I never used that term here. I said your community. Since you’ve walked these areas that are so disenfranchised by Metro, that you’d consider them your community. A community can be as simple as a group of people that you care for. It can be a real place or a virtual one.

But if I made any incorrect statements about your community, I cheerfully withdraw them.

“You are quite uppity my friend if you would dare to compare yourself to the CEO of Metro who makes a quarter of a million dollars a year just because you are both white.”

I’m not white. And I don’t think I have to be white to disagree with your opinion of Metro or its outgoing CEO, a man who has made mistakes and also helped steer a transit agency to do great things.

I think cars are going to remain a necessity for most mothers with kids. The change I think people may consider making is having the breadwinner, be it the husband or the wife, whoever is making the most money at a job they have to commute to, will be taking carpools or public transit to their job. Compromises will have to be made.

And what’s this talk about: “my people” please clarify what you mean?

I am not sure what that mean in regards to South LA.

I often am critical of “my people” when I refer to what people do (in a critical but constructive manner ) when I’m talking about the green movement and alt transit, because those are “my people.” I was raised with vegan, hippie, pseudo-liberal yuppie parents. I don’t think the people I am talking about (of course not Roger Snoble, but when I talk about they hypocrisy in the green movement) have anything to do with you.

I don’t think you’re like anyone that I talk about at all.

Are you so delusional that you actually think that me talking about Roger Snoble and the top people at Metro some how relates to you and your life…talk about someone being upppity. You are quite uppity my friend if you would dare to compare yourself to the CEO of Metro who makes a quarter of a million dollars a year just because you are both white. You think you are like the people who I talk about who happen to be white, but are rich and powerful.

And that’s it right? But you’re just a white guy. Are you a rich white guy? Are you a white guy with some lots of degrees? Do live in a big house? Did you to exclusive schools? Are you like the Kennedys? Are you parents important (you know beyond the being important to you)? Or are you just white?

Because when I talk about things I’m not referring to just the race part, you do get that right?

Wow…I mean that’s kind of funny, but wow, oh now I get the Watts statement…ok then.

I have an idea I will go on my speed dial and call every black person in south central and tell them to make sure not to litter.

And you get on your speed dial and tell all the Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Warren Buffet to help fund some rails, expanded bus lines and some separated bike lanes.

We’ll meet up here next week to discuss our progress.

So every white person knows every other white person? And you all feel some kind of kinship, so you could just go up to members of Skull and Bones and they’d be cool with you, wow. All of this time I thought class had something to do with it, but it’s just race.

Wow, I didn’t know that. I’m going to talk to BusTard about that. He told me you all didn’t know each other, he’s probably just lying to me, so he can keep his connections to himself.

Browne

Maybe Snoble forced him to retire because he was black.

No, not really. One guy is committing a crime and the other is doing his job. One should be in jail and the other should be relaxing with his family after a lifetime of achievements and mistakes. Maybe if Tyrone the car thief wasn’t stealing cars off the park and ride lot at Florence Station he could someday grow up to run Metro too.

You know what I support? Free bus/rail passes for riders attending classes at LA City College. If they’re not good enough try Pasadena City College too. Tuition is free for those who qualify (if I can qualify so can Tyrone!) and books can be checked out for free in the school library.

Speaking of Snoble’s pay, I would hate to think of you as someone who is always counting other people’s money. What should the CEO of Metro make? What should his perks be? Low ball it all you want, but I’d think you’d have a hard time finding any qualified people to run the organization.

“to run Metro like a piece of shit.”

Says you. Snoble didn’t have much to work with. Leahy won’t have much to work with either. When we continue to sit in piss on the bus try to remind yourself that only 28% of your fare goes to steam cleaners. It kind of puts everything in perspective.

“I’m waiting for your opinions on Santa Monica and their fight against METRO currently going on.”

Are you talking about the maintenance facility? If so, it’s like we want the benefits of mass transit but we don’t want to put up with the stuff that makes it, you know, go. It’s like they’re being NIMBYs to themselves.

“He is not going to invite you OC bus guy to any parties because you defend him on a blog.”

Oh, I never expected that. It would be nice though :)

Metro definitely has its strengths and weaknesses. I just don’t like it when a bunch of uppity tinfoil-hat-wearing bloggers imply that a man (and he’s just a man by the way, with strengths and weaknesses) is leading a racist transit agency to disenfranchise the very people they are supposed to help.

