2014-11-30

 


Vae Viator57

From your Mole, to all who see this in hopes that you will have a:


¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

When politicians involve themselves in technical matters, expect failures.

The photograph below documents the situation at the Maxella AV and Lincoln BL stop on the BBB number 3 Line. It is the sort of “work” one would expect from the LACMTA. They taped or caused to be taped shut the aperture in the plastic pipes associated with power poles. These pipes were used as improvised trash cans. BBB N.B. The stop still needs a trash can!
Su Topo will include this comment in every post with the above until BBB
corrects the problem. For quite awhile BBB has been charging for intra-line transfers, reversing the long standing policy of free transfers to other BBB lines. 

Too, BBB has spent lots of money to build a big headquarters on Colorado BL just east of 4th Street. Mr. King, just a few dollars for a trash can, you might need a few more to cover other bus stops too, will erase this section. After all, it is Marina Del Rey! :-)

 
BBB Maxella Trash Fix???♪



Why a trash container is needed♪

The photo above shows exactly what people will do when a trash container is not provided.  They will jury rig something.  What they did in this case is rip off the tape which covered the plastic pipes at the base of the utility pole and stuffed their trash into the pipe, nice, huh?

White Line Incursion Series

Su Topo uses video to highlight the problem of scofflaw drivers endangering Metro bus passengers yet, no authority seems to want to take ownership of the problem. The issue is not unique to the particular site which this Mole documents, but is illustrative of a general problem. Your Mole encourages you to report similar problems to the appropriate agencies in your area(s) and hope that you will have better luck than he. In the youtube.com videos linked below one can see exactly what happens when the policing agencies fail to enforce traffic laws.

The videos linked below document the important fact that a never ending stream of vehicles fail to use the lane as required by law.
Neither are the policing agencies active when it comes to protecting us by bringing these obvious and frequent traffic law violations to an immediate halt. The LACMTA is derelict as well, in that they fail to use the near hourly proof of the violations captured by the on board cameras, mentioned here, and discussed at length in the posting of 2012-05-31.

In the following videos we see further instances of scofflaw drivers, some in convoy, cutting in front of Metro 111/311 buses.

Please see the www.youtube.com video of an auto crossing the solid white line and cutting off a Line 111/311 bus here. 

Please carefully note that often, pedestrians are pinned to the curb by the vehicles that cut in front of the bus —as a result these pedestrians are illegally denied the right-of-way. Which right-of-way would be unchallengeablely theirs IF, and only IF, Mr. Leahy would have one of his staff explain su Topo’s  simple solution (vide infra) to him. 

In spite of the potential for these violations to occur several times per HOUR, I have never seen a police presence at this location. One would think that with a bus schedule taped to the dashboard one of the several policing agencies would have made some arrests by now. Unless they have "more important" work, than protecting bus passengers, to do.

La Taupe feels that it is appropriate to dedicate these video(s) to ALL the agencies that should be protecting us. So, they are dedicated to (1): Airport (LAWA) Police, the L.A.P.D., the L. A. County Sheriff’s Department and Mr. A. Leahy who is CEO of the LACMTA.

Su  Topo has recommended a simple solution to the problem. That is, have the 111 Line buses pull up to pedestrian crosswalk then stop and discharge passengers. Doing so eliminates the space in front of the bus which the always-in-a-hurry scofflaws use to cut in front of the bus. But, with the LACMTA nothing is simple. Although the solution could be implemented with nothing more than a memo to the 111/311 Line drivers, it is a task for which the LACMTA is inadequate.
 
OVERMATCHED





The Mole reads the papers and other things, obviating the necessity of your doing so.

The Los Angeles Times covers (Weikel) the ground breaking for the “Subway to the Sea Veterans Administrations hospital” which borders on both Sepulveda and Wilshire Blvds.  Once again, demonstrating that if the LACMTA cannot achieve useful goals, they will change the goals.  This project is congruent to the Green Line to LAX plan —which has not been achieved in over two decades— approximately 2.4 decades.  The latest LACMTA LAX plan, which this Mole has termed “Four seats to LAX”, does not qualify as imaginative thinking and should put a big smile on the faces of the operators of the FlyAway service!

