MetroRiderLA

• Students know what L.A. needs: viable public transit!
• More thoughts on the new Speed Racer Red Line advertisements, people love these things!
• Metro’s plans for 2009: finish the Rapid system, finish the Gold Line Eastside Extension, and start adding fare gates.
• City plans on giving away land near the North Hollywood Red Line station to developers. Joel Kotkin upset.
• Inland Empire residents pay a whole lot for their commutes. I wonder if sitting in traffic is worth it?
• Bicyling Magazine paints a rosy picture of Los Angeles, Westside BikeSIDE sets the story straight.

Much like beloved actor/bachelor George Clooney, MetroRiderLA is disarmingly attractive and overflowing with dry charm, and because of this both George Clooney and MetroRiderLA are able to pull off some spectacular pranks. MetroRiderLA’s most recent victim is none other than the Los Angeles bicycle activist Enci, who runs the blog Illuminate LA.

Poor Enci fell victim to our charms today when she posted an item on her blog heralding the arrival of Metro L8Nite Service on the Red Line starting May 5th. When I saw this on my feed reader I was immediately reminded of the April Fool’s joke we pulled on our readers last month by announcing, with fake PDF brochure and all, the creatively named L8Nite concept in which riders could pay $8 to ride the Red Line all night on weekends. Unfortunately Enci was defenseless against my expertly designed PDF (my services are available, operators are standing by) and my witty ad copy (a second career perhaps).

I honestly feel really bad, because Enci’s write-up was so full of excitement and joy at the prospect of the nonexistent service. It’s a testament to the quality of life improvements good transit service COULD bring… if it existed in more than just my twisted imagination. But Metro, take heed, L8Nite may have just been a convoluted April Fool’s joke, but maybe the concept holds water. Enci didn’t seem to have a problem with paying a significant amount extra for a few hours of late night service, and I have a feeling she’s not the only one.

All the best pranks have a deeper message running through them, Clooney knows this and so does MetroRider. I hope the message of MetroL8Nite rings loud and clear.

So I wrote a book about the Long Range Transportation Plan and sent it to Metro. Read it in its entirety here:

As Metro CEO Roger Snoble made it clear on the first page of the 2008 Long Range Transportation Plan Draft, mobility is the glue that holds a city together and in Los Angeles that adhesive is rapidly losing its grip. If we fail to properly address the mobility issues our city faces, if we put the glue in the wrong places or put too much glue in one place while letting other areas lose their bond, the outcome will invariably be a rapid fall from prosperity to ruin. The dream that brings so many people to our sun-drenched city - the dream of freedom, success, recreation, and culture - will remain just that, nothing more than a mere figment of an overactive imagination. But that same imagination can be the compound that forms the glue that will save our city - mobility.

Metro asked us to Imagine a mobile future, and that’s just what I’ve done. As a car-free (by choice) Angeleno and creator of the Los Angeles transit blog MetroRiderLA, I’ve got my fair share of ideas on how to improve mobility in this city.

First and foremost there is the cultural issue, more specifically, the car-culture. Although the foundations of Los Angeles were set with rail, the city is known worldwide as the birthplace and stronghold of the global car-culture. Unfortunately, in a county of over 10 million people and growing, a car-culture is simply not sustainable. Cars require too much space, too much infrastructure, too many public resources, and cause to many problems to be effective as the sole mode of transportation in a megalopolis such as ours. In virtually every major population center around the globe, mass transportation is the main form of day-to-day travel, and for good reason. It is a far more efficient, streamlined, and economical way of moving millions of people about densely populated geographical area. Population centers that don’t have ample mass transit infrastructure and ridership suffer accordingly. Unfortunately Los Angeles falls into this group. Although we are the second most populous city in the United States, our transit ridership is #34. Most of the transit riders in our city are lower income people who simply cannot afford a car. I imagine a city where mass transit is not seen as welfare, but viewed as a mode of transportation for everyone.

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Today was supposed to be the day that Pam from Santa Monica was to hold her monthly Live Chat via Metro Interactive. I had planned to hold what I dubbed “The Anti-Pam Chat” (not that we have anything against Pam per se, she did a bang up job on public access television) to coincide with Metro’s oft maligned experiment in interactive communication. The idea was to provide a live chat forum where we could sarcastically discuss and make fun of the Metro Chat, MST3K style, while presenting Pam with our own questions and awaiting the usual canned responses. Unfortunately, the Metro Interactive Chat for April has been canceled. Apparently Metro is testing out a newly redesigned chat tool and it’s not ready for prime time yet. On one hand it’s great that they’ve decided to try a new chat program, since the one they’ve been using was interactive only in the very broadest of definition of the word, but on the other hand it means The Anti-Pam Chat kind of loses its purpose.

Regardless, I’ve decided to go for it anyway, so today at 12:30pm MetroRiderLA will hold its first last-minute impromptu live Anti-Pam chat over at the MetroRiderLA Forum. There’s a little chatbox on the left-hand sidebar which is where the live chat will take place, and we’ll discuss whatever the hell comes to mind. Forum topics, recent blog posts, transit news, MetroRiderLA, Pam’s haircut, whatever. Plan your lunch break around it, we’ll try to talk for half an hour or so. If it works out, then The Anti-Pam Chat will return in May, hopefully along with Pam, for some interactive Metro fun.

See ya there!

I’m feeling good about the MetroRiderLA Forum.  It’s not sitting dormant as I had feared, in fact it’s pretty darn active for a transit forum in the capital of car culture!  There’s a lot of cool conversations going on right now, let’s check ‘em out:

• My personal favorite is the discussion about Metro accessible food joints. Rogedog92 started this topic and it’s already 19 comments deep, and I’ve already discovered a new tasty restaurant thanks to it.
• A couple from Washington D.C. has joined the forum and asked for asked for the best places to live without a car in Los Angeles, since they will be moving here soon.
• Where would you take a visitor or tourist on Metro to show of your city, public transit style?
• We’re coming up with a list of L.A. transit appearances in television and film.
• Here’s a hot thread, 36 comments deep, about Metrolink’s plan to take away the free EZ Pass transfer.

So there’s a whole lot going on, if you haven’t done it yet, head over to the MetroRiderLA forum and take part in the conversation!

Well, the new forum has been kickin’ it for a few days now. So far 18 readers have signed up to take part in the discussions, and over 260 unique visitors have checked it out. We want more of both, especially active users! There’s some interesting conversations going on:

• We’re compiling a list of LA’s transit system in film and television
• A discussion about how you are treated by your non-transit friendly peers
• At least 17 comments about how Metrolink is considering doing away with the EZ-Pass transfer
• A thread all about biking in Los Angeles
• And a new post about love on the subway

So as you can see, things are pretty laid back, the conversations are varied, and everyone is welcome to participate. If you haven’t done so already, I recommend you check it out and if you like what you see, register to become a member and join the discussions! The more people who are talking, the more interesting it will get.