I'm not sure quite where to put this, so I'll use General...Anyway, I was in L.A. last week, and I was very impressed by their public transportation system. I had heard bad things about it, and the fact that so may people drive everywhere seemed to support that, but it was actually great. The subway took me around Hollywood and had other lines to parts of the city I didn't see, for just $2.50 for two hours (I think). I didn't use any buses, but my brother did, and he said it was only $0.25 to get on. The buses here in Ottawa cost $3 (less if you buy tickets in advance), come late, stop at every block, and are packed full at rush hour...and you can't use bus tickets to get on our crappy light-rail train system. Anyway, the point of this rant was: what's transportation like in your city, or in cities you've visited? What was the best one you've seen?
greg in noord-frankrijk
I think the Parisian public transportation service is good, reliable and affordable. One ticket : 1,40 €. A two-zone monthly pass : around 55 €.
Le métro (within Paris and adjacent suburbs)
Le RER (covering Île-de-France)
Many people will complain about strikes, but they're not si frequent, I reckon. Suburbanites will deplore poor intersuburban service (without stopping in Paris).
Loic
I can attest to the complexity of the metro, I must say. For now, I just know that I need to hop on and off at Chatelet-Les Halles or CDG-Etoile.
Still, it's a little pricey, what. I am living in zone 5 after all.
Walker
It costs 20 kronor (close to 3 USD) to get on a city bus here, unless you have a bus card -- then it'll cost you somewhat less. The ticket you receive when paying money to the driver is valid for one hour. However, due to the many incidences of violence on buses they've decided to double the charge and not let you pay money to the driver after a certain time in the afternoon, so as to reduce the amount of money on their buses.
The buses are usually on time but sometimes they are a few minutes late which can be frustrating, but it's something you just have to accept. On weekdays they leave every 20 minutes or something like that. I hardly ever travel by bus since I don't have to.
Benjamin [inactive]
Birmingham has a lot of busses. There are two main streets in the city centre — New Street, which is entirely pedestrianised, and Corporation Street, which is basically a continuous flow of busses. But enough about Birmingham — I'm leaving there on 21st September, and I won't realistically come back to live here on a long-term basis again.
St Andrews, where I'm moving to, is a small town, and everything is within walking-distance, so public transport is not really necessary. I think there is, however, one bus which goes around the town, plus a few buses which go to the nearby areas of Fife (the county), and also to the nearest city which is Dundee.
The nearest large city is Edinburgh, which is presently dependent on busses for public transport. They are mainly these rather handsome brown and cream double-decker things — a colour scheme which I feel fits in with the 'Edinburgh' image rather well:
However, they are just about to begin constructing a new tram network around Edinburgh (the old tram network was demolished in 1956). Here is the plan:
Another line has also been proposed which would serve the southern part of the city, although the funding for this was dependent on the people of Edinburgh accepting a car congestion charge similar to in London, which was rejected by referendum.
Uriel
No idea what the public bus costs in Las Cruces. You couldn't get me on one at gunpoint!
They go all over, though -- even out to my neighborhood, which is way on the outskirts.
You see a lot of long-distance Mexican bus lines -- or at least I assume they're Mexican, since the writing is all in Spanish, and they tend to be named things like Americanos. I had a friend who liked to take trips down to Chihuahua (the city) on them -- she said they were wonderfully comfortable, had TV, etc.
Josh Lalonde
Uriel wrote:
No idea what the public bus costs in Las Cruces. You couldn't get me on one at gunpoint!
Why, what's wrong with them?
Elaine
Re: Public transportation
Josh Lalonde wrote:
Anyway, I was in L.A. last week, and I was very impressed by their public transportation system.
LA's public transportation system has come along way within the last 15 years. Why, back in my day a subway and light rail system was just a pipe dream among our city leaders. But today everything's up and running and there's currently another line being built connecting downtown with East LA.
The problem with our rail system, however, is that none of those lines go to the Westside where all the ritzy shops and commercial centers are! So one would have to take a myriad of buses to get to Beverly Hills or Westwood, Santa Monica, Culver City, the Palisades, etc. The people who live over in that side of LA have for years voiced opposition to a rail system in their area mainly because they didn't want the "riff-raff" to have easy access to their neighborhoods. And now they bitch because of all the traffic congestion on Wilshire and Santa Monica Blvds and the 405! Silly rich people!
Elaine
Anyway, continuing where I left off in the "Horrible Towns" thread (where I mentioned liking the designs of the Vermont/Sunset and Hollywood/Highland Red Line stations)...
The Vermont/Sunset station looks as if one has booked passage to outer space and this here is the gateway:
While the Hollywood/Highland station looks as if you've entered a space station:
... which really isn't so far-fetched considering how you'll encounter people dressed like this on any given day walking up and down Hollywood Blvd.