The agency should immediately begin running the 720 Line busses in an A-sector and B-sector mode.  The A-sector should shuttle between Commerce Center and the Civic Center Station where passengers could transfer to the Purple Line.  While the B-sector would cover the area between the Wilshire Western Station and Santa Monica.  Then in 50 years or so, when the Purple Line extension is finished the B-sector would become a shuttle between the VA Station and Santa Monica.  

This would save: time; fuel costs; driver costs; vehicle maintenance costs and habituate riders to making inter-modal transfers —a feature of big city life.  They could invest some of the savings, probably very little would be required, in rerouting the 232 line which needlessly loops around Mariposa Station —thus accruing more savings.

Meanwhile, if the LACMTA statistics are accurate, always a concern with an agency who makes so many inaccurate estimates of ridership and etc., according to a Times piece (Nelson, et al) of several months ago, the uncollected fares are hemorrhaging.


How has the LACMTA responded to the fare loss?  By imposing a fare increase which may drive others to “free ride”. Included was an increase from .10 to .25 in the cost of transfers for seniors.  The very people who could be using bus and rail transportation off-peak!  The regular fare transfers increase from .35 to .50, an increase to a fraction more than 140%.   Had the 140% rate been applied to seniors, their transfers would cost .15 —a much fairer rate.  Paying two and a half more than the prior transfer cost and an inequitable rate when compared with the increase in the price of regular transfers, just doesn’t seem fair to our senior citizens, does it Mr. Leahy?  Mr. Leahy, roll back the senior transfer cost  to .15!

CHSRA will undoubtedly be unnerved to hear that their “Bullet Train” will be more like a Sling Shot Train when compared with the latest efforts of the Japanese.  The report from slashdot.com says “Japan has now put 100 passengers on a Maglev train doing over 500kph. That's well over twice as fast as the fastest U.S. train can manage, and that only manages 240kph on small sections of its route.

The Japanese Shinkansen [a train whose history dates back to March, 1959! Mole] is now running over 7 times times [sic] as fast as the average U.S. express passenger train. 500kph is moving towards the average speed of an airliner.”

Here is a link to the history of the Japanese Bullet Train (Shinkansen). 

I would like to be self-referential and restate my most important complaint regarding the CHSRA “product”, viz., “Wrong Technology – they should be using state-of-the-art Mag-Lev technology instead of the older “Bullet Train” technology.  The Japanese are developing mag-lev technology now and have been doing so for a number of years!  You can see the most-recent phrasing of my CHSRA critique in the 2014-10-31 posting (Search for guber). 



For several months now, I have been attempting to bring understanding and clarity to the LACMTA’s “Free Two Hour Transfer” policy.  At last, they’ve come clean and are telling us what they should have at the outset. 

You Mole called it, using his “when dealing with the LACMTA, expect little and you won’t be too disappointed” philosophy.  The “Free Two Hours” start ticking away as soon as the transfer is copied to your tap card.  What customer service!  First you must buy your fare at one of the third parties or at a rail station.  Making fare purchase as difficult as possible without demanding that you purchase the fare at least ten days before your trip is a guarantee that the population of free transfer riders will be a minimum. 

Further,  although forcing you to purchase your fare at a “pass sales outlet” means that the LACMTA will have to pay a commission to the third party it will be less expensive to do that and force the rider to pay additional fare(s) rather than loading a “two hour transfer”  the rider’s TAP card.   Great, everybody (almost) is happy with this deal.

Perhaps the ridership should think of legal ways in which to express their dissatisfaction.

The expensive to print, glossy “Metro Insider” (¡Use su tarjeta ...!) which somewhat explained the policy, was called “Use TAP— Get two hours of transfers!” You can find the two short paragraphs on the back of the English language cover —on an unnumbered page.  Su Topo finds this title inaccurate and feels that the title should be “Use TAP— Get two hours of transfers minus the length of time on the bus where you paid your fare!”

