On Sat, 26 May 2007 18:22:56 GMT, Lew Hodgett
wrote:

Trying to use the mass transit system to get someplace in a hurry, is
a lost cause at present; however, every time I ride the light rail, it
is full, especially the Long Beach run.

While I have no need to ever use public transit, especially since
everything I ever need is local, it's really irrelevant. However, I
can think of two examples where it might have been useful and was
completely worthless.

Last year, we were going down to San Diego and looked into taking the
train down. It was much, much more expensive to take the train than
it was to drive and the only way to even get to a train that was going
that way was to drive 60 miles down into Orange County, leave our car
somewhere I wouldn't park if my life depended on it and hope nobody
vandalized it. Then I would have had to pay for bus or taxi service
in San Diego the whole weekend since ht train station is nowhere near
where we were going and it would have cost 2-3x as much as driving in
the end. Is this supposed to be reliable, useful public
transportation?

Secondly, my best friend was teaching at Cal State Fullerton. He
would have taken the Metrorail to work but they stop running at 6pm,
long before he'd be heading home. The only way to take the train
would have left him stranded every night with no way to get home. It
is faster, cheaper and more convenient to drive.

Suddenly, there would be a whole new way of looking at things.

No, it still wouldn't make public transit any more convenient or even
possible for anyone. It would just make things more expensive.