Is LA worth visiting if you don't drive?
Was thinking about doing 7 days in California (NYC-> SF, SF-> LA (train), LA->NYC). How accessible is the city by foot/bus? Is it even worth going to or should I just stay in the San Francisco area for 5-6 days?
Going in June (if it matters)
>Is LA worth visiting if you don't drive?
You need...NEED...a car to travel around LA, just like the majority of the country. Everything in LA is incredibly spread out and its swarming with street gangs. Buses? Only the poor who can't afford a car are going to use it. Enjoy having homeless people bother you.
When you say you're visiting LA you mean the tourist trifecta of Hollywood/Venice/Santa Monica. There is nothing in downtown LA except office buildings and homeless people. Even LA natives have no reason to go downtown except to see the occasional basketball game.
>>1105733
Yes, that "trifecta". Now that you mention it, I don't think there's much to do there. Maybe I should just stay in SF and explore the vicinity.
>>1105723
It's hard to fathom that such a huge fucking city has piss poor public transportation. Even SF is lighryears ahead of LA in this department. Such bullshit, and I'm sure it hurts the tourism.
I have a license but I have no reason to drive (I live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan. I don't really need a car to get around). I haven't driven in two years honestly.
>>1105840
Google Pacific Electric and you'll see that LA had a kickass transit system.
>>1105723
> swarming with street gangs
lol wtf... you watch too many movies. nowhere a tourist goes is swarming with street gangs. just stay out of south central and skid row and you'll be fine OP. this dude's a fucktard.
>>1105710
Just rent a car
>>1106036
He doesn't drive...
The buses are fine, if you don't mind the journey taking about twice as long as driving.. Just ignore any crazy people.
>>1105839
>city of 4 million people
>metro area of 13 million people
>warm year-round
>near mountains and beaches
>nothing to do
Nice try
>>1105840
San Francisco is tiny as fuck.
>>1106286
So? LA has more people and more tax money. Stop pretending LA has some insurmountable obstacle to mass transit other than poor leadership and a populace that doesnt give a shit.
>>1106298
So it's easy to put up some buses that hardly go 4 miles on a round trip.
>>1106357
Nobody said creating mass transit was easy. Thats not a response to my post.
>>1105839
>cheap food
>hike trails/bike paths
>roaring architecture
>bathhouses (if you're gay)
>free or cheap as fuck shows
>quentin tarantino's movie theater
>nothing to do
>>1106368
I just said its easy.
>>1105733
Um I live in So Cal and down town LA is pretty lively during the night. The clubs, even though over priced, are fun and have some unique themes. Highly recommend checking villains tavern OP. Pretty cool bar and vibe to it. The arcade bar is also pretty nice but you'll wait a little if you wanna play some of the popular games there.
Also, Pasadena is nice to visit as well and a short ride away from LA. Don't know about if any trains go from LA to Pasadena though. I've heard that LA is finally starting to improve there public transport though so be aware of new bus stops opening up
>>1106634
Metro has a line going from Downtown LA to Pasadena. Check their website.
>>1106603
go back to b
trv is the grown ups' table
>>1105840
>(I live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan.)
I live in Florida and work in retail making 10k a year and we sell a sectional called the Manhattan (or the Brooklyn if you want the reverse design)
Your post makes me feel bad about my life.
people exaggerate the need for a car
la is huge, so it really depends what you want to see.
most of the tourist shit is easily accessible with public transit.
when i lived in LA, i pretty much walked everywhere for day to day life.
>>1105840
gee, maybe the fact that it's fucking huge has something to do with it
LA is basically a massive suburb
>>1105710
you can do sightseeing by uberpool in la
>>1106999
Nice trips
I've lived in Los Angeles for 11 years, and yes I've been told you can get around on public transportation if you have to. I don't actually know first-hand because I've never taken public transportation here ever - everyone who lives here has a car, and really public transportation is only used by poor people.
That being said, people will occasionally ride the train or the bus for fun. And yes it will get you where you need to go, but it will take 2-3X as long as if you had a car.
The main tourist spots are pretty spread out, but can probably be boiled down to:
- West LA beaches (Santa Monica, Venice)
- Hollywood
- Melrose/Beverly Hills/West Hollywood
- Southbay Beaches (Hermosa, Manhattan)
- Downtown LA
Once you are in any of these general areas, you can get around and see everything by foot. However, these areas are probably 10-20 miles apart, so to get to them you will need a car or bus.
The bus is cheap, like $1-2. But it is slow, as the buses stop frequently, drive slow, and are stuck in the famous LA traffic, which can really suck at the wrong time of day. And plus they are filled with crazy homeless people. Or so I'm told.
If I was in your shoes, I'd just uber between these spots. It will cost you ~$20 per uber ride, but to me it's worth it in the time savings.
>>1106030
Swarming with street gangs is bullshit, but he's right that there's really no decent way to get around without driving.
There's always Uber if you can't rent a car, though.
>>1105840
Pretty much what >>1107370 said. It's not just that it's huge, though, but also that it's not dense, so you can't build one line and have it serve as many people as it would in SF or NYC. A truly functional transit system for LA would look a lot like Tokyo's, and building something like that from (almost) scratch would be a nightmare.
OP, it won't be worth it for that short a time. I'd say stick to the Bay Area for the week, there's plenty to see and do there, go to LA for a week the next time you can take the time off. If you had 5+ days for LA I would definitely recommend going, you'd be able to see most things without a car.
Last year I went to LA for the first time, after like 7 years of delaying going there as I didn't have a car nor a drivers license and all I ever heard was that it's impossible to travel there without a car. I have my license now and a car but I flew down for a week and I found that it's basically a lie that you can't get anywhere taking transit. Sure it would have been much more convenient and quicker to take a car but I found it pretty reasonable going between locations by public transit.
Look, it's a very spread out city as was mentioned here already. The good thing is that there are metro lines that will take you to I'd say about 60-70% of the locations you want to get to as a tourist. The only places they don't go to are the beach areas and the theme park areas. You can take the metro from LAX to downtown to Hollywood, to Burbank, over to Long Beach. You'd have to take bus connections everywhere else which are a shit show because of traffic in LA. Bus lines in general are decent, but they just take a long freakin time to get to your destination. Of the trips I took I never had to switch buses multiple times per trip, usually just 1 or 2 buses took me everywhere I wanted to get to but it took hours to get there. There are a few places that you can't really get to by public transport, I'm actually going back to LA in a few weeks with a car to see the places I missed (on my way to San Diego), places like the Getty Center and Villa, Griffith Observatory, and of course the nearby cities worth visiting like Malibu or even Santa Barbara. Overall I'd say the transit is not as good as in more denser cities but at the same time it's not as bad as people say it is either.
>>1106030
>nowhere a tourist goes is swarming with street gangs.
Yeah, but if you are doing a crazy thing like OP is thinking of doing and walking everywhere, he will most likely walk through a bad neighborhood at some point.
>>1106634
the gold line will pick you up in little Tokyo through east la to Pasadena
>>1107467
>only places they don't go to are beaches and theme parks
there's plenty of busses that take you to every beach all along the coast. for chrissakes, the red line subway has a stop that drops you off right next to universal studios
you know nothing of LA transit
>>1107476
I was talking about the metro in that part and it doesn't really take you to any good beaches. Yeah you can take buses which I did to Santa Monica. As for the theme parks, Universal Studios is the only one they go to. If you want to go to Knots Berry Farm or Disneyland or 6 Flags you need to take at least 1 long ass bus ride.
