The Bus Bench

Pershing Square: What Was, What IS and what will never be. . .

Being a fan of cartography, typography, illustration and print, I was excited to take some time from my itinerary of fighting, drinking and satire to drink in the Central Library's latest exhibit, L.A. Unfolded: Maps from The Los Angeles Public Library. It is a decent exhibit (the garish lighting against the Plexiglass and protective glass coverings is rather annoying, to state the least) yet one that I highly recommend. The late 19th Century maps on display are small in number but certainly worth the trip; here are a few, after the jump. . .

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

______________________________________________________________________
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

Please welcome Ms. Sirinya Tritipeskul a Westsider!!

I started The Bus Bench as a satirical figurative and literal look at LA and public transit, while I wanted this blog to be entertaining I also wanted it to be a resource.

I expanded it to include other L.A. bred writers. Except for BusTard who was bred in the UK and the dirty South. The Bus Bench wanted to include writers  who live or are familiar with different aspects of alt transportation and LA life as well as from (or are familiar)  different neighborhoods:

The South side and avid cyclists: Rogelio.
The Valley: Simon.
The SGV and Eastside: Art
Hollywood (Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Echo Park) and downtown: Me!!!
The OC, downtown and anywhere, where punk rock, rocked: BusTard

One perspective is boring, even if it's your own perspective. Who knows everything?

But something was missing. The Westside. The Westside is a part of L.A. and it's a pretty big part of L.A. How can you have a blog about transit in L.A. and never talk about the Westside. BusTard is banned from going west of LaBrea and I am a Hollywood bred girl. I never frequented the Westside*. Peer pressure encouraged me to never visit the Westside. Even when I went to college in Brentwood, I never hung out there.  Consequently anything I would say about the Westside transit wise, would be from some odd poseur perspective. Why should I cut and paste or interpret someone else's opinion? I can just link that person. But I kept hope alive and then I got an email from Sirinya.

A valley girl alt transportationist that's into urban planning living on the Westside.

Please welcome aboard Sirinya our newest Bus Bencher and Westsider.

We look forward to reading your posts.

-Browne, Editor The Bus Bench

*The Westside vs the Eastside debate is a long ongoing saga in LA. Technically Hollywood to a true Eastsider (communities east of the LA River, Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights...)  would be considered the Westside, but when I am referring to Westside I'm referring to communities in the 310. If you are not an Angeleno and want to visit this debate go here.

It's very complicated or not so complicated, but it involves race, class status, ownership, neighborhoods and community pride.

Sometimes I go outside to play. LA Eastside

Today I'm playing at the LA Eastside. I talk about the Exxon-Mobil/Rockefeller addiction to shooting up our blood.

It's a horrible thing.

Check out my post. HERE

Grosses bises,
Browne Molyneux

Jesus Loves all the little children, but apparently METRO doesn’t

I was on the insanely LOUD green line Thursday evening. I waited for around 20 minutes surrounded by eardrum bursting cars that whizzed by on the freeway that surrounds the platform. I looked up and noticed that while the Red Line has gotten expensive flat screens with arrival and departure times posted, the Green Line had a LCD screen that could easily be accommodated to show the times with arrival and departure times, but it hasn’t been done yet.

The Orange Line LCD screens have time arrivals, why not the Green Line?

The LCD screen at the Green Line simply scrolled, “Do not take gas powered scooters on the train,” along with other pointless directives.

When I got to the Blue Line Station, I noticed that while it also had a LCD screen like the Orange Line and the Green Line, it like the Green Line did not have arrival and departure times posted.

The Red Line does have more passengers, but the Blue Line and Green Lines each have more passengers than the Orange Line and the people on the Orange Line get arrival and departure times.

What’s the hold up Metro, why does the Red Line seem to be the priority? Just asking.

You say you don’t treat South Central any different, it sort of looks like you do.

Browne Molyneux

___________________________________________________________________________

 

Green Line, Lakewood Station, Los Angeles (Downey)

Terrorism still a problem at METRO

The blogsphere called out this bs, months ago, but here is some more info on riders getting the screwgy.