There is LOTS of white-space in this brochure, but apparently not enough to direct you to the exact web page.  They prefer to say simply “Visit metro.net.”  I followed their advice following Need a Tap card?   It took me just 4 seconds to locate the page so, for your convenience and so someone at the LACMTA didn’t have to become a “computer expert” to pass it on to you, here is the link  Why didn’t the LACMTA provide the full link?? No se, but perhaps you can think of a reason.  It is amazing how (Please fill in word) the LACMTA staff are or is it simply laziness?  It is 2015 (almost) and yet they seem unable to give you a full URL to the data!

Most people who can make their entire commute using only Metro buses are likely to use two and often three buses.  If the first bus ride is say, an hour, then when you transfer to the second bus you will have one hour of free transfer left.  Since the LACMTA makes absolutely NO EFFORT to coördinate/synhronise bus schedules (not even major lines) you will be extremely luck to ride the second bus and incredibly fortunate to ride a third.

How about it, Mr. Leahy?  Won’t you do the right thing for the Metro ridership and remove those silly, onerous pre-purchase requirements for eligibility AND make the two-hour transfer period begin with the “tap” when boarding the bus after the issuing bus?

Oh and while the topic of bus line synchronisation is fresh, here is a publication that offers hope of achieving minimum transfer wait times.  This thesis also serve as a nice introduction to transportation.  Scheduling bus lines between the rail lines and subway which the "Downtown Connector" is supposed to fix, is likely the most cost effective manner by which to connect them **spoiler alert** many of those bus lines, as your Mole noted in an earlier posting, already exist.  Then the billions not wasted could be used to link the Green Line to LAX making it, at most, "three seats to LAX".  The cheering you hear in the background is from the LAWA FlyAway Group.  Implementing a scientific methodology will almost always lead to a solution — instead of the LACMTA's preferred approach, which is ... casting of the runes?



DISCLAIMER
It is this Mole's recommendation that the document linked above NOT be read by those associated with the LACMTA; it is a topic too "foreign" to them and is sure to cause dissonance between the usual approach used by the LACMTA and what is possible for others to achieve.

Let’s take a short break here and listen to some music.  Does something by “Cheap Trick” sound appropriate?   How about “Stop That Thief”? http://grooveshark.com/s/Stop+That+Thief/4Mq5Xd?src=5

In  a Los Angeles Times editorial (Editorial) of several years ago, from which I would like to quote this: “Meanwhile, though, the switch is proving to be a poorly planned, confusing mess, with parts of the system rushed into place before the rest was ready. It's unclear how long it will take to work the bugs out, and some of the proposed "fixes" coming from MTA headquarters don't seem like much of an improvement [Emphasis mine]. 

And this: “Why the MTA installed the gates or proceeded with the TAP system before securing agreements with the individual transit operators is a mystery, but we think we know the answer: bad planning and even worse communication among the MTA's staff, its governing board and the agencies it's seeking to partner with on TAP [Emphasis mine].”

The editorial describes the long, long, yet incomplete TAP implementation but, replacing “switch” with “project” in the above verbiage will make it applicable to just about anything the LACMTA touches. 

amNY.com reports (Rivoli) on the NYC’s MTA’s planned fare increase.  Please note carefully the rate quoted in the article: “Officials said the MTA can keep its promise of raising fares every two years by 4%, close to the rate of inflation.”  Please read this article (linked in Works Cited, below) and see how it is done in the “Big Apple.”

[T]hetransportpolitic.com tells us (Freemark) ‘Of the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, only two have a majority of their jobs located within three miles of their downtown, and most suburban.’ And ‘… workers don’t work in city centers. A sizable share of the population doesn’t work a “normal” workweek.’ Toronto, Canada has apparently overcome the challenge.
Planning with the givens supplied above is a challenge and building fixed route light rail lines that are not “rapid transit” presents a special challenge to Los Angeles.  Planning for and overcoming these issues will be difficult for those who are not clairvoyant.