You can say white people this and white people that, and yet I can’t talk about the wacky shit that goes on in South Central LA. I can’t even really go to South Central LA. I’ve always wanted to see Watts Towers. I would love to explore the Blue Line more in-depth than I already have (I’m a train nerd, after all!). I would love to see for myself how it could be improved.

And it isn’t just my anxiety. My Hispanic friend who lives in Maywood clings desperately to his shitty Camry because he just can’t deal with the Blue Line anymore. He tried. And he’s only traveling from Slauson.

It is what it is. But it isn’t all Metro’s fault. Maybe if you spent more time urging your community to do the right thing instead of making excuses for them and less time smashing up cars, you’d make more of an impact.

No, but I’m racist.

I agree with Browne that public transit is a big time sucker of your life when you have a kid and have to take them to the doctor, to school, groceries, etc. What I don’t know, though, is how this can ever be mitigated. Cars provide freedom and convenience. But they also cause pollution and congestion. Raising prices is one way of reducing pollution and congestion, because you price people out. But then you’re telling all of those middle class moms, sorry, you’re going to take the bus to take your sick kid to the doctor? And how can you ever build a transit system that is COST EFFECTIVE to the taxpayer and/or rider to serve all of those purposes? Or tell people that they have to live like they were in Wichita Falls or Greenville in terms of the number of choices for schools, daycare, friends, etc. than living in a supposedly Global Tier One city. It’s an interesting conundrum.

This is way not ok. This is some racist bs and this is exactly why I don’t dedicate sensationalized stories for the population who don’t see anything in the communities that go through the Blue Line but:

“Tyrone the fucking car thief or Carlos the drug dealer” you the total jerk.

Have you ever had your car stolen in South Central? Have you ever bought drugs from South Central? Oh have you ever gone to South Central?

I’m going to answer for you no, no and hell no, so bite me.

Stop trying to imply that it’s a race thing in regards to me. It’s a class thing and race is part of that. I’m waiting for your opinions on Santa Monica and their fight against METRO currently going on.

Spokker you are not very bright. You think a petty thief is the same as a guy who gets paid more than a quarter million plus perks (housing and transportation perks, they need to provide him with a bus pass and make him ride that thing) to run Metro like a piece of shit. And it’s a piece of shit.

That’s right I have a page dedicated to him going away, it was funny, get over it. He is not going to invite you OC bus guy to any parties because you defend him on a blog.

And David my response to you will be part of a post, so no need to waste time here.

So now I talk about Metro being shitty, not only am I crazy for saying that because apparently David and Spokker think it’s entirely ok, but now I’m one of those “entitled” minorities asking for a handout…you guys are pieces of work, scary pieces of work, but still pieces of work.

Browne

. . . so. . . you WOULDN’T want a fare hike, then.

Extremism rarely solves any problems. The conditions of the bus are not ALL MTA’s fault. It’s the second biggest city in the country, and MTA buses cover a huge area and serve over a million people a day. There is going to be some wear and tear.

And it’s hard for MTA to re-organize or improve its service if people are unwilling to give it the funds to do so. You have come out and said you thought L.A. would be better off had Measure R not passed. You’ve implied strongly here that you’d oppose a fare hike because you feel MTA would just steal your money. You want them to step it up and improve their services, but you are unwilling to give them any more resources to do so?

Why do you think MTA exists? To steal your money? What do they owe you? They transport you around using mostly taxpayer’s money, augmented only a little bit by the minimal fare you pay them. Sure, there are things they could do better, but on the whole they provide you a valuable service at a bargain price.

Browne

No, Snoble is the white devil and more deserving of criticism. Yawn.

Are you insane? We have a post up right now talking about how transit riders need to learn to walk on the freakin’ elevator. BusTard is way more polite than me. I wanted to title it “Walk you lazy bastards!!” But we have to be considerate and fair. We even had posts about people sitting in handicapped seating, taking over the whole area…but that’s too easy. That’s too easy to talk about just that far on the ground type of stuff when Metro is spending millions towing cars off the freeway.

I got a picture of a guy for an upcoming post who brought a wheelchair on board, took up the handicapped seating and then went to sit on the back.

