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ChineseMTA, Make me want you
I came into this public transit fray initially for one reason only - the cultivation of a good time via MTA. There are as many kinks and fetishes out there as there are the myspace pages to contain them, but if you boil it all down having a good time is basically comprised of 3 things: People who you are sexually attracted to, the presence of social stimulating chemicals, and a place in which to combine the aformentioned things away from one’s home. This metro rider is currently only concerned with the last listed item; getting there. I’ll go so far as to say the place where people meet their vice is the largest and most important aspect of the three. So why don’t people party with transit in this city? There’s is definitely no clear or simple answer but I’ve taken it upon myself to slowly answer that question over time, drink by drink, party by party, post by post.
As FredCamino pointed out in a previous post, the MTA has decided to scale back operating hours due to “rider demands”. Aside from being ridiculous and falling into several old timey greek logical fallacies this move deals a heavy blow to the MTA party quotient. 12:30am is already absurd, an end time which really only allows the MTA to be used to get to the party, but now even earlier? It practically knocks the lime out of my gin and tonic. There really isn’t much more that can be said about this new policy change other than it is evil and clearly implemented by anti-social bridge trolls scared of their own reflection and the smell of human pheromones after dusk. So take a swig and speak up, let them know this post hoc ergo propter hoc doesn’t count as “rider demands”. Until then be sure to ride soused, arrive drunk, and bring a change of clothes then crash at Tammy’s place. Happy hangovers.
Discussion
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JustMyNipples (nice name): I can’t wait to read your insights on partying via Metro. It’s definately an issue in this city with its glowing nightlife and after hours parties that define “Hollywood” to the rest of the nation. Hollywood, the neighborhood (not the idea) is currently undergoing a nightlife revolution, and what better place since it’s so very metro accessible. No less than 4 metro rail stops, plus the new weekend “Holly Trolly”, it’s really the perfect place for MTA marketing to flex a new slogan: Go Metro to Nightlife. I can see the posters and billboards now, and more importantly, I can see droves of young and old party animals taking advantage of the system. Hollywood, Downtown, Long Beach, Pasadena… these are all areas where people go to “go out”, and they are all places accessible by the growing metro system. The problem is, the system shuts down just as the party is heating up. So instead we have weekend nightime traffic (why is there a rush-hour style traffic jam at 11:30 pm on a friday night?), a multitude of dangerous drunk drivers, exhorbitent parking fees, and a slew of other reason NOT to go out and patronize local businesses. Fun is just as important and just essential as work to a society, and we can’t forget that transit should be used to meet the needs of a society, both work and fun. Transit should be for more than just commuting. It should be there for you when you want to go ANY WHERE for ANY REASON.
Oh by the way, in case you didn’t read my early post, the scaling back of hours was actually done a year ago. My apologies for the innacurate post.
learning the go betweens and round abouts to make metro accessible for not just commuting, but for night life would be amazingly helpful. thanks for taking on the burden JustMyNipples, from your post it seems you’re more than apt for the job.
There’s always another side to the late night service reductions.
Night service is always a drain on the agency’s budget. Which do you eliminate: the service with the least amount of ridership or the heavily used peak service to balance everything? Night buses and trains are always underproductive. Moreover, late night is when the trains, stations and tracks get maintained.
Also, I offer this as a gentle warning to JustMyNipples and the “burgeoning party crowd,” be careful of overvaluing your class’ worth and flaunting it. There are many pressing transportation needs in L.A. Attracting the party crowd and keeping them happy is a very expensive proposition, and the risks outweigh the benefits.
What risks? Well, I can see the party crowd Goldline* Metro Rail when they realize most of the night riders are poor, dark-skinned janitors, fast food workers and security guards. The party crowd abandons the trains because they resent the presence of the unhip poor.
(*Goldline, v.-To get behind a major project, then systematically and petulantly take a dump on said project because of a flaw that is not that big of a deal.)
The other thing, as I have learned from a quarter century of riding L.A. transit, is that the best way to change the system is to ride as much as you can and take the good with the bad.
First, everyday riders can speak from experience and are the MTA’s eyes and ears for actual operations advice.