A Cnet.com article (Rubin) describes New York City’s creative plan to convert
disused payphone locations to Wi-Fi access points. It describes the project,
which is planned to complete in late 2015 as “the biggest and fastest
free municipal Wi-Fi network in the world.”  Future minded? concerned for their 
citizens? Know what people need? Yes, yes and yes!

«  Le vase donne une forme au vide, et la musique au silence. »

Georges Braque (1882-05-13~1963-08-31)

 [The vase gives form to the void, and the music to silence.]


Ars longa vita breva

Illustrative of finding beauty in humble places, here is a link to Charles Camoin’s painting, “Femme Au Chapeau Bleu À La Rose”. 

To see more of Camoin’s work, use your favourite search engine, set it to image mode and use “Camoin” as the search argument.  I found lots but some are NOT FOR CHILDREN!

¿Musica?

Let’s listen to some Blues.  I think that Muddy Waters playing the “Train Fare Home Blues” would be appropriate. 


 Thank you! to our good friends at www.grooveshark.com for always providing the appropriate music for us.


The Mole rides again, so you don’t have to be ignored by Bus Operators who wish you’d go away.
(All times are expressed in the 24 hour system.)

         
America’s Worst
  
2014-11-01 13:35 117 Line, south bound: Operator 84606 stops his bus three metres past the “flag”.  Sloppy positioning of their vehicles at the flag isn’t the only fault of LACMTA drivers.



Bad Parallel Parking

These days it seems that fewer drivers know the exact location of their bus. is
2014-11-19 12:45 aboard a 117 Line bus, #8331:  The driver  of this west bound run (Run # 8) (#3236 –I double checked this suspiciously short ID– looks away from me and ignores my “Good Afternoon”.  But he is willing to chat endless, holding up our arrival at the LAXCBC and causing me to just miss my connection, about the location of a street he apparently doesn’t know, Viz., Fairfax. 

Ear (and Eye) to the Rail
KPFK is an excellent station in many regards.  They broadcast a program call “Exploration” hosted by noted theoretical physicist, Dr Michio Kaku.  The broadcast can be heard on other Pacifica stations as well.  Please see Dr. Kaku’s website for more information.  

I listened to a very interesting discussion covering the search for extra terrestrial intelligence and the future growth possibilities for computation now that we are near the limit of Moore’s law.   The answer to that problem? Three dimensional computers —Please listen here and please, be patient while it loads.  
 

Transit as unseen and unimagined by the LACMTA

The LACMTA (Subordinate to LAWA)

Presents

Every Which Way But Right!

OR

Four Seats to LAX!

OR

The LACMTA Tries Again; Asymptotically to LAX!

OR

The World’s Most Inconvenient Way in Which to Travel From City Center to an Airport!

 The purpose of this section is to make people aware that the LACMTA is not home to many problem solvers.  I hope to accomplish this end by presenting the solutions adopted by other cities, some in foreign countries, in solving the city to airport rapid mass transportation challenge.

DISCLAIMER
Cautionary Note: Those employed by the LACMTA or LAWA should NOT view the following video(s). The speed of the train(s), the fact that they neither share the right of way nor stop at stop lights, because they are truly rapid transit, will likely make you dizzy, nauseous, confuse and frighten you.

The Los Angeles Times covers (Lin II) the fact that Oakland, which could be termed a second city,  to San Francisco now has rail service which connects to the BART.  They, unlike the dysfunctional LACMTA had a bus service called “Air Bart” between Oakland International and the nearest BART station, Coliseum.   Now the train links up directly so, you can travel by rail from San Francisco to Oakland Airport or from Oakland to San Francisco International.  That is a system to be emulated.  Had anyone from the LACMTA thought to emulate BART where would we be today?  Certainly not spending billions to build the “Downtown Connector”.

Regarding the old system: “… many passengers say they found hauling their luggage down the stairs to a bus a big hassle … “.  These words or variants of them will echo forever in train cars and on platforms when the “Four seats to LAX” mess is “finished”.

