MetroRiderLA

• Big Blue Bus boosts ridership by 2.3 percent.
• If only the car divorce rate was as high as the real divorce rate.
• The system is rigged! California exists for the automobile!
• East Hollywood officially adopts the Cyclist Bill of Rights.
• Bike racks coming to Dodger Stadium. Buses? Not so much.

Rush hour commuters enjoy their subsidized ride.

Let’s talk subsidy. The American Automobile Association just released the results of a study called Crash vs. Congestion: What’s The Cost to Society [PDF]. Yes, the American Automobile Association, the group that lobbies for automobiles and was formed in order to get more auto roads built. The study reveals that in most metropolitan areas, the cost of traffic accidents far outweighs the already high costs of congestion. In the Los Angeles metropolitan statistical area (which includes almost 13 million people in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Santa Ana) the report concludes that the yearly cost of crashes amounts to $10.5 billion. Traffic congestion in the metropolitan area costs $9.3 billion annually. Together, crashes and congestion cost Los Angeles and Orange County $19.8 billion a year. That comes out to $1,561 per person per year ($817 per person for crashes, $744 for congestion).

Yikes.

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• The L.A. Bicycle Master Plan is a plan all right, just not one that is particularly friendly to bicyclists
• My Super Sweet Sixteen: the car is playing a smaller role in everyone’s favorite birthday milestone
• Cities are working to help pedestrians for once
• Downtown wants their connector underground, no ifs ands or buts
• Is doing more of the same really a 180? Street Heat thinks not

I found this LOL worthy story from the Transit Sleuth blog. The headline reads: “Car drives into MAX tunnel, disrupts service”.

It seems that even grade-separated tunnels can’t keep us safe from law-breaking automobile drivers. Apparently a Portland drunk driver took an early Sunday morning drive into a Portland MAX light rail tunnel. Our drunk friend entered the tunnel from the east entrance and, according to Fox 12 Oregon, drove for over a mile until coming to a stop 75 feet from the Washington Park MAX station. It took hours to get the car out, service was supsended, and the estimated cost of actions of this one negligent driver? $20,000.

Luckily, this was all happening in the wee hours of the morning, so no one got hurt, including the driver who would have surely, as the Transit Sleuth points out, have been a top contender for a Darwin Award had he collided with a MAX train. Of course, in that hypothetical event it’s likely the train would somehow be blamed.

Around the country the tobacco enthusiast is reeling with each and every new tax placed on their most beloved accouterments. What was once an enjoyable fashion statement is now a financial black hole. But unlike the private auto enthusiast things don’t seem to be looking up.

Even though gas prices are skyrocketing and no matter what the politicians say, will probably never drop below $3/gallon nationwide again, at least the car owner still has the extremely sleek and produced television ads with the latest in mograph technology to make even a Kia Sophia seem sexy. Not to mention this weekend is the Martin Luther King Jr. sales event—finally—and interests rates are being slashed slashed slashed to make room for the ’08’s. Because as we all know, Dr. King loved his cars.

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