LA has a subway system?

Since I haven't been to L.A. since 1999, I'm more interested in it as a precedent for other cities' doing the same thing. And it should work just fine in that regard.

Yes, LA has a subway system. Unfortunately it is filled with giant ants, a freak development from radioactive fallout.

Why would you put wireless phone service in a subway when 1) nobody wants the guy sitting next to them screaming into their phone over the noise of the subway car; and 2) no one rides the LA subway.

This is a really exciting proposal. The obvious criticism is that there's no such thing as free service, that one way or another residents will pay for it in taxes (whether they use it or not). And of course the quality of the service may or may not be good.

But the cable companies who are currently providing the bulk of the broadband internet access to Los Angeles are local monopolies who charge consumers abusively high rates. I'd feel a lot better if they were treated more like public utilities (once upon a time), where profits were regulated to prevent abusive pricing and to help make essential services available to the widest number of citizens possible.

Who wants to guess that Comcast et. al. manage to bribe enough city councilmen to drown this baby in the bathwater? Or find a way to get rid of Villaraigosa, one way or another, before they lose their fiefdoms.

Gavin Newsom was going to do this in San Francisco, but it turned out he was drunk when he said it and he just said it to get into someone's pants.

Gavin Newsom was going to do this in San Francisco, but it turned out he was drunk when he said it and he just said it to get into someone's pants.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

The inability to use a cell phone in the subway is not a bug, it's a feature. Cell phone users on public transportation should die.

You can't use a cell phone in New York's subway system 103 years after it opened.

...telegraphy was more reliable!

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today pledged to blanket all of Los Angeles with free or very cheap wireless Internet service by 2009.

Augustus makes some good points above.

There is a world of difference between "free" and "very cheap." One assumes taxpayers are footing the entire bill and the other assumes users will bear the cost, or a good part of it. I'd be glad to support either model if I can be assured service is excellent, rates remain low, and the corporations running the service aren't abusing their franchise.

I live in the SFV behind a hill and can't get a decent cell connection at my house. Something tells me I better not disconnect my DSL line yet.

"Yes, LA has a subway system. Unfortunately it is filled with giant ants, a freak development from radioactive fallout."

Not to mention the volcanoes under the LaBrea Tar Pits and the whacked-out Dennis Hoppers.

Universal, free wi-fi access is a public good which stimulates our economy. But universal, free health care is a communist plot to eliminate choice and replace the efficient private sector with a massive government bureaucracy that makes your decisions for you.

Remind me again why we're supposedly smarter than chimpanzees?

Goddam, sorry.

I really have no wish to hear your one-side of the conversation on the sudway.

If this is one period we don't have to listen to people and their cell-phones, ALL THE BETTER!

Why do you think you have to be in contacy ALL THE TIME1

...no one rides the LA subway...
Weekdays it's about 260,000 boardings per day.

...considering that you can't even use a cellphone in LA's subway system...
You want to sit on the subway and check email on your laptop?

Why do you think you have to be in contact ALL THE TIME?

Actually, subway ridership is pretty high, especially in the North Hollywood-Downtown leg. The only rail line in Los Angeles which is not operating at or near capacity is the non-subway Gold Line to Pasadena which is hampered by slow speeds through South Pasadena where it runs at grade through the streets.

L.A. actually has a rather large public transit system which works much better than people would imagine, especially if they learned everything they know about it from Speed and Crash. The bus that I take to work is generally full during peak hours as are many of the buses which I've taken throughout L.A. The Expo line and Purple Line (aka subway to the sea) lines will be operating at peak capacity as soon as they open.

Seems dazzlingly challenging for a city as spread out as el lay, but more power to-em. My (much smaller) city had one such deal fall through last year, but they're pursuing another. IIUC, they'll allow a commercial company to come in and place the transducers/magic gizmos on utility poles and other bits of public property. They then offer a free (doubtless slow and ad-riddled) service to all and a fee-based faster service to subscribers.

The telecoms and cable purveyors are NOT amused by this prospect.

Remind me again why we're supposedly smarter than chimpanzees?
Posted by: mattsteinglass on February 13, 2007 at 8:24 PM
=================================================

What do you mean "we"?

Kevin Kevin Kevin,

"But considering that you can't even use a cellphone in LA's subway system"

That's not a bug - that is DEFINITELY a feature!

Nothing is more frustrating than being forced to listen to the personal conversation of a fellow passenger on their cellphone, which I have been subjected to for these past 15 years here on Southern California's commuter rail system: Metrolink.

