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?