I also talked about the sexism of some of the male passengers, so don’t think I don’t talk about passengers and the messed up things that they do. Oh and my pleasant walk in downtown when people call me bitch and throw trash at me for not being nice about their catcalls. I just don’t find littering one of the obvious things that they do. If I saw someone littering and being disgusting I’d take a picture of it and post it on my blog.

I have no loyalty. I’m just documenting what I see. It’s not my fault that Metro does so much more for me to document.

And chances of me rallying Metro to make fares more are slim, maybe you can ask BusTard about that, but as of now I believe they would just steal my money. I would like to see it reorganized with more accountablity to the people before I would give it more money.

Browne

—————–

I’d take a fare hike on the Big Blue Blus for expansion of an already great service.

Right now the Big Blue Bus is 75 cents. I would gladly pay $1.25 per ride and be at parity with the cost of Metro ride if I could have free transfers within the system and extension of Line 14 north to Getty and South to Fox Hills Mall and later service on Friday/Saturday nights.

As it is with 75 cents, Big Blue Buses are so much cleaner and pleasant that a Metro bus. Why is that? Shouldn’t the cost of cleaning a Metro bus and Culver City bus and a Big Blue Bus and a LADOT Dash be the same?

Great. Let’s start a campaign to raise the fares in Los Angeles.

“Have you seen the bus stop in front of Union Station right where Metro’s officers are?”

Yes, there was a homeless man sleeping in it the last two times I saw it. Maybe Metro put him there to piss you off. I poked him and said, “Hey, you’re negatively impacting this Metro bus stop!” but he didn’t seem to care.

“But on the otherhand I think there is money already there and there has to be a switch in regards to priorities in LA. Do they want a car dependent populations or do they want good public transit?”

If any priorities have shifted, they have shifted away from the personal automobile and toward mass transit, albeit slightly. Last Summer shocked Americans into realizing that cheap gas isn’t going to last forever. There is more talk than ever about expanding passenger rail transit. Where rails aren’t appropriate, there’s talk of BRT and rapid buses.

Even before this shock, there has been a great revival of old right of ways that used to serve this county. It’s been slow-going, no doubt. But the spark is there. The tide is turning.

There’s plenty of bad to focus on but there’s also plenty of good. There are many accomplishments that our transit agencies have made, most notably Metro.

“Electric and hybrid car drivers can get 2500-7500 dollars in tax credits. I want that.
http://www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm“

Well, I disagree with the hybrid car tax incentives. I don’t think those cars do *that* much good, but it’s not a real major issue with me. It’s an incremental improvement but eventually I would like to see a tax incentive to get people buying electric cars when they become affordable. By then I hope the hybrid car tax breaks are over and done with.

You already gets that. It’s called not paying a vehicle registration fee, insurance fee, vehicle lincense fee, and cost of ownership. Do you really think people need another incentive to not own a car?

But right now I don’t think would be a great time for a fare increase, unfortuantely doing the go-go early aughts when Metro could have upped its game they did nothing and now the have nothing to entice people to ride public transit with except the Red Line and the Gold Line.

I recognize the Red Line is a great thing. The Red Line is what got me on public transit, if it weren’t for the Red Line I would have never got on a bus, ever.

Maybe they could take baby steps and make sure that CBS Deceaux cleans and keeps ups all of the bus stops in downtown LA equally. Every bus stop should look like the one outside of city hall.

Have you seen the bus stop in front of Union Station right where Metro’s officers are? Disgusting. I mean really at least keep your front lawn clean, how hard with that be?

At this point I would be willing to try anything I even voted for that stupid Measure R, thinking it might do something.

But on the otherhand I think there is money already there and there has to be a switch in regards to priorities in LA. Do they want a car dependent populations or do they want good public transit?

Daily public transit riders save the city money in not using their roads and parking in their lots and polluting their air, we should get something too, like a tax credit for not owning a car. I think a tax credit for not having a car in addition to a fare increase could work. If people with Toyota Priuses got a tax credit at some point, then people with no car at all should get at least twice the credit that Toyota drivers got.

Electric and hybrid car drivers can get 2500-7500 dollars in tax credits. I want that.
http://www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm

Me not owning a car gives me more dispoable income, income that if they gave me a tax credit that I could spend on more crap and that would help the country. My extra money could help all of you…lol..