The page is linked here.  Page down "twice" to position the video.

Thank you latimes.com for the video

Cosmology

SETI? Yes SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is using a more focused search mode.  Rather than attempting to everything in attempting to find alien life in the universe the organization will concentrate on planets orbiting their sun (star) in a zone that is most conducive to life-formation.
Please read the article from thisweek.com, here.  Dr. Kaku (Vide infra) will also talk about SETI.

We all know about the WWW, the world- wide web, a network – it is the micro to the macro network that “connects” galaxies in our universe.   A little preparatory work is required before we review the extremely large-scale structure described in the document below.  A parsec (pc) a measure of distance is equal to 3.085678x1013 kilometers, or 3.26 light-years. A kpc: is equal to 1000 parsecs or 3260 light-years while a Mpc equals 1 million parsecs or 3,260,000 light-years.  Using the data supplied above we can compute the distance that light travels in a year as (3.085678 * 10^13) /3.26 = 9.46526994 * 1012.  You can verify la Taupe’s work by copying the bold section into the google.com search area and pressing space after entering the 3.26.

This link will take you to a page at sciencedaily.com where you can read about some of the work being done at the University of California Riverside.

After you have read enough, please view this video which will zoom in to smaller and smaller sections of the universe.  To help you deal with these dimensions, consider that our home galaxy is about 100,000 light-years or
approximately 30674.84 pc ≈ 30.67 Kpc.  Here is a page which shows a picture of the Milky-Way galaxy —side view— and when you read the text you’ll discover that your Mole has made the Milky Way about 2Kpc too large :-(.




Now let’s view the zoom in simulation the link here will take you to the first in the series of four which is shown on the Science Daily page.  This loads slowly into Windows Media Player but the wait is worth it!


You can find more on the large scale structure described above, here.

Fare Box Score Box and related Lists of Shame
I.D. Numbers of buses with Out of Order Fare Boxes: 9842;
Note: No or few entries above do not necessarily mean all fare boxes are in operation.

I.D.Numbers of Distracted Drivers: xxxxx (i);
None included here, but observations of a minor nature may be included in the main posting;
Codes: (i) Extended conversation(s) with passenger(s) or (ii) cell phone call(s). Frequently, details can be found in the text above, (ii*) cell phone call(s) which are aggravated by some other action, (iii) Self-distracted. Codes (ii*) and (iii) will ALWAYS be explained in the posting.

I.D. Numbers of Buses Defaced by WhoIs stickers: xxxx;
~UR or +UR = (+UR) whois sticker and the ugly residue left after passengers partly remove the sticker. (~UR) = Only the ugly residue left after passengers almost completely remove the sticker. +L = an old (legacy) sticker black letters on a plain white background –these are the original form of the defacement.
* Another reason for displaying the operator's ID on the internal display and the headsign.

ID numbers of Buses whose Head and Tailsigns disagree: Not noted xxxx/xxxx;
Format is Bus number followed by Headsign number/Tailsign number.

ID numbers of Buses without Braille signs: xxxx;

METRO drivers Lack of Basic Technical Skills Report
The format is Driver number F[{Y/-n/+n}] C[{Y/N+/-}]. Meaning of F if Y the driver stopped with the Bus stop “flag pole” somewhere between the bus front door frames. A negative number, e.g., -3 is the approximate distance in metres (think yards dear readers) between the nearest bus door vertical frame member and the flag pole signifying that the bus stopped short of the flag. A positive number, e.g., +3 (metres) is the approximate distance between the nearest bus door vertical frame member and the flag pole signifying that the bus stopped past the flag. The value for C[{Y/N}], “Y” tells us that the driver stopped within an easy step from the curb to the bus, “N” means it was NOT an easy step from the curb to the bus. It is this Mole's belief that an average experienced good driver should be able to control his bus so as to position in near the curb and with the flag pole slightly to the front of the bus.
xxxxx F[+4] C[Y];

