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ChineseDaily Transit Links Roundup
Contributed by Fred Camino on April 9th, 2008 at 10:05 am
- America’s Funniest Transit Videos: Shabby Los Angeles Metro Buses!
- Density must be centralized to be effective.
- The United States poor transportation infrastructure, and lack of a plan for the future, spells trouble for the economy.
- Car Accident: 75-year old woman dies after making an illegal left-hand turn into oncoming traffic.
- Wired takes a look at Metro’s Long Range Plan, and the challenges L.A. faces when it comes to mobility
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Train collision headlines are always backwards. It’s more like “Blue Line train struck by 75-year-old woman”. It’s not like trains lie in wait, waiting to strike.
Spokker:
I like how the article said she “allegedly” made an illegal left-hand turn, implying that maybe she didn’t and somehow the train pushed her out it front of it.
I don’t think it would be unreasonable to conclude that this woman may have been too old to drive. In her defense she was probably driving through ’70s era Los Angeles in her mind and the Blue Line didn’t exist.
Her last words were, “Train?! When did they build a train through here?!”
Perhaps the train did jump the tracks and go after this woman. Look at this release this “transit advocate” sent me:
CITIZENS’ CAMPAIGN TO FIX THE EXPO RAIL LINE
Led by Save Leimert, Expo Communities United & Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw Homeowners’ Coalition; P.O. Box 8508 * Los Angeles, CA 90008 * http://www.FixExpo.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Date: April 9, 2008
Contact: Damien Goodmon Phone: 323.845.2003 Email: dg@fixexpo.org
MTA TO SOUTH LA RESIDENTS: TAKE YOUR CONCERNS TO THE CORNER OF THE ROOM
A day after the MTA’s Blue Line fatally injured an elderly motorist and left a young adult in critical condition, South LA community members are told to take their concerns to the corner of the room.
Los Angeles, CA – Less than 24 hours after a 75-year old woman was killed and a 19-year old young man was placed in critical condition in separate incidents with the MTA’s light rail Blue Line, dozens of South LA community members concerned that the MTA’s proposed light rail Expo Line would lead to similar fates walked out in protest of a community meeting in the auditorium of Leimert Park’s Tom Bradley Elementary School after their insistent request for an open public forum for questions and answers was denied by Expo Line project mangers.
The community meeting, conducted by the Expo Line Construction Authority, was intended to discuss the proposed movement of one of the power substations along the route for the proposed $858 million dollar light rail project currently under construction from downtown to Culver City. But when the room was told about the previous day’s accidents and the history of substations on MTA’s other light rail lines catching fire, the room demanded an on the record question and answer period, only to be forcibly denied by the Expo Authority.
“We were told that if we wanted to have our comments recorded we had to go in the corner and a court reporter would write them down,” said Jackie Ryan of Save Leimert Neighborhood Coalition. “I was completely insulted,” she continued. “They would burn the place down if they tried to do that in other cities.”
Tuesday night’s meeting was the second Expo Line community meeting in South LA in the past week in which attendees vocally objected to the Expo Authority’s refusal to answer questions in an open forum. After a lengthy powerpoint presentation on April 1 at Holman United Methodist Church, the audience erupted in anger to what they described as “divide and conquer tactics” when an Expo Authority public relations representative told the audience to address their questions to the several Expo Line employees on the outskirts of the room.
“It’s clear that they don’t want to answer the tough questions in front of the entire community, and want to discourage people from speaking out,” said Damien Goodmon of the Citizens’ Campaign to Fix the Expo Line. “The facts are what they are: this line is designed primarily like the MTA’s Blue Line, which at over 91 deaths and 802 accident is the deadliest light rail line in the country. Unless our politicians force a redesign of the primarily street-level running in South LA, people in our community will die – children will die.”
“Where are our elected representatives,” asked a Baldwin Vista resident at Tuesday’s meeting. When it was announced that Bernard Parks, Yvonne Burke, Jan Perry and Herb Wesson all sit on the Board of Directors of the Expo Authority and that community leaders have spent over a year attempting to persuade the Board to have public forums, the resident responded, “If they’re treating us like this, they need to be replaced.”
Mr. Goodmon announced that the community group expects to finalize an agreement with a “very prestigious” law firm to represent the large and growing community coalition by the end of next week. “Like black and brown leaders before us we’re going to have to go to court for justice,” he said. “The difference is, we’re not going to court to fight white racist politicians, we’re going to fight politicians of our own color.”
# # #
I hope the Expo line is designed to run over as many stupid people as it possibly can! What do you think of that?
It seems to be an L.A. thing to get hit by a train or even buses masquerading as trains. the amount of pedestrians and privately owned vehicles that collide with the Blue, Gold and Orange Lines should prompt a study of the region’s collective I.Q.
Were there even a quarter as many trains in L.A. as, say, New York, L.A. would be the new Baghdad. (There are more train lines in the four largest boros than there are stops on the two subways in L.A. combined.)
there will be blood…
and there won’t be if people follow the rules. That is all.
Had she completed her illegal left turn, this wrong-way driver could have killed innocent people driving east on 3rd Street.
But everything is the train’s fault dontchaknow?
Did you see this guys, the Blue Line claims another.
We need to stop these deadly trains! I don’t think there’s any death in Los Angeles that hasn’t been caused by the Blue Line.
Almost none of the fatalities from the Blue Line are children; it’s mostly adults stupidly trying to beat the train, suicides, and drunken homeless.
This is reminding me of that Chris Rock skit, “How Not to Get Your Ass Beat by the Cops.” Rule 1: OBEY the LAW.
Damien is funny. Whenever he mentions safety, he is almost always met with answers like crossing guard, street lights, quad gates, and pedestrian gates.
Then he says a train could derail during a car accident and kill students. Well couldn’t a car accident alone do that? Where it is just a train alone, there will be no train accidents. According to that argument, shouldn’t it be the cars that are grade separated and not the rail line?
Then when all the safety histeria fails, he continues to environmental racism. Looking at the design of the line in West LA and Santa Monica, his argument there may be bunk.
Then he comes to efficiency, which in reality is a much better argument. However, west LA needs this now and the line is running on its own ROW, so even that’s not too bad.
What’s the conclusion? This all boils down to a NIMBY argument. Anti-rail people have been there for years and it’s no wonder that the community is speaking out. It’s not that they think their kids are stupid or that accidents don’t happen, it’s that they have been fooled to believe that rail will be bad for the community.
Even more than that. NIMBYs who don’t want the line period are using the phony issue of safety to get the whole project sabotaged or bankrupted by unnecessary gold-plated improvements. There are three places where NIMBYs must be stood up to in the decades ahead: Cheviot Hills, Hancock Park and North Hollywood.
North Hollywood already has its project. Cheviot Hills is mostly FUD-based NIMBYism. Hancock Park, though, has been the source of vicious and nakedly racist ploys.