So fare increase sure, but I want a tax credit for my good work in honor of the planet.

Browne

You seem like the kind of person who thinks they can completely figure another person out when they’ve only expressed one or two opinions.

No, I don’t hold the belief that I never want to blame corporate jerks for anything. I think that Metro could do a better job. But at the same time, I think people could have more respect for the transit system. Then there are just elements that are characteristic of a large city that you can do little to nothing about.

You’re right that I do not have photographic evidence of bad behavior from transit riders. I do not write a blog and I do not carry a camera around. I wouldn’t take a picture of someone on the bus or train in the first place for fear that they might beat the shit out of me. Perhaps you are so gung-ho about exposing Metro that you don’t look at what your fellow riders are doing.

On line 20 on Wilshire Blvd. I have seen a couple bring on a bag with bread, meat and cheese and start making sandwiches right there on the bus. I’ve seen the usual transit antics, from people screaming for no reason to people trying to hock worthless trinkets on the subway. Hell, even on “average passenger annual income of $75,000″ Metrolink a guy refused to detrain when a conductor asked him to after failing to provide a ticket, and the cops had to be called to forcibly take him off in a violent display. I saw a dude on Amtrak who was plastered yell at staff before he was thrown off the train.

I have a solution to these problems, but I don’t think you’re going to like it. If you want more security and more janitors at stations and bus stops, Metro is going to have to pay for them. A fare hike may just be in order. Of course, I’m probably racist for proposing that.

“If homeless people were peeing in dressing rooms of Banana Republic, Banana Republic would fix it.”

Banana Republic isn’t charged with providing a service or product that they can only charge 28% of operating costs for. They take cheap ass Chinese clothes and sell them at a horrendous markup. A farebox recovery ratio of 28% is actually low in this industry.

I mean, Jesus Christ, I support mass transit and all but at some point you get what you pay for. Toronto Transit charges $2.75 for its base fare. Even the OCTA charges $1.50 these days.

“Before we continue this discussion our economy is in a freefall whose fault do you think that is?”

It is the fault of the highest paid executives to the stupid homeowners who took loans they couldn’t afford.

Seats that are dirty, because no one has bothered to steam clean them or do what they do to keep them clean. You don’t clean something for five years they are going to be gross.

It’s all about priorities they spend millions on the Sheriff who do nothing but eat donuts, but how much do they spend to clean, probably next to nothing.

And I take the bus. I don’t litter. I respect the bus and the train, and as I’m riding the bus and train I don’t really see people going out of their way to be disgusting, but I do notice I never see anyone cleaning the bus or the bus stops (except if they are near a rail.)

I am going to keep complaining about the condition of the busses, trains and the waiting areas around them and even though I will continue to take them because I think cars are killing the planet, I am also going to continue to complain because I’m not so stupid to think that the conditions are normal.

In New York busses aren’t gross.

Now if you can get photos of people littering and taking pisses on the bus then feel free to blog that and let us know, but as of yet I haven’t seen any outrageously disgusting behavior by the average bus rider. Yeah some people who are mentally insane get on the bus, but usually they don’t have anything with them but their special attitude, but as you know we can blame Reagan for that for shutting down our public mental health hospitals, so now instead of people getting the help that they need they are allowed to wander around near the neglected bus stops.

You know why they don’t wander around the bank, because people care about the bank. Maybe we should not ever clean the trash along the freeway or clean it at the same level as we clean the busses and we will see who is the most dirty.

Look Spokker the busses in LA are disgusting and I’m not going to be ok with that. Maybe you have a different value system where things that stink are totally acceptable, but I guess I’m just a princess because I think you should steam clean the seats once a year or something and maybe if you have problems with homeless people peeing in the elevator to possibly provide a bathroom instead of the solution of spraying that spicey nutmeg fragrance on top of the pee, because pee and nutmeg just smells like nutmeg scented pee. Now since the average transit rider is not homeless then why should the average transit rider have to deal with that kind of nastiness.

We shouldn’t it’s gross and Metro should fix it.

If homeless people were peeing in dressing rooms of Banana Republic, Banana Republic would fix it.

Its not just the people’s fault, I know you don’t want to ever blame corporate jerks for anything, but sometimes it is people at the tops fault.

Before we continue this discussion our economy is in a freefall whose fault do you think that is?

Browne