Los Angeles

Regions

• Crescenta Valley
• Downtown
• Eastside
• Harbor Area
• Greater Hollywood
• Northeast LA
• Northwest LA
• San Fernando Valley
• South LA
• Westside
• Central Los Angeles
• Wilshire Area

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The city is divided into many different districts and neighborhoods, some of which had been separately incorporated cities that eventually merged with Los Angeles. These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage which marks nearly all of them.

Museums and galleries

The Getty Villa is one of the two campuses of the J. Paul Getty Museum, alongside the Getty Center.
There are 841 museums and art galleries in Los Angeles County, more museums per capita than any other city in the U.S. Some of the notable museums are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (the largest art museum in the Western United States), the Getty Center (part of the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthiest art institution), the Petersen Automotive Museum, the Huntington Library, the Natural History Museum, the Battleship Iowa, The Broad, which houses over 2,000 works of contemporary art and the Museum of Contemporary Art. A significant number of art galleries are on Gallery Row, and tens of thousands attend the monthly Downtown Art Walk there.

Libraries

The Los Angeles Public Library system operates 72 public libraries in the city. Enclaves of unincorporated areas are served by branches of the County of Los Angeles Public Library, many of which are within walking distance to residents.

Cuisine

Los Angeles' food culture is a fusion of global cuisine brought on by the city's rich immigrant history and population. As of 2022, the Michelin Guide recognized 10 restaurants granting 2 restaurants two stars and eight restaurants one star.

Latin American immigrants, particularly Mexican immigrants, brought tacos, burritos, quesadillas, tortas, tamales, and enchiladas served from food trucks and stands, taquerias, and cafés. Asian restaurants, many immigrant-owned, exist throughout the city with hotspots in Chinatown, Koreatown, and Little Tokyo. Los Angeles also carries an outsized offering of vegan, vegetarian, and plant-based options.

The city's street patterns generally follow a grid plan, with uniform block lengths and occasional roads that cut across blocks. However, this is complicated by rugged terrain, which has necessitated having different grids for each of the valleys that Los Angeles covers. Major streets are designed to move large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city, many of which are extremely long; Sepulveda Boulevard is 43 miles (69 km) long, while Foothill Boulevard is over 60 miles (97 km) long, reaching as far east as San Bernardino. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of the worst rush hour periods in the world. LA drivers spend an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. During the peak rush hour, there is 80% congestion, according to the index.

Los Angeles is often characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings, in contrast to New York City. Outside of a few centers such as downtown, Warner Center, Century City, Koreatown, Miracle Mile, Hollywood, and Westwood, skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not common in Los Angeles. The few skyscrapers built outside of those areas often stand out above the rest of the surrounding landscape. Most construction is done in separate units, rather than wall-to-wall. However, downtown Los Angeles has many buildings over 30 stories, with fourteen over 50 stories, and two over 70 stories, the tallest of which is the Wilshire Grand Center.

Crime

In 1992, the city of Los Angeles recorded 1,092 murders. Los Angeles experienced a significant decline in crime in the 1990s and late 2000s and reached a 50-year low in 2009 with 314 homicides. This is a rate of 7.85 per 100,000 population—a major decrease from 1980 when a homicide rate of 34.2 per 100,000 was reported. This included 15 officer-involved shootings. One shooting led to the death of a SWAT team member, Randal Simmons, the first in LAPD's history. Los Angeles totaled 251 murders in 2013, a decrease of 16 percent from the previous year. Police speculate the drop resulted from a number of factors, including young people spending more time online. In 2021, murders rose to the highest level since 2008 and there were 348.

In 2015, it was revealed that the LAPD had been under-reporting crime for eight years, making the crime rate in the city appear much lower than it really was.

The Dragna crime family and Mickey Cohen dominated organized crime in the city during the Prohibition era and reached its peak during the 1940s and 1950s with the "Battle of Sunset Strip" as part of the American Mafia, but has gradually declined since then with the rise of various black and Hispanic gangs in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the city is home to 45,000 gang members, organized into 450 gangs. Among them are the Crips and Bloods, which are both African American street gangs that originated in the South Los Angeles region. Latino street gangs such as the Sureños, a Mexican American street gang, and Mara Salvatrucha, which has mainly members of Salvadoran descent, as well as other Central American descents, all originated in Los Angeles. This has led to the city being referred to as the "Gang Capital of America".

