The Bus Bench

A Week on The Road Watching Revenue Collectors: Day Seven

At one point, the meter maids make a collective move. It is made on a cross street in downtown Los Angeles at Broadway and 6th Streets. And it has to do with two motor vehicles that are parked in a restricted zone during rush hour. What is the remedy? Bring in two LAPD tow trucks, a few meter maids and close off two of the three remaining lanes. Who said medieval methods of bleeding an ailing patient failed to work? After all, the leech collected enough blood to worm its way to the next victim, er, patient.

A Week on The Road Watching Revenue Collectors: Day Six

Downtown Los Angeles. Home to dirt farmers, the laziest crackheads anywhere, and the L.A. County sheriff's deputies. When not harassing pedestrians, these brown-shirted bone-heads pick out the next-easiest revenue mark, kick-start their motor-bikes and eventually waddle over to shake down some poor motorist who posed a threat to nothing more than their own wallet.

Who cares if you're terminally ill... you don't belong here.

Today's post comes from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Dispatches.

It is the story of Luis Jimenez. A Guatemalan man who got hit by car in Fla. He suffered brain damaged, however when he ran up the bill, the hospital decided it was best to sent him back to Guatemala. Luis was undocumented see, so he was voiceless and he was just flown back to "where he belongs." This practice is widely known as "patient dumping," though hospitals rather call it "medical repatriation". At the end it's the same. Bottom line is, let others take care of you, you're not our problem. There was a similar story in the La Times a while back but not about illegal immigrants but about homeless people.

The New TAP Turnstiles Are. . . Where?

After lengthy discussions with the public rubber-stamp committees that had to allocate for new ink pads, Metro is finally starting to install the TAP faregates along the Red Line. The first station to get them is Normandie.

A Week on The Road Watching Revenue Collectors: Day Five

 
What the hell is wrong with these people? Oh, yeah—they have a leg up on the working class from which they came and now rely for revenue. Or maybe he is truly retarded, which is why he may have landed a job driving a van for Los Angeles County Probation department. One wonders if there is more space between this schmuck's ears or round that cargo van parked on the handicap ramp.

A Week on The Road Watching Revenue Collectors: Day Four

Who ain't in a hurry?

It is the desire to arrive on time on which revenue collectors, er, meter maids and police, rely, so as to cite private citizens. For those fortunate enough to land a cozy job with the city or county, there is the fringe benefit of flaunting the very laws that their job ostensibly upholds. Moreover, meter maids seem to think they provide some life-giving service.

Meter Maid Runs Red Light

The key word here is "ostensibly" and the subtext is BULLSHIT.

Unfortunately, head meter maid Jimmy Price will not waste any time reprimanding his minions for blatantly running red lights, and the LAPD, LASD and other constabulary cretins that hang out at the nearby 7-11 will not waste time when there are private motorists and East L.A. pedestrians to harass, intimidate and shake down.

Can we speak at the same level?

I guess the following can be considered a rant, pet peeve, you choose.

First off, I'd like to apologize for my lack of co-operation for quite a long time.

Now to my post. For some reason it has always puzzled me the fact that my native language Spanish, has been for some reason been relegated to a lesser status by your typical or mainstream American if you will. What do I mean. Well. Whenever I go to restaurants or read newspapers and they have articles, menu items or anything that is written in French for example, mind you, I have no problem with French, it's my favorite language after Spanish and English. As I was saying when I see articles with words in French, I see the editors of these newspapers or other publications go the extra mile to try to be as grammatically correct as possible. inserting the proper accentuation as the words require, they even go as far as to print them in italics so that the reader might better understand the fact the word is special. And when you pronounce it, they even correct you, they let you know that you are somehow killing the word.

A Week on The Road Watching Revenue Collectors: Day Three

Who does not love a great burrito?

We at The Bus Bench are avid foodies and can tell you quite a bit about great food in a number of cities and towns across the continent. However, we like to eat and not wait, yet after having finished eating, do not mind waiting. And while elsewhere, we certainly do not like returning to a rented vehicle to find a citation on the windshield. So one can imagine how we felt as we waited for the Metro W/B 76 at N. Main and Griffin, (after having ate, of course) and observing this meter maid. For someone whose so-called motto about "Keeping L.A. moving" behaving in a manner that was far from extolling the economy of motor vehicular movement, we have neither patience nor manners. This guy is an asshole. And he was an asshole for no more than a burrito.

A Week on The Road Watching Revenue Collectors: Day Two

This one might seem mild. But today is Saturday, and we like to upload the fluff over the weekend. The good stuff is waiting for next week, and with every day we observe enough hypocrisy to extend this week into a fortnight. We may well do so.

Seats Removed for Cyclists Takes Up Space

Before the L.A. City Council considers lifting the ban on bicycles on trains during rush hours, perhaps they should stop wasting time and observe that not only do such rules get ignored but that the recent ruling to take out seats for cyclists too often does not work, as this video clearly exhibits.

Seats_Rmoved_For_Cyclists_10july2009.avi

Should not this cyclist be with his bike in the area where two seats were removed, rather than sitting in the seat reserved for handicapped straphangers?

What needs to be done is far more than what Los Angeles councilmembers appear willing to do. Unenforced laws that are already on the books and councilmembers whose idea of job security is illustrated by appeasing the burgeoning contingent of bicycle riders (a contingent that seems to ready to define itself as "oppressed" and "second-class citizens"—as if they have suffered hundreds of years of being beaten down for a physical characteristic they can never escape, when all they need do is dismount a bicycle to no longer be harassed by the man) is what appears to be driving this strange discussion.

