Attention all working class heroes: Metro wants your business.  The latest installment of the billboard ad campaign running in Hollywood features a world-weary cubicle slave proclaiming to the masses that he “M’s to the daily grind.”  The one before that was of a young woman letting us know about the joys of not having to shell out money at the pump.  The theme of these ads focuses on the low cost of Metro and how it will let you keep more of your paycheck than a car.

This is a bit of an odd commercial campaign, because the tone of it really does not pitch the product in glowing terms to the consumer.  It goes more in the direction of the reassuringly cheap option instead of presenting itself as ride that is just as comfortable, if not more so, than taking a car.  Young professionals can be attracted to Metro for more than just saving a buck.  The morning commute offers a good opportunity to get work done and organize for the day plus desk jockeys can get a fleeting amount of exercise when walking from to/from the bus stop.

Let’s further examine who Metro is  trying to attract with these advertisements.  The series is aimed at people in the same age group as the disgruntled employee in the empty office and the sweater lady.  Young working people who have never taken public transport before the economy tanked.  Now there is a big influx of people who are now using metro for economic reasons and a concerted effort should be made to attract and hold onto as many of them as possible.  The message conveyed to potential riders in these ads seems to be that Metro is all right, but more importantly,  much cheaper than owning some wheels.  Money issues may keep people on Metro now when times are bad, but what will happen if/when the economy improves?  Long-term passenger retention of these 20-30 somethings will not just rely on low costs, but a comfortable traveling experience as well.  If services are set at a high standard, these people could become regular passengers for the rest of their lives.

A perfect example of this new breed of metro rider is a young lady who is writing in a blog I recently came across call Snob on a Bus, which details the life of a girl in here in LA who takes Metro because she could not afford to keep her car.  Taking into account that economics dictate nearly all of our actions, will people like this blogger abandon Metro in a year if they suddenly can afford to make that car payment every month?  This will depend on a few factors.  Will attitudes towards taking the bus change to the point where people than can afford a car decide to refrain from having one and opt for mass transit instead?  Also, will the expansion of service offer a comparable amount of convenience as taking a car for these newbies?  The price is right for new Metro riders, now the big factor is the customer experience.

A while back, I asked Fred Camino if I could make a post about Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence by Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy. So I decided that now I could make a few posts about the recommendations that they made in their book.

On reducing automobile dependence, they came up with 5 solutions: traffic calming, introducing options (bike/bus lanes for example), polycentrism, planning for open space, and different tax methods. However, I thought that they missed what what would be better than all of these options: tolling freeways (and roads where applicable).

Why is tolling roads such a good idea? Well first off, it would decrease the traffic on roads almost instantaneously. Instead of a 2 hour drive from Westwood to Pasadena, it would only take a little more than half an hour (like it does weekend mornings). Secondly, the price would act as an incentive to use other modes of transportation because they are inherently cheaper. So we would give an incentive towards rail that most in the political spectrum would have to agree on. Liberals (for the most part) would like the lower pollution from alternate modes of transportation and conservatives (for the most part) wouldn’t be able to argue against it because this is what we would arrive at in a free market. Thirdly, it would help us see where we need to divert the most resources for transportation because we can directly see where people are paying the most to use roads. Lastly, and what I think is most important, is that we would finally have a way to separate traffic based on the importance of the drive. Right now, a mother sending her kids to daycare gets just as much priority as a son driving to see his dying father. With toll roads, the son would be able to pay the toll while the mother would look for another, cheaper option.

What about the gas tax system that we have now? We should abolish it. It prices all roads the same so it is in some ways hard to tell which roads should get the most maintenance. As for pollution, it would go way down. So why not toll roads? Traffic decreases, alternative uses will become more popular, and pollution will decrease. Of course, this begs the question: why not price for pollution? Well, I think we should. And weight? Of course. It is easy to see why the latter should be taxed, by conservatives would cry fowl about the former. I say, so what? In their ideal system, the road builder would have to make a deal before building the road in order to compensate local landowners for the pollution that the road creates. How would this be any different?

So this sounds like a good idea in itself,  but it is not the only transformation that would be necessary. But more on that later.