Oh wait. Yes, there IS something more frustrating. That would be having to pay Verizon $80 a month to to try and use their BroadbandAccess product and do Internet work on my laptop while riding that same friggin' train.

Go LA.

In Brisbane in Australia (population ~ 1 million) there is talk of the government providing an optical fibre connection to every home in the city. The government would put out a tender for private companies to actually build the network and connection. There are big economies of scale in doing it all in one go so it would actually work out costing on a per person basis about the same as conventional, relatively slow broadband does now. We have some problems with the last mile being owned by a single company practically everywhere in Australia so this proposal also makes sense because it would break that monopoly in Brisbane.

http://www.cabinet.qld.gov.au/MMS/StatementDisplaySingle.aspx?id=48591

Getting governmnments to provide "last mile" internet connection as a public good makes alot of economic sense. Would be a great issue for Democrats to run on as its
1) of enormous practical benefit. People can see the benefits easily.
2) Makes a lot of economic sense. Last mile is a genuine public good best funded by government.
3) Is ideologically impossible for the right to support.
4) Relatively cheap. You could do every home in America for about $20bn
Hopefully LA's public wi-fi network can help pave the way.

Cringely explains it all very well here
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060629_000351.html

Must be something in the air. This was also in the Houston Chronicle today except the city was Houston, not LA. Same claims...largest area ever, etc.

As an Angeleno who rides the subways (sometimes), I think we should put making subways cell-phone friendly at the bottom of the damn priority list. Your Orange County is showing, Kevin.

off-topic, but Moqtada al-Sadr has moved to Teheran.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=2872953

Do you suppose he wants the "surge" to kill his enemies so that he can move back safely?

notthere: "Why do you think you have to be in contact ALL THE TIME?"

Thank you.

Technology is wonderful, but c'mon, people -- we are the ones who are supposed to be in control, and not vice versa.

You know when I get pissed me off the most when I hear a cell phone? When I'm in a movie theatre. When I hear that, I'm ready to inflict bodily harm. So just remember that next time when you vacation in Honolulu, and it's raining and you decide to catch a flik.

Misplaced Patriot: "Cell phone users on public transportation should die."

The establishment is hereby warned. Amy Vanderbilt's Book of Etiquette obviously needs to be updated to address proper cell phone usage.

SoCalAnon: "Nothing is more frustrating than being forced to listen to the personal conversation of a fellow passenger on their cellphone, which I have been subjected to for these past 15 years here on Southern California's commuter rail system: Metrolink."

The Honolulu City Council recently voted to ban the use of cell phones on all forms of public transportation, except for emergencies.

But considering that you can't even use a cellphone in LA's subway system more than a decade after it first opened, I'll believe it when I see it.

Does LA have a municipal cellphone system that promised subway coverage? If not, how is this even remotely relevant?

What we need are cheap, portable Cones of Silence. Where's California's famous hi-tech research sector? We need you now!

I've got a $1000 right here for my own personal "Cone of Silence" with a 100% life-time guarantee total performance.

At the risk of making this LA-centric:

Don Hosek writes:

The only rail line in Los Angeles which is not operating at or near capacity is the non-subway Gold Line to Pasadena which is hampered by slow speeds through South Pasadena where it runs at grade through the streets.

I doubt if that's the reason now, although it was given as a reason before the Gold line opened - the slow speed is only between two stops. You can go from Filmore to Union Station in about 15 min, which is about equal to the time it would take you driving the 110 with low traffic.

..The Expo line and Purple Line (aka subway to the sea) lines will be operating at peak capacity as soon as they open.

Hopefully they'll extend it out to Santa Monica - then we'll have a true city-wide Metro line.

Of course, all this was covered by Steve Lopez' ruckus-causing column/blog..

What? what did you say?

If riders of the LA subway system have giant radioactive ants and lava streams to contend with no wonder they want cell phones to operate. It'd almost drive me to the freeways.

Is there anyone from Mountain View out there who can tell us how their free wireless network is doing?

Won't Comcast assassinate some city council members before this gets too far?

This is wonderful news, implying as it does that Tony - a former leader of a racial separatist group - has solved all of L.A.'s other problems: massive gang involvement, high crime rate, gridlock, and massive illegal immigration. (Oops! To Tony, the last isn't a bug, it's a feature).

Next step for Tony: bags of rice to be distributed to Mexico's L.A.'s poor, imprinted with his picture and cheerful, pro-administration slogans.

