Streetsblog Los Angeles

I had the LA Weekly article about “All Day on Metro” sent to me by two different transit observers/railfans, one of whom does not drive.  The comments are especially interesting, such as the one that labeled the article as “slumming”.  There was another article in the same publication about drunk driving, and a common theme in its comment section was
 “Public transit in LA Sucks!”  I do use Metro whenever I can; what’s especially fun is to take the Gold Line downtown, and then use the Red and Blue to visit the LA Auto Show, or take the Purple and a Wilshire bus to the Petersen Auto Museum.  On the other hand, if I had to depend on the infrequent local bus to get me to the Gold Line, rather than my own car, the “fun” element would be diminished.  Now I’ll probably get some flak merely for being a “choice rider”.  Another comment about the Metro article said that it reinforced the notion among many Angelenos that Metro is strictly for the poor, the deranged and the defective.  Or as my late ex-wife might have put it “I’ll give up my car when they pry my cold, dead hands from the steering wheel” (and no, she did not perish in a collision). 

 Last year there was an article in LA Times about a family from Northern California who came to LA by bus and train, and explored the city by local bus and Metro Rail.  Although the article by Nita Lelyveld was quite positive and interesting, the headline (nearly all newspaper headlines are written by someone other than the author of the article) implied that the family had gone on an exotic adventure worthy of Indiana Jones.

Don’t feel bad–it’s been over 40 years since Amtrak started running, and some people still write “Amtrack”–even on railfan websites!