Los Angles is going through some stormy weather.  Due to the sparse amount of underground metro lines, almost all transportation in LA is exposed to the elements.  Normally the weather in LA is picturesque, but in the instances of severe weather that are bound to occur from time to time (i.e. heavy rain as we have had this week), driving is quite hazardous and accidents occur with more frequency.

So what is to be done?  There is a fair amount of weather-proofing that needs to be done to ensure the city does not grind to a halt when there are extreme weather conditions.  The infrastructure upgrades need to tackle a number of areas to handle inclement weather and increase public safety.

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the electricity grid.  As one of 6,800 people who lost their power for the better part of a day, it is obvious that the power supply is prone to weather-related shut-downs.  Outages can also halt mass transit lines as they did in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino.  Add the yet to be built electric vehicle charging station network, new energy hungry buildings and the every growing population, emphasis needs to be put on building new lines and fortifying the old ones against the wind and rain.

With some degree of certainty in the reliability of the power network, the attention should then be shifted to building more track and fixed transportation infrastructure.  Bring back the streetcar!  A rainy day is not that bad when you do not have to drive and can take in the city through a rain-splashed window pane.  Permit me to use this post to throw my support behind the Los Angeles Streetcar Inc. (LASI) and any effort to bring back streetcars to the city.  They are reliable, durable and less affected by weather conditions than cars.  More can be written about streetcars here, but that will be another post for another day.

It bears repeating that the subway is the way to go when the weather gets a bit rough.  It is no coincidence that London’s has such a complete underground network that is suited for a city that needs to often move in wet weather.  Subterranean protection from the cold is a big plus for New Yorkers, Muscovites, and millions of other urban citizens throughout the world.  Though it is not a huge factor in LA, protection against the weather can be added to the list of reasons for building underground lines like the Subway to the Sea and the Pink Line through West Hollywood.

For the vast majority of the year the weather in the Los Angeles area is beautiful, but the problems in the city’s transit network and infrastructure are exposed when extreme weather manifests itself.

The old cliché goes hope for the best and prepare for the worst.  As metro grows and new projects get put into motion, the city would be well served to factor in how the new additions would hold up under severe weather conditions.

These aren't racing flags

Yet another good idea we can steal from the Old Continent: the income based speeding ticket.  Already the law of the land in Finland, where a 2002 fine to a director of the Nokia Corporation cost him €116,000 ($103,600 at the time) for doing 75 km/h (47 mph) in a 50 km/h (31 mph) zone.  The man charged, Mr. Anssi Vanjoki, was charged a fine equivalent to 14 days of his €12.5 Million annual income.

What prompted this post was the news on Yahoo! on January 7^th that the record for a traffic ticket has been broken by a Swiss speeder to the tune of $290,000.  This may seem harsh to the offender until you realize that he is worth over $20 million and will definitely not be rolling pennies for gas.

Now for those Angelenos living paycheck to paycheck, a speeding ticket really hurts.  They have the feel of a harsh penalty and getting a speeding ticket definitely affects their driving for months after a citation.  Say an individual makes the minimum wage and works 40 hours a week.  The net pay on the check is about $300.  After a fine and other ancillary costs (e.g. traffic school), that person has lost at least a full week’s wages.  For a person worth $20 million in LA, a $300 fine is laughable and no deterrent to speeding at all.  With a toothless monetary deterrent to hundreds, if not thousands of drivers, what is to stop them from speeding?  There is a point system in place to punish repeated offenders, but this means someone has to get caught time after time to have their driving privileges curtained.  Not the best system that requires the multiple offenses before behavior is punished for a particular segment of the population.

A copy-paste of the income-based traffic fines used in Finland and Switzerland would bring many positive benefits:

1. Rich people would drive better.  It levels the rules of the road for all drivers by implementing a fairer system of deterrence that would make even the wealthiest of people think twice before speeding.
2. Since some people will speed anyway, the city would raise a lot more cash.  The money raised by the city should entirely be used to fund public transportation.  After a few years of this, the city might have enough money to fund European-quality mass transit.
3. Not to bang the egalitarian drum too loudly, but implementing such a system would be a fine example of ending the cultural phenomenon of being able to buy your way out of things in this country.  Think of the children.

