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Community hopes to cut down tree plan (Park La Brea News/Beverly Press)
A story about Metro’s plans to eventually remove about 135 trees along Wilshire Boulevard as part of the construction of the first phase of the Purple Line Extension. Here’s our post about the plan that includes this key detail: Metro also plans to plant two trees for every one that is removed. Still, some community members in the Miracle Mile aren’t happy, pointing to many years of effort to beautify Wilshire Boulevard and unhappy that adult trees may be replaced with younger, smaller ones.
El Sereno’s Soto Street bridge may not have a historic leg to stand on (The Eastsider)
The bridge once carried Pacific Electric streetcars over the intersection of Huntington and Mission. City of Los Angeles officials don’t think the 80-year-old structure is very distinctive architecturally; others think otherwise. My three cents: to my eyes the bridge doesn’t look much different than other highway-type bridges.
Will women every feel completely safe on transit? (The Atlantic Cities)
Very interesting post that seems to conclude the answer to the question in the headline is ‘no’ — at least not until society does a better job of decreasing instances of sexism. It’s also worth noting that women tend to ride transit more than men. Excerpt:
Women who aren’t bound to the bus by economic necessity cite reliability and convenience as reasons they choose to stick with their cars. That’s more or less what men say. But women, regardless of income, tend to have an additional factor: safety. In a 2007 survey, 63 percent of New York City subway riders said they’d been harassed on a train, and 10 percent reported having been assaulted. It seems safe to assume that most of those riders were women. Among those who merely witnessed harassment or assault on public transit, 93 percent reported that the victim was female.
It’s no wonder there’s a gender gap when it comes to transit riders’ concerns. But there’s also a gender-class gap, between the women who can simply refuse to ride because of those concerns and those who have to get on the bus anyway. “Women tend to be more fearful in public environments like the bus stop than when they’re on the bus or on the train,” says Loukaitou-Sideris. This makes sense: on the bus there are often other travelers, but at the bus stop you might be alone. Even then there are exceptions; late at night, a woman might find herself on the train with only one other passenger she doesn’t trust, just the two of them in an enclosed space.
The writer lives in our area and says that while she is willing to ride Metro during the day, she’s much less apt to take the agency’s transit at night when there are far fewer riders on many routes and a greater chance of her being isolated with other riders she doesn’t trust. Your thoughts, women riders?
Public transportation ridership is growing — here are the facts (APTA)
In response to recent criticism over its recent claim that transit ridership in the U.S. is at the highest since 1956, the American Public Transportation Assn. has put out a subsequent release. Much of the criticism centered on the fact that a far greater percentage of Americans used transit in 1956 than currently. Excerpt from the release:
On March 10, 2014 the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) reported that public transportation use in the United States in 2013 rose to 10.7 billion trips – the highest number in 57 years. APTA and its predecessor organizations have collected ridership information since 1917. The highest U.S. public transit ridership number in history was 23.5 billion trips in 1946, a decade when many Americans did not own a car. The ownership of cars en masse came later and led to suburbs designed for car use and subsequent sprawl.
This ridership increase isn’t a one-year blip on the radar. If you look at the 18 year period from 1995-2013, public transportation ridership grew 37.2 percent, almost double the amount of the population growth at 20.3 percent. This is a long-term trend that shows that more and more Americans are using public transportation. APTA has used the 1995 number because after that year, ridership increased due to the passage of the landmark ISTEA legislation and other surface transportation bills which increased funding for public transportation.
More recent shifts in trends point to the growing demand for public transportation. Our analysis shows that the 2005 gas price shock, when prices first went to $3 for a gallon of gasoline, combined with demographic shifts including the Millennials’ desire for travel options and the Baby Boomers’ return to urban areas, have established consistent travel behaviors that led to the highest public transportation ridership since 1956.
My three cents: both sides have a point. I’ve never found quite understood the point of comparing contemporary transit ridership to that in the 1950s, when there were far fewer Americans. On the other hand, I do think it’s worth noting that in recent times transit ridership has been healthy in many quarters and worthy of further investment.
From the Department of Reader Complaints….
I finally, and inevitably, received a complaint about the occasional postings of Bruce Springsteen videos — despite the fact that “Thunder Road” is at its core a song about the importance of mobility in escaping loser towns. In the spirit of diversity, today’s musical interlude is more transit specific….