The Bus Bench

Bus Bench Service Alerts. Sept 30. The economy had a stroke!!

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Metrolink is going to have to add a second engineer on SOME trains, oh well how about them letting the engineers have more than eight hours between shifts, oh that would be real change and cost money.
LA Times/ Sept 27

Shooting near the Blue Line. What does that mean exactly? If it’s not on the Blue Line, aren’t most shooting near something somewhat significant?
LA Times/ Sept 24

Izip (the electric bike) was using Darryl Hannah to sell bikes, but they forgot to tell her.
Sify/ Sept 28

The economy had a stroke; lets see which side gets paralyzed.
Washington Post/ Sept 29

A list of freeways that should be torn down, none of the freeways of LA, you know probably owing to our questionable bus service.
CNU

The Eastside. An education.
LA Eastside/ Sept 28

Compiled and edited by Browne Molyneux

A bus/bike combo morality tale. Los Angeles.

Noe, rock star fashion stylist, hairdresser, party girl and entrepreneur.

My friend Noe and I look like sisters and we both work for ourselves, but we differ in lots of ways.

1. She lives the glamorous life of a jet-setting stylist.
2. I do not.
3. She had never taken the bus.
4. I take public transportation exclusively.

This weekend owing to reasons related to the content in that glass she’s holding I had to give Noe a crash course on public transportation and help her find a bicycle.

She was a good sport, in the extreme way of good sport. Waiting for the Montebello 40 she called me.

“Browne the bus isn’t coming at the time it said it was coming, is that normal?”

Now you can party past the departure of the midnight train

Hi everybody, So for starters, I must apologize for being MIA for so long. Lots of stuff: school's coming up, my attendance at the California chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-CA) conference (more on that)...

But for the time being: Zach Behrens, fellow Valley resident, just announced on LAist that Metro's Board of Directors voted unanimously to run Red Line subway trains until 3AM on Fridays and Saturdays as a pilot between early November and January 3rd.

Metro after dark.

The Bus Bench Service Alerts. Sept 26. The Homeless edition

Stevie Wonder's Living For the City

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Yesterday outside my apartment there was a march. Bail out Main St. not Wall St.
Workers World/ Sept 25

It’s easy to be a homeless person in Beverly Hills; according to a very idiotic story on AP.
AP/ Sept 13

The Homeless blog tells the many ways the above story is not too smart.
Homeless Blog/ Sept 15

Homeless people set the tone for a story on an art gallery. Setting the tone like a piece of furniture is a negative. I know online my sarcasm sometimes is missed, so I wanted you to know that was indeed me being an ass.
ESG/ Sept 25

Homeless people don’t cause violent crime, so the police bothering them just points to people finding them annoying. If being annoying is a crime then Nature Mart should be on lock down.
UCLA/ Sept 25

Homeless people need your clothes.
Blogdowntown/ Sept 25

A homeless woman got stomped to death in downtown.
NBC/ Sept 12

Compiled and edited by Browne Molyneux

 

Please don't park your bike like this.

I was walking around Los Angeles City College and  I was happy to see many students riding their bike and taking public transport instead of driving.

But sometimes when we're doing great in one area we sort of forget about other areas.

I was not happy with this sight:

A bike chained to and blocking the wheelchair ramp at the front of the campus.

There are quite a few differently-abled people who attend LACC and the Braille Institute is right next door, so being mindful of people who may not have the ride a bike option and only have the option to get around via wheelchair, cane or their legs is very important.

Now at this entrance in it's photographed state if a person were in a wheelchair they would have no easy options. They would have to choose the time consuming option of going all the way around to the side entrance.

That's not fair. It's not fair that someone in a wheelchair has to be late to class, because someone thought it would be ok to chain their bike to another person's path to equal access.

If your campus needs more bike parking let the administrators know that, because blocking access and taking another person's rights away, because it is more convenient is not very eco, in fact it's pretty freakin' selfish.

Browne

LA Times message for victims of tragedies: Can we have your money?

A heart felt message from LA Times Homicide Blog.

I’ve noticed Jill Levoy’s name is no longer on the Homicide Blog and I also noticed some interestingly

Bus Bench Service Alerts. Sept 25. There is a public transportation day? Wow.

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MTA wants safety improvements, oh...I thought the NTSB had been asking for those since 2005.
Bottleneck/ Sept 25

McCain is a bit negative on public transportation.
Art Voice/ Sept 25

Israel celebrated public transit day on Tuesday. Hey why don't we have one of those?
Israel Ministry of the Environment/ Sept 24

Is LA ready for bike sharing? The negative side of me says no.
Streetsblog/ Sept 24

Eat late in downtown LA. It's one of the few places that has reliable 24 hour public transit service, depending on where you live. We also have that cab thing.
Angelenic/ Sept 25

compiled and edited by Browne Molyneux

Metro's website has enabled one of those rolling info things.

Twelve minute delay on the Gold Line (as of today at 1:20pm), well that is pretty awesome. Now if only they could get that for the busses.

Note the scroll along the bottom. This could be beta, but hopefully this is developed fully very soon.

Browne Molyneux

Bus Bench Service Alerts. Sept 24. Red Line to 3am is getting closer.

Story comparing bike and car production in the Economist.
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We’re a step closer to normal subway service, for the Red Line for a little while.
Blogdowntown/ Sept 23

Congress meets a compromise, but the President hasn’t signed the bill on rail safety yet.
LA Times/ Sept 24

NY Subways now have Google Transit, we sort of have it with Metrolink, but not with Metro.
NY Times/ Sept 23

The Amber Alert signs could soon be available for ads.
LA Times/ Sept 24

Lawsuit against Metrolink contractor filed by employees.
Mercury/ Sept 19

Compiled and edited by Browne Molyneux

Brutal Quote of the Day

Rather bizarrely, internet comedy/gross-out site SomethingAwful.com recently posted an article about the Metrolink crash. This moment from the end is particularly brutal:

As a reminder for those of you who died in last Friday's Chatsworth accident, you are eligible for reimbursement under Metrolink's Quality Service Pledge. Under this program commuters who are delayed more than one hour from the published train schedule are entitled to a replacement ticket or a universal 4-trip ticket, depending on your type of pass.

Claims can be made to Metrolink Quality Service Pledge, Passenger Services Dept., 700 South Flower Street, 26th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90017.

Ouch.