If you are driving multiple $500,000 cars and are worth millions, there is not much of a defense in arguing against such a proposition on monetary grounds.  Those people have the money to pay two weeks of their annual income should they be found exceeding the speed limit.  If there are any millionaires that read the metroriderla blog and would like to mount a defense of the current system and how it keeps them in check, contrarian views are most welcome.

The Transit Coalition, a rider advocacy group pleasantly short of kooks and cranks, has graciously volunteered to maintain the Year in Transit archives. Look back at the years past and see how frighteningly true these predictions have come.

With the pre-trip inspection complete, let’s roll this bus out of the division.

Metro once again shows it can make quick decisions, and once again, it shows the quick decisions only leave riders confused and angry. A week before the June shake-up, Metro decides to transpose the colors on the two busways. Riders and bus drivers are baffled, but Metro says the confusion is worth it because it was stupider to have silver buses on the Orange Line and orange buses on the Silver Line.

Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach wins the hearts and minds of locals with his new solution for the OCTA funding crisis: Cancel all bus service, then round up Orange County’s transit-dependent population to be ground up and fed to the hungry.

Los Angeles’ bicyclists evolve from a community to a fierce, hardy tribe when they acknowledge Ubrayj as their leader. The announcement catches Brayj by surprise and he decides to learn leadership methods from a weekend of watching “Braveheart”. He is then inspired to lead bicyclists on a siege of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation headquarters in downtown L.A.

Californians are getting so sick of the state’s raids on transit to balance its own budget that a group is now circulating an initiative petition to stop it once and for all. The wording of the measure says that if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or any state official attempts another raid on funds, their punishment shall be to strap all their campaign contributions to them and then have a transit agency representative be able to keep all the money they can obtain from turning the politicians upside down and shaking them.

The Metrolink board is unable to decide on either raising fares or cutting service to meet budget shortfalls, so it instead decides to allow passengers to get free passes if they mail in a manila envelope filled with gold coins or jewelry they no longer use.

The Expo Line is so desperate to get any part of the problem-plagued light rail line in service by the end of 2010, the best it could do is scale back Phase I to operate peak hours only between 7th Street Metro Center and Pico stations in time for the service shake-up in December.

Metro decides fare gates are a failure — we can only hope — after an experiment to try actual fare collection ends miserably when riders stare glazedly at the turnstiles because they aren’t sure how they work.

California’s high-speed rail plan wins federal funding, but the state doesn’t even get beyond the $1 billion mark. The federal money we get is just enough to buy higher-speed service powered by adding sails to existing Amtrak trains and locomotives.

Long Beach pours water on a councilwoman’s ambitious plans to introduce modern streetcars in the city. The City Council instead votes to spend the equivalent amount of money that would have gone into a steel-wheel system and spend it on buying battery-powered faux trolleys and use the money left over to “paint” tracks into the street.

One of the last acts of retired USC president Steven Sample is to announce that the University of Southern California will be vacating the campus and leaving Los Angeles the Friday before the weekend the Expo Line will open. He put a few professors in the School of Policy, Planning and Development in charge of the transition team, and they settled on an ideologically correct campus near the junction of the 133 and 241 toll roads in Orange County.

An investigation reveals Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s vow to have a subway extension completed within 10 years relies heavily on a speculative extension beyond Santa Monica to the Moon. Villaraigosa figured an extraplanetary extension would make the Purple Line extension eligible for NASA funding.

Southern California transit systems become the test markets for a new federal initiative to get on-the-ropes carmakers General Motors and Chrysler back into health by building transit equipment. The yet-to-be-named end product has the looks of a Pontiac Aztek combined with the reliablity of a Chrysler.

While we’re on car companies, the latest conspiracy theory to raise teabaggers’ hackles the way chum does in shark-infested waters is a Drudge Report post claiming the Obama administration deliberately bankrupted GM and Chrysler in order to weaken the auto industry and force everyone onto transit. Teabaggers claim they are victims of the “Reverse Roger Rabbit Conspiracy.”

