If there was ever a time to get funding sorted out and put actions to words about L.A.’s sorry excuse for a public transportation system, now is it.
Southern California commuters are being hit hard by some of the highest gasoline prices in the nation. And, like commuters elsewhere in the country, many of them are turning to mass transit for relief. Reports from both NPR and Reuters mention the price of gas at around $4 a gallon and in a city where your life depends on how you can get from point A to point B, a the price of a one way bus ticket ($1.25) trumps the gas price by a mile (no pun intended).
“We have the most congested freeways in the United States,” said Marc Littman, spokesman for L.A.’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority or MTA. “The average commuter wastes 72 hours per year stuck in traffic and $1,000 in the cost of fuel. So people have reached a tipping point.”
Ridership on the city’s subway system is up 5 percent from a year ago and, with no gas price relief in sight, the MTA expects the upward trend to continue.
Yesterday was actually “Bike to Work Day” in Los Angeles County and tomorrow signifies the start U.S. National Bike to Work Day and some cyclists here in the concrete jungle have taken to using their bicycles. Angelenos, if you’re out there, walking in L.A might not be possible, but riding a bicycle is.
“I started biking to work a month and a half ago and the real reason was gas prices,” said David Colo, who works in the film industry in Burbank. “I just didn’t want to pay it.”
Michelle Mowery, the senior bicycle coordinator for the City of Los Angeles, has been working 14 years to make the city more bike-friendly, but admits that progress has been slow.
“We have been built for cars and planned around cars and now it is really clear that bikes and transit are part of the equation,” said Mowery, 48, after completing her 25-mile (40-km) ride from Long Beach to L.A. City Hall.
Dozens of bikers rode down the famous Sunset Boulevard from Hollywood to Downtown, including City Hall employee Ed Magos, who does the trip once a week and says the most dangerous part is people opening their car doors on him.
“Most people completely write off biking in L.A. as undoable,” Magos said. “It is totally doable, it just takes a little bit of learning.”
Bike to Work Day in L.A is in its 14th year and going strong. The Los Angeles County MTA expects a record number of participants to ride around town today.
Photo by Meanest Indian via Flickr
Quotes by Mary Milliken for Reuters via Yahoo
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