-BusTard

UPDATE:

BikeSpace.avi

A Week on The Road Watching Revenue Collectors: Day One

As Los Angeles' newly elected officials continue to draw paycheques even as taxpayers are taking home IOUs, it may not yet be known that there is a campaign to gain revenue through selective means. In other words, lawbreakers are divided into two groups: those who drive city and county vehicles, and those who pay for them and their handlers. We all know about those who pay. The Bus Bench is taking a look at those who are driving.

Metro Announces Possible Blue Line Shutdown—on Red Line

Infrequent announcements along at Red Line Stations have warned Blue Line straphangers of possible rail station closures that might occur Tuesday during the Staples Center's Michael Jackson memorial event. If such a closure occurs, the Blue Line will be essentially cut off from the Red Line. However, no other information is available, nor are Blue Line riders being told of this possible closure—only Red Line riders appear to have been informed of the possibility. There is a brief mention of the possible closure on Metro's Web site.

More TAP Crap: Is Metro Fabricating Answers About TAP Card Failure?

On July 1st, several thousand Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) students may have been affected in what may well be the TAP Pass program's greatest failure to date, owing to a software update that was not uploaded in time for the student TAP cards issued by the nine campuses that comprise LACCD. Numerous inquiries to Metro and Metro TAP management personnel went unanswered.

Was The MetroLink Board at Union Station Hacked?

While traveling through Union Station last Saturday, 21 June 2009, a Bus Bencher captured some footage of what appeared to be a computer hacking of MetroLink arrival/departure board. We cannot be sure, but it was odd. And did it mean to imply Bob Dobbs of the Subgenious Foundation with "Bob Says Hi"? Did the hacker mean to invoke the famous World War II phrase, "Kilroy was here" with "Kelsy was here"? After all, both icons' names are known for appearing in bizarre places, such as inside school pencil sharpeners and on enemy pill boxes prior to invasions during WWII.

Was MetroLink Board at Union Station Hacked?

If anyone can clear up this little mystery, we would sure like to hear from you.

Blue Line Derailed While Metro Pick-up Trucks Travel The Red Line

 This has been a very busy week.

The Bus Bench was preoccupied with larger art projects (that will come to fruition in late 2009 and early 2010). Massive state tax cuts courtesy of Arnold and Co. were making their way south like a tsunami starved, albeit for southern California. The Los Angels Police Department and Los Angles County Sheriff Department managed to forget all the past riots round the Staples Center when the Lakers played. (Where the hell were the protectors of civility while people blatantly pitched steel garbage cans at passing trains even as Associated Press photographers blatantly recorded the events? Were Baca's brownshirts too busy handing out citations to those attempting to interpret the confusing TAP pass crap?) But a few BusBenchers were underground while the lazy constabulary allowed the sports eruptions to derail the Blue Line and sever every north-south bus line in downtown.

Pershing Square Protest to be held Sunday Morning, 07 June

According to the blogs NYC Photo Rights and Discarted, the National Photographers' Rights Organization will host a protest at Pershing Square near the Metro Red Line station. The intent is to publicise the harassment of photographers on the Red Line, a problem which has come to a head and continues to be a problem stemming from Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies.

NPRO Rally: Sunday, June 7th at 11:30 a.m.
Pershing Square, corner of S. Hill and W. 5th Streets
Los Angeles, CA 90013

You know that Bus Benchers will be in attendance.

Blast from The Past: Metermaid Motor "Mishap"

In late 2005, I was touring through Venice when I happened upon this three-way collision involving TWO meter maids' motor vehicles. One metermaid had rear-ended a private vehicle and a second meter maid-mobile was somehow involved. (Calls to LADOT failed to gain any information, of course.)

Two Bus Benches Nearly Hit Last Week-End

Readers of Los Angeles-based blogs will know there is olde news in the disclosure of the motor vehicle that went out of control on Figueroa south of 7th Street last Saturday morning. The bus bench at the corner was narrowly avoided by the driver, whose vehicle slammed into the Bank of America building on the SE corner of Fig and 7th. The CBS/Decaux billboard was side-swiped, a metal embellishment on the BofA building was broken and a few windows were smashed.

Keeping L.A. Fuming: Jimmy Price, Head Meter Maid, says "Screw You, L.A.!"

When not gloating about how he's screwing you, your mom and most anyone who must take to the road in Los Angeles (and those who go Metro are no less affected, natch), head meter maid Jimmy Price is enjoying his scores of ill-gotten revenue. We hope to help change that.

Barriers Being Installed on Blue Line

Before the rain was slated to start, we took a trip on the Blue Line this morning. Our intention was to get a status report on the barriers that Metro promised to erect on Blue Line platforms in the wake of the unnecessary death of Cameron Cuthbertson, who was blind and stepped between two cars before being dragged south along the elevated rail line. 

Metro promised that the installations would begin in May, and we are glad they have. (Our morning tour only allowed us to observe the platforms between 7th/Metro and Del Amo, the latter station being where Mr. Cuthberston met his gory demise.) We found that of the stations visited this morning (14 of the 22 along the Blue Line), only Del Amo had barriers on both sides and Artesia had barriers only on the uptown side (to Los Angeles). The remainder of the stations visited, from Compton north to 7th/Metro, remain bereft of barriers.

We hope that they see to finishing the job quickly. 

-The Bus Bench