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Getting around the city is a totally different problem in LA than NYC. Wikipedia says NYC is 303 square miles (784 square km), and just the city of LA is 469 square miles (1214 square km); but getting around LA doesn't usually mean getting around the incorporated city of LA, it means getting around the whole greater Los Angeles area, which is 33,954 square miles (87,940 square km). That's immense and fixed route transit is just not going to cover very many trips.

That said, the LA MTA trains do seem to get pretty significant ridership, and voter support, so it makes sense to me to keep building them. Some people are able to make it work for them, and I'd guess more people over time will be able to find housing and jobs near enough to the lines that it makes a difference for them.

I doubt it's going to make a significant dent in congestion, but it might bend the curve a bit. If you increase transit capacity, and you don't limit population growth, congestion is going to get worse over time. The LA area in general doesn't have the same general resistance to high density residential as the bay area, and there's also always a lot of single family housing going up on the edges, and of course, nothing stopping people from having more people in a single unit, so population growth seems to be a given.