I agree with Ryan Avent: this is lunatic.
There are interesting economic questions to be asked about Los Angeles’ plan to switch from an “honor system” to turnstiles on public transit. For which system is the expected revenue take larger? (This depends on the extent to which random checks act as a deterrent to would-be free riders). Also, for a system struggling to establish itself as a principle part of the transportation network, are there other advantages to the honor system? It may act as a means of price discrimination (if the expected value of fare-dodging is lower than fare-paying) under which expected revenue is maximized. Or a lengthy initial honor system period (or free period) could encourage riders to build their commutes around transit, such that when a more rigorous turnstile system is adopted, their transit demand is fairly inelastic and they keep riding.Of course, the New York Times largely downplays these questions, instead going to Joel Kotkin, who can always be counted upon to deliver a baseless anti-urban assertion:
Some saw the move as another sign of the shifting ecology of Los Angeles.“Unfortunately, as L.A. gets to be more urban, it has these breakdowns of trust that happen in big cities,” said Joel Kotkin, a Los Angeles resident and author of “The City: A Global History.” “It’s the flip side of all the good things.”
It's not that Joel Kotkin is wrong--anyone who's lived in any two places of varying size knows that as urban aggregations get larger, politeness and trust go down. But LA was already well above the size where the trust problems kick in; the honor system was presumably a reaction to some other factor--perhaps the cost of turnstile maintenance was too high, or perhaps LA simply wanted to get people off the streets by any means necessary. It seems silly to speculate that the switch has anything to do with some change in LA's underlying trust supply.
Public transit construction debates, of the kind that almost certainly accompanied the construction of the LA rail system, generally pit rapid transit true believers, who think that mass transit is a basic human right and should be provided free or nearly free, against those who oppose it, generally on financial/fiscal grounds.
My sense is that the latter group usually lose, but in the process of losing extract some concessions to fiscal sanity. One of those concessions may be the requirement that the system charge riders a more-than-nominal fee. The honor system may be a way for transit true believers to evade this requirement, nominally complying with the requirement that a fee be charged, but evading the requirement in practice by making cheating as easy as possible.
By the way, the LA rail system cost $20,000 initial cost per daily rider and requires a government subsidy of over $2000 per rider per year to make up for costs that exceed revenues. This government subsidy is enough to have instead bought a Prius for every rider and fund 650 gallons of gas a year for each rider. More here.
Fiscally, I find passenger rail generally, and light rail specifically, utterly mysterious. What can light rail do that buses can't do cheaper and with less lock-in?
Freight rail, I understand.
Kotkin is living proof that your concerns about "meritocracy" replacing the liberal democratic order are substantively correct, but semantically misguided. When one-note idiots with fancy degrees like Kotkin are running the world, merit's got nothing to do it. The correct term for dominance of the media and government by empty suits with good connections is nepotism.
To show my ignorance of the wars of the Jane Jacobses, could someone offer a quick assessment of Joel Kotkin?
Avent clearly doesn't know basic econ. It's not price discrimination if the lower price is less than marginal cost -- just unprofitable.
“Unfortunately, as L.A. gets to be more urban, it has these breakdowns of trust that happen in big cities...”
Yeah, I thought that was a weird quote. It's news to me that Los Angeles isn't considered "urban."
Maybe he meant "urban" as in higher density, like Manhattan. In such a case, though, I would imagine that trust increases rather than decreases (an assertion I think Jane Jacobs would support).
In fact, it seems to me that a large population thinly spread out is the formula most guaranteed to reduce trust. A lot of people means strangers, and spread out means fewer watchful eyes enforcing societal norms.
Anyway, bottom line is that "growing urbanism" as an explanation for switching to turnstiles makes no sense.
Correction: I just realized that it's Douthat, not McArdle who wrote the post about meritocracy subverting liberal democracy.
Kotkin is an idiot, regardless.
The best argument for the LA Metro is that buses still take up street space, while the metro line does not. When the Metro (Red Line) was opened, bus services between places linked on the Metro was cut.
This pissed off LA's Bus Riders Union, who sued the MTA and got a ballot initiative making it much harder to build light rail, presumably because the group felt that bus service was being underfunded to fund expensive rail lines, which was a valid criticism IMO.