RobDawg, who has been noticeably quiet for much of the last year, will resurface in a big way after he completes his move to the Inland Empire. He says his heart will always be in Ventura County, but the houses he scored for cents on the dollar at an auction was a deal too good to pass up. He will relaunch his blog as Methburban Nation.

And speaking of relaunches, Fred Camino will be coming back to MetroRiderLA full-time, only this time, he knows the haters are the only ones that get readership. So starting April 1, MetroRiderLA will keep the same name, except content from then on will be a daily candid photograph of a transit user that Web users can laugh at without the fear of putting themselves in danger — transit’s answer to PeopleOfWalMart.com.

There you have it, the Year in Transit.

This is the point where the entree is finished with a lemon wedge and a warm cup of vinegar. It’s that bitter. Readers, this is the optional point where you can take the road Lisa Simpson wish she could have and get off at Crackton. A Metro or Santa Monica bus will be by shortly to complete your trip on Pico Boulevard.

That’s it?

Last call.

Alright.

If there is anything that can be proved from living through the last year, it’s that The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” had been proven true, lyric line for lyric line, in 2009.

Barack Obama may be the United States’ first American president, yet at the same time Americans elected a conservative despite that ideology leading us into the abyss. Obama is the definition of a classic conservative. The root of “conservative” is “conserve,” going all the way back to the Enlightenment.

Obama chose to conserve the very agents that have pushed the United States on that split second of hang time Wile E. Coyote has after he overshot the cliff ledge but before he falls hard into the chasm.

He chose to conserve the war effort that’s yielding no benefits but a sizable portion of the costs of our trillions in debt. He chose to conserve the cracked and termite-infested pillars of our financial community who caused a global economic collapse through reckless business practices by committing another trillion to ensure “stability.” What did we stabilize? The finance sector’s license to recklessly squander wealth on whatever the prerogatives taste makers of the markets have and set us up on the rhythm method of bubble-collapse-bubble that has become our economic system. Only each subsequent bubble will grow bigger and the aftermath more catastrophic.

The self-identified liberals and progressives are shocked, shocked! that they thought by voting for a Democrat and getting him elected, that the election represented a chit they could call in. Call in for things that we actually need: infrastructure repairs, energy efficiency and of course, a health care deserving of even Third World standards. Yes, America, we need to aspire to Third World status because genuinely poor countries have been able to invest in First World medical standards and technology and build nascent economies around medical tourism.

The last year was marked — besides our moribund economy — by what has been misnamed as the “debate” on health care. Supposedly, after spending the better part of the year fashioning compromise and consensus, the Senate and House present thousands of pages of laws that amounts to the health care industry getting a government license to play with our health the way the finance sector played with our money.

The health care may be labeled Healthcaregate once the bloom comes off the rose, but the “-gate” suffix should be banished forever. This is not a scandal, it’s the internal mechanics of the American way. Just standard operating procedure.

I propose a new suffix, one more apt to Americans’ capabilities: -Trina. It of course originated in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans. We of course now know that the city, state and the federal government had ample warning that a sizable hurricane would wipe out the city and kill thousands unless everyone got on the same page and invested money and energy to solve the problem. We dithered, then the worst came true. Now, more than four years after the disaster, we are no better off than the years before the hurricane and won’t be for years to come.

It repeated itself in the Twin Cities with the bridge collapse. It manifested itself as the first horseman of the economic collapse in 2008 when the trauma of $4.69/gallon gas made all of America into transit advocates. This year, regardless of the health care bill’s outcome, we’re witnessing Healthcaretrina as we speak.

A bipartisan consensus has determined that the avarice of the healthcare industry is Not Up For Negotiation. The healthcare industry will come out a winner either way, right up until a few years down the line it collapses under its own weight and everyone’s nightmare comes true: We get socialized medicine, only it will be the medical equivalent of Amtrak.

The one curiosity to emerge from the healthcare fiasco is the rise of a subculture that is bound to infest the body politic like crab lice. America, meet Citizen Teabagger.

