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.

Morning Politics

Drinking my cup of coffee waking my brain up... Read some articles on Obama to start my day.

I read that GM is going to go bankrupt and is asking the Federal government for a bailout package in the billions. Personally I don't mind but I think they need to mandate certain conditions in order to receive one. I realize that our economy is doing very badly. Everything is connected like the web of life, except this is an economic cash flow version of that interconnected web. Every time something goes wrong (i.e. petro prices rise overnight, housing prices skyrocket, etc...) it sets off a chain reaction that hurts everyone. All these big big banks are collapsing like Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae which is pretty big. So although I don't really have any partiality toward GM, I realize that they might help them to prevent further economic repercussions. However I would only help auto manufacturers under one condition:

They have to agree that by 2016 every car they produce needs to be a hybrid .

...at the least.

We need to get off petro for a variety of reasons (i.e. global warming, unreasonable demand internationally for oil, etc...) and the sooner we make this inescapable transition the better. If we want Detroit to remain strong internationally it needs to become cutting edge and that means petro powered rides gotta go. I can understand if trucks remain gas powered and diesel but that's it. People don't need to drive around in escalades or suburbans and automakers should cater to such excess waste on their own dime. Other than actual truck trucks like full size pick-ups and big rigs, everything needs to become hybrids or better. Otherwise we will be investing in a failing system that is already outdated and going obsolete.

I don't know how battery powered and natural gas powered cars would do, but the bus and many county vehicles are natural gas or ethanol powered and they pull their weight just fine. I've read some impressive stats for battery powered cars as well. The only problem is refueling. There is no grid of gas stations nationwide or even city wide for people to utilize to refuel. Until this changes, alternative powered cars will never make it. Other than local governments with set routes, no one will want them due to their worthless state of existence without places to refuel.

I remember learning in high school how Roosevelt rebuilt the entire national infrastructure to boost the economy after the great depression. He helped revive the economy and modernized the nation at the same time. He poured heavy amounts of Federal Dollars into paving and building roads, bridges, walkways, and other much needed infrastructure nationwide. We take having paved roads to drive almost anywhere for granted but many of these paved roads cutting through unfavorable locations we owe to his presidency.

The economy is falling apart layer by layer on itself right now and President Obama is going to enter a Capitol that is in serious need. I am wondering if building a nationwide infrastructure to make travel by natural gas, ethanol and battery power is feasible to both boost the economy and begin weaning the population off of petro powered automobiles.

I realize alot of people might pout and kick and scream but our nation needs to grow out of petro already. Not just for automobile use but for everything. I learned other places such as the E.U. are using wind, wave and solar power to power cities. Domestic infrastructure over there is actually powered by cleaner more efficient energy sources while we remain in the steam powered era polluting the earth excessively and wasting much needed funding on it. We really need to power our homes, schools and transportation with cutting edge clean energy sources like many other emerging nations are doing.

I don't mean to be on a soap box but our nation has become stuck in the rut of this way of life and we need to get rolling again or we are going to fall further behind these emerging superpowers in the world surrounding us as well as suffer from the dilapidated system we currently are under.

Science is amazing, but as long as it is ignored or hidden to keep business running as usual... the people, earth and economy will suffer so that a small handful of tycoons will profit from the infrastructure we are locked into.

The video Zeitgeist: Addendum explains this concept beautifully. Just as long as we are not using science as an excuse to live recklessly, it could provide alot of solutions.

I feel bad for this new president. He is inheriting some serious crisis problems that we are going to look to him for solutions to. Hopefully he encourages many suffering industries such as automobiles and housing to lower their prices. Homes where I live are becoming too over priced. This neighborhood is not that deserving of the prices I'm seeing, but since it is Southern California they want to raise prices due to location to greedy amounts. I see cheap apartments for ridiculous prices, simple houses for appalling prices, houses for sale everywhere while they are building houses on every field left in my community that they set insane values on! It is obvious greed is behind this and not a humble practical policy to serve the people looking to attain homes.