The other side to it was that big money was being spent to put in an expensive metro system in the wealthier parts of town while most bus riders were in areas not served by the metro.
The best argument for the LA Metro is that buses still take up street space
Here in Portland light rail takes up street space. But is there some reason that the custom non-street-space using light rail facilities couldn't be built--more cheaply--for buses instead of trains?
Rob Lyman wrote: What can light rail do that buses can't do cheaper and with less lock-in?
Well, one thing they can do, although probably not more cheaply over the long run, is maintain reliable schedules. The bus, during peak hours, will often be at the mercy of traffic patterns. The bus has to stop when traffic stops. The light rail follows its tracks and forces traffic to stop whenever a street crossing is required.
In Denver, the light rail system they've been installing piece-wise over the past 15 years may actually work fairly well over the long run, since the bulk of the traffic follows the I-25 and I-225 corridors to destinations generally located nearby said corridors.
Peter Bautista wrote: In fact, it seems to me that a large population thinly spread out is the formula most guaranteed to reduce trust. A lot of people means strangers, and spread out means fewer watchful eyes enforcing societal norms.
Except that it doesn't work that way and generally never has. In dense areas, there are many potential crime targets and many potential getaway routes, and even on the open streets you can more easily be anonymous because there are too many people to know them all. Dense areas also bring people into more-frequent contact with each other and thus increase the possibility of a violent encounter.
Peter,
Having lived in Texas suburbs as well as the tri-state area (Manhattan, Queens, and New Jersey) it seems absolutely certain to me that trust decreases in more urban environments. Maybe watching Deliverance gives a bad impression of non-urban people with "fewer norms", but it doesn't really match my experience.
Those born and raised in New York City much more often:
a. Lock all doors - car, home, whatever is lockable, and hide possessions from plain sight and put away anything valuable.
b. Question whether someone is lying to them when told the most basic things in ordinary conversation - "oh yeah, I work in the insurance industry", "oh, I graduated college four years ago", "oh, it's only a few miles from here"
c. Avoid conversation with or reliance on anyone who isn't family.
This isn't craziness or paranoia, at least not in the urban setting. But I can assure you, the blanket level of assumed trust in suburban areas is far higher than that in urban ones.
Well, one thing they can do, although probably not more cheaply over the long run, is maintain reliable schedules. The bus, during peak hours, will often be at the mercy of traffic patterns. The bus has to stop when traffic stops. The light rail follows its tracks and forces traffic to stop whenever a street crossing is required.
I see no reason why a bus couldn't be given priority over other traffic, or given its very own lane, special signals, tunnels etc, all of which are given to light rail, yet at lower cost nand with greater versatility. And I know electric buses are possible, as are diesel/electric combinations.
My point of reference here is the Portland MAX system, which runs essentially on ordinary streets, taking up room which could be used by cars, and at the mercy of traffic signals, yet without the ability to go outside of its ow lane to get around fools who block intersections, park badly, etc., and installed at a cost of about $30 million/mile. Perhaps other light rail systems are designed better.
"But is there some reason that the custom non-street-space using light rail facilities couldn't be built--more cheaply--for buses instead of trains?"
Rob is asking the right questions..'light-rail' is so incredibly expensive and inefficient, only Socialists could have brought it to Market.
Even if you had to dig the same tunnels that, at least part of, LA's 'light-rail' runs in, it would be dramatically less expensive to run Buses in them...
and, please, don't tell me about 'exhaust', it's a 'problem' that's been solved for 50 years, for the mining industry..
On population density and trust -
Note that I am comparing large and small densities in areas that already have large populations.
What decreases trust is the presence of a large number of strangers. This is a factor of total population, not density. You can have large populations with low density, and small populations with large density.
Los Angeles is already a large population area. My point was that since Kotkin refers to LA as becoming "increasingly urban," and LA already has a large population, he could only mean an increase in density.
Given a large population, you're more likely to have more trust with high density, not low density.
We're comparing L.A. to Manhattan here, not Manhattan to small-towns and rural settings.
Rob Lyman wrote: Here in Portland light rail takes up street space. But is there some reason that the custom non-street-space using light rail facilities couldn't be built--more cheaply--for buses instead of trains?
