green line and travellin'

i'm at a GIS workshop (which is neat, because it's free and will give me a sense of GIS, which is cool mapping software), and it's in el segundo, which while a bit random, is exciting because it allowed me to take the final unexplored mta rail line, the green line, normally kind of an unuseful line. mta rail system, i have conquered you. not really. but i have ridden all your lines, if ridden is a word. it took a long time but it was kind of pleasant, seeing new neighborhoods in the early morning light.

i was feeling tough for coming from so far away, but people actually came to this from oakland and the central valley, which is crazy! dudes iz here from all over, and coming from far and yon for a two day workshop. this seems crazy to me, but then, people drive for hours every day just to get to work, and i don't understand that either.

addressing reluctance for yuppies to ride transit

i understand that many who are not, as tony says, raising their fist and crying "social justiiiiiiiiice" do not enjoy riding buses because there are humorous/irritating characters riding the bus also. one dude in a transit-oriented-development class went so far as to suggest a class system, which is hella lame, but he does actually ride the bus, so it clearly addresses some kind of demonstrable reaction to transit and encouraging ridership.

if we are going to get people out of their cars, we are going to need to address this issue (or make driving very very painful).

clearly one "disincentive" to riding is that often homeless folks use transit as a safe place to get out of the elements (and perhaps also get from place to place, but also for shelter). this is not such a big deal except that as they a) don't have anywhere to keep their stuff and b) don't have anywhere to take a shower, they impact the other riders with a) really big amounts of stuff and b) body odor that fears no one.

in a multi-disciplinary approach to bleeding heartedness, if we had better social services for homeless folks, e.g. showers and lockers and safe places for them to hang out so they didn't take the bus for shelter, we might be better able to convince mainstream dudes to take the bus/train?

do the test!

even better than the "carcissism" posters by the MTA is this bitchin' video from city of londON (sorry i don't know how to embed non-youtube videos).

love/hate relationship

oh the MTA, my relationship with thee is like to that of a lover, with moments of intense joy, followed by near-tears sense of betrayal and wondering of why you never come round anymore. yesterday i endured a painful and emotional hour-long wait for the bus home, due to an accident in westwood. no buses for an hour, then all of a sudden a burst of them, a clutch, of three 2 buses and a pacoima-bound rapid. maybe next time, my friends, you could call the other 2 buses and let them know STAY OUT OF THE ACCIDENT AREA so they could turn around earlier and not throw off the schedules of everyone along the 2 busline stretching from westwood to downtown for the next hour. this is the future, friends. let's use technology. i almost cried the last time i had to wait for the 2 at this very stop for almost an hour (after a similarly frustrating wait at the non-existent, no stop not even a stone to stand on in beverly hills moments earlier) at the end of a very very long and stressful day two weeks ago. COME MORE OFTEN, BUSES. COME MORE OFTEN.

but then this morning, i took the red line to north hollywood, and after momentary confusion (they lack about one key sign to make it really clear) found the orange line, and delightedly took it for the first time to the valley. it took less than an hour door to door, very awesome! the orange line is really pleasant to ride on as well, as its corridor is beautifully landscaped and there is no traffic. ah-the way buses should be. given their own lane! delightful! on the way back to the office, waited less than fifteen minutes for the next orange line bus, maybe ten minutes for the subway, and maybe two minutes for the one-stop trip i take on the rapid from macarthur park to the office. joyful transit riding on a beautiful sunny day. only blight was a surly white guy whose shoes were coming apart (a sure sign of poverty, i believe) who was grumbling about various things including talking crap about the cheerful latina ladies who were happily chatting and comparing jewelry in the front of the bus. why hate on friendly smiling ladies? no reason to do it. but all in all, a very pleasant transit experience. timing is obviously key in the enjoyment of transit ridership.

other small notes: a tiny black woman all in black waiting for the subway with totally overwhelming lion's mane of bouffant orange hair, a woman with a very well-mannered small dog in her lap on the bus, a latino father and young son in matching fancy clothes and slicked up fauxhawks, a painfully traffic-y bus ride from west hollywood to usc for a meeting made much more palatable by the exceeding friendliness of the driver, who seemed to know 3/4 of the regulars taking the bus, small birds making their homes above the lights at the entrance to the north hollywood stop, a dude singing loudly along to whatever parts he knew of that to which he was listening (boo).

hard out here for a cyclist

forget pimps.  from where i sit their "job" seems pretty easy: collect money for the services of others, whom they sass and control (and no, i didn't watch all of "hustle and flow", it grew tiresome almost immediately).

