So when I visit LA, I make sure to choose a hotel that’s reasonably close to most of the things I’ll need to do. I also sometimes do something that not a lot of other visitors do: I take the Metro. If I stay at a hotel in Hollywood and need to commute to Ken White’s downtown office to tape Serious Trouble, the Metro Red Line can save a lot of time (and money) compared to sitting in traffic in an Uber on the 101.

But there is a problem: The LA Metro has become a horrifying place. …

The editor of Very Serious, Sara Fay, lives in Los Angeles, and has a lot more LA transit experience than I do. And she confirms that things have gotten way worse on LA’s trains[.]

[That reflects the fact that everything in Los Angeles has gotten “way worse.” The homelessness has exploded all across the greater LA basin, spilling over into Orange County at unprecedented levels. The inability to commit mental patients and refusal to enforce vagrancy laws has naturally left public transportation vulnerable to the same degradation of public life as on the metropolis’ streets. Until the state imposes significant disincentives to vagrancy and crime on the streets, their public transportation systems will remain too dangerous to use for anyone else. Barro agrees. — Ed]