The Metro

Three months ago, Brian Rolando Anaya was driving his 1987 Chevrolet Camaro through a major intersection when a minivan took an illegal U-turn.

"There was an empty lane in front of me and he just popped up out of nowhere. We rammed each other in the front," Anaya said. "It was my baby, I had so many plans for it. It was totaled, and it cost way too much to fix."

Anaya had taken the LA Metro before, but now he had no other option for transportation. Luckily, he enjoys the experience.

"Being able to see the skyline when I'm on the Metro, just seeing the whole city from my side of town to the beach is nice," Anaya said.

On top of that, riding the Metro saves him money compared to when he drove because his Camaro was a gas guzzler. Anaya, however, is not like many other Angelenos. They have cars and they prefer to drive; but the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority is hoping to change that.

The Los Angeles MTA, which is responsible for planning, coordinating, designing, building and operating Los Angeles County's public transportation, plans to build new rail projects within the next 10 years. It is betting heavily that people will adopt rail travel.

Unfortunately for the MTA, experts say LA County residents will never depend on rail travel because the population is too spread out.

The history

Public transit by rail in Los Angeles has not always been a problem. In fact, Henry Huntington's Pacific Electric Railroad and the Los Angeles Railway created a vast network of rail transit in Los Angeles from 1901-1963. According to the Orange Empire Railway Museum, the Pacific Electric Railroad was the world's biggest electric railroad in the early part of the 20th century.

By the early 1960s, however, the sprawl of Los Angeles, combined with the popularity of the automobile and the inefficiency of rail travel brought about the demise of both the Los Angeles Railway and the Pacific Electric Railway.

Los Angeles went without MTA rail lines for 27 years until the Blue Line opened in 1990. That was followed by the Red Line in 1993, the Green Line in 1995, the Gold Line in 2003 and the Expo Line in 2012. The Purple Line was instituted as its own line, apart from the Red Line in 2006. The Gold Line was then extended in 2009 and 2016 and the Expo Line was also extended in 2016.

Although new rail service has been added, estimated weekday ridership for Metro Rail has not surpassed its 2013 peak of 363,092 passengers, (although it is on track to surpass that number this year) according to the Metro's own estimates.

More Metro, More Money

This lack of growth is odd because there are factors that are motivating people to commute via the Metro Rail. Money savings is one major reason. A Lendingtree.com study ranks Los Angeles as the 12th most expensive city to commute by car in. As of 2014, the average insurance premium for a resident of the city of Los Angeles was more than $1,350 per year, according to Nerd Wallet. Additionally, gasbuddy.com, which keeps track of gas prices around the country, currently lists California as the most expensive state to buy gas in, averaging $3.09 per gallon.

Metro Weekday Ridership 2016
Infogram

Monrovia Station on the Gold Line.

Marquetta Shy, a Gold Line rider from West Covina, found the Metro Rail decreased her monthly expenses. "I pay $25 a week so that's $100, compared to a $200 car note with $300 insurance on top of gas and maintenance. It's easier on my pocket, I get to go shop more," Shy said.

With Los Angeles considering the implementation of congestion pricing to ease traffic, the cost of commuting by car will likely increase even more. Many commuters have already experienced something similar to congestion pricing on the 110 where drivers can pay a toll to access the carpool lane even if they are the only person in the car.

LaKenya Rolland, a Blue Line rider from Long Beach, said freeway tolls have pushed her to the Metro. "With the FasTrak, you have to pay to even get to work faster, so you have to pay additional money to take the faster lane on the 110, which is the No. 1 freeway I take, but with this it costs me only $1.75 to get all the way to work," Rolland said.

Even people who had previously commuted using other rail services have switched the Metro Rail. Angela Garabet, who has been commuting from Glendora to downtown LA, was happy to switch from the Metrolink to the Gold Line. "It's a lot less expensive. Of course, it's not as comfortable, but there is a huge difference in price," Garabet said.

The cost of commuting by car is not the only reason people adopt the Metro Rail. Anyone who has sat in LA traffic understands the stress involved in constantly stopping and going, including Anaya, "Even if I had a hybrid or any other self-sufficient car, I'd probably still take it, I see the traffic to my right when I'm on the Metro, everyone is just parked," he said.

Green Line rider Timothy Byer is also one of those people. "Not having to fight the traffic, that's the best thing of all. I mean there is wear and tear on the car and the gas expense, but it's mostly just the lack of stress, just sitting down and riding," Byer said.

