The LaMetroMole with LACMTA Comments

2012-01-29T12:57:00.000-08:00

Vae Viator23

%BBBmaxellaTrash%

More Things for which I wish in 2012!♪

From Ms Stephanie Negriff, Director of Transit Services Big Blue Bus:

A trash can on the north-east corner of Lincoln and Maxella Avenue, so that Big Blue Bus passengers would have some place to properly dispose of their trash rather than stuffing it in every available nook and cranny. Shame on you, Ms Negriff!!

Su Topo will lead every post from ths date forward with the above until BBB corrects the problem!

Mr. Leahy, it is really time for you to control the flow of civilian traffic, i.e., non-bus traffic into the LAXBC. Here is a link, http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=96th+Street+and+Jenny+Av,+Los+Angeles,+CA&aq=&sll=35.56798,-106.962891&sspn=24.146135,53.569336&vpsrc=6&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=W+96th+St+%26+Jenny+Ave,+Los+Angeles,+California+90045&ll=33.949026,-118.391199&spn=0.000533,0.000817&t=h&z=21

http://bit.ly/zsV7jw , which shows exactly how poorly the entry driveway is marked and exactly why so many vehicles blunder into the LAXCBX. These dangerous incursions will eventually result in a serious accident! The steps to correct this problem are simple, uno, dos, tres and outlined for you here:

Uno – immediately improve traffic patrols in this area. The improved controls can ticket drivers who cut across solid lines in front of stopped buses which are discharging passengers and turning westward at 96^th Street ans Airport Bl AND ticket drivers who ignore the feeble signage and enter the LAXCBC. There is nothing like a $100 ticket to cause a driver to focus his attention on where he is going and to relate his unpleasant experience to others. WOM (Word of Mouth) will often take care of the problem

Dos – ASAP, put the yellow stripe painters to work painting a hash mark pattern with a red “Buses Only” note in the centre. I have made a sample of this work just below. N.B. yours should look very much better since you are paying for it, mine, of course, is gratis to you.

Can you see me now?

Tres – Supplement the striping with some HIGHLY VISIBLE SIGNAGE which will further discourage these dangerous incursions.

They are at it again! Just several years after tearing up the Patsaouras Transit Plaza at the “Taj Mahal” (Read: LACMTA Headquarters) entrance, the LACMTA wants to do it again. Last time, I believe, the reason was to correct the work of the contractors did not do properly; this is not so unusual with the LACMTA. Here are the details of the $9,679,000 project:

“The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in cooperation with the California Department of Transportation will reconfigure Patsaouras Plaza in downtown Los Angeles to provide a busway station for El Monte Busway passengers. The improved bus station will include seating, shelters, lighting, information displays, elevators, and stairs connecting directly to Union Station, the main rail station in Los Angeles, providing a more convenient connection between bus rapid transit, regional and local bus service, Metro light rail, rail transit, Amtrak, and Metrolink commuter trains.”

Let’s just think for a minute. If every constituency got a proportionate share of close to $10 million spent on them, as the “El Monte Busway Passengers” will, wouldn’t things be just great?

The Passaouras Plaza looks just wonderful to me just as it is, a few bent railings and such, but all-in-all not bad. What is really needed are rest rooms at each bus center and rail station. Spending the near $10 mil on that project would really provide aid and comfort to the traveling public. That is, instead of further aggrandizement of the “Taj Mahal”.

For complete details see: http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/Bus_Livability_Descriptions_Final_Selections.pdf

http://1.usa.gov/x55YA5

La parole a été donnée à l'homme pour déguiser sa pensée.>>

Voltaire (François Marie Arouet, dit) [1694-11-21~1778-05-30]

Dialogue, le Chapon et la Poularde

[Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.]

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

Harpers Magazine (Badger) helps this Mole become slightly more positive about “social networks” and see potential for their usefulness. Ms Badger writes about an interesting and informative analysis of “tweets” about the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) that are useful in identifying the root causes of riders’ dissatisfaction.

Want to bet that our own LACMTA is not so imaginative?

The Los Angeles Times reports (Bloomekatz) on an extension of the “Measure R” sales tax to be used for transportation. You remember the one which Snoble used taxpayer funds to publicise.

Due to a poor economy which is mentioned in the article and poor project management on the part of the LACMTAwhich is not mentioned and results in cost overruns the dollars collected are fewer than anticipated and spent ineffectively.

