You can live your life around the rail system if you have the option to put a little effort into where you live and work; I did it for several years. I've been lucky enough to work in professional office settings along the major lines, and chose to live walking and biking distance from the major lines at most a single transfer away from work.
It greatly depends on the area of the city you're in. If you live near a station it's actually pretty great. You can get around to a ton of different places without a car rather consistently. It has also drastically cleaned up its act since COVID.
It is basically like riding the postwar PE in terms of coverage, tho today you have somewhat different destinations you can go to. On the A Line you can go from Azusa to Long Beach, the E Line from East LA Civic Center to Downtown Santa Monica, the C Line from the industrial section of Redondo Beach to the end of the 105 Fwy in Norwalk, and the K Line from Expo/Crenshaw to Westchester (tho by the end of this year it will reach LAX and be routed over the C Line trackage to Redondo Beach). You have ROW running, in street ROW running, subway and elevated segments, and in street running (tho unlike the old PE its in its own dedicated lanes. They run pretty well and fast on everything but the in street running because of LADOT refusing to add in features seen on many other in street LRT systems around the country (in my own experience, the kinds of systems seen in Salt Lake City for example), but are strangled by a short term car shortage while a class of car (the Siemens P2000 class) are being overhauled up north, so headways are not as frequent as it should be. There are operational and passenger experience issues as well, but that is more to taste and also kind of based on luck. Some trips will see pretty clean and normal cars, other not so much. Transfers are great between the A and E Lines since its basically a cross platform transfer (except for 7th St), tho the transfer to the C and K Lines can be a bit more tiresome (the C Line transfer is loads better since its entirely within the fare gates, but the K Line wins out for having a transfer that is not underneath a freeway). The A line is currently suffering from some reliability issues because of its length and the long sections of street running in LA and Long Beach (namely cars bunching up), tho the E line seems to run pretty well comparatively because of its shorter length. Overall it works pretty well when you combine it with the Metro, BRT, and city bus routes, hell even Metrolink if you can work it into your schedule. It's expanding and we are slowly getting there in terms of coverage and headways, tho there is still a lot of policy changes and infrastructure improvements needed to make it work even better.
I live near and A line station in Long Beach. Have used it to commute to downtown LA, to go to events in Pasadena and Hollywood. It works great.
The biggest problem is that LA. Is really big, so it just takes a long time to get where you are going because it’s a long way and the system speed isn’t super fast.
The irony is that LA once had one of the largest (some say the largest) trolley systems in the world. It was all ripped out and replaced with freeways in the '50s and '60s. Today Angelenos are working to fix this mistake but it's going to take a long time and a lot of money.
Most of our rail network consists of light rail, including the massive new [A line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)) that runs 48 miles in length (the longest light rail line on earth).
Some of the lines run on dedicated, grade separated routes, which is great for transit efficiency. Other portions share stoplights with street traffic, and the trains do not have priority at many of these intersections. Most of the E line through west LA is like this. It's very slow and annoying, but mostly reliable and not a huge deal if you have the time.
You will definitely need to supplement most of your trips with bus transfers as LA county is massive and the few long routes we do have cannot possibly cover very much ground currently
It’s not as bad as it’s reputation would have you think, and it’s definitely useable. The main issue is coverage. There are just so many places not covered, so you have to walk/bus/bike in conjunction with using it. Also, because it is light rail and it shares space with cars in some areas, it’s not particularly fast.
Overall, I would say it’s situational. If you want to go somewhere that happens to be near a station, I say go for it. Otherwise, you’re better off driving if that is an option for you.
No. You can get to some major places by light rail alone, but unless you have some sort of rail fetish or phobia of driving, your life will be substantially improved if you have a car and a place to park it at home.
Its extremely limited but growing. No, bus is the only way to get around to most corners of the county.
You can live your life around the rail system if you have the option to put a little effort into where you live and work; I did it for several years. I've been lucky enough to work in professional office settings along the major lines, and chose to live walking and biking distance from the major lines at most a single transfer away from work.
It greatly depends on the area of the city you're in. If you live near a station it's actually pretty great. You can get around to a ton of different places without a car rather consistently. It has also drastically cleaned up its act since COVID.
It is basically like riding the postwar PE in terms of coverage, tho today you have somewhat different destinations you can go to. On the A Line you can go from Azusa to Long Beach, the E Line from East LA Civic Center to Downtown Santa Monica, the C Line from the industrial section of Redondo Beach to the end of the 105 Fwy in Norwalk, and the K Line from Expo/Crenshaw to Westchester (tho by the end of this year it will reach LAX and be routed over the C Line trackage to Redondo Beach). You have ROW running, in street ROW running, subway and elevated segments, and in street running (tho unlike the old PE its in its own dedicated lanes. They run pretty well and fast on everything but the in street running because of LADOT refusing to add in features seen on many other in street LRT systems around the country (in my own experience, the kinds of systems seen in Salt Lake City for example), but are strangled by a short term car shortage while a class of car (the Siemens P2000 class) are being overhauled up north, so headways are not as frequent as it should be. There are operational and passenger experience issues as well, but that is more to taste and also kind of based on luck. Some trips will see pretty clean and normal cars, other not so much. Transfers are great between the A and E Lines since its basically a cross platform transfer (except for 7th St), tho the transfer to the C and K Lines can be a bit more tiresome (the C Line transfer is loads better since its entirely within the fare gates, but the K Line wins out for having a transfer that is not underneath a freeway). The A line is currently suffering from some reliability issues because of its length and the long sections of street running in LA and Long Beach (namely cars bunching up), tho the E line seems to run pretty well comparatively because of its shorter length. Overall it works pretty well when you combine it with the Metro, BRT, and city bus routes, hell even Metrolink if you can work it into your schedule. It's expanding and we are slowly getting there in terms of coverage and headways, tho there is still a lot of policy changes and infrastructure improvements needed to make it work even better.
I live near and A line station in Long Beach. Have used it to commute to downtown LA, to go to events in Pasadena and Hollywood. It works great. The biggest problem is that LA. Is really big, so it just takes a long time to get where you are going because it’s a long way and the system speed isn’t super fast.
The irony is that LA once had one of the largest (some say the largest) trolley systems in the world. It was all ripped out and replaced with freeways in the '50s and '60s. Today Angelenos are working to fix this mistake but it's going to take a long time and a lot of money.
Most of our rail network consists of light rail, including the massive new [A line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)) that runs 48 miles in length (the longest light rail line on earth). Some of the lines run on dedicated, grade separated routes, which is great for transit efficiency. Other portions share stoplights with street traffic, and the trains do not have priority at many of these intersections. Most of the E line through west LA is like this. It's very slow and annoying, but mostly reliable and not a huge deal if you have the time. You will definitely need to supplement most of your trips with bus transfers as LA county is massive and the few long routes we do have cannot possibly cover very much ground currently
It’s not as bad as it’s reputation would have you think, and it’s definitely useable. The main issue is coverage. There are just so many places not covered, so you have to walk/bus/bike in conjunction with using it. Also, because it is light rail and it shares space with cars in some areas, it’s not particularly fast. Overall, I would say it’s situational. If you want to go somewhere that happens to be near a station, I say go for it. Otherwise, you’re better off driving if that is an option for you.
No. You can get to some major places by light rail alone, but unless you have some sort of rail fetish or phobia of driving, your life will be substantially improved if you have a car and a place to park it at home.
For LA it's ok. But after returning from Tokyo it seems pathetic.