Friday, July 20, 2012

"No transit" from people who should know better.

I've written before about people who use the words "No public transportation" to mean "No rail service." I saw an example today from people who ought to know better: Rail-Volution, a transit/livable streets conference that will be coming to LA soon. I received their brochure in the mail today. One of their "mobile workshops", on Tuesday, will be held at LAX and will talk about Metro and LAWA's plans to bring rail to the airport.

In the talk's description, the first sentence is "LA has no direct transit connection to LAX."

That's obviously false. I've ridden the FlyAway bus, which travels directly from downtown LA to LAX, several times. It stops at two places: Union Station and the airport terminals. That's as direct as it gets. There is also a shuttle which directly connects the Green Line's Aviation station to the terminals, and a shuttle which connects the LAX City Bus Center to the terminals. The LAX City Bus Center is served by the LA Metro 40, 42, 111, 117, 232, 439, 625, and 715, the Santa Monica 3 and Rapid 3, the Culver City 6 and Rapid 6, the Beach Cities 109 and the Torrance 8. The Green Line Aviation station is served by the Metro Green Line, the MAX 2, 3, and 3x, the Culver City 6 and Rapid 6, the Metro 120, the Beach Cities 109, and the Santa Monica 3 and Rapid 3. By my count, the airport has 20 direct transit connections.

What you meant to say, conference organizers, is that the airport has no direct *rail* connection. However, you can have valuable transit service without rail. Please be more specific.

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