Topography

The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km2), comprising 468.7 square miles (1,214 km2) of land and 34.0 square miles (88 km2) of water. The city extends for 44 miles (71 km) from north to south and for 29 miles (47 km) from east to west. The perimeter of the city is 342 miles (550 km).

Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city proper is Mount Lukens at 5,074 ft (1,547 m), located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the north extent of the Crescenta Valley. The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from the San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights, the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills, and the San Pedro district.

Surrounding the city are much higher mountains. Immediately to the north lie the San Gabriel Mountains, which is a popular recreation area for Angelenos. Its high point is Mount San Antonio, locally known as Mount Baldy, which reaches 10,064 feet (3,068 m). Further afield, the highest point in southern California is San Gorgonio Mountain, 81 miles (130 km) east of downtown Los Angeles, with a height of 11,503 feet (3,506 m).

The Los Angeles River, which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel. It was straightened and lined in 51 miles (82 km) of concrete by the Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel. The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smaller Ballona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey.

Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The geologic instability has produced numerous faults, which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually in Southern California, though most of them are too small to be felt. The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system, which sits at the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, passes through the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The segment of the fault passing through Southern California experiences a major earthquake roughly every 110 to 140 years, and seismologists have warned about the next "big one", as the last major earthquake was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake. The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes. Major earthquakes that have hit the Los Angeles area include the 1933 Long Beach, 1971 San Fernando, 1987 Whittier Narrows, and the 1994 Northridge events. All but a few are of low intensity and are not felt. The USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast, which models earthquake occurrence in California. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis; harbor areas were damaged by waves from Aleutian Islands earthquake in 1946, Valdivia earthquake in 1960, Alaska earthquake in 1964, Chile earthquake in 2010 and Japan earthquake in 2011.

Transportation

Intercity train services

 

Union Station is the major regional train station for Amtrak, Metrolink and Metro Rail. The station is Amtrak's fifth busiest station, having 1.4 million Amtrak boardings and de-boardings in 2019. Amtrak operates eleven daily round trips between San Diego and Los Angeles, five of which continue to Santa Barbara via the Pacific Surfliner, the only service that runs through Los Angeles multiple times daily. Two of those trips continue to San Luis Obispo, California. The Coast Starlight provides additional service on the route and beyond to the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, and on to Seattle, Washington. Amtrak motor coaches connect from Los Angeles to the San Joaquin Route in Bakersfield with frequent service through the Central Valley of California to Sacramento and Oakland, and eastward to San Bernardino and Las Vegas.

There is also daily service to Chicago, Illinois on the Southwest Chief, and three times a week to New Orleans, Louisiana on the Sunset Limited. Due to the effects from Hurricane Katrina, Sunset Limited service between New Orleans to Jacksonville, Florida has been discontinued, although Amtrak is required by current federal law to develop a plan to reinstate the service. The Texas Eagle is a second train to Chicago, which operates thrice weekly. Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle trains operate as one train between Los Angeles and San Antonio, Texas before splitting off towards their respective destinations.

Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains stop at several locations in Los Angeles County, including: Glendale, Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, Chatsworth, and Van Nuys.

Due to the large volumes of import freight that flow into the city's port complex, Los Angeles is a major freight railroad hub. Freight is hauled by Union Pacific Railroad and BNSF Railway. The now-defunct Southern Pacific Railroad once served the Los Angeles area before merging with Union Pacific. The Alameda Corridor, a below-grade rail corridor connects the port to the city's main rail yards and to points further north and east.

The California High-Speed Rail plans to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco and San Diego via the Inland Empire. Additionally, the Brightline West will serve Los Angeles to Las Vegas via Rancho Cucamonga.

Intercity freeway

The major freeway routes providing intercity connections are Interstate 5 (which goes north to Sacramento and south to San Diego), U.S. Route 101 (which goes north to Santa Barbara and San Francisco), and Interstate 10 (which goes west to Santa Monica and east to Phoenix, Arizona).