I doubt it. The initial capital outlay would obviously be less, but busses have higher service and maintenance costs, especially when you consider that busses cannot easily be automated.
Another nice thing about train rails as compared to dedicated bus routes, from a safety point of view, is that the rails obstruct almost any other possible use of the ground they lie on and thus disincentivize incursions for recreation and thrill seeking. A dedicated bus zone, on the other hand, would be an enormous attractive nuisance, and would require heavy gating and policing.
Rob Lyman wrote: Perhaps other light rail systems are designed better.
In the case of Denver, definitely. Some portions of the downtown area where the rails run are subject to modest inconvenience by the trains, but for the most part, the areas around the light rail were specifically redeveloped to accommodate it. The portion along the I-25 corridor was fully integrated into the plans for the interstate rebuild (just finished a couple years ago, the last of the light-rail work is being finished right now), and thus follows the corridor without encroaching on traffic lanes. A large section of I-225 interconnecting with I-25 was also reconstructed so that the light rail spur could travel down the middle without consuming existing lanes -- in fact (wonder of wonders) they actually expanded the road at the same time and added lanes that had been needed there for years.
Actually, I remember seeing pictures of somewhere in South America where an old train line was replaced with relatively narrow buses running along the same pavement. Can be done--I think the "light rail" vs. bus really comes down to whether you get your propulsion energy from electricity (wires overhead) or gas.
And in places in Europe such as Vienna, you've got tracks in the pavement, wires overhead, and going with the rest of traffic flow. We call them trams....
Anyone who wants to see why for high population densities you need rail--please go visit Tokyo. They move over 6 million people a day on the subway system alone. Try doing that with cars (and have a place to park them)
The economics might also be tipped further towards light rail if the externalities of driving actually *were* priced in to the system--one reason why certain municipalities have gone to road pricing.
"Avent clearly doesn't know basic econ. It's not price discrimination if the lower price is less than marginal cost -- just unprofitable.
Posted by Chris | December 4, 2007 12:36 PM "
While I don't agree that this is the case, the marginal cost of a transit rider can be negative [to the city, which is who gets the fares and which absorbs some of the externalities of the riders' other alternatives] and the revenue per non-paying passenger is greater than zero because the city gets occasional fines from each one. Furthermore, the city can capture some of the fine fare without catching the non-payers if they clandestinely run the insurance company.
-dk
"light rail" vs. bus really comes down to whether you get your propulsion energy from electricity (wires overhead) or gas.
Seattle has been running electric buses from overhead wires since before I was born.
Peter,
If we're talking "population of area" vs "population density", then it all hangs on how we define the area. You can make either one higher or lower just by changing your definitions. Is "New York City" just Manhattan? The five boroughs? The tri-state area?
But either way, I doubt anyone's trust is altered substantially by where you draw those arbitrary definitions. If you expand your definition of "New York City" from "Manhattan" to the five boroughs, the guy in an apartment in the village doesn't suddenly feel any different about his neighbors just because the "population, not population density" of his "city" has just increased. He still feels just as urban, and just as likely to distrust others as he did before.
If we're back to talking about population density, it's possible theres a hump, with "family out on the range in the Wild West" at one side, "Tokyo" on the other, and suburbs in the middle. But short of the Wild West, I second the assessment by Megan and Kotkin that the more urban a city becomes, the less general societal trust it creates.
Geoff,
In this post, I was specifically looking at Kotner's statement that “Unfortunately, as L.A. gets to be more urban, it has these breakdowns of trust that happen in big cities.”
This is a silly assumption, given the context, because Los Angeles is already an urban environment. Trying to figure out what Kotner might mean by that, I guessed that he means "as L.A. gets to be higher density."
If this guess is true, the I think Kotner is wrong.
For a city or region or population area or whathaveyou like Los Angeles, increasing density is likely to increase trust, not decrease it.
Even within cities, this is true. Consider the following - where would you feel safer, at 1AM:
1. 42nd and Broadway
2. The middle of Central Park
For an urban setting (which L.A. already is), higher density is safer.
The honor system does seem to work well in Europe (with the fear that a transport cop will ask you for a validated ticket).