-- Don't laugh, I live here

The telecoms and cable purveyors are NOT amused by this prospect.

You aren't kidding. Philly set up a free citywide wi-fi network. In response, Verizon did what any technology innovator would do -- deployed brigades of lawyers. When the lawsuits failed, Verizon rented the whores in the state legislature. Consequently, for now, there'll be no Pennsylvania-wide wi-fi. Fuckers.

The rentier economy is so 21st Century, eh?

Here's a news summary of the Philly wi-fi deal.

If riders of the LA subway system have giant radioactive ants and lava streams to contend with no wonder they want cell phones to operate. It'd almost drive me to the freeways.

I dunno about the lava streams, but I saw a documentary about the LA giant ant infestation, and I'm pretty sure it's under control. Big Jim Arness and James Whitmore torched the queen and her brood, and they had a brainiac USDA guy supervising them.

Meanwhile Seattle bans Wi-Fi for health reasons.

http://db.tidbits.com/article/08041

Canada is afraid of it too

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/22/canada_uni_wifi_ban/

etc. etc. etc.

But what the hey, LA's just a bunch of disposable liberal brown skins anyway, right?

Not only is the Houston air often worse than LA's, the wi-fi here will be bigger: 600 miles compared with LA's 498. Houston's mayor announced the deal with EarthLink today. Gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.

Lots on the net about the possible health effects of Wi-Fi.

A bit more:

http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=26941

http://www.vnunet.com/computing/news/2154970/experts-raise-health-concerns

You know what really irritates me? The way the authorities of whatever stripe always make these unilateral decisions without consulting the people who will be actually affected by them. But if it adds prestige to the majors office (or school principle, or whoever), money in he pocket of the tech "pushers", and more convenience for some then that justifies it.

Gonna have to check my daughter's school tomorrow.

Fuck the subway. I can't use my cellphone at my house. What's the deal with that?

Maybe it's the goddamn giant ants...

I can't even imagine such a thing happening in London. We get increased congestion zones, you get wi-fi.

And as for phone service in the Underground, rescue workers can't even communicate down there.

KathyF

You can pretty much find WiFi anywhere in Central London eg Starbucks.

Or you can get a Vodafone Card which gives you wireless anywhere.

Arguably we should have universal WiFi, and then subscription access should be sold for £10 per month. You would have to have one monopoly supplier, though.

Agree re the LU emergency communications service.

Interesting note, I looked up the LA public transport system as a result of posts here.

They charge 75 cents as a fee. Our lowest bus fare here is $1 ($2.00). Our lowest Tube Fare (Oyster prepay) is $3.00, our standard cash Tube Fare is $4.00.

There's no way LA can finance its transport system at those fares.

...and they had a brainiac USDA guy supervising them.

That would be Edmund Gwenn, code name Kris Kringle.

Put wi-fi on the ever growing list of corporate handouts and middle class lifestyle susbsidies, including sports teams, "farmers" markets, etc., that cash strapped local government feels compelled to provide.
As for you LA transportation lovers, let me suggest that you rely on the Sunset bus (#2??) to get from home on the east to school and work on the west side. Let me know how that works for you.

Valuethinker, do you mean £ instead of $? Option 3 on a Mac.

London has the most expensive transport system anywhere. It's inexcusable. It's also inexplicable that a city like Baton Rouge can offer wireless in its downtown--over two years ago--and London can't. And you have to pay £10 at Starbucks, or anywhere else in the UK. Even the library charges.

"Rely on the Sunset Bus"

As Eddie Valiant said in "Who Shot Roger Rabbit", "Nobody would be that stupid to get rid of the Red Car".

Cells in a personal emergency - fine

Cells in a major emergency such as the earthquake outside of Seattle in 01 - a disaster - Overload to the max

KathyF

£ not sure why it came out as $ (dollars).

The problem is one of subsidy. The central government of the UK will not provide higher subsidies than it already does to the London Underground.

Indeed the most needed expansion of the system (London Crossrail-- Paddington to Liverpool Street) has been delayed yet again. Won't now be finished before 2018. Still waiting for central government go ahead.

In addition, the mayor of London has no additional taxing powers (such as sales tax) that other municipalities use, except Council Tax, which is already rising in double digits.

My own view is that the LU is at 100% capacity at several times of the day (chiefly 7.30-9.30). There is, effectively, no point in subsidising users-- as the system can't take more traffic. A high user price is justified.

