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California has the longest light-rail line in the world. It doesn’t quite work (www.sfchronicle.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/losangeles@lemmy.world
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What do you all think about this article?

I will agree the A line isn't exactly amazing, but I also don't completely agree with some assertions and experiences from the author. The author mentions how long it takes to get to the extremes of the A line, but the A line isn't exactly meant to travel across vast distances quickly, its meant to provide connections along its routes. I do agree it would be nice to go from Pasadena to long beach very quickly, (in the same way with the E line being able to get to santa monica from East LA quicker), but we'd need to develop an additional tracks to allow faster service and/or priority to the line. Those can be done later. It feels like for a lot of LA's history, creating train lines is important because of how hard it is to do, and how much harder it will be in the future.

I don't quite agree with the author's bad experiences on the A line. Yeah there are definitely bad times where the train smells horrible, or weird alarm things happen, but it is extremely rare in my experience and hasn't dissuaded me from using it.

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[–] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The A line is probably on the cleaner side, and it serves its purpose well. It's a light rail, not a high speed train. People use it daily to commute, and it's convenient on weekends when you don't want to drive. The more stops the better IMO. That's what makes it useful, not just stopping at stadiums.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Really? I think I would say its on the dirtier side compared to other rails only because its used so much and overcrowded. Which rail do you think is the worst? To clarify, I think the A line is the worst (ignoring the k and C line which i hardly take) but even still not discouragingly bad.

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    • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

    The authors frustration is real. It shouldn’t take that long to get from one end to the other. The train should stop at real destinations such as stadiums.

    It might help if there were express lines that only stopped at major intersections. It would probably help a lot if the lights would change to allow the trains to pass without waiting.

    The a line seems bottom tier compared to other subway or mass transit solutions that other cities have already fixed.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    What makes a stadium a more real destination than a neighborhood that people would commute to and from?

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    40,000 people at once.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago

    i feel you're missing one half of the equation here. So we got 40k people that want to go to dodgers stadium. Where are these 40k people going to come from? The forum? LAX? The rose bowl? No most of these people are going to come from home, and if you don't have the train by a neighborhood, its more discouraging to take the train than just driving.
    Part of the issue is that LA doesn't build dense housing as well. The neighborhoods that trainstations stop at should be very dense so you can remove the need to drive places, but LA/US zoning is very bad. Thankfully SB 70 (name may be incorrect) will help with this issue.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    LR isn't meant for that wont handke it and would be a fucked up mess, you need heavy rail to move those numbers.

    LR is like a dedicated bus line, mostly for moving locals three or 4 stops along.

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