editorial, click here.

1 comment

  1. Gary Bryant says:

    If there’s any clear reasons why ridership is down, let me give you one to chew on.

    I live in Riverside and we have several Metrolink stations in the area. That’s the good news.

    Bad news: They cost too much, they don’t run late enough and, in many cases, they don’t run on weekends.

    These reasons aren’t so complicated.

    So is Metrolink unaware of these problems, or are they simply unwilling to do anything about them?

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