Current State of Public Transportation in Los Angeles
According to Bullard, Johnson, and Torres (2004), “Los Angeles County is one of the nation’s most populous counties, with over 9.5 million inhabitants spread over 4,081 square miles. Covering 470 square miles is the fabled City of Angeles—Los Angeles, California, with a population of 3.2 million” (p. 33). Los Angeles has the second largest bus system in the country, and public transit is operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA), all within a 1,433-square-mile radius (Bullard, Johnson, & Torres, 2004, p. 33). Furthermore, according to Cavanaugh (2012), each day the MTA carries more than 1 million passengers, running 2,723 buses and operating trains over 87 miles of track.
According to Ray (2007):
However, those who do ride public transportation are primarily those with low incomes, or minorities, and “L.A. transit riders are 85 percent people of color, 60 percent women, and almost 100 percent working class—65 percent have family incomes under $15,000” (Ray, 2007). Los Angeles has a unique combination of a high population density with a need for a large surface transportation network. In order for rail to be cost effective, there needs to be density within the corridor of the rail. In areas where there is less activity, buses are more effective (Rubin, 2000).
According to Ray (2007):
Large rail construction companies, land developers, and politicians from both big business political parties who wanted to be big money brokers built a separate and unequal mass transit system in Los Angeles. On the one hand, they constructed the most expensive rail project in the world—a tiny number of miles that cost over $12 billion and carries only eight percent of L.A.’s mass transit riders. Mass transit carries about three percent of the daily trips of L.A.’s ten million residents.
-"LA Bus Riders' Union Rolls Over Transit Racism"
Antonio Villaraigosa has been mayor since 2005, and according to LA Weekly, “Villaraigosa is nothing if not "visionary." But as has been concluded many times before by papers like The Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly and The New Yorker (after sticking around long enough to follow up on his ambitions), the man has a hell of a time turning his visions into functional reality” (Wilson, 2012). In 2007, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued Executive Directive 10, and instructed all city departments to develop sustainability plans. These plans are managed primarily by the city's Department of Environmental Affairs. Programs include aims such as green infrastructure, improving air quality and mitigating climate change, among other items (Portney, 2013, p. 240).
Below see "Tackling Traffic in Los Angeles" from TIME:
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