Second, transit is demand-oriented. Money is spent on service that has proven it has a large ridership base or is rapidly growing. Once you’re settled in as a rider, try riding more and using the less frequent services.
Third, if you see problems, make your voice heard. Direct all complaints to MTA or go to our two fine transit advocacy organizations, Southern California Transit Advocates or the Transit Coalition. Go to the Bus Riders Union to pick up the wisdom of L.A.’s dime-store Stalin, Eric Mann, but abandon any hope of doing squat for bus riders. Go to Socata for knowledge, go to the TC if you are passionate about transit advocacy (especially rail). Also, get to know the workings of the monolith that is the MTA. Find ways of changing the system without getting the politicians on the board involved. Get to know the planners, the supervisors and the operators. They are the unsung heroes of the agency, and they’re the ones who make things work.
Here’s what won’t work: riding transit in the hopes of finding some miserable aspect of the ride to have the excuse of never riding the system again. You know, the self-fulfilling prophecy. You can’t all be journalists. MTA doesn’t respond to riders’ threats of abandoning the system. Why? Since the days of the last streetcars, public transit was on a steady and certain downward spiral of decay to oblivion, and ridership would eventually hit zero. And the buses would run as though ridership remained steady. Why? Because there are too many well-paid bus drivers, maintenance workers and bureaucrats who would lose their paychecks, and they will not let the system collapse.
Don’t let all that I have said deter you. I’m glad that a site like this exists, and that you could pick up a few things from a grizzled old vet. Happy riding!
Great post Wad, I agree that riding is the most important thing, as ridership numbers truly speak. Getting involved is also important, which is why I created this blog, and put all those lovely links over to the right.
As for catering to the party crowd, I would agree that it’s definately not the most important thing on the transit agenda in this city, but it is an aspect that should be considered. LA is made up of so many different type of people… rich and poor, young and old, black and white. The long term transit goals should be to create a system that caters effectively and effeciently to everyones transit needs, making the city sustainable, productive, and enjoyable.
One more thing, I like your verb “goldline”, but what was the one single flaw about that project?
The other problem is that the rail system doesn’t go that many places to make it useful for nigthlife. On New Year’s Eve, during that Giant Downtown debacle, the Red Line worked quite well, even if it was primarily populated by people huddling in the train figuring out where to go next. Just last Saturday night, I took the Metro southbound from North Hollywood at about 11:30, and there were plenty of people riding back from events and parties, mostly in the teenage range, although there was a group of four couples in their early 30’s as well. The question is, though, where are they going, and does the Metro take them there? Metrolink is planning to start a midnight train Saturday night from Downtown east to the 909. Will that work?
FredCamino wrote: “… but what was the one single flaw about that project?”
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Marmion Way. That’s why everyone goldlined the Gold Line.
Marmion is that street between the Southwest Museum and Highland Park station that’s less than a lane wide in each direction. Cars that have to take the street sometimes have to drive on the train tracks, and that’s why the trains have to run slower through this area.
This short segment, which lasts no more than 4-5 minutes, is what has everyone’s panties in a twist.
If you were to somehow mitigate that segment, what time savings would you achieve? Well, the Gold Line would run about as fast as the express trains do now. You might save about 3-4 minutes. End to end. For most riders, it wouldn’t make a difference.
You know what’s even more frustrating? Having to transfer at Union Station. You have to walk long distances in order to make a simple transfer. You need to give yourself 8-10 minutes to make a simple connection.
That I could understand, ut not sniveling about Marmion.
Wad wrote: “You know what’s even more frustrating? Having to transfer at Union Station. You have to walk long distances in order to make a simple transfer. You need to give yourself 8-10 minutes to make a simple connection.”
i agree completely… especially since i hadn’t even known there was such a problem. 3-4 minutes is nothing compared to that damn connection.
as for what you’ve written previously, Wad, you seem to be hell bent on the power of race and class being the end all and rule all of the MTA’s decision making, and even more so on the city’s riders (or from your perspective, lack of riders). though i agree that there is a large amount of people that would… think (never say for as fred camino wrote, the rich white class would never admit to the reason they dont ride is race related) as you have said, there is a larger group that i believe just don’t know enough about the options MTA offers. on the bus the other day, a lady that i was talking to didn’t even know there was a subway in LA and she USES public transit. i’ve also heard co-workers saying “its just not accessible”, and for some its true and needs to be improved a great deal, but for others i was able set up a commute for them at the website quite easily. a web site i might add they’d never even heard of, let alone been to. i just think that even though some racism is involved it’s just way too easy of a cop out in my opinion.
