Don’t Believe the L.A. Transit Hype

Slow and Cheap, the New Expo Line Will Dash Your Commuting Dreams

I wish this were a happy column about the advance of California public transit.

I wish I could report that my own life is better now that I ride the brand-new Metro Expo Line extension to work in Santa Monica. And I wish I could validate all the triumphant talk of the great metropolis of Los Angeles becoming a fabulous train town again, with the restoration of a vital rail link between its city center and the Pacific.

But I’m a rail commuter in Southern California now, so I no longer have …

By Joe Mathews | June 2, 2016

Transport (after “When Ecstasy is Inconvenient”)

by Chris Campanioni | July 17, 2015

see something
say something

take any major city
take every square

foot, every footstep
traced back on the map

of a screen
walking while writing

almost all at once
this type of transfer

takes practice

Can More Public Transportation Solve the Housing Crisis?

As Costs Soar, the Solution to Affordable Living May Be New Transit Projects

June 20, 2015

Last year, New York City’s Comptroller Scott Stringer released a bleak report: between 2000 and 2012, New York’s median rent skyrocketed 75 percent. Median household income, meanwhile, decreased by 5 …

Is the 720 L.A.’s Most Delicious Bus Line?

Eating Burgers, Ramen, Soft Serve, and Tamales on the Inaugural Metro Tour de Food

by Sarah Rothbard | June 14, 2015

A Mexican-American take on In-n-Out Burger. A strip mall ramen shop. A soft serve ice cream stand. A Latin American cafe. Four restaurants in four Los Angeles neighborhoods, all served …

As L.A. Gentrifies, Who Gets Left Behind?

With New Development and Organic Markets on the Rise, Many Working-Class Neighborhoods Are Transforming—Maybe for the Worse

June 12, 2015

When a British sociologist coined the term “gentrification” in 1963, she wrote that it happens when “working class quarters have been invaded by the middle class … until all or …

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