Los Angeles

Sights seen while not writing

By Bill Lascher

As I noted last week, I don’t just write:

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I don't just write

By Bill Lascher

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Last Spring, I wrote a commentary about my personal experiences with transit in Los Angeles. An assignment for a class, it was something of a companion to the reporting I’d done for my master’s project, the work that became “R We There Yet.” I was proud of the final piece that emerged, as I was of my master’s project. It reflected my experiences riding L.A.’s buses and trains (which actually have quite a clever numbering system) to school and through the city – the novelty of which might reflect the privilege I had to be able to choose to ride.

The piece was originally slated to appear in Neon Tommy last summer, but I asked that it be pulled before publication. An editor at a national magazine was considering publishing a version of my master’s project and I didn’t want to disrupt that possibility [I should have pitched the main piece to the increasingly impressive Tommyanyhow]. That editor dithered for months and both pieces lost their freshness. Once I finally self-published my master’s project, I’ve been hesitant to accompany it with this commentary. In retrospect, it seems a bit fawning toward Metro. Though I was reflecting on my personal experience with the system, it’s easy to see how this reflection could color one’s perception of my reporting on transportation.

I remain a little uncertain about my decision to post it here. I’d still like to write about transit and transportation, the institutions that manage it, and the people who utilize and who are dependent upon it. At the same time, though, I’ve for so long wanted to share this experience, my experience as an individual moving through Los Angeles, that I’m giving into temptation and sharing this here, whatever the consequences of that decision might be.

What do you think about my decision to publish this piece? Should I have kept it as a classroom assignment, even though it was an assignment meant for publication? Should I be proud of it? Does it belong here?

Here’s the piece:

Continue reading “In Transit”

LA to PDX: The Back Way

By Bill Lascher

Follow the Map | See the full photo collection

Choose Your Own Adventure:

The Mother Lode

Nobody Knows Where You Are

Crossing the Yuba River near the Pacific Crest Trail in Northern California.

Why don’t I just write the story? Why didn’t I just report each day’s journey? Why can’t the words come out straightforward?

I don’t even remember when I wrote this. Presumably it took shape some time in the past month, as I’ve done something akin to settling into a new home, while I’ve dragged out my move from Los Angeles to Portland, moving no longer across hundreds of miles and instead creeping slowly, randomly across my new home town.

For weeks I’ve been plotting maps, tweaking Google Earth settings, uploading and arranging photo slideshows, transcribing audio, adjusting WordPress themes, reinstalling broken databases, sorting notes, scrawling in journals, browsing help forums, maintaining computer files, arranging furniture, pitching stories, visiting labs, reporting, attending meetings, filing emails, postponing responses, mailing postcards, paying bills, signing leases, opening boxes and otherwise transitioning through life, both digesting and avoiding my recollection of my journey from Los Angeles to Portland.

It has been a mixed blessing. Sometimes I kick myself for not writing enough, not writing when the trip was fresh, not writing soon enough, early enough. Other times I realize something that K.C. Cole told my class of science writers at USC on more than one occasion, something I found incredibly encouraging. “Even when you’re not writing,” she’d say, “You’re writing.”

I wonder what I’ve written as I’ve not been writing, and as I’ve fretted each day about losing the memories that so recently burned themselves into me, that brought me, simply, from there to here. I don’t want to wonder about it too much, though, lest I get caught up in the pointless tedium of writing and reading about writing.

What I can recall distinctly is a sentiment I felt somewhere between Lassen and Modoc counties, when I emerged from a forest to see sunlight like I’d never seen before swirling across the tree tops. Then, I uttered the following into the digital voice recorder I babbled at throughout my journey:

I don’t know how quite to describe what I’m seeing and what I’m passing through and how to record it for permanence. I don’t know quite how to capture the sense of the sun on the line of trees up high with the trees still in shadow beneath, the changing landscape from thick fog and patches of snow to only small patches of snow and these, what I think are lava beds, pouring over the side now in a landscape becoming more rough bit by bit. I don’t know how to keep describing everything that I’m seeing, the complete emptiness of it all, the complete soloness of my drive at this moment.

I guess what I’ve written is what you see here. What I’ve produced is what you’ve found. What I’ve created is in front of you and, quite possibly, it is changing just as quickly, just as astoundingly as the light shifting and scattering and spreading across those treetops in a faraway corner of California.

