Ridership

Remember last year searching the mall parking lot for a parking place? Let this year be different. Try the bus. You'll arrive refreshed and ready to shop. As you stride toward the entrance, you will actually gain energy as you see those around you losing theirs. When leaving, depending on your purchases, you may also utilize some weight-training techniques. Schedules can be found at post offices and colleges. For a more personal touch, you may contact bus information at (714) 636-RIDE to have them prepare your route.

Re "Train wreck," Opinion, Jan. 13 The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is pursuing exactly the path it should be pursuing -- that of a balanced transportation network in Los Angeles. Rail always has been more expensive than buses, but rail can move significantly more passengers at much higher speeds. Buses run on the same gridlocked roads as private cars. Neither I nor anyone I work with is going to forsake a private auto for a commute that takes longer than driving oneself to work.

We didn't just survive "Carmageddon" last weekend, we basked in it. Neighbors had dinner together. Angelenos strolled to their local coffee shops and biked around town. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky gushed that Los Angeles residents "have turned Carmageddon into Carmaheaven. " People waxed wistfully that we should do this every weekend. Well, no, we can't do it every weekend. Just as Carmageddon was a construction success because time was built into the schedule for things to go wrong (nothing did)

An eighth daily round-trip train, first-class club cars and promotional fares are the first steps Amtrak is considering--for as early as April--to improve rail service between San Diego and Los Angeles. The government-financed corporation also is researching the estimated cost and ridership if 10 daily round trips were run at sustained speeds of 100 m.p.h., with a goal of cutting substantial time from the present 2-hour, 45-minute one-way trip.

State transportation officials on Wednesday pledged to mount a state and local effort to save at least some passenger rail service between Los Angeles and San Diego should Congress approve President Reagan's budget proposal to eliminate Amtrak subsidies.

A proposal to build a costly elevated light-rail line down the middle of busy Hawthorne Boulevard will be the topic of a public forum Tuesday at Torrance City Hall. City Council members scheduled the 5:30 p.m. hearing last week after receiving a draft engineering study on the ambitious transit project. The line, which would connect to another that is being built as part of the Century Freeway, is in the early planning stages and faces numerous funding and other obstacles.

I want to thank the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for buying me a car. Word that the MTA will more than double the cost of a one-way ride on the Blue Line to $2.35 (July 14) makes the economics of this unavoidably simple. Include the 25-cent DASH shuttle bus ride from the Blue Line stop to my office. My environmentally and traffic-friendly commute on mass transit under the new fare structure will soon cost $2.60 each way: $1,352 a year. Well, let's see. There is a 1985 Chrysler LeBaron listed in the classified section for $975.

It's easy to see why many Californians are losing patience with the bullet train. Voters who were asked in 2008 to approve $9.95 billion in bonds to build a high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco were told the project would cost $33 billion and be completed by 2020, yet a more realistic business plan released Tuesday by the rail authority placed the price tag at — whoops — $98 billion and the completion date at 2033....

Re "Subway Tunnel Ban May Be Lifted," Sept. 19 Cheers to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for being the one politician to have the guts to push for the subway extension. This project, though expensive, would cost no more than the proposed tunnel alternative for the 91 Freeway in Orange County. Buses are cited as a cheaper option, but they cause their own congestion by cutting in and out of traffic and are actually more expensive to operate than rail on a per-passenger basis. Light rail is cited as cheaper, but it doesn't have the capacity or ridership of the subway.