What Will L.A.’s Regional Connector Bring Us?

A Two-Mile Rail Tunnel Could Help California Recapture Its Optimism—If It’s Not Too Late

What will the Regional Connector bring us? A new transformation in California life? Or has it arrived too late to change much of anything?

The June 16 opening of a two-mile rail tunnel under downtown Los Angeles might not seem like a big deal. But its potential—and its timing—mark a pivotal moment for the future of transportation.

L.A. is opening the smartest and most significant piece of its 21st-century Metro rail system at a moment of maximum peril for public transit, both nationally and statewide. The pandemic, along with work-from-home policies and …

by Joe Mathews | June 13, 2023

My Missed Connection Riding the L.A. Metro

A Passenger and Train Conductor Lock Eyes—But Poor Urban Planning and Four Lanes of Traffic Conspire to Keep Them Apart

by Joe Mathews | November 15, 2022

Our eyes met on a Saturday evening in Los Angeles. I wanted to go home. He wanted to take me there.

Could we find our way to each other in this …

Will California Get SMART About Mass Transit?

A New Train Could Help Battle Climate Change, Serve Expanding Metro Areas, and Create a Northern California Mega-Region

by Joe Mathews | September 6, 2022

If this train is so SMART, why can’t I find it?

That’s the question I asked myself in Larkspur, in Marin County, after arriving on the ferry from San Francisco one …

How to Imagine a Los Angeles Without Traffic

The City Has the Solutions to Congestion, Pollution, and Accidents—We Just Need to Use Them

by JOSHUA SCHANK | March 31, 2022

For the last century, Los Angeles has been expanding its road space far beyond almost any major metropolitan area in history. We have built freeways and roads and parking lots …

Ode to the American Bus

Where Found Verse Meets Democracy in Motion

by Derek Mong | February 24, 2022

How many of us grow rapturous in the presence of a bus? The number, I’d guess, is relatively small. Hulking metal loaves of the urban landscape, buses do not, when …

Don’t Be Ashamed to Admit It: You Miss California Traffic

The Commute May Be Lousy, but Gridlock Is Also Good for Us

by California Traffic, as told to Joe Mathews | August 4, 2020

Admit it. You miss me, don’t you?

No? OK, maybe you’re not ready to recognize how much you need me. I understand.

I know you’ve never liked me, and for that I’ve …

public transportation