Tykejohnson wrote:
I’ve never said L.A. public transit has a lack of riders. We have the second-largest bus ridership in the U.S. If we had a lack of ridership, the rest of the country is beyond hope.
I can’t really decipher the decision-making process of the 13 board members, save for Mike Antonovich, who seems to only show up just to prevent the city of L.A. from getting money.
The point I made was that people avoid riding transit is to avoid being within close proximity to poor, dark-skinned people, but they won’t admit to this outright.
They do foreclose the idea of ever riding transit and go to great lengths to avoid riding.
This kind of behavior falls into the category of “unintentional racism,” where a person’s behavior reveals latent prejudices. Well-to-do liberals, I am talking to you.
Many of us tend to overrely on rational explanations. In the case of racism, many would believe that racism is positive. Not positive as in good, but positive in the philosophical sense that a racist must be aware of racism, consciously and deliberately commit to racist thought, and then act on those thoughts. This is a common bias among well-educated men and women.
They lack the life experience to know that reason has its limits, and because they reason that they are not actively commiting racist acts, they are not racists. They don’t know that many things in life defy explanation, or that others’ behaviors have been formed around experiences.
Does riding a bus or train make you nervous, or do you feel that you are in any sort of danger from fellow passengers? A little introspection reveals a lot.
There’s no doubt that most people (hell, everyone) harbor some sort of latent predjudice. There’s very little we can do about this, and if this is the main thing keeping people who don’t have to ride the bus from riding the bus then the movement is doomed from the start. Is this what you are claiming? That no effort should be made to “convert” drivers into transit users because their latent (or blatant) racism is so powerful that no amount of reasoning will overcome it? If so then what’s the point, should we give up and all join the BRU? Should the transit system be something just to help those who can’t afford the almighty car or should it be something that unites an entire populace, and all the race, class, and otherwise that comes with that?
Rail systems can do that. Bus systems will always have the stigma and the problem that comes with confined spaces. High quality bus systems that charge high fares and stop only at parking lots to scare off the walking riff-raff do work and draw lots and lots of middle and upper-middle class people every day. The Orange Line kind of does that. But the Rapids and the local buses don’t do that for most people.
I think for the most part the bus riders of the city are a fairly pleasant amiable bunch, from the working poor to the liberal hipsters. Most people just want to get where they want to go with as much ease as possible. Now granted, on the bus and train you will often find the singular whack job crazy yelling nonsense and maybe stinking to high-heaven, something you really wouldn’t have to deal with in a car. But there’s a pretty simple makeshift solution to that, most people do it naturally…ignore the crazy. It’s like you learned when you were a child, when some who is desperate for attention doesn’t receive any, they will usually move on. Now you can call me insensitive to the plight of the mentally ill if you like, but I contend that the bus or train is not the place where good psychiatric care can be administered.
of course there’s latent racism, wad, that’s not the entire point though is it? like fredcamino said, if you abandon the idea that people will convert BECAUSE of their latent discrimination than he’s right, the movement is doomed from the start; there’s no hope at all of growing. perhaps generations from now when children don’t inherit the latent/blatant racism of their parents/family and friends the world will be great, but i’d like to see progress before that time.
here is a perfect example:
the other day i got on the bus and there were two seats available right across from each other. one had a white man, the other had a large black woman (and i’m talking LARGE). as i approached i thought to myself, “damn, that bitch is huge, probably more comfortable with the dude…. but shit, what if i sit in the seat with the guy… the white guy, will it seem racist because i didn’t sit with the black woman?”
however, that doesn’t stop me from riding the bus/train whatever and though it may stop some, i don’t think it’s enough a reason for most . (btw, i sat with the white dude… guess i’m a racist.)