Interview with Michael Manville of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

Background and Credentials

Michael Manville is a graduate student researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.

Interview Questions

Who do you think are the primary beneficiaries of public transportation in Los Angeles?

Manville: There are two answers. The group of people that relies most on public transit is the poor, because many of them do not have access to automobiles and they thus count on transit for their economic well-being.

But this brings up a larger question, which is how well the transit system addresses the needs of the poor. The LA MTA spends a tremendous amount of money on rail projects, which are of much less use to the poor than intra-urban bus systems. A number of analyses of rail in LA have shown that it is used predominantly by white, middle and upper-middle class people who also own cars. Buses, by contrast, are far more likely to carry people below the poverty line, and more likely to carry racial minorities. Yet the spending disparities between the rail and bus are so large that the NAACP successfully sued the MTA over its budget. So although the poor have the most to gain from public transit, transit resources are often not channeled to them.

Do you think public transportation in Los Angeles is as affordable as it should be? If not, what could be done to make it more affordable?

Manville: If anything, fares should be raised, because higher fares allow better service. Improved service is a better determinant of ridership than fare price (fares for the poor can be subsidized, but overall fares should increase).

Are there obstacles preventing Los Angeles public transportation from expanding and improving? If so, what are they?

Manville: The consent decree placed on the MTA by the federal courts has created an incredible political situation that slows progress on a number of fronts. There isn't room here to explain the whole decree, but it is very important to any discussion of LA transit.

On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most accessible, how accessible do you feel public transportation is for the average citizen? How do you think access to public transportation in Los Angeles may be improved?

Manville: The question isn't whether transit is accessible per se--almost anyone can get a bus--the question is how accessible are DESTINATIONS. It is still very hard and takes a very long time to get from Watts to the job-rich areas of the west side. We are less concerned here (or at least we am) with access to transit than with access to opportunity--how hard is it to get from a home to a job. And LA is far too vast and different to give a single number rating for that. In some areas the transportation is excellent (if you live and work along a rail line, for instance), in others it is miserable.

How does public transportation technology in Los Angeles compare with that of the rest of the world? How does it compare with the technology of private transport?

Manville: The city is bringing CNG buses on line, which we think is the state of the art. We can't comment too much on other cities, as we know little about them. Technology isn't really my field.

Do you think the presence of public transportation and its facilities facilitates social interaction in the community?

Manville: It can, but it doesn't necessarily. Public transportation is a form of public space, and therefore allows for more interaction with others than does driving alone. At the same time, however, a person who gets on the bus listening a Discman, or buried in a book, creates a private sphere that blocks out much of the city. And while transit can also allow for encounters between people of different classes, this doesn't happen if the transit lines are segregated socio-economically.

How does public transportation in Los Angeles affect urban structure and vice versa? In other words, is the Los Angeles geography conducive to the expansion of a public transportation network? And how does public transportation affect the spatial structure of the city (segregation of neighborhoods), etc.?

Manville: LA is very large--some would say sprawling--and this does not help efforts to build successful public transit. Transit requires certain base densities to be viable, and these densities exist only in very few places in LA.

I'm not sure that transit affects the spatial form of the city. The car certainly does--parking lots, parking garages, and other accommodations to the private vehicle have profoundly influenced LA's urban form. But transit has generally (in my opinion) followed form, with the exception of the streetcars 100 years ago, which were used to promote dispersal and sprawl (they were owned by real estate speculators, who used them to open up new land for development).

How does public transportation in Los Angeles affect social mobility? For example, is it useful in providing transport services for people commuting between their residence and place of employment? Can you think of a transport service which it should, but does not, provide?

Manville: Public transportation is very useful for people who live on rail corridors (these tend to be well-off people) and for some others. But for most people travel times are long, service is unpredictable, and the absence of dense clusters of jobs in the city itself makes it hard to commute via bus. Para-transit services would be very useful in Los Angeles--the rise of illicit jitney services in some areas downtown testifies to the need for some other, more flexible form of mass transportation.