In case you are wondering what your Mole felt about this extension, here it is. Giving more money to the LACMTA is like giving a quart of bourbon to a drinker, that is, no good will come of it.

The LACMTA will waste money on any scheme which strikes its’ fancy; a perfect example is the ~~NextBus~~, I mean NexTrip “system” which cost quite a lot (exactly how much is not reported by the LACMTA, at least not in an accessible manner) yet contributes NOTHING to improved operations or schedules.

This Mole hopes that there are enough voters who will pass on, i.e., not vote for an extension of “Measure R” and think about “Measure Rx” which is shorthand for “basta ya” when it comes to more funds to waste for the LACMTA.

Although la Taupe has only limited experience with hospitals, in every case where he does have experience he finds the nursing staff hard working and dedicated. So slightly off the topic of the LACMTA, is Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica which is on the 4 Line and 704 Line and near the 720/20 Lines.

This Mole was disappointed to read (Peak) that the nurses have been working without a contract for, I believe, eight months now. This means that patient care suffers because of inadequate coverage. Further, nurses are suffering back injuries because they lack a dedicated team and proper equipment to lift patients. Shame on you, Saint John’s! Please give these ladies and gentlemen what they need to perform their important jobs and avoid injury.

Please read this short important article here: http://bit.ly/xryWzN

http://www.smmirror.com/#mode=single&view=30763

Our local papers just don’t seem to be covering the LACMTA, I wonder why that might be??

¿Musica?

Last month we heard the work of French pianist Hélène Grimaud.

This month, let’s see her in concert surrounded by an orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJRHht55E1M

http://bit.ly/jx1Bvm

Then we can see the stunningly talented Valentina Lisitsa, a native of Ukraine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zucBfXpCA6s

http://bit.ly/zSut6Y

Thank you for this beautiful music, youtube.com!

Ear to the Rail

I hope that the music above will be accepted as the “Ear” contribution for this month.

Cosmology

Surfing the gravitational waves? In a way that was/is the plan for the downsized LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) project. The plan was for LISA to detect gravitational waves created by the merging of very large black holes. You can read the detail in a short article here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=lisa-mission-gravitational-waves

NewScientist provides us with some more information on (still) faster than the speed-of-light neutrinos and multiple-universe; from 10⁵⁰⁰ of them and more!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228403.200-neutrinos-and-multiverses-a-new-cosmology-beckons.html

The Mole Rides Again, so you don’t have wonder why the LACMAT cannot provide security without asking for volunteers.

(All times are expressed in the 24 hour system.)

2012-01-09 @ 9:00: A 232 Line driver, # 71230, kicks paper napkins out of his bus and onto the pavement as he prepares for a southbound trip at the LAXCBC. Mr. Leahy and the head of MVT should work together on a “charm class” for drivers to ensure that (1) they don’t litter; they don’t carry on unnecessary conversations with passengers, e.g., “I go to the XYZ church every Sunday and etc.”;

Don’t allow passengers to block ingress access to the bus, everyone should be seated or standing in the main compartment; the dispatch radios AND the newly install ASAS should be at a standard level (there are engineering standards for such things, however unknown they are to the LACMTA that is NOT just another irritant for passengers.

2012-01-24 @ 7:40: It is cold at the LAXCBC. A 232 Line driver allows us to board the warm bus and wait until the start of the run. His driver number, errr, I forget J.

The message scroll bar at Mariposa Stations gives us some health advice: “avoid sick people”; then allows us to volunteer to assist Sherriff’s Deputies fight vandalism, fare evasion and other crime”. That sounds like fun doesn’t it? What is the logic of placing untrained civilians in harm’s way? No doubt they will have a lengthy release of liability.

Soon the scroll bars is announcing “Train Arriving”, fully 30 seconds after I saw the train coming towards us. It is just more technology which is rendered toothless by the LACMTA.

Blue Line More Trains More Often♪

[Please note your Mole’s editorial comment below the graphic]

I connect for Long Brach at the Imperial and etc., Station. I board a Blue Line train and am happy to be in a relatively warm area. Not for long though as we are, for some inexplicable reason dumped off at the Willow Station and the train starts back up the tracks, the P.A. advises us that it is going back to Los Angeles.