The attempt (successful to a point) has been to switch traffic onto the buses, which do have spare capacity and are much cheaper. The mayor has also taken (some) control over the rail stations within London (the North London line/Silverlink) and is trying to improve those services (not a moment too soon).

However a side effect of the 'bendy buses' that I have noted is that I would estimate at least 1 in 3 riders is not paying. The penalties/ chance of getting caught is just not high enough.

This reminds me of the Tube when I first came to London in the 80s. Fare jumping was rife-- as much as half the carriage in East London. Things seem to be much more controlled now, with the introduction of universal gating and the Oyster Cards.

On the WiFi, someone has to pay for it, be it the taxpayer or the user. Since Council Tax bills are already rising in double digits, that's a non starter (although Islington does I think provide wifi on the High Street).

I don't know if one could limit bandwidth per user, to allow a 'cheap and cheerful' municipal system. What you don't want is a few users grabbing the whole broadband to download DVDs.

What would be nice is a *unified* roaming system for WiFi-- the existing anarchy is irritating in the extreme. But then, the phone companies might fight that, having paid £28bn for their bandwidth.

scouser

- sports teams is corporate blackmail. It's been shown 100 times it enriches the owners and the players, not the municipalities. But everyone feels compelled to play. Brave the mayor who throws away a major league sports franchise. Brooklyn still hasn't recovered.

- farmers markets can't be particularly expensive. Subletting some open ground a couple of times a week? Adds to the atmosphere and potentially to the revenue of local businesses

- LA buses. my understanding is the root problem is the level of ground traffic. It's a political decision that buses don't have their own rights of way. But they could.

Eventually LA traffic will get bad enough that that traffic restriction will have to happen. London has bus only streets, and an electronic congestion charge. I don't expect it will happen in LA, until traffic gets bad enough (we were down to 10 mph average, slower than with a horse and carriage in 1900).

ValueThinker: "It's a political decision that buses don't have their own rights of way. But they could."

Damn straight. And there is a place here in the Southland where they do, proving your point. Disneyland. See "The Monorail". That's been operating for more than 50 years and the only excuse for not accepting it outside of a theme park is - wait for it - politics.

Wireless is Nikola Tesla's idea. He wanted to turn the entire earth into a huge electrical conductor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer#Electrical_conduction

Unfortunately, that would mean we would all be bathed in his unnatural EMF fields all day every day.

Pet peeve time:

L.A. is a sprawling smog-ridden city in SoCal

LA is Louisiana (or those portions which are not currently part of the Gulf of Mexico).

Here in LA we're still being tied up in the courts by BellSouth - make that AT&T now - to block the city/parish of Lafayette from putting in their own fiber network and wi-fi despite the referendum which carries by a wide margin.

I hope the wifi takeover is easier than AV's takeover of the public school system.

Universal healthcare, universal wi fi - amen to both.

monsieur le craigie: Maybe it's the goddamn giant ants...

Maybe it's the neighbors' Newfoundlands blocking your signal.

James Arness indeed - Hah - It was Sigourny Weaver who saved the day.

How lucky you are to be in sunny LA thinking about Wifi--we are snowed in and an ice storm is ruining my beautifully mature shrubs here in Pa...the giant maple out front has limbs falling to the ground. Boo hoo.

Yes, but even though you are drowning in ice and death and the wretched hopelessness of never-ending winter (sorry; I might be projecting a little), Rick Santorum is not your senator.

Just trying to help!

Portland, Oregon has been rolling out free WiFi for several months now and intends to have city-wide access within the next two years, IIRC. The system is being built out by a private company that gets its revenue stream from banner ads; I believe a small, cheap premium gets you the service without the ads. The system has a long way to go in the build-out and is far from perfect to date, but it should mean that people who want access to the Internet and to email don't have to pay truly grotesque amounts of money to Comcast or the phone companies. People indoors may need to invest a little ($50) in equipment to boost the signal but getting a desktop and WiFi card these days can be very cheap.

True, shortstop, and thanks for the grand reminder that Santorum was unseated. Yes, indeed.
He was a cold chill.

Perhaps people need to learn to control their cell phone use -- in particular, leaving it off except when it's time to make a call, especially in public places.

As for the Los Angeles subway, I've ridden the Red Line a few times, and even once took the Blue Line to Staples for a Kings game. A decent system, perhaps not up to D.C.'s Metro or BART, but certainly superior to Baltimore's mass transit or Philadelphia or Boston's older subway lines.