Peter Bautista wrote: Even within cities, this is true. Consider the following - where would you feel safer, at 1AM:
1. 42nd and Broadway
2. The middle of Central Park
So what you're basically saying is, it is safer to shout "Help!" in a crowd than in an isolated area. Although this is usually true, it happens to be usually true everywhere irrespective of the degree of urbanization and is therefore tangential.
Whereas Kotkin was evidently trying to overgeneralize a generalization, you appear to be taking it the other direction and making it far too specific. Either way it starts to become silly, because the context is being set aside for the sake of an argument.
The problem here is that the local governments subsidize the hell out of the roads, to the point that the marginal cost for a car trip is zero (excluding the cost of fuel). There is no way that mass transit can compete. If the government start charging the market rate for the opportunity to drive on the road, in marginal terms, then mass transit becomes a viable alternative, perhaps even privitized mass transit.
Anony-mouse,
The context is large cities, like Los Angeles and New York.
Kotkin's assertion makes little sense, since L.A. is already urban.
And, in the context of big cities, yes, crowds are safer than dead spots. They don't even have to be crowds. They just have to have fairly constant presence of people.
You don't get this with low density. That's fine in small towns and rural areas, but in a city (like L.A.), the presence of people is vital to maintaining public safety and order.
Low density urbanism is dangerous.
Low density urbanism is dangerous
How is LDU distinguished from suburbanism, which is usually safer than HDU?
Different cities need different solutions. Houston is huge and spread out with decentralized business districts. Downtown is the largest concentration of workers, but people also live downtown and many people work in business parks all over the city, some fairly substantial in size. A train system would look like a spiderweb.
We do have a short stretch of light rail, but it was a political mess and connects sports arenas, the convention center, and hotels. It was built to get the Olympics (failed) and the Superbowl (succeeded). We would be much better off with some kind of priority bus system than with putting rail in. They've already screwed up several opportunities to put in rail (a major freight rail line was pulled up and the right of way consumed even though it ran along a major freeway and another likely corridor has a huge number of politically connected and wealthy NIMBYs who oppose it every time it is proposed).
Basically, light rail is theoretically good but practically, in Houston, not so good given the political realities.
EI
Low density urbanism is dangerous? I find that hard to believe. I live in Houston, which is a very spread out city with relatively low density. I like it here. We have lots of trees and it's not very crowded. Even though we have a huge minority population, racial tensions are generally pretty low. Part of that is probably because we don't walk a lot, we mostly drive places. But the places we drive tend to be pretty safe.
I suspect that high population densities lead to more crime, all else being equal.
EI
Wasn't someone accusing me of ignoring context a few posts back?
Again, for the third time, I'm talking about Los Angeles, and comparing it to the New York model.
Why? Because the comment that started this thread was about L.A. "becoming increasingly urban" (whatever that means) and the only peer to L.A. in this country in New York.
I'm not talking about, say, Houston. I don't know anything about Houston.
For a city the size of L.A, (and that's the context here), I stand by my statement that "low density urbanism is dangerous."
Again: what separates LDU from suburbanism? Keep it in the LA context, I don't care.
In Los Angeles, it's at least twice as fast (possibly three times, depending) to get from Hollywood to downtown on the train rather than the bus. Five to eight miles, I'd estimate. And probably doesn't take much longer by train than by private auto. (Depending of course on time of day, freeway or surface streets, etc.)
As a former resident of Seattle, I remember hearing that the electric buses were because of the hills, something to do w/ the gear ratios of electric buses being better for hill-climbing than diesel buses. Haven't been there for a while, but if Rob is still there, don't most of the trolley buses serve Queen Anne Hill? Though I remember a trolley bus on Capitol Hill in the '60s.
Kotkin, for whoever asked, is pretty much a pro-suburbs, pro-business type. He's often in the L. A. Times, & we commies here find him to be pretty pathetic. You know, people who live in cities are evil, & shouldn't be subsidized by gov't. Businesses that want tax breaks are, of course, a different story.
Low density urbanism is dangerous? I find that hard to believe. I live in Houston, which is a very spread out city with relatively low density. I like it here. We have lots of trees and it's not very crowded. Even though we have a huge minority population, racial tensions are generally pretty low. Part of that is probably because we don't walk a lot, we mostly drive places. But the places we drive tend to be pretty safe.