See Metrorider LA circa 2/28/08 for some backstory.
_____________________________________________________________________________
“Metro gets $16.1 million for gates
By Sue Doyle, Staff Writer

Steps to bolster security on Los Angeles mass transit gained a little muscle Tuesday when Metro received $16.1 million to install 379 gates and surveillance cameras on subways and some light-rail lines.

Expected to save $3.8 million lost each year on people deliberately not paying fares, the gates eventually will detect explosives and chemicals and can adapt to new security technologies.

"We know that the risks to our mass transit systems are real," said Matthew Bettenhausen, director of the state Office of Homeland Security, during a news conference Tuesday outside the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's downtown building. "The difficulty is that our mass transit systems are open."
______________________________________________________________________________

I don’t know what’s worse that this is happening with virtually no meetings (since METRO has tons of those, what happened to the 3000 meetings on this, they are going to have about 10,000 meetings and 50 dead cyclists and 150 dead pedestrians, before they make any changes that impact real safety issues instead of imaginary safety issues, like the Taliban coming to get us ) or that I have to actually link to the Daily News. It hurts my head to read the Daily News, it is a step above USA Today, but less colorful.

The only thing our transit system is opened to is being pissed on by homeless people.

So people in One Gateway Plaza actually believe that this is going to stop terrorism??!!

The people in One Gateway Plaza, actually believe that terrorism is going to be a problem in a subway system that goes nowhere?!

Yeah lets all say it.

Noho is nowhere, downtown LA is only somewhere out of default, but it’s really nowhere either.

Noho where failed actors do one person shows about hating their mother and coming to LA from some armpit of a town and then we have downtown LA where any idiot with connections and cash can hang bad art and say they have an art gallery.

The thing I found completely fascinating about this whole matter is that the 16.1 million is our money. We voted for Prop1b in 2006 to fund METRO and this is what they spend it on?

Fighting terrorism.

It’s like they are fucking morons up there.

They are worried about 3.5 million in (alleged) lost fares a year, when they are spending at least 5 million a year towing cars off the freeway. Where are the priorities. Of course I want the new sales tax to pass, BUT METRO needs a babysitter (a mean one with braces and a head gear and obsession with Backstreet Boys and no friends)  and a board that actually does something. The Metro Board are elected officials that are supposed to be accountable to the people who vote for them, well that’s the theory any.

Revisit my entertaining take on this HERE.

So we need the defense contractor Cubic building our unneeded turnstiles for lots of money, because scary monster will touch us in special places with bombs and bullets and green goo.

Ok then.

Browne Molyneux

See even METRO knows their trains go nowhere.

Want to contact METRO (edit 7/16)

Metro Board Members:
Antonio R. Villaraigosa: mayor@lacity.org Ph: (213) 978-0600 Fax:  213 978-0750
Pam O’Connor: pam.oconnor@smgov.net
Bernard Parks: councilmember.parks@lacity.org ph: (213)-473-7008 fax: (213) 485-7683
Gloria Molina: molina@bos.lacounty.gov Ph: (323) 881-4601Fax: (323) 887-7286
Yvonne B. Burke: seconddistrict@burke.lacounty.gov
Ph: (310) 458-8201Fax:(310)458-1621
Michael D. Antonovich: (213) 974-5555, (213) 974-1010 FAX
Don Knabe: http://knabe.com/askdon/askdon.html
Zev Yaroslavsky: http://zev.lacounty.gov/forms/touch.htm#email%20address
Carol Inge: 213-922-3056 ingec@metro.net

And METRO's CEO: Roger Snoble: snobler@metro.net

I lifted that from the Bicycle Coalition, thanks for putting that info out there, because I've been looking for Roger's email for years...

 

 

Naked Transportation, a Downtown and Hollywood Journey...Being Supportive

Outside your car and on your feet you get to experience the glamorous bottom floor of Los Angeles. And it has quite a bit of square footage.