I.D. numbers of drivers who are unable or unwilling to position their buses parallel to the curb, a short step from the curb and/or equidistant from the vehicles exits.
XXXXX F[+10] C[Y]; F[+7], C[Y]; xxxxx F[Y], C[Y]; xxxxxF[Y], C[Y]; N.B. distances are in metres, think yards.
13 metres is this is MORE than a bus length.  nnnnn* = Contract Driver

I.D. numbers of drivers who are almost guaranteed to give you a Rough and Jerky (R& J) ride: xxxxx;

I.D. numbers of drivers who will give you a potentially life-threatening ride:
 XXXXX(J)date; XXXXX(-);
Codes: S = not wearing seat belts; J = bad judgment (unsafe driving practices).
La Taupe's Abréviations
ADADO = Automatic Destination Announcement (on) Door Opening. This feature is installed on many buses and operates on extremely few. Another“money down the toilet” LACMTA investment. La Taupe that this is intended for the visually impaired because people who can see can read the “head signs”.
ASAS = Automatic Stop Announcement System the GPS (Global Positioning System) driven mechanism for generating audio for the upcoming stops. N.B. Because of the low power (read weak) processors used in the on-board stops may be too close to identify stops separately. This is known as a granularity problem. Then too, if the driver operates the bus at speed above the speed limit you will find the system “back announcing” stops which you have already passed. I find that this will NOT keep some drivers from complaining “that you didn’t signal (ring) in time. They don’t understand their relationship to the system and how, by driving faster than the GPS computer, they can bias it.
BART = Bay Area Rapid Transit – Please note the use of the word “Rapid” because it is a word we almost never hear in Los Angeles.
BBB = Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus
CHSRA = California High-Speed Rail Authority, which is the equivalent, in more ways than one, of the LACMTA.
CC or CCMBL = Culver City (Municipal) Bus (Lines)
CCTC = Culver City Transportation Center this is the place formerly known as FHMTC = the Fox Hills Mall Transportation Center (Sepulveda& Slauson)
FFE = Full Fare Equivalent (presently $1.50)
GMBL = Gardena Municipal Bus lines
ITC = Inglewood Transit Center
LAWA = Los Angeles World Airports.
LAXCBC = the LAX City Bus Center.
OCTA = Orange County Transportation Authority.
OOS = Out Of Service.
Rapid Transit = does not compete for right of way, that is, it will not run at grade unless it has EXCLUSIVE DEDICATED USE of the right of way).
R& J = Rough and Jerky [ride].
TT= Torrance Transit.
T1= the normal type of driver/staff.
T2= is the non-stop talker type of driver/staff, on the phone or to passengers,
T3= the uncommunicative type of driver/staff, sometimes surly.
WLATC = the West Los Angeles Transportation Center (Fairfax & Apple)

Su Topo’s Disclaimer and apologia
Your Mole always attempts to write an easy-on-the-eyes page using text input. Blogger.com however, has other ideas and will often not stay with a single font type or point size, produces extraneous spacing and etc. I wish I had time to debug the HTML which they produce, it is NOT the straight text which I pasted into the form, but I don’t. Therefore, I apologize on behalf of Blogger.com for the changes which they make, of which I do not approve. Sometimes, what I see, thankfully you don’t, is 24 point type –it is giant and other times they swallow my text, although it still seems to be there. In fairness to them, things seem better, although this is partly because I do understand which of their “features” do the most damage to me and consequently do not use them. Communicating these problems to them, for me, is something like having teeth extracted without the benefit of anesthetic, actually it is less fun than that. By their design, there is no simple e-mailing them with "Please look at my say, posting of 2009-06-28, it is weird!” I have been submitting feedback and experiences slow but positive progress.  Until all issues are resolved, lo siento. [Addendum 2014-07-31]: Things have been much better lately.  There is a more responsive feedback system now.  If things keep this way, I may have to delete this "Disclaimer and apologia" section in the near future.  Almost immediately after writing the preceding, the system "returned an error" on a save.

