Opinion: LA’s half-empty criminal subways don’t have to stay that way

It’s no secret that the pandemic has devastated public transportation across the country, and Los Angeles’ ever-expanding subway system is no exception. With many employees working from home all or most of the week, passengers are still riding the region’s subway and light rail lines two-thirds from its pre-COVID peak. The situation is even worse for systems like Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, which rely overly on office workers and employers who have largely moved out of downtown San Francisco.

But therein lies the key to Metro’s long-term recovery. Originally conceived in the 1970s as a BART-like system primarily serving downtown employers and commuters, the subway has since expanded to the wider reaches of Los Angeles County. At the same time, downtown LA has become a residential and entertainment destination, not just a job center. Because of this, today’s rail network serves a variety of travelers who travel to many destinations for different reasons. That explains why subways are now running for the first time since the federal government started keeping records two decades ago bonus more people than their Bay Area counterparts.

However, to survive and thrive in the long run, Metro needs to build on those strengths and go out of business as usual. The best recipe for long-term success – one we’ve seen in booming cities around the world, from Milan to Busan – is to build more homes, offices and mixed-use projects within walking distance of train stations. In addition to maintaining the metro track, more such walkable neighborhoods will bring environmental, economic and quality of life benefits to their residents.

But it is local governments, not the metro, that determine what is built around stations. And all too often, city leaders are taken by surprise by wealthy homeowners reflexively resisting new developments, especially high-density housing.

Even when cities allow dense development near subway stations, they often contain so many parking spaces that the convenient location is ridiculed. Take the office project that the LA City Council just approved in Hollywood’s Sunset and Wilcox. Sure, it’s a 15-story tower a short walk from the red line. But with enough space for 1,179 passenger cars, it is actually a parking garage with a few offices on top.

LA and other local governments should be asked to relax building and zoning restrictions near train stations to eliminate onerous demands and endless hearings. With the region’s severe housing shortage and skyrocketing prices driving lower-income residents to other regions and states, or in too many cases onto the streets, for denser, accessible housing, a humanitarian need is just as important as transit. With Metro and other carriers facing a “fiscal cliff” as federal COVID aid runs out and passenger numbers continue to fall, state leaders could include relaxed land-use requirements in any bailout package.

As Metro looks to build expensive but important additions to its existing rail network, such as extending the Purple Line along Wilshire Boulevard to Westwood and beyond, for example, heads of state can also help the agency save money by making donations. main registration authority on construction and an optimized environmental assessment, as is the case in Paris, Madrid and other successful cities with many means of transport. Otherwise, projects often exceed budgets and deadlines due to endless concessions to hyperlocal interests, lawsuits and Byzantine bureaucracy. This is a microcosm of why the United States is now under the worst of the world’s advanced economies when it comes to building large transit projects.

Also in the interest of efficiency, the subway should build more dedicated lane high-speed bus connections rather than new rail lines, particularly for remote communities that are not densely populated to justify costly track construction. Dedicated bus lanes can move people as fast as trains small fraction costs.

To resume passenger activity in the short term, Metro needs to address crime and passenger safety concerns that reflect wider economic and social challenges, as well as the passenger shortage. Because there is a housing shortage and therefore high rents main thing homelessness, state and local policymakers can help Metro contribute to the long-term solution by enabling more housing near stations, which has the added benefit of encouraging more passengers.

Four decades after its founding, the LA Metro Rail faces its greatest challenges. Failure to do so would mean a downward spiral of declining services and passengers, and a betrayal of the vision being sold to voters. But with more people able to live, relax, shop and work near subway stations, the system can achieve long-term stability, provide a return on the region’s multibillion-dollar investment and deliver on the promise of rail in Meet Los Angeles.

Ethan N. Elkind directs the climate program at the UC Berkeley Law Center for Law, Energy and the Environment and is the author of Railtown: The Fight for the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Future of the City.