Showing Respect to Transit
Heroes
By Frank Gruber
This Saturday, October 6, the City's
Planning Department will host another
workshop as part of the update process
for the land use and circulation elements
of the City's general plan. This workshop
is different. Up until now, nearly all
the activity in the LUCE process has focused
on land use. The topic of Saturday's workshop,
however, is circulation.
One thing I like about the circulation
element is its very name. "Circulation,"
rather than "traffic" or "streets"
or "transit," implies a broad
view of mobility. People don't merely
travel from place to place in straight
lines, they circulate. The word is neutral.
It neither emphasizes nor excludes any
form of locomotion.
I also like the circulation element because
it implies that government can approach
circulation as an independent object of
concerted action. So often people who
are frustrated about traffic, for instance,
focus on development or land use when
what they need to focus on are the modes
of circulation themselves.
If you don't believe this, reflect on
the fact that places with wildly different
landscapes of buildings often suffer from
the same level of bad traffic; often,
in fact, the worst traffic is associated
with the most low-lying, horizontal form
of development.
While the City's recent LUCE process
has been going on for two years or so,
the City in fact started to work on an
update to the circulation element about
ten years ago. I was on the Planning Commission
then, and I still have a thick notebook
of materials. That start, and it was good
one, came to naught, however, when there
was a complete turnover at the Commission
between 1999 and 2000.
What with the new, anti-everything commission,
the Planning Department pretty much abandoned
long-range planning for several years.
People who complain these days that the
City has no updated strategy to deal with
traffic shouldn't blame the Planning Department.
In any case, I would like to contribute
a modest proposal to Saturday's meeting.
My idea won't "solve" traffic
on its own, as if traffic is solvable,
but it would ultimately contribute both
to more mobility and to better quality
of life. That's more than one can say
about most proposed solutions to traffic
congestion, which typically call for subjugating
the interests of everyone who isn't driving
a car at a given moment to the interests
of those who are.
My idea is to take just a few bucks from
the tens of millions of dollars that the
City spends, or intends to spend, on building
parking structures, and use the money
to build the best bus shelters in the
world.
We need to treat transit customers like
the traffic-busting heroes they are.
As anyone will tell you, most middle
and upper-class people in L.A. do not
consider taking the bus, even in Santa
Monica, where we have an extremely congenial
bus system. It's a class thing.
There are a lot of unfortunate reasons
for that, but what bothers me is that
our so-called sustainable city with its
purported progressive government perpetuates
this. Yes, the City supports the operations
of the Big Blue Bus, but it treats bus
riders like dirt. Outside of downtown
there are no bus shelters, and downtown
only got its shelters recently, as part
of the "Transit Mall."
I know some of my readers ride the bus,
so I know they know what it's like to
sit or stand at a bus stop while cars
whizz by. For those who don't ride the
bus, let me tell you, it's not fun. Sometimes
it's humiliating. You're exposed to the
world, typically on a skimpy sidewalk,
with litter blowing around your feet.
Take the corner of Pico and Lincoln,
one of the busiest transit centers in
Santa Monica. This is where Santa Monica's
two busiest bus lines -- the #3 and the
#7 -- cross. Every morning dozens of people
wait at the mini-mall next to Tommy's
to connect from one bus to the other.
Many have to rush across Pico from the
even more unappealing bus stop at the
Shell station to make their connection.
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| Waiting
for the bus at Pico and Lincoln (Photo
by Frank Gruber) |
Why can't the City, which spends tens
of thousands for each parking space it
builds, buy two spaces from the mini-mall
-- use eminent domain if it has to --
and build a decent shelter that will treat
these transit users with respect?
The problem is that public transit in
the L.A. region, even in enlightened Santa
Monica, is trapped in a welfare mentality.
Voters and politicians see it as a burden
we must shoulder for "them,"
not something that benefits us.
When it comes to bus shelters, the situation
in Santa Monica is especially egregious.
If you complain to planners at the M.T.A.
about the lack of decent shelters in Los
Angeles, they will tell you it's not their
fault, because the cities, not Metro,
control the sidewalks. But in Santa Monica,
the City owns both the buses and the sidewalks.
Middle-class people will take transit,
but not if they are embarrassed about
doing so. Attitudes need to change, but
they won't unless the providers of public
transit do something to show that they
respect their customers. Since increasing
the percentage of commuters who are transit
riders is crucial for the mobility of
everyone, this is an issue that everyone
should care about.
To link to more information about Saturday's
workshop, which will take place from 9:00
a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at John Adams Middle
School, go to:
http://www.shapethefuture2025.net/PDF/FinalSMTransp.pdf
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