If Obama is conservative by virtue of the institutions he wants to, you know, conserve, what becomes of the opposition that can’t stand the true conservative? Well, the discombobulated multitudes that emerged from the Tea Party movement cannot be linked by an ideology, since it is a movement free of ideas. Teabaggery isn’t an ideology for the same reason that arson isn’t a political movement.

If there is a tie that binds them, their common sentiment would be: “I’m against people who don’t think like me giving my money to people who don’t look like me.”

That doesn’t take much thought, and the movement — remember the rallying cry “Get the government’s hands off my Medicare!” — sees ideas as an undesirable personality trait to be corrected.

Disaffection? Yes. Untenable expectations? Why not. Deep-seated resentment against a world full of The Other? You betcha.

America, these are the choices left to you. In one corner, you are supporting the forces of a financial and a government overclass that will tug the leash around your neck ever tighter, and expect larger and larger pulls in the future.

In the other corner, you can cast your lot with the arsonists. Their only redeeming quality is hostility to the order of things, but the more you hang around them you realize that to the arsonists, fire is both the means and the end.

There is yet another way to a better life — in theory. Yet most Americans will take their side among these two factions, and those that remain don’t have the numbers, the intellect, the self-discipline and the resources to offer something compelling.

Listen to The Who very carefully. The message is about futility. Acknowledge it. Resign to it. Embrace it.

The year 2009 shall also be known for a collection of famous and historic figures that have left us. Michael Jackson. Walter Cronkite. Robert McNamara. Heck, even Billy Mays and Ed McMahon are people of accomplishment in their own ways. There are so many to acknowledge, so it is tough to single out a dedication to a single deserving person.

This Year in Transit is dedicated to the memory of Hope and Change. It left us too soon.

Sardonically yours, the Year in Transit wishes you peace and a Happy New Year.

After traversing the city, I arrived back at Metro Center at 6:40 pm, where the yellow vests, booths, and other things have disappeared. Unfortunately, I got into an argument with a driver over the Silver Line fare. The Silver Line, for better or worse, has a unique fare structure that benefits the occasional or workday rider and penalizes the daily rider – day passes are valid for full fare on the Silver Line, while all other forms of regular prepaid media (Metrolink passes, EZ transit passes, MTA weekly and monthly passes) are not. The statement in the schedule is clear, and the Silver Line only has one fare. However, the driver stopped the bus for three minutes I stated I would not pay the surcharge, even though I showed a receipt stating that the fare media on my card was a day pass (obtained from using the “validator” mode of a TAP fare machine earlier that day). After keeping the bus stopped for a few more minutes thinking it would make me change my mind (it didn’t, and there were only a few other riders on board so I wasn’t really delaying anyone), he made a snide comment and pulled away.

Two things were more disconcerting, however: the fact that the driver convinced another rider to pay the surcharge, even though I showed her in the schedules which were available on the bus that she did not have to pay the surcharge if she had a day pass, and the fact that 323-GO-METRO, customer information, actually stated back to me when I called to confirm my position that day pass holders had to pay the extra fare – contrary to the information available on the Metro web site. The other customer justified paying it by stating that she was riding on the freeway, so it didn’t apply, which is not true, as the same fare applies whether you are going from Union Station to 7th Street or the entire length of the line.

After I got home I reported the incident to the web site, so I assume that corrective action will follow shortly, but this raises larger issues about the quality of service for the choice rider – since choice riders are likely going to be the ones using the day pass on the Silver Line, to try out the service. With the large potential of missed transfers at each end to previous through service (and the fact that, unlike at other busy intersections where one can cool their heels by grabbing a cup of coffee or a burger, there is not much within walking distance of interest to the transit rider near either El Monte or Artesia), inability for a new rider to get a TAP card at Artesia on site (at least at El Monte one could buy a Foothill TAP card for $7 – $2 for the card and $5 worth of cash credit), and confusion relating to the fare structure, is this enough for the service to fail? Fortunately, the MTA has time to perfect the service in the year before tolling begins on the I-10 and I-110 corridors – but it must address these issues now before drivers decide that paying $6 one way for a toll is better than paying $6 for a day pass (2011 prices) to ride the Silver Line into work.