Stress from commuting can have adverse effects on your health and has been associated with higher rates of depression, higher cholesterol and higher blood sugar levels. Sometimes the lack of stress can outweigh the importance of a faster commute. Just ask Gold Line rider Barry Lew, who says riding the Metro relaxes him. "It's the not fighting traffic, even though sometimes taking a car might be a little faster, it's still just more stressful," Lew said. "Getting to work relaxed and more refreshed, sometimes I can just think about what I have ahead for the day. It just allows me to focus on things other than the cars around me."

The Gold Line has even helped one man become healthier in other ways. Doctors ordered Bob Tappan, a 71-year-old man from Monrovia, to improve his health and suggested he go on more walks. Unfortunately, Tappan found it was often too hot and sometimes too rainy for him to walk in his hometown. Fortunately, when the Gold Line extension opened, Tappan found a creative solution to his walking problem.

"I take the Metro every day, over to Union Station so I can walk five or six thousand steps as the doctor wants me to," Tappan said. "Union Station is covered, so it's never too hot or too cold. I can always walk in Union Station." Tappan says his doctor is satisfied.

For many people, the expansion of the Metro Rail has opened areas of LA County not easily available to them before. As of 2012, the median income for a Metro Rail rider was $26,250 compared to $55,476, the median household income for LA County, according to a Los Angeles MTA survey.

With Los Angeles' cost of living coming in at 21.5 percent above the national average, it can be difficult to afford a car. This means many people rely on the Metro to get to where they need to go. Recent expansions of the Gold Line and the Expo Line, have granted people access to places where they previously found it difficult to get to.

Eddie Trinidad, an Expo Line rider who lives in South LA, feels that the Metro Rail has helped him work in Culver City and visit friends near the beach. "The Expo really helped a lot. Well it's easier to travel to the Santa Monica area because that's where are all my friends are at, all work," Trinidad said. Previously, he was forced to rely on family, Lyft or Uber to drive him.

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The Metro sounds great, so what's the problem?

With all of these compelling reasons to start riding the Metro Rail, why has its growth become stagnant within the last few years even as rail coverage expands.

The Expo Park/USC Station used to be a stop on the Pacific Electric Railway. (Souce: Metro.net)

Population density is key. "In some places, where population density is particularly high, and where the price of gas relative to income is high, rail makes sense," said James E. Moore II, a professor at USC and an expert on public transit. "Los Angeles is not a candidate."

As of 2014, Los Angeles actually has a higher population density than New York according to data from the U.S. Census bureau. However, in New York, more people live in the core of the city. In Los Angeles, the core of the city contains a much lower concentration of people because residents are concentrated in the suburbs.

For this reason, there are more people in New York who live closer to subways. Moore cites the last mile problem as a reason Metro Rail is struggling to attract riders. "It's the fact that transit doesn't usually go door to door. There is some gap between where you get off the vehicle and where you actually want to be. You have got to close that gap and if it's a long walk on foot, that's a problem for people."

Since many LA residents do not live in a concentrated area, the Metro Rail cannot easily penetrate large population centers. "From my house, it's one-and-a-half miles. I could get the bus, but it's faster to walk," Anaya said. Barry Lew bikes to the station. At a certain point, the distance becomes far enough for people not to take the Metro Rail.

The future

Though Metro Rail lines in LA are expanding, experts believe other solutions are needed to turn LA into a successful public transit city. Some believe that the expansion of rail service in LA is hurting its biggest asset, busses. Moore says that "… rail systems are always more expensive than their budgets support. The money has to come from somewhere. The trains have been built by the same agency responsible for operating the bus system and these agencies shift funding from buses to trains to make up the difference." This results in decreases in service and increases in fare price, which hurts bus riders and the Metro as a whole.

Furthermore, Manville says that Metro trains in LA are at the mercy of traffic. One example is the Expo Line. "You move pretty quickly from La Cienega to USC, and then you get past USC and honestly, there are times where you could probably get off and walk from that point forward and get to Metro Center faster," says Manville. "The car traffic is kind of given priority."

According to both experts, the solution to both these problems might be creating more dedicated bus lanes even more separated from traffic than the Silver Line and Orange Line. "There are cities around the world where busses really do get their own lanes," says Manville, "You can do that, it costs very little, it works very well. That would boost transit ridership a lot because the whole city lives close to busses."

Moore also sees value in dedicated bus lanes. "If the goal is to make transit more attractive by creating an exclusive right of way and thus a higher quality of service, which is fundamentally what rail is doing, then, busways are cheaper to build than railways…," he said.

Due to the way Los Angeles evolved, expanding rail lines and rail service is much more expensive than expanding bus service, even with their own right of way. Though the MTA is optimistic people will embrace rail travel, Manville isn't so sure.

"We've built an environment for automobiles," Manville said. "You can't just drop some rail lines on top of that and expect people to stop driving."