The Bus Bench

After Pearl Harbor.

Following evacuation orders, this store, at 13th and Franklin Streets, was closed. The owner, a University of California graduate of Japanese descent, placed the I AM AN AMERICAN sign on the store front on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry will be housed in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration.

-- Photographer: Lange, Dorothea -- Oakland, California. 3/13/42
Photo and caption courtesy of Calisphere from a gift received by the Bancroft Library.

-ShameTrainLA remembers our fellow Americans who were forced out of their homes, pulled out of school, pushed out of their businesses and forced into camps for being Asian.

L.A. Sheriff deputy allows ADA violation (Pershing Square)

This summer, my interest in the significant presence of L.A. County Sheriff's deputies at pershing Square was piqued when I observed a terse conversation between a deputy and a frustrated, wheel-chair bound Metro patron. The deputy appeared to be annoyed that he had to answer to a person regarding the blocked passageway—the vehicle blocking it being a Metro contractor's vehicle.

Metro Sheriffs to Transit Advocate: "Your First Amendment Rights Are Not in Service"

What happens when a well-recognised transit advocate waiting to buy a newspaper is physically threatened by Metro sheriffs that gather daily at Pershing Square Red Line station? Libelous and unfounded accusations of terrorism as well as intimidation, unwarranted arrest and all manner of implicit threats to one's future liberties and life, followed by constant accusations of creating scandal for scandal's sake. My protests of being unlawfully detained were met with the phrase, "Tell it to the judge." The day's motif is sure to be best appreciated in the final video of this post's Twin Towers/County Jail misadventure, which satirically addresses a few of the very topics that the hired guns of Metro's Transit Security Bureau alleges in a fashion too serious to forget.

TransitVue Takes A Dive on The Red Line

A year or so ago, Metro elected to blow $2.2 million to install 350 46" plasma screens, allegedly for the betterment of communicating to straphangers the arrival times of trains. But as with all things Metro, not only has the usual gone undone but all manner of new problems have been introduced despite the promises of the contractor, TransitVue.

Don't let Metro get it's Golden Ticket. Yes on R

I’m voting for Measure R

I don’t believe anything is going to happen in regards to service if Measure R passes. You know what I think Measure R is.? Metro’s Golden Ticket.

It’s Metro’s Golden Ticket to get out of things they promised they were going to do and they know they can’t do it (or rather won‘t do.) You know things like the Gold Line. As I have stated since last year the Gold Line will never happen, not in the way Metro said it was going to happen.

Lazy LAPD and the Busses Running Reds—Again

One wonders what the hell is going on in downtown Los Angeles, what with the LAPD targeting jaywalkers and the occasional private motorist even as Metro busses run reds while the LAPD stands by and watches. I have previously commented extensively about this problem—especially the policy that LAPD has on NOT citing Metro busses for running red lights—so I will just post two videos taken during rush hour on Friday, 10 October 2008 in downtown L.A. to illustrate the problem.

Could These Be Unsold Embezzled Metro Drivers' Day Passes?

There is all sorts of wrong with Metro's poor compensation of bus drivers. The public's safety is but one facet (and apparently an insignificant one) of hiring drivers for rates at which even a lowly newspaper production schmoe would scoff: "Trainee Rate:$11.09 p/hr - Start Rate:$14.38 p/hr - Top Rate:$22.12 p/hr."

As such, it is no wonder that the Daily News found out about a Metro drivers' scam that has been employed for quite some time.

Black Monday prompts Blue Metro

As there is neither a recession nor a depression, then it follows that tits and ass, drugs and death, wrong and right, AIN'T. Or so Metro implies, as this single slice of the debauchery to follow clearly illustrates:

Hey LACMTA: What Mistakes Might We Anticipate THIS week?

Starting with the unprecedented death toll owing to Metrolink's wreck on Friday, 12 Sept., the public transit in southern CA has had no dearth of near-fatal mistakes in what appears to be an effort to permanently wreck public transit.

As such, one would do well to wonder: How is Metro/MTA/etc gonna roger us this week?

more after the transfer—provided you ain't dead. . .

Rapids Run Red Lights—but do the LAPD and Sheriff care?

For many years I have noticed that Metro busses run red lights with impunity. Neither LAPD nor any other police agency appears to have jurisdiction over Metro, as I have never seen a bus stopped nor cited.

What about the children? Metro implies that grave injury and even death can result from running red lights:

more after the transfer. . .