Have any of you experienced fare issues on the Silver Line, especially occasional riders that use the Day Pass? In the meantime, print out this fare flyer as it could come in handy if you are a day pass holder and the fare information on the schedule doesn’t help you get your point across.

Photo by neighborhoods.org on Flickr; used with a Creative Commons license

The day after Thanksgiving, known in recent years as Black Friday, has been the time when bovine Americans stampeded to shopping malls and general merchandise stores. Yes, that remark has a kernel of truth.

That was before the alcohol-induced spending binge of most of this decade led to a brief coma and the hangover gripping most Americans. Unfortunately, 70% of our economy depends on people buying crap.

If you do join the herd Friday, remember MetroReaders, keep your money in Los Angeles County. We have to feed the Measure R kitty.

If you choose not to, you can see where the Measure R money goes by joining the Southern California Transit Advocates on its Day After Thanksgiving study tour. This year, Socata’s train-hopping aboard Metrolink. The Socata folks are going to use Family 4-Pack tickets to explore almost every line in one day.

Participants are asked to shake off the tryptophan somnolence and arrive at Union Station by 7:50 a.m.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

This is Socata’s planned itinerary:

Train 600, Orange County Line
Leave Union Station: 8:00 a.m.
Arrive Orange: 8:46 a.m.

Train 800, Inland Empire/Orange County Line
Leave Orange: 9:32 a.m.
Arrive San Bernardino: 10:50 a.m.

Train 321, San Bernardino County Line
Leave San Bernardino: 11:00 a.m.
Arrive Union Station: 12:30 p.m.

Lunch break, 12:30 p.m.-1:10 p.m.

Train 109, Ventura County Line
Leave Union Station: 1:10 p.m.
Arrive Moorpark: 2:20 p.m.

Train 116, Ventura County Line
Leave Moorpark: 2:30 p.m.
Arrive Glendale: 3:24 p.m.

Train 211, Antelope Valley Line
Leave Glendale: 3:55 p.m.
Arrive Lancaster: 5:35 p.m.

Train 222, Antelope Valley Line
Leave Lancaster: 5:50 p.m.
Arrive Union Station: 7:50 p.m.

The route names, rationales for the changes and service frequencies are on the Google Map for this series. Click on a line and look.

This map covers route suggestions for services between the Santa Monica Mountains and the 10 Freeway. There are DASH proposals for East and Northeast Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley as well.

Is Los Angeles the most brutal city in America?  If so, are we proud of that?  What kind of city do we want to have?  These are all very pertinent questions because with if an integrated, well-functioning mass transit system were to come about, the complexion and feel of the city will certainly change.  Can the city retain its edge while becoming a fairer socio-economic place or must we remain ruthless?  The prediction here is that the grand scheme of things (winner take all/loser get naught) way of life in LA is as stable as the weather and is posed no threat by some trains, but they will nevertheless continued to be delayed and underfunded.

Measure R is the perfect example.  Hailed as the panacea by the city government, it should be viewed on how deeply entrenched the status quo is.  $40 billion is an encouraging number, but once the sentence finishes and states that the money is to be accrued over 30 years…eyes roll.  Spain is proposing $178.8 billion over the next decade for trains.  California has a bigger economy than Spain, we’re more populous and the size of SoCal is comparable to our Iberian amigos.   The numbers paint a bad picture to transit funding efforts and their timetable of implementation.

This existential question about the place I choose to call home was posed to me when recently confronted with someone visiting from out of town…from San Francisco.  Lots of people from “the city” are so smug about the place it can get really, really annoying.  Don’t misunderstand, I do really like San Francisco.  It is progressive for America, but compared to European transit and green networks in places like Sweden, Germany, etc., it is pretty mediocre stuff.  LA needs to improve for itself and its citizens due to its sheer size and to maintain its economic strength.  Not to brag about how awesome we are to people who don’t live here.

Back to the lessons learned courtesy of the rock spawned from this town all those years ago.  This is a jungle, but it is time we LA animals evolve.  More money has to be allocated for public transportation and a sense of urgency is even more needed or in the coming decades this problem will become too much for LA to handle and bring it to its Cha-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-knees-knees.

Welcome to the jungle