I love how the figure above gives you a visual representation of something invisible (carbon dioxide emissions). Single Occupancy Vehicles (SOV) are a selfish way to travel. You can see the huge cloud of combustion product generated. Driving to a light rail station, then taking a train can cut down your emissions by more than half! Taking the bus then taking a train cuts your emissions by a factor of 8. Doing the bike plus light rail reduces your carbon footprint by more than 20 times. That's powerful!
The appealing thing about the graphic above (to me) is the wait time of 15 minutes. If you factor in the time it takes to find a parking place and the time it takes to walk to and from your car, fifteen minutes is not a long time to wait to catch a bus or train. As dear husband always points out, how do you feel when you get out of your car after sitting in traffic for 2 hours? Don't you need time to refresh yourself and rest from that experience? When you get off a bicycle, it's so stress-relieving and wonderful that you're already refreshed and ready to do whatever comes next in your day.
I love love LOVE living on Reseda Blvd. We have lots of options for transit. It's hard to get to downtown LA using only the buses, not impossible, but it takes about 2 hours. But the Metrolink is fantastic, it's so fast! I hope to see more dedicated bus and bike lanes.