Continue reading “LAX to PDX: The Back Way”

R We There Yet? Re-evaluating Los Angeles's Transit Future

By Bill Lascher

“Out of service,” the driver tells me as I step on the #4 in Downtown Los Angeles.

It is nearly 3 a.m. and Broadway‘s indoor swap meets, electronic stores and jewelry shops sit darkened behind me. Shadowed by the marquee of an ancient movie house my face betrays concern, perhaps even desperation. I’ve waited to catch a bus for nearly an hour alongside the vacant thoroughfare after staying out with a friend and missing the night’s last Red Line subway. It’s cold. The bus already carries about a dozen riders, so I don’t understand why the driver seems to be telling me I can’t board. Not wanting to linger on the street much longer, I pause on the bus’s steps.

“Out of service,” the driver repeats. I step back down to the sidewalk. She laughs, smiles, and rolls her eyes.

A story still in transit

Though much has happened in Los Angeles’ transportation scene since this story was completed last Spring, the central challenges discussed here largely remain the same. Some light edits have been made to the text to reflect some of the changes. More developments include the following: The California Transit Association and allies in local government won a lawsuit against the state’s raids on local transit dollars, though what that means for transit agencies statewide remains murky; Metro hired a New CEO in Art Leahy and opened its Gold Line light extension to East L.A; Metro also released its timetables to Google, allowing travelers to plan trips using transit instead of by car or foot using Google Maps.

Does L.A. Really Love its Cars?

Does LA really love its cars?

Any great city exists amidst a great mythology. Los Angeles, so the tale goes, became the place it is today in a post-war economic boom. As the Cold War fueled a booming aerospace industry, the city grew to become the quilt of suburbia and highways it’s now readily dismissed as. One of the nation’s first freeways, the Pasadena Freeway, was built between L.A. and Pasadena even before World War II. The automobile quickly became a staple of the American dream and the Southern California ethos.

Simultaneous with the auto’s rise, a once robust railcar network known as the Pacific Electric collapsed. Cynics alleged collusion between the oil and automobile industries for ushering in its demise, but court cases making those allegations failed. A more likely explanation: legislative decisions encouraged by a public enamored with the new-found freedom that car ownership brought made the streetcars economically unfeasible.

Another myth: Angelenos love their cars. In fact, The city isn’t the nation’s most car dependent. Residents of four other metropolitan areas drive more miles each day than people in the greater Los Angeles area, according to data from the Texas Transportation Institute. Los Angeles is also fifth in average automobile ownership per household — even residents of eco-minded cities like San Francisco and Seattle own more cars per capita. When it comes to drivers isolating themselves in their cars, Los Angeles ranks ninth in the percentage of employees who drive alone to work.

The same statistics also describe just how extensive the region’s transit network is. Only the New York City area offers more total bus service miles, for example, and Los Angeles still has the most bus-service miles per square mile covered. Los Angeles even ranks in the middle of the pack when it comes to measurements of its rail-based transit (a measurement that combines light rails, subways and commuter rails such as the region’s Metrolink system).

Transportation Terminology

A train is a train and a bus is a bus, right? Not exactly. All the different forms of mass transit can get confusing. When planners discuss transportation, they’re not just discussing whether commuters are carried on wheels or along rails. Each form of transit has champions in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Here are some brief descriptions of the different forms of transportation scholars and policymakers are currently discussing to keep track of the possibilities for Los Angeles.

Heavy Rail: Electric-powered trains carrying multiple cars capable of transporting large numbers of passengers at high speeds along rails separated from foot and automobile traffic. The Red and Purple Line subways are Los Angeles’ only heavy rail mass transit.

Light Rail: While some light rails — such as portions of the Blue Line and the new Gold Line Eastside Extension — can have underground portions, light rail generally travels above ground and is differentiated from heavy rail by short trains (usually electric powered) on fixed railways not separated from street traffic and pedestrians. Trolleys, trams and streetcars are some examples. In L.A., the best examples are the Gold Line, the Blue Line, the Green Line, and the currently under construction Expo Line.

Commuter Rail: Regularly operating railroads with trains powered either by diesel or electricity and connecting job centers and urban cores with suburban communities. Los Angeles’ metropolitan area is served by Metrolink, a service run by five county transportation agencies throughout the region. Tragically, the system received nationwide attention in September, 2008, when a Metrolink train collided with a freight train outside of the Chatsworth suburb of Los Angeles. More than 25 people commuting between Los Angeles and Ventura Counties died in the accident.

