The Bus Bench

Gold Line Eastside Extension---Expected completion date around 2033-2035

The Expenditure Plan is out for Measure R and the usual suspects got bent over.

Well, I guess Chimatli's dream of kids from the Eastside going to the beach via the rail will be waiting for her grandkids, if she is lucky.

Random shot of a lonely bus stop in Watts, outside the Rosa Park Station

 

Maybe I'm being a bit contrived saying this is a lonely bus stop. Actually to take this picture I asked the people sitting to move for a moment. I also waited until a bus and train came. It's funny what kind of impression you can give with an image. You can make something that is a lie look indisputably true.

Browne

The Best of the Bus 2008

Whether you are the best at being good or the best at being bad, we at The Bus Bench support you. It takes just as much non-effort to be bad as it does effort to be good, so without further ado, here is The Best of the Bus.

What about Malibu? Myopic movements in alt transportation.

 
Photo by Trujillo-Paumier of Good Magazine

Often in the "you should take public transit or ride your bike" movements, advocates like to focus on people (making on the high end) 50k per year to support a family of four. These people tend to live in the middle of nowhere, because that is the only place that they can afford.

People who are single and childless making plenty of money and who have plenty of resources mock this person as a “bad” human who wants to destroy the planet.

Revisiting Katrina. The lack of mobility can get you killed.

Being able to move around your neighborhood without being shot is an important component of Livable Streets. Being able to leave your neighborhood is also an important component of Livable Streets. In the alternative transit movement we often talk about trains and busses and bicycles, but there isn't too much talk about some of the streets that you take to get to these modes of transit (beyond aesthetic concerns) and what happens to people in rural communities and segregated ethnic communities.

While I hate the idea of the car, I wouldn’t want any of my male cousins walking up the streets of LA, NY, Chicago, Philadelphia or even a small rural town.

Hurricane Katrina is a good case of the problems of lack of mobility and violence.

New Orleans prior to Katrina was 68% African-American. One-third of those people did not have cars and in a city with inadequate public transit, this gave people one option, walking.

It's not safe for a man of color to walk in Los Angeles on a regular day, but in the days following one of the worse disasters (I want to say man-made, because my opinion is the drilling for oil by Mobile off the shores of Louisiana made that flood happen) in America's history it seemed for some to be a death wish.

Here's a video from The Nation that describes what can happen to you if you don't have a car.

H/T to Color of Change who brought this video to my attention.

Browne Molyneux

The Watts Christmas Parade. The Blue Line's Kenneth Hahn Station

The Watts X-mas Parade wasn’t publicized anywhere. I couldn’t even find it in the Sentinel.

Good-night Eartha Kitt. Eartha Kitt dead at 81.

NEW YORK — Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.

Polly Anderson Huffington Post

 

Dead Pedestrian Walking. Happy Holidays from The Bus Bench

   
Broadway and Fifth, Downtown LA. December 25, 2008.

I spent Xmas Eve and Xmas Day walking the streets. I ran into an old associate, almost a friend, but not quite. And I didn’t run into him, I walked by him.

I walked by him without saying a word, because I was tired. Tired of talking to people who used to be happy, but weren’t so happy anymore.

The tagging INSIDE the downtown LA Macy's display.

So two days a go being the best environmentally friendly Angeleno EVER, because I'm walking. I pass by Macy's. On the inside display I see tagging, graffiti, street art, whatever.

I tell BusTard he's got to take a picture of that. The security guard notices us and almost gets a 'tude, but then thinks about it and realized that a 'tude is probably a bad idea and sort of thanks us for bringing the tagging to his attention.

Two days later on my way to Ralph's to get cocktail ingredients I take a detour just to see and it's still there.

It Twas the Night Before XXXmas

I’m waiting for the dowtown LA Macy’s to wake up, because I’m going to put up yet another post with the graffiti that is STILL THERE, amazing.

So while you are waiting for my post of corporate public blight you can read an interview of me and get some insight into why I do what I do with The Bus Bench.

I’m hoping this will encourage someone to volunteer to murder their car.

LA Streetsblog Interviews:

A Browne Molyneux interview with a picture that includes one of the few times I’m not wearing some sort of a costume. 
 
Robert Gottieb is also interviewed. He is the Director of the Urban Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. 

As an extra bonus I suggest you also check out MetroriderLA’s founder (yeah back in the day Metrorider was run by a young fun person,) the late great Fred Camino’s interview. Ok he’s not dead, but that seems to be the best way to introduce someone, because of the rhyming thing….

Grosses bises,

Browne

PS I do write on another blog, LA Eastside. As you know I have lots of opinions. Here is my opinion on Rick Warren being invited to Ebenezer Baptist Church on MLK Day.