Really? Typical isolated urbanite. Does your "huge minority population" live in its own special "minority" areas? Do you ever encounter any of them other than seeing them out your window on your way to those "pretty safe" places? How tense do you think the "minorities" feel? Seriously, do you think there'd be more "tension" if you were all rubbing shoulders on the sidewalk?
Well, I don't know anything about LA and was trying to contribute by discussing a similar city. Houston is another US city populated by human beings and so is relevant. You made a general statement about urbanisation and crime (or "dangerousness"). I guess you are saying that LA people are peculiar and different from people in other cities?
It's probably true that every city is different... but if we're comparing LA to New York, it's quite reasonable to compare Houston, as well.
LA has a population of about 3.8 million while Houston is 2 million. LA has an area of 469 square miles while Houston is 579 square miles.
How is New York a peer to Los Angeles? New York has a population of 8 million and an area of 303 square miles.
Population Density (people/square mile):
New York: 26,700
Manhattan: 60,000+
Los Angeles: 8,000
Houston: 3,400
Chicago: 12,000
San Francisco: 15,700
It actually appears that poverty influences the crime rate more than population density. Not sure how that translates into trust.
EI
don't most of the trolley buses serve Queen Anne Hill?
I'm in Portland now, but I still have family in Seattle...there are electric buses on all the hills and also out to the U district and Fremont/Ballard. I can't speak for gear ratios; I'm just saying that electric power isn't an advantage or feature of light rail, it's possible for buses too. Historically speaking, I once read that the electric busses were meant to replace streetcars on rails, and indeed when 45th Ave in the U district was dug up, they took out a bunch of old rail ties. Also, the Seattle Bus Tunnel uses buses that are diesel on the streets (allowing runs to the suburbs) and electric in the tunnel (for air quality).
Anyway, my general point is that you can seemingly get all the benefits of rail with buses, but cheaper and more flexible. For instance, you could run fast bus-only lanes next to the freeway instead of rails, and have buses shear off at different neighborhoods to eliminate the intermodal transfer that rail requires. You can build bus tunnels and give buses priority when interacting with other traffic like trains get, if you want. You can run buses seamlessly from the bus-only lane to the regular streets downtown with no need for disruptive construction or wasted lanes with rails in them. You can easily transfer buses from the bus-only lane runs to other runs if traffic patterns change, or for some special event like a ball game. If a new development goes in, you don't need to put in special bus lanes right away to begin service; you can add them later if you want. And you can open up the bus-only lanes to HOVs or general traffic if your bus service proves unpopular. Plus, buses can dodge around stalled vehicles and come running to the rescue when another bus breaks down, unlike trains confined to tracks.
AM may be right about maintenance and attractive nuisance issues.
The poor areas of Houston are (like they are in any city) more dangerous/less pleasant. However, the Hispanic population is so large that it's impossible for "whites" and "Hispanics" to avoid each other. Blacks are less common, but still well-represented.
I don't encounter a lot of poor people but I do encounter a lot of minorities. My kids both go to public schools which have a large percentage of immigrants and ESL kids. We go to the park and our kids play with kids of all races. We go to restaurants where we encounter a variety of races and economic levels.
You really don't know me, do you? So don't assume you know who I encounter or what I see or do.
EI
Again, for the third time, I'm talking about Los Angeles, and comparing it to the New York model. Why? Because the comment that started this thread was about L.A. "becoming increasingly urban" (whatever that means) and the only peer to L.A. in this country in New York.
Except for the fifth time, Kotkin was plainly attempting to apply a generalization that is irrelevant in the context because it has already happened. You then responded with a comparison that is irrelevant in the context because it is generally true in any region irrespective of urbanity. Where does that get us?
Knowing nothing about the LA light-rail system, it seems to me that the advantages of rail are speed over long commuting distances, and density of ridership. But these are achieved mainly in cities that have very dense multi-layered transit networks. Paris has the best transit network I've ever seen, with buses, the Metro, and the RER high-speed express commuter trains. You can get pretty much anywhere in an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes tops, over a very wide urban area. Amsterdam and Rotterdam have bike lanes, trams, buses, and a subway playing the light-rail commuter function, plus a very dense intercity train system. New York is pretty good, between the buses, subway, and links to Metro-North, LIRR and PATH commuter rail. In such systems, rail plays a critical function: you can simply cram vastly more people into rail at much higher speeds than with buses. Even when they run aboveground, trains take up the equivalent of one two-lane road for vastly higher ridership and speed between defined points. So as part of a wider, deeper transit net, they play a crucial role.