Bus Rapid Transit: Los Angeles’ popular Orange Line service in the San Fernando Valley is an example of bus rapid transit. This type of transit uses buses (powered by various fuel sources such as compressed natural gas, diesel, hybrid battery technologies) on specialized roadways or lanes dedicated to the buses. The systems can be integrated to deal with local conditions. In the Orange Line’s case, this meant converting an out of service rail right-of-way to carry the line’s buses. Metro also calls its new Silver Line, a consolidation of conventional bus routes using bus-only lanes, BRT as well.

Sources:

American Public Transportation Association

National Bus Rapid Transit Institute

Metrolink

Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro)

“I didn’t say you can’t get on,” she teases, as if she’s going to finish the sentence with “rookie.”

It’s the farebox that’s “Out of Service.” I jump back onto the bus and find a seat along the center of the bus, where its two sections connect like an accordion. None of the other riders pay me any heed. Each haggard face exudes fatigue. Two women, both dressed in identical white pants and white sweatshirts, sleep leaning against one another. Perhaps a mother and daughter, perhaps middle-aged sisters, one rests her shoulder on the other, who is slumped against a rattling window. Their long brown hair tangles together.

It’s becoming clear that the age of the automobile is coming to an end, or, at the very least, changing. Los Angeles, like other cities, loses billions of dollars each year just because of people stuck on the region’s tangled roadways. Scholars, politicians, activists and numerous overlapping government agencies each offer often-competing solutions for how to get the region moving. All the while, the solution might begin not with expensive upheavals and construction of vast new transit networks, but instead with better cooperation, education and mobilization of the surprisingly robust transit network that already exists in the metropolis.

What’s certain: voters in Los Angeles County are fed up with traffic. Confounding expectations, they accomplished an extraordinary feat in November, 2008 and gambled that an investment in the region’s transportation network would pay lasting dividends. Despite an economic downturn, more than two-thirds of them chose to tax themselves to pay for Measure R, a $40 billion expansion of the region's transit system. Since July 1, the county has collected a half-cent sales tax to pay for new rail lines, expanded bus routes, and improvements to existing infrastructure. But a debilitating state budget battle earlier this year put transit in a precarious position across California, including Los Angeles, whose position among the world’s great cities could be at risk.

“We’re going to fight tooth and nail for every penny from the state,” Richard Katz said in January. Katz sits on the governing board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Metro, by far the largest transit agency in the region. A former state assemblyman, Katz was appointed to the board by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and was a key architect of Measure R. “I think we make a mistake if we don’t recognize that the voters made a clear choice in November. They said transportation is the number one issue in the county. We’re going to give you the resources to fix it and we expect you to fix it. They don’t expect us to be whining about losing $200 million a year.”

As the #4 bus carries me past Union Station it turns westward on Cesar Chavez Avenue. I notice how the prerecorded voice announcing each stop perfectly pronounces the deceased farm labor organizer’s name. A few blocks away, after Cesar Chavez Avenue becomes Sunset Boulevard, the recording stumbles over a cross-street’s name, uttering Micheltorena like a Gringo. The sleeping sisters are oblivious to their surroundings, until a few blocks later, when the bus stops at Sunset and Alvarado. Two middle-aged men drunkenly babble to one another as they board. They stumble in search of a seat, startling the women.

The bus turns down Santa Monica Boulevard. I disembark at Vermont Avenue, where I can connect with the #204, a North-South line with a stop a block from my apartment. A light drizzle falls as I wait in the dark along Vermont. A dozen or so men line the curb, peering north up the street. A few step into the road. If only they could spy the bus, it seems, they could will it to carry us out of this uneasy wait sooner. It’s about 3:30 a.m. The only passing cars are taxis hoping to pick up a few desperate fares. The drunks who earlier boarded the #4 stand next to me, talking about the relative morality of stealing bicycles versus cars and beds. They reminisce on times they’ve had to pull guns, what it felt like with the finger on the trigger and the experience of staring down the barrel of a friend’s firearm. Illustrating one such experience one of the men mimes a pistol with his fingers outstretched.

“Those days are gone,” he says.

Continue reading “R We There Yet? Re-evaluating Los Angeles’s Transit Future”

Koreatown's sign language

By Bill Lascher

This afternoon I ran an errand a couple Purple line stops away. It was such a beautiful day that instead of taking the subway I decided to meander home on foot. Fortunately, before I left the house I thought to grab my camera. I took the opportunity to look around a bit and capture [...]

