Transit Terrorism

The city of Los Angeles is going to add some bike and bus-only lanes to its roads. This will, by necessity, take those lanes away from cars, which might make traffic problems worse, initially. But ideally, over time, it will alleviate congestion because it will encourage people to use forms of transit that do not involve getting into a car and becoming part of the problem, like the subway, a bus, a bicycle or their own two feet. This proposition, to not automatically use a car to go anywhere, no matter how close the destination or how convenient it might be to public transit, is causing residents of Los Angeles to experience a profound form of cosmic terror:

“What they’re trying to do is make congestion so bad, you’ll have to get out of your car,” said James O’Sullivan, a founder of Fix the City, a group that is planning a lawsuit to stop the plan. “But what are you going to do, take two hours on a bus? They haven’t given us other options.”

…

Bruce Feldman, who has lived in Southern California for more than six decades, worried that under the transportation plan, residents could end up fenced into their own neighborhoods by traffic. The number of intersections where traffic crawls most slowly, according to city estimates, will double by 2035 under the plan.

“There are so many things going on in L.A., but if you can’t get to them, what’s the point of living here?” said Mr. Feldman, 67, who runs a luxury gift business and lives in Santa Monica, which already has its own network of bike lanes — and gridlock problems. “I’m not opposed to bikes, but you’re going to be dead before you see the city these people envision, so what do we do until then?”

…

After moving west from New York, Gabrielle deBarros initially commuted to work on public transit. But she often found that walking two miles was faster than waiting for the bus. Now that she has a car, the addition of bus-only lanes will not change her habits, she said.

“L.A. desperately needs some improvement in mass transit,” said Ms. deBarros, who now stays at home to raise her daughter. “But I don’t think most people out here are going to say, ‘I’m going to take the bus,’ unless getting in the car would just be madness.”

The city’s other initiative to encourage people to use public transit — importing New Yorkers en masse — appears to be proceeding as planned.

Photo by Mike Linksvayer