Intercity bus services

Greyhound, FlixBus, and various smaller bus lines provide intercity bus services. Greyhound connects directly to Bakersfield and from there into the California Central Valley, San Diego, Las Vegas, and the San Francisco Bay area. It departs from Los Angeles at its main station located in southeast downtown Los Angeles[4][5] and from a secondary terminal located in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.[6][7]

Harbors

The Port of Los Angeles is located in San Pedro Bay in the San Pedro neighborhood, approximately 20 miles (30 km) south of Downtown. Also called Los Angeles Harbor and WORLDPORT L.A., the port complex occupies 7,500 acres (30 km2) of land and water along 43 miles (69 km) of waterfront. It adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach. There are also smaller, non-industrial harbors along L.A.'s coastline. Most of these like Redondo Beach and Marina del Rey are used primarily by sailboats and yachts.

The Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach comprise the largest seaport complex in the United States and the fifth busiest in the world. Over 11 percent of United States international trade (by value) passes through the Los Angeles region, and the Los Angeles customs district collects over 37 percent of the nation’s import duties.

The port includes four bridges: the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Henry Ford Bridge, Gerald Desmond Bridge, and Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge.

Ferry services

There are ferries serving the offshore island community of Avalon, California; they are mainly used for day excursions and to move supplies to Catalina Island. There is no regular vehicle ferry service to Avalon, since the city restricts the use of cars and trucks within its borders.

Intracity Freeways

There are a dozen major freeways that crisscross the region. California's first freeway was the Arroyo Seco Parkway segment of California State Route 110, also known as the Pasadena Freeway. It opened on January 1, 1940 and links downtown Los Angeles to downtown Pasadena. From Chavez Ravine north to Pasadena it can be quite dangerous because there is no shoulder, the lanes are narrow, the turns are sharp (not always properly banked), and the ramps are quite short and offer little room for acceleration to freeway speed. The route is often described as a hybridization of older parkway designs and more modern freeway designs.[10] Commercial vehicles over 6,000 pounds (2.7 t; 2.7 long tons) are prohibited from using this freeway. Newer freeways are straighter, wider, and allow for higher speeds.

Angelenos are noted for referring to freeways with the definite article ("The 101"), in contrast to most other areas of the United States, who omit the article. Referring to freeways by name, for example "The San Diego Freeway", is essentially a holdover from the time when the freeways were built, and is diminishing. Freeways continue to be officially named; for example, State Route 118 was christened the Ronald Reagan Freeway.

Rush hour

Los Angeles has synchronized its traffic lights. The mean travel time for commuters in Los Angeles is shorter than other major cities, including New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago. Los Angeles' mean travel time for work commutes in 2006 was 29.2 minutes, similar to those of San Francisco and Washington, DC. Rush hour occurs on weekdays between 5 am and 10 am, and in the afternoon between 3 pm and 7 pm (although rush-hour traffic can occasionally spill out to 11 am and start again from 2 pm until as late as 10 pm, especially on Fridays). Traffic can occur at almost any time, particularly before major holidays (including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and three-day weekends) and even on regular weekends when one otherwise would not expect it.

Streets, street layout, the boulevards, and street problems

The city has an extensive street grid. Arterial streets (referred to as surface streets by locals, in contrast with freeways which are usually grade-separated roadways) connect freeways with smaller neighborhood streets, and are often used to bypass congested freeway routes. Consequently, most of the surface arterial streets in Los Angeles have various forms of congestion control.

Some of the more common means of maintaining surface street traffic flow is the use of loop-sensors embedded in the pavement allowing for intersection traffic signal timing adjustments to favor the more heavily delayed roadways; the use of a traffic control system allows for the synchronization of traffic signals to improve traffic flow (as of October 2009 this system is currently installed at 85% of the city's signalized intersections, more than any other US city); restrictions on vehicle turns on roadways without designated turning lanes during rush-hours; and the extensive use of rush-hour parking restrictions, allowing for an extra lane of travel in each direction during peak hours (weekdays excluding holidays generally from 7-9am thru 4-7pm, although hours vary by location) by eliminating on street parking and standing of vehicles, with violators being ticketed, and in the case of priority routes known as "anti-gridlock zones", immediately towed by specialized enforcement teams dubbed "tiger teams" at steep cost to the violator.

1st Street divides the block numbering grid north and south, and southwest of the Los Angeles River, Main Street divides the city east and west. Northeast of the river, block designations are divided east and west by Pasadena Avenue and North Figueroa Street.

From downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach, in a straight-down vertical pattern, east–west streets are numbered (starting with 1st Street in downtown, to 266th Street in Harbor City), and north–south streets are named. (1st Street is one block south of Temple.) There are many exceptions to the numbered streets, but the above pattern is generally used. This same numbered pattern is not mirrored north of Temple. Addresses are then numbered east or west stemming from Main Street (a major north south artery). Therefore, the landmark Watts Towers at 1765 E. 107th Street is approximately 107 streets south of 1st Street, and on the 17th street east of Main Street. Although the numbered streets are sequential, they do not necessarily equal the number of blocks south of 1st Street, as there are streets such as 118th Street and then 118th Place.

Many of the numbered streets also continue into neighboring cities, but some cities, such as Manhattan Beach, have made their own numbered street grid. Also, some districts of Los Angeles, such as Wilmington, San Pedro, Venice, and Playa Del Rey have their own numbered street grids.

Many arterials have been labeled as boulevards, and many of those mentioned below have been immortalized in movies, music, and literature.

Major east–west routes include: Roscoe, Victory, Ventura, Hollywood, Sunset, Santa Monica, Beverly, Wilshire, Olympic, Pico, Venice, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Exposition, Obama Boulevard, and Martin Luther King Jr (formerly Santa Barbara Avenue), and Century Boulevard. The major north–south routes include: Topanga Canyon, Crenshaw, Reseda, Lincoln, Sepulveda, Van Nuys, Westwood, Beverly Glen, San Vicente, Robertson, La Cienega, Laurel Canyon, Glendale, Avalon Boulevard, and Main Street.

There are many other famous L.A. streets which carry significant traffic but are not labeled as boulevards. Examples include: Broadway, Bundy Drive, Barrington Avenue, Centinela Avenue, Fountain Avenue, Mulholland Drive, Slauson Avenue, Pacific Coast Highway, Century Park East, Avenue of the Stars, Century Park West, Normandie Avenue, Highland Avenue, Melrose Avenue, Florence Avenue, Manchester Avenue, Vermont Avenue, La Brea Avenue, Fairfax Avenue, Western Avenue, Van Ness Avenue, Figueroa Street, Grand Avenue, Huntington Drive, Central Avenue, Alameda Street, and Imperial Highway. West Los Angeles has many streets named after states that run east and west. Somewhat confusingly, adjacent Santa Monica uses a few of the same state names for different streets of its own.

Potholes are a notorious problem in Los Angeles and frequently cause severe damage to all kinds of vehicles. In 2008, then-mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made "Operation Pothole" one of his top priorities for that year and pledged to fill 1 million potholes. Due to the city's poorly managed budget, the city's Bureau of Street Services had only a single dedicated pothole-repair truck to cover 275 miles (440 km) of streets. Many city streets, such as Wilshire Boulevard, were engineered when cars, trucks, and buses were much smaller, and desperately need to be torn up and rebuilt from scratch to handle the weight of today's larger vehicles.

Furthermore, due to its severe budget problems, Los Angeles is one of the few California cities that does not use raised pavement markers on its streets. Thus, Los Angeles drivers must be vigilant not only for potholes, but for other drivers drifting out of lanes due to the lack of tactile feedback normally provided by such markers.

Mass transit

The primary regional public transportation agency is the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), commonly referred to as Metro or MTA. The agency, which operates bus, light rail and subway services, averages 767,000 transit trips per weekday. It is the third largest transit agency in the United States. Other municipal transportation agencies in Los Angeles County (LADOT, Long Beach Transit, Montebello Bus Lines, Norwalk Transit, Redondo Beach, Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus, Santa Clarita Transit, Torrance Transit and Foothill Transit) have an additional 405,000 average weekday boardings.

In February 2008, LACMTA introduced the Transit Access Pass (TAP) universal fare system. The TAP smart card allows bus and rail passengers to tap their cards on the farebox for faster boarding. TAP readers are installed on bus fareboxes and on turnstiles and standalone validators at rail stations. Because not all Metro Rail stations have turnstiles, it operates on a proof-of-payment system: as such, Metro's fare inspectors randomly check to make sure TAP users have validated their card by using a wireless handheld unit. TAP is now accepted on a number of different transit systems in Los Angeles County.