it's hard out here for a cyclist!  the big city, and i doubt LA is unique in this, is a tough place to ride a bike.  for that matter, rural areas are a bit tricky too, what with perhaps not having paved roads.  but in the big city, you have to compete with cars for right of way, dodging monstrous potholes and glass shards and random nails and tacks.

and grumpy, grumpy aggressive drivers who operate under the delusion that cyclists are supposed to stay off the road, when in fact, we are supposed to be ON the road.  not on the sidewalk.  friendly west hollywood has signs along sunset to this affect, trying to teach both drivers and cyclists that bicycles are not allowed on sidewalks.  a lot of accidents are caused when drivers turn into a driveway, and hit a cyclist on the sidewalk they did not expect.

but many times that i'm biking, people yell angrily, honking and cursing me from their cars because i'm in the road.  or dudes whistle, which baffles me, because i honestly think they're doing it to irritate, because they look back at you to see if you flip them the bird, and seem pleased if you do (so i must stop reacting in that fashion).  then i get angry and am reactionary and bike with a chip on my shoulder.  i get grumpy when i get a blister on my thumb from replacing my tube because a monster pothole popped my tube.  i get quite rude when bus driver's have broken bike racks and give me sass about it.  it makes me sad as a designy/planny person when there is nowhere safe to lock a bike.

but then...there's the times when i'm whistling carefree down highland, feeling the sun on my back.  or how it takes 25 minutes to get to work no matter what, and i don't have to navigate a parking lot.  or when i'm coming home on hollywood, cackling inwardly as i pass with great ease and speed by all the party traffic.  haha!  eat my dirt!  maybe it's the good life after all...

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back!

this blog died down when we moved to SLO, as i wasn't doing a lot of alternative transitting. before i worked also at TJ's, i took the one bus route to and from work, which was good times, and so i could have a bit of transit reminiscing of my morning bus driver rose, who would sometimes wait for me, and then she retired, and the dude who replaced her, who drove like a bat out of hell through our two-stop town. interesting ridership: punk-ass white dudes with DUIs, crazies who i'm glad weren't driving, and the nice teacher being environmentally conscious. waiting for the bus on cold cold cold mornings, racing to catch the bus and falling. then after i started at TJ's i drove a tremendous amount and was sad for my wanton oil-consumption, but did enjoy the lovely countryside and the hum0rous country music on KJUG, and my friend i would pass, the llama.

but now, we're back in LA, and trying not to drive again. except to get groceries sometimes, or other tricky type things. look for stories about the 2 along the sunset strip, biking in west hollywood, and other excitement!

if you too are trying to not drive, i would love to have additional voices on here. you don't have to be a gringa, claro!

boda y blowout y broadway

i got all "must do it now!" about picking up my wedding dress on the way home from work and walked (getting incredibly sweaty) from vermont and sunset to matrushka, my friendly neighborhood commie dressmakers, to get it right as they were closing. then of course i had to walk home without wrinkling it, so for a long time i fluttered it out behind me like a flag, not letting it touch the ground. but then-blessings!-a bus stopped for me, sort of in the middle of the road not at a stop, out of the kindness of the lady driver. hurrah! a skinny black man yelled "hey! where are you going to wear that?" as i hung the dress on the upper hand rail. when i told him my wedding, he congratulated me. then a very neat looking old lady started interrogating me about where the wedding was, if the dress was vintage, where i got it, who had made the dress, how much it was (she was a little shocked i think, by the price), what the groom was going to wear, how i was going to wear my hair, and, finding that it met her approval, said "i like it." just i was about to get off.

it was a fun experience. hannah arendt would have approved, i think. the ridiculous amount of driving that occurred in the lead up, occurence, and post-wedding though, was less exciting. sorry environment, for those 500 miles in a week.

in bike news, bianchi got her THIRD flat (this time a doozie giganto nail in the trickier hind wheel), right before i left on vacation and i had to carry her like 12 blocks downtown. sadly i was only recently able to get her fixed but now she has a shiny new tire and tube!

in recent transit news, i now change at broadway and fourth to get to my internship, instead of at macarthur park, which is very sad. i miss the ken mart blasting terrible pop, the orange juice lady, the friendly green and fountains of the park, the cool lighting, even the crazy shoe shiner and the "cigaro cigaro cigaro" woman. i miss all the people rushing about. pershing square stop is like, business people and homeless people. pershing square is a fake park, and the stop is hostile, inside and out.