Thank you Mr. Leahy! It is lots of fun to wait on a cold platform, so assuming that the LACMTA doesn’t know the difference between Downtown Long Beach and the Willow Station, I am including a helpful portion of the Blue Line route below. I wonder if the customer service group (if such a group exists) subscribes to the motto – “We’re not satisfied until you’re not satisfied!” Is this any way to run a railroad?

Blue Line Imperial to Long Beach

Attention Federal Transportation Agency♪

While rider satisfaction is on my mind, let me, again, discuss the poor service to Santa Monica provided by the 704 “Rapid” Line on Santa Monica BL. In the time I waited around 13:20 on a weekday afternoon: there were 3 buses from the 704 and 2 buses from the 4 Line, all of which terminated on the south-west corner of the Sepulveda-Santa Monica BL intersection. Yet I continued to wait for the all-to-infrequent Santa Monica bound bus.

2012-01-20 @ 7:20. “Vor” performs his usual, to me, sub-standard cleanup at the LAXCBC. It is hit-and-miss sweeping while he avoids the gutters which accumulate lots of trash. Then he jumps into his company provided car and is off to his next assignment.

As I wait for a 108 Line bus at Lincoln and Mindanao Way in Marina del Rey, I share a bench with a homeless man who chain-smokes cigarette butts and refills his drink cup any number of times at the McDonald’s across the street. After just seconds I move to avoid his continuous stream of smoke. I remind myself to avoid the soft drink dispenser at that particular Mickey D’s location.

Lots of out-of-town travel and rides with friends this month so, that’s all folks.

Fare Box Score Box and related Lists of Shame

I.D. Numbers of buses with Outs of Order Fare Boxes: 8144, 9511;

Note: No or few entries above do not necessarily mean all fare boxes are in operation.

I.D.Numbers of Distracted Drivers: xxxxx (iii),;

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 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: xxxx ;

Format is Bus number followed by Headsign number/Tailsign number.

ID numbers of Buses without Braille signs: XXXX;

METRO drivers 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.

F[Y] C[Y]; F[Y], C[Y]; xxxxx F[+], C[]; xxxxx F[+], C[]; N.B. distances are in metres, think yards.

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(-); 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.

BBB = Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus

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

LAXCBC = the LAX City Bus Center.

OCTA = Orange County Transportation Authority.

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 am hoping that one of their developers will someday read this, copy my code and improve their text to HTML engine. Until then, lo siento.

Mole’s Copyright Statement

All photographs and original written materials are copyrighted © 2007~2009 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.

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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 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

Badger, Emily “’I Hate the Blue Line’ and Other Things Transit Systems

Can Learn From Twitter”. The Atlantic. Jan. 25, 2012. Web. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/01/i-hate-blue-line-and-other-things-transit-can-learn-twitter/1040/

Bloomekatz, Ari. “Extension of L.A. County transit tax sought”. Los Angeles Times. Jan. 6, 2012. Print.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-measure-r-20120106,0,3723908.story

Peak, Christopher. “St. John’s Registered Nurses Continue To Battle With Hospital Administration ”. Santa Monica Mirror. Dec. 30 – Jan. 5, 2012:A6. Print. http://www.smmirror.com/#mode=single&view=33788

### .. . ###

The above is ### 30 ### in Braille

2011-12-30T10:30:00.000-08:00

Vae Viator22

Su Topo must begin by making an apology to Ms Wendy Greuel. This lovely and extremely intelligent lady is the current Los Angeles City Controller, whom your Mole has often wrongly called upon to investigate the LACMTA. It is neither her duty nor her responsibility to do so and for my ignorance and ill-manners I am deeply apologetic. Ms Greuel, lo siento, please forgive me. The only defense that I could possibly raise is that I remember Ms Greuel as an LACMTA board member

It was only after seeing a presentation by Ms Val Zavala, another brilliant and beautiful lady, on SOCAL Connected which covered HACLA (Housing Authority [of the] City [of] Los Angeles) that I could at last in the words frequently used at the LACMTA say, "duh-oh," and understand Ms Greuel’s role in government and her current relationship to the LACMTA. [Please watch the program here:
http://www.kcet.org/shows/socal_connected/content/episodes/december-9-2011.html
and the update here:
http://www.kcet.org/shows/socal_connected/content/economy/show-me-the-money-government-gone-wild-update.html ]

After viewing the program about HACLA, with its one billion dollar budget, ask yourself, doesn’t the LACMTA with a three billion dollar budget deserve the same kind of investigation?