The problem is that if you lack that wider, deeper net, the benefits seem much less significant. If LA had ten light rail lines the system would probably start to work. But LA went for an all-auto transit solution back in the '50s, and now it's paying the price of its decision to bet everything on one format.
"AM may be right about maintenance and attractive nuisance issues."
Rob,
the one thing you & anony- are overlooking is: evacuation routes.
as far as maintenance is concerned, somebody should tell it to the Trucking Industry, maybe they miscalculated..
rather, it's the 'municipally-owned' maintenance barns that are inefficient because there is no(or, very little) competition.
EI,
Really, I know so little about Houston that it would be just plain silly for me to try and discuss it. I can't argue for or against you re: Houston because I don't know enough (and statistics aren't enough. A city is a lot more complicated than an assortment of numbers).
I do know something about NYC, though, since I live here. I also know a bit about suburbia, as I grew up in the suburban midwest, but suburbia isn't part of this discussion.
Within a big city like New York, the safe, healthy areas have a constant presence of people. Empty, desolate, lonely parts of the city are generally not a good place to be. With eight million people in the city, it's significant when people go out of their way to avoid a place. You don't see people on the sidewalk, you don't see businesses, and you don't see anyone living there if they can help it.
Maybe Houston is comparable. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Los Angeles, though, definitely counts as a big city, and so the same kind of reasoning applies. With those many people around, it's a bad sign when a part of the city has few people there by choice.
When an area is popular, by contrast, the density of the population (residential, business, and street-level) goes up.
So, within the context of a big city like New York or Los Angles (and maybe or maybe not Houston, but I don't know), it's absurd to say that increasing density means less safety and less trust. That's essentially saying that popular parts of town are less safe than unpopular parts of town.
Houston is the same in that a crowded shopping area is probably safer than an industrial area after dark. However, the effect I am thinking of is more an aggregate effect of overall population density rather than local "hot-spots" of people.
I'd rather live in a city with an overall less dense population even though I'd probably hang out in the areas where people congregate.
On the other hand, apartment complexes seem to have more crime than neighborhoods of single-family houses.
EI
This attitude is entirely too reasonable and has no place in an Internet discussion... :)
EI
All these arguments about LA vs Houston vs New York have strayed far from the topic at hand - we're talking about TRUST, not CRIME.
The fact that I would be more afraid of a violent crime in Central Park at midnight doesn't have anything to do with whether or not my neighbors trust me to pay for mass transit. I know plenty of Homer Simpson type people, who I would not leave donuts out for, expecting them to leave me money on the honor system, but who I do not fear will accost me violently.
In my personal experience, I find that being surrounded by more and more strangers all the time tends to decrease personal trust. I believe that assertion to be fairly widely accepted, and I believe it stands on its own, independent of anything Kotkin says about the urban status of LA.
And we're talking about basic inter-personal trust in financial transactions, particularly in large impersonal shared services. We're not talking about violent crime. If I don't trust my landlord to return my security deposit, it's not because there's a crack dealer nearby or the street lights are broken.
EI: Houston is the same in that a crowded shopping area is probably safer than an industrial area after dark. However, the effect I am thinking of is more an aggregate effect of overall population density rather than local "hot-spots" of people.
I'd rather live in a city with an overall less dense population even though I'd probably hang out in the areas where people congregate.
On the other hand, apartment complexes seem to have more crime than neighborhoods of single-family houses.
I think those "hot-spots" are very important to a healthy, functioning city. For a large city, the goal should be to encourage as many of these hot-spots in as wide an area as possible.
This isn't to say the goal is to make an entire city look like mid-town Manhattan. I myself live in Queens, for instance, which is much less dense than mid-town, but still has a lot of high-density, high-intensity "hot-spots."
As for large apartment complexes, the problem the often have is a lack of multiple types of density. You need a mix of uses. A block of nothing but high-density residence can be as isolated as a stretch of pure industry. You end up with a low-density street life, because no one wants to be out on the sidewalk since there's nothing to do.