Today’s Headlines

Great. Bill Bauer farts yet another one of his anti-transit editorials out of his mouth for our reading pleasure.

Bauer clings to the delusion that if we stop the Expo Line and the Purple Line extension that somehow he’ll get to live an old-fashioned, suburban, government-preserved, single-occupancy-automobile-only lifestyle in perpetuity in every part of the Westside — as if we won’t have ever-increasing density anyway. SCAG is predicting three million new Los Angeles County residents over the next three decades. As the limits of sprawl have been reached, that means increasing density.

Thwarting these rail projects and the pedestrian improvements he also opposes won’t stop ever-increasing desnity on the Westside. What the Expo Line, Wilshire Line, Santa Monica Blvd. Line and eventual Sepulveda Line will give people are transportation options to maintain mobility and economic viability of the region.

While the concerns of Cheviot Hills and Hancock Park and Santa Monica residents need to be listened to, and their concerns reasonably addressed, a few NIMBYs shouldn’t be and won’t be allowed to thwart the welfare of the entire region by sabotaging the building of these needed rail lines. Bauer feign concern for the residents near Bergamot Station, but if you are familiar with his previous articles, what he is most concerned with is his single-occupancy automobile.

People who want to live in Sam Yorty’s Los Angeles need a time machine more than anything else. People who want a low-density lifestyle will need to move to the actual suburbs. (Note: If you live in the middle of Los Angeles, you do not live in a suburb, nor are you entitled to a government-preserved suburban lifestyle just because you feel entitled to one in the middle of a major metropolitan city.)

This editorial by Bauer has to be seen in the context of his numerous other anti-transit and anti-pedestrian editorials. He feigns concern about Bergamot in this editorial, but his main priority is always his single-occupancy automobile. He’s even signed some of his editorials with “Happy motoring.”

In one editorial I responded to he railed against bus-only lanes on Lincoln and safer pedestrian crossings on Ocean Park Blvd. because they slowed down his car. He later threw in the line “mass transit needs to be more inviting” in the editorial in order to sound like he actually cared about transit and would be willing to ride it, but it’s nonsense. He opposes every improvement that would make transit “more inviting”, such as bus-only lanes and pedestrian improvements.

He also frequently accuses people who support transit as engaging in “social engineering”. He would never admit to the city and county having engaged in “social engineering” in favor of the automobile for the last fifty years. He comes from the mindset that somehow autos and roads are “free market” and transit is “social egineering”. Basically, any public policy people don’t like they call “social engineering” to demonize it.