I took the 770 Express from 5th and Olive to Cesar E Chavez and Rowan to support Self Help Graphics in their fight to not die from a Catholic Church assisted gentrified death. I guess Roger Mahony and company are tired of just fucking little boys.

I saw Gloria Molina who I feel is amazingly brilliant.

Do I agree with her completely politically, not exactly but I have to honor her bad assedness.

Speaking MTA- Reallocate means cancelled. We changed the meaning of that word while we were making military time standard in Los Angeles subways.

We at the Bus Bench were on our way to the LA Eastside's get together to get free veggie tacos and realized two things.

1.The 37 bus doesn’t exist at 5th and Olive or rather the 37 turns into the 14 a bit before 5th and Olive.

Which wouldn’t be so much a problem (no it actually was a big problem because we were trying to find the 37 bus stop and walked really far and we were actually quite fucking pissed, because as everyone knows yesterday was insanely hot, but we got more pissed about it not running at all than we were about not having the bus stops clearly marked,) but thanks to ENHANCED SERVICE .

2. The 14 bus no longer runs on the weekends (heck it may not run at night anymore. I'm still interpreting metro speak.The language of the future.)

OK according to METRO customer service (which is about reliable as FOX NEWS) it totally does, but I sure as hell didn't see it on Sunday and I'll be going out there again this evening to see if it does in fact still run or the 14 was just doing one of it's vanishing acts and trying to keep it's status as the worst running busline to the westside....

3. El Chavo is not a 63 year old man.

Ok that was three, but that third one is off topic....

According to the nifty detailed guide that wasn’t put out until June 29, on what looks like really cheap paper in DIY fashion  the day the services changed (the general enhanced service guide was put out speaking a bit vaguely of enhancements was put out weeks ago.)

The 14 services will be reallocated to the 714.

And the 714 midday services are going to be enhanced. The 714 doesn’t run on the weekends and since those services aren’t going to be enhanced that means what exactly?

What exactly does that mean for those of you that take Beverly to the Westside via the 14 on the weekends?

It means your ass has to find a new route, because the 14 has been cancelled (maybe.)

“I was waiting for a long time,” patron.
“It’s cancelled,” me.
“But this guide doesn’t say it was cancelled,” patron.
“Metro thinks you’re too stupid to notice, because it’s not unusual to wait for the 14 bus for hours right?” me.
“That’s not right. Now I will have to take the 16 or the 10 and walk very far,” patron.

Why couldn’t Metro say the 14 was cancelled? What’s up the code speak of reallocation and enhanced.

These are from the same people who work with people who say things like urban when they mean cosmopolitan, but instead of saying cancelled they say reallocation?

Do you know what duplicitous asshole means METRO? If this d-word is too large for you how about you just focus on the a-word.

How hard it to say the 14 is going away on the weekends.

How hard would it have been to put a sign out there?

How hard would it have been to put a sign at the bus stop?

How hard would it have been to notify the drivers?

How hard would it have been to put some signs up at the bus stop?

How hard would have it have been to update your fucking website?

I guess too busy having meetings to actually deal with things such as customers.

By Browne

LA Eastside. Codewords in LA

Check out my post on LA EASTSIDE to read about the new phenomenon of MICROLOFTS and what the hell that means exactly.

Browne

I care about tacos, but I'm not a fucking moron.

Have you ever heard of the Mount Rushmore Tactic?

It’s when people propose some real outrageous insanity so that they can screw you in another way and you won’t say anything.

“If everyone in America doesn’t pay one thousand dollars we’re going to cover up Mount Rushmore and no one will ever see it again,” sneaky mount rushmore tactician.

“That’s outrageous, you can’t do that. That’s Un-American. We’re going to go out in the streets and protest this INSANITY. WE WON’T STAND FOR THIS!!!!!!” gullible American public.

“Oh well how about you all just pay ten dollar more tax, for me to have a pool,” sneaky mount rushmore tactician.

“Well ok, as long as we still get to see Mount Rushmore,” gullible American who only goes outside to get inside their car.

Lots of people fall for this. I’m not lots of people.

You know the whole taco truck tragedy, I’m so not buying that crap.