Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Catching the bus

MTA has come a long way from the old RTD days. I still remember sneaking on the backdoors of the bus to get on for free. The new fleets are much better designed, roomier, classier and cleaner. Although the Supreme Court had to sort of force MTA to finally replace the old junkers I'm still glad that they got something new. I hope they dont raise the day pass as high as they are predicting. Sure miss the days of 25cent transfers.

I am realizing that whoever designed the bus was apparently not a bus rider. I see high traffic bus stops with no benches, wastebaskets or rain guards. Then I see the city put benches or rain guards on stops that people rarely use. I think the bus stops that are high traffic bus stops with alot of daily riders should get preference with the benches, wastecans and rain barriers. I have caught so many bus stops near colleges or hospitals with no rain guards or even benches that it is upsetting. Groups of people in the rain or standing while other low traffic stops have a bench and everything that sits empty most of the time. It is poor planning.

It would be nice if the buses ran later also. I noticed they put bike racks on the buses now though and that is great. Someone had a good idea there. I see alot of people use them.

Then again most stuff is not designed for the pedestrian. Everything is designed for the car. You never have roads dead end and pick up somewhere else with no connect for the car to use to get from one to the other. Yet walkways have a bad habit of just dead ending and you have to walk through stuff or in the road or parking lot to get to the next part of the walkway. Either that or go all the way around while cars are given closer connection ways. They are the ones driving. Shouldn't they be the one to have to go around further instead of the pedestrian?

Everything is designed by car drivers for car drivers it appears.

I guess that is just the way L.A. is. Maybe they should let GM go bankrupt. The auto industry really screwed Los Angeles when they tore all the rail out in the early 1900's and replaced everything with freeways forcing Los to become a car city. Why should we pity them now that they are hurting? They never cared about us. They used politicians to ruin the rail system Los Angeles historically did have in the early 1900's just to make money off us us. New York and other cities kept their subways and rail systems but ours got dismantled to build freeways. Alot of recent arrivals to Los Angeles don't even realize that Los Angeles used to have an extensive rail system that was pretty big across our county from the South Bay to Downtown LA to the Harbor to downtown Long Beach. It is long gone. I saw the Belmont Tunnel recently and that yard is changed. They built big townhomes on most of it although the old subway station is still there. Hurt to see an old West Coast spot get ruined by development. Still tagged up but not like the pieces I saw when I visited it in the mid-nineties. I can only imagine in the 80's when it was poppin back in the day.

The Auto Industry has done alot of backroom deals to implement or cripple public policies in favor of their profits. The long term effects of the damage they have done are still hurting people like me that were born long after they did what they did. Why should I pity GM or any of them? I think I made a mistake to initially feel bad. I only regret it is a Union Company that is hurting. A company that apparently did respect its workers (so I'm told) is the first to suffer and that is just not right. It should be the other way around.

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