Things for which I wish in 2012!♪

From Ms Stephanie Negriff, Director of Transit Services Big Blue Bus:

Also a return to free transfers to other Big Blue Buses, instead of forcing coins out of many passengers who can ill afford it. Or is that how you are paying for the opulent facility on Colorado AV?

For Culver City Municipal Bus Lines:

Like my wish from BBB, a return to free transfers to other CCMBL Buses, instead of asking passengers to pay for their second (or third) ride which they need to get to work or return home from work.

Hasn’t either of these agencies heard that the medium income has not changed in years and years? Take a look at the chart shown on the linked to page, and ask yourself, are we being fair to our ridership? http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/index.htm

My list of wishes for Mr. Leahy of the LACMTA is longer:

How about eliminating the unnecessary loopy 232 Line route around Mariposa Station on this contracted to MV Transportation and establish a south bound 232 Line stop at Plaza El Segundo. Think of it as a rare, “service to your ridership” about which you can brag to the Federal Transit Administration.

While we are on the subject of MV Transportation could you PLEASE have them turn down those blaring dispatch radios on the 232 Lines and perhaps other contracted lines as well, the dispatch radios are louder than the Red Line PA system, you could have those turned down too J.

How about working, really hard, to make the various bus routes improve their on-time performance. You could publish those on-time statistics as the airlines do. That is, instead of selling ~~NextBus~~, er, NexTrip as a band aid or whatever it is other than an operational improvement, with apologies to Johnston & Johnston.
In fact, you could dump the entire NexTrip project and spend the money on things that would make the lives of your ridership much more pleseant, transportation wise. Such as: public restrooms in all "transit centers"; transfer and TAP Card sales at the same centers; establishing a "best practice" for permissible ambient noise; then reducing noise at freeway rail stations (Gold Line and Green Line), on-board Red Line trains but not limited to them and buses like those contracted to MV Transportation but not limited to those buses, to meet those "best practice" levels, cleaner buses and trains and etc., etc.

You could start scrolling the driver’s I.D. on board buses as the CCMBL does, yes you can learn and adopt best practices from other agencies.

Then too, you could join the rest of us in the thirty-second (32^nd) year of the personal computer age and solicit comments and other input about proposed line cancellations (do you ever do anything else?) via the Internet. This would be in place of the ill-advised, ill-conceived, ill-timed, poorly planned, ill-executed and totally biased in favour of LACMTA management’s proposal; you know, as if a publically traded company held its annual shareholders’ meeting on Christmas Eve in Tahiti.

Rapid service, which is an oxymoron, to those of us bypassed and left standing at the “regular” bus stop when no “regular” service is planned for hours or, facing a half mile walk to a stop serviced by a Rapid Line. The 704 Line is a good example of POOR service. Initially, the 704 promised service on Santa Monica Blvd, at say, Sepulveda, every fifteen (15) minutes or so. When su Topo pointed out repeatedly that the LACMTA was not living up to that “promise”, the LACMTA took action; they remove the promise from the information signs at the bus stop. After that service change, it became progressively worse. The last time I waited for a 7-4 Line bus I was forced to spend an hour, without benefit of a bus bench, as I watched sever Rapid 704s terminate at Sepulveda Blvd. So, finally, my wish: (1) that Rapid Service to Santa Monica Blvd. be supplemented (twice hourly) with local service; or (2) that free transfers be given to passengers on all service to Sepulveda and Santa Monica Blvds so that they can continue on board Big Blue Bus; or (3) mutual pass acceptance be negotiated with Big Blue Bus and all other Muni services.

The Federal Transit Administration does NOT know exactly how poor the service provided by Metro is (unless they are reading these postings). So I am happy to tell them my next wish for you: Make some effort to provide deterministic bus service by planning intersecting lines so they can be used with minimal waits. Step one would be to send your Marketing Department staff out to ride buses on trips which required a bus change and come back and make a report so that the LACMTA could finally understand the problem. A side-benefit would be that the Marketing Department would produce fewer resource wasting brochures while they were out standing at bus stops waiting and waiting for the connecting bus.

Most importantly, Art (may I call you Art?) it would be really, really great if you could have your “troops” think in terms of a transportation system