Your Mole’s Copyright Statement
All photographs and original written materials are copyrighted © 2007~2013 by LAmetroMole. Clicking a photo will often* present you with an enlargement (sometimes successive clicks will further enlarge the photo). *This feature is dependent upon the Internet browser which you use and possibly other factors.
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains or provides links to copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, sustainable development, environmental, community and worker health, public disclosure, corporate accountability, and etc. We have often included relatively brief quotes from articles and etc., sometimes in addition to a simple link, because we have found that links frequently go "bad" or change over time. We believe this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without fee or payment of any kind to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes and to those who access the site via any and all other channels. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Music or other recorded material on this site, or referred to by this site are copyrighted by their respective artists and are made available here for evaluation purposes only. Please support the artists you like by buying their commercial CDs, MP3s and downloads.

Your Mole’s Conflict of Interest Statement
This is to certify that I, the blogger who is known as the LAmetroMole, with respect to this blog, except as described below, am not now nor at any time during the past year have been, nor is it my current intention to ever be:
1) A participant, directly or indirectly, in any arrangement, agreement, investment, or other activity with any vendor, supplier, or other party doing business with any of the entities about which I have written, which has resulted or could result in personal benefit to me.
2) A recipient, directly or indirectly, of any salary payments or loans or gifts of any kind or any free service or discounts or other fees from or on behalf of any person or organization engaged in any transaction with any of the entities about which I have written.
Any exceptions to 1 or 2 above are stated below with a full description of the transactions and of the interest, whether direct or indirect, which I have (or have had during the past year) in the persons or organizations having transactions with any of the entities about which I have written.
There are no exceptions.

Date: 2009-06-24 S/LametroMole

Works Cited

Editorial. "MTA and its beleaguered Transit Access Pass system." Los Angeles Times. Aug. 27, 2010. Web: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/27/opinion/la-ed-tap-20100827
Freemark, Yohna. "Make the effort, and commuter rail can be as effective as rapid transit". thetransportpolitic.com Jul. 28, 2014. Web. http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2014/07/28/make-the-effort-and-commuter-rail-can-be-as-effective-as-rapid-transit/
Lin II, Rong-Kong. "BART opens new train line to Oakland airport". Los Angeles Times. Nov. 27, 2014. Web: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bart-opens-new-train-line-to-oakland-airport-20141122-story.html
Nelson, Laura J and Schleuss, Jon."So how many people are actually paying to ride?".Los Angeles Times. Jul. 28, 2014. Web: http://graphics.latimes.com/los-angeles-metro-riders/
Nelson1, Laura J. "Lack of parking drives many away from mass transit". Los Angeles Times. Oct. 21, 2014. Web: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-california-commute-20141021-story.html\

XNelson1, Laura J. "Downtown L.A. streetcar line cost estimate is shaved by $55 million". Los Angeles Times. Sep. 2, 2014. Web. http://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-streetcar-cost-20140903-story.html
And
Xelson, Laura J. "Streetcar line’s cost estimate is shaved ". Los Angeles Times. Sep. 3, 2014:AA3. Print

Xelson2, Laura J."Federal grant will fund improvements to Willowbrook Metro station". Los Angeles Times. Sep. 13,2014. Web. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-federal-funds-willowbrook-metro-20140912-story.html.

Xelson3, Laura J. " Metro riders take fare hike in stride".  Los Angeles Times. Sep. 15, 2014. Web. http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-fare-increase-20140916-story.html

Xelson4, Laura, J. “MTA bus and train fares to rise Monday".  Los Angeles Times. Sep. 15, 2014:A23. Print


Rivoli, Dan. “Subway fare and toll hike details announced; public meetings set". amNY.com. Nov. 17, 2014. Web. http://www.amny.com/transit/subway-fare-and-toll-hike-details-announced-public-meetings-set-1.9627581

Zemcov et. al. "on the origin of near-infrared extragalactic background light anisotropy".  science 7 november 2014 • vol 346 issue 6210
¡Use su tarjeta …!, “Transfer period begins when you Tap your card”. metro.net. Nov. 2014. Print.
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