What it's like - In Transit in L.A.

By Bill Lascher

A brief note: if you haven’t looked around the site lately please take some time to look at my updated, categorized portfolio page. More updates to come soon.

After an evening in Pasadena I board the Gold line at Fillmore Station. I [...]

Los Angeles in Your Eyes

By Bill Lascher

I’ve been wondering this for months, as I’ve also been wondering what it would be like to share this place with friends and loved ones from out of town. How would I do it? What would I show them? In what order would I show it to them? How could I even begin, knowing what I must be leaving out? How would you give a tour of Los Angeles with only a short time to do so? What would you show? Why? What do you think is quintessential L.A.? What can be ignored? Do you have a universal trip you’d share with every visitor or are there certain ones you’d reserve for certain people? Would there be a specific flow to your tour? Would you use the strict geographical boundaries of the city, or would yours be more a tour of Southern California with Los Angeles as its center of gravity? If you’ve had visitors, tell some stories of the tours you’ve taken them on. List a few places that have to be visited. Give a sense of the route you’d take, of how one might move between landmarks and why you’d go that direction, why you’d take that path. If you’re not from Los Angeles, what would you want to see here if you only had a few days to do so? What is this place to you? Why would you want to visit? What type of tour would you want? [...]

McCourts Keep Dodging the Trolley

By Bill Lascher

I have to admit Streetsblog beat me to posting a picture depicting this sign (if not others as well), although I took this picture May 29 while first thinking about this post.

I have to admit Streetsblog beat me to posting a picture depicting this sign (others may have as well), although I took this picture May 29.

Back when I was editor of the Ventura County Reporter and still penning (or is it “keying”) the Fir & Main blog, I wrote enthusiastically about the possibility of mass transit options linking to Dodger Stadium. As the Dodgers fans and Angelenos reading this site know, later in the 2008 season the City of Los Angeles paid for a free shuttle service linking Dodger Stadium to Union Station. This allowed riders of multiple transit services — particularly Metro’s Red and Purple Line subways — to easily make it to Chavez Ravine without a car to watch the boys in blue. Sadly, as these same observers also understand, the Dodgers refused to help pay for the service for the 2009 season. Now, the best way to get to Dodger Stadium by public transit remains taking the #2 or #4 bus along Sunset and hike up Elysian Park Ave.

This week, a number of local media outlets have noted that the Dodgers are allowing visitors to park for free at the stadium from June 16-18 while Joe Torre’s squad faces off against the Oakland Athletics.

Meanwhile, some of those who do choose to drive to Dodger stadium have made a habit of avoiding parking there, both to avoid the $15 parking fee and the headaches of trying to get in and out of the stadium on game days. Some lucky souls park right on Sunset while spaces are still available. Others park along nearby Lilac Terrace, Douglas St. or Sutherland St., or even put their faith in their parking brakes as they find a spot along the ridiculously steep Quintero St. (being that this is the direction from which I approach the stadium even if I take the bus — now that there’s no trolley from Union Station — I don’t know the situation in Chinatown or other neighborhoods east of the stadium).

In recent weeks, though, most of these options haven’t been available to most Dodgers fans. Signs reading “local access only” have popped up at the entrance to every street on the north side of Sunset between Lilac and Portia Street. Responding to inquiries I made June 9, Julie Wong, L.A. City Councilmember Eric Garcetti‘s communications director, and Monica Valencia, councilmember Ed Reyes‘ Press Deputy told me that the signs were a result of “concerns we heard from the Elysian Park Task Force and meetings with local residents who asked for assistance with alleviating activity such as speeding, drunk and disorderly conduct by people leaving Dodger Stadium, and tailgate parties on the street in front of residences — complete with blaring speakers and beer kegs.” Garcetti’s 13th district includes Douglas, Quintero and Sutherland streets. Lilac Terrace is within Reyes’ District 1.

Continue reading “McCourts Keep Dodging the Trolley”

What’s Next and Marathon Love

By Bill Lascher

New posts coming this week:

– Posts on production and consumption versus conservation; – Environmental critiques of train travel; – The ultimate (if not particularly green) multi-modal vacation; – Dodger Stadium gets even less accessible; – Privacy, chatting and (in)visibility.

To keep you sated, I’ve been meaning to post some of my photographs from [...]

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