Buses

The extensive bus system operated by LACMTA includes the Metro Local, Metro Rapid, and formerly Metro Express services. Local buses tend to be orange, rapid buses red, and express buses blue. Rapid bus route numbers usually begin with a 7 and express bus numbers begin with 4 and 5. The buses have an estimated 1.3 million boardings on the weekdays. Including other municipal bus operators, Los Angeles County averages 1.7 million bus boardings per weekday, accounting for approximately 5.9% of the 29 million daily trips originating in Los Angeles County.

LACMTA has two bus rapid transit lines: the G Line and the J Line.

The G Line runs from Chatsworth station to North Hollywood station and began operations on October 29, 2005 as the Orange Line. For the entirety of its 17.7-mile (28.5 km) length, the 60-foot (18 m) articulated buses, built by North American Bus Industries and dubbed Metro Liners, operate on bus-only lanes that follow an old railroad right-of-way. Portions of the route parallel Chandler and Victory Boulevards, and Oxnard Street.

The J Line runs 38 miles (61 km) along Interstate 10 and Interstate 110 between El Monte Station and downtown San Pedro.

Foothill Transit also operates a bus rapid transit system called the Silver Streak, which runs from Montclair to Downtown Los Angeles along the El Monte Busway on Interstate 10.

Other bus systems:

Culver CityBus - green (local) and grey (rapid)
Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus
Montebello Bus Lines
Numerous other municipal bus systems

Metro Rail

Between its light rail and heavy rail systems, Metro Rail has 107.4 miles (172.8 km) of rail, averaging 308,653 trips per weekday, and accounting for approximately 1.1% of the 29 million daily trips originating in Los Angeles County. The network includes four above-ground light rail lines (the A, C, E, and K lines) and one underground subway with two branches (the B and D lines). The Los Angeles Metro Rail ranked by daily ridership as the ninth-busiest rapid transit system in the United States. Ranked by passengers per route mile, however, the system ranks sixth, transporting 8,846 passengers per route mile, more than San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit or the Chicago "L".

The Los Angeles Metro Rail system connects areas across the county, including Long Beach, Pasadena, Norwalk, El Segundo, North Hollywood, Inglewood and Downtown Los Angeles. As of 2023, four additional rail expansion projects are under construction, and various other projects are under study. The timing of their construction will depend on the availability of funding. These projects include:

• A connection of the C and K lines to LAX through a people mover (under construction).
• A westward extension of the D Line subway to Westwood, thru UCLA and Central LA (under construction).
• A further extension of the A Line from Azusa to Pomona, named the Foothill Extension (under construction).
• A further extension of the E Line from East Los Angeles to Whittier, Phase 2 of the Eastside Transit Corridor (final study stages).
• The new East San Fernando Valley Light Rail Transit Project in the San Fernando Valley is set to start construction in 2023.
• A C Line Extension to Torrance is under study, the southern terminus located in the South Bay area.
• A new LRT line through the Gateway Cities is under study, named the Southeast Gateway Line from Downtown Los Angeles to Artesia.
• A new HRT subway line corridor has started study from the San Fernando Valley to UCLA and eventually LAX. The Sepulveda Transit Corridor.
• A northern extension of the K line from Crenshaw to West Hollywood and a connection to the Hollywood Bowl. Currently under study. Called the K Line Northern Extension.
• An eastern extension of the D line in Downtown Los Angeles with a single new station in the Arts District.
• A new BRT or HRT line on a north-to-south route along Vermont Avenue is currently under study.
• Metro plans to convert the BRT G Line into an LRT line.
• Metro also plans to begin a study of a BRT or LRT line from LAX to Santa Monica along Lincoln Boulevard.

Commuter rail

Also serving Los Angeles and several surrounding counties is Metrolink, a regional commuter rail service. Metrolink averages 42,600 trips per weekday, the busiest line being the San Bernardino line.

Los Angeles public transportation statistics

The city of Los Angeles has, a low rate of public transportation use compared to similar sized American cities, with only 7.7% of commuters getting to work by this means in 2021. The city's average one-way commute was approximately 29 minutes in 2021. 31% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 20 minutes, while 38% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 6.9 mi (11.1 km), while 30% travel for over 7.5 mi (12.1 km) in a single direction.