Vincent

I think the LA system labours under a series of perhaps insurmountable problems:

- although overall LA is a relatively dense American city (who knew?) there is no real centre to it. The commuting patterns are not core to suburbs in the way they are in eastern North America. So it's very hard for a subway system to build up a critical mass.

- being a car centric city, once you get to your destination, you may have to *walk* a long way. There's not a series of concentrated centres with stuff there.

Once you get back to your home station, the same applies. You are surrounded by a spread out residential neighbourhood, optimised for cars.

- they built the city before the subway. Or rather, they ripped up the streetcars. So it's big hassle and expropriation to build out a subway now, at far higher property values

In the long run, with the projected growth in population in LA, we might see 'intensification'. A series of 'mini Manhattans' stretched out along the subway stops, raising the usage and hence the economics. However that requires overcoming local NIMBY objections to large developments.

If a city as 'old style' and centralised as Toronto, with a 50 year old highly successful subway system, can struggle with financial deficits and the adverse consequences of urban sprawl to transit systems (lower ridership, higher cost), then we can see why LA has an uphill fight.

I suspect a system of bus right of ways and even busways may be the way LA goes.

The problem there is a social one. In any city in the world, the middle class eschews buses as soon as it can. Buses are for poor people (whereas subways are not, necessarily-- the professional classes use the New York system, and the Moscow one).

I suspect in LA of all places middle class professionals don't use the bus.

I know of only one significant 'inter modal shift' back onto buses. London post the installation of the £8 ($16) charge to drive into the core at the peak. The subway (Tube) is at 100% capacity, but bus ridership has risen significantly, and I can tell you from standing on those buses that it includes middle class professionals.

It's unique in the history of transport. But how many cities are ready for a $16/car per day congestion charge?

ps that intra modal shift, in London's case, was 4% of journeys, back out of cars onto buses.

ValueThinker, apparently you would be surprised by the massive number of middle class professionals who ride the bus with to and from Union Station in L.A. every weekday. Not long trips, granted, but 15 to 20 minutes of commute time out of one's morning and again in the evening.

How long after completion of the network before someone flys through the light at Westwood and Santa Monica because they were checking their email?
The Over/Under is 15 minutes.

SoCalAnon

Interesting. Are they taking the bus from downtown, to catch a train? To commute out to far flung neighbourhoods?

Just interested where the pattern lies. In London, they would almost certainly take the Tube to/from the office from the mainline train stations. In New York, from Grand Central or Penn, they would either walk, I think, or take the subway-- New York buses are great, but they are *slow*.

Buses in NYC I observed were more the habituee of Manhattanites (who are increasingly upper middle class) and to a lesser extent those who work in the service industries and live in the poorer neighbourhoods at the top of the island (or perhaps the Bronx).

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I note that in recent years, Metrolink has increased service beyond the morning and afternoon rush, and many of its lines (notably San Bernardino) now have Saturday and Sunday service along with midday and evening trains. Almost like NJ Transit or SEPTA's commuter lines back east. (And as a Washington-area resident, I wish MARC and VRE would go beyond rush service.)

Double post. Oopsie.

But considering that you can't even use a cellphone in LA's subway system more than a decade after it first opened...

Do you honestly think that's a bad thing? Wouldn't life in LA actually be much better if you couldn't use cellphones anywhere?

Vincent

You've nailed a key problem with public transit systems.

We went through this when Thatcher deregulated buses.

Tragedy of the Commons resulted.

Each new entrant filled the rush hour bus routes with buses, thus lowering revenue for all, and increasing traffic congestion. The roads clogged with half empty buses.

Meanwhile, at off peak periods, bus service dried up. Because of that, habitual users stopped using the bus (you lose the 10-20% of users who might, say, use it in the morning rush hour, but work late or leave early).

The result was a downward spiral: less services, less users.

If a public transit system doesn't operate nearly to 24/7, structurally you lose potential users. Once people have made the decision to have a car, and use it, their likelihood of using public transport drops away.

(I understood the LA subway was something of a tourist attraction, ie actually higher usage on the weekends).

Another bad problem I gather on LA's subways is that this is the city that is the home of the Street Gang, a problem so bad we now have international conferences about it. I gather that some lines and stops are dominated by intimidating gangs. Even if they commit no crimes, they are going to scare off users.

Washington's system, I felt, was about the safest part of that benighted city (this is in the late 80s, when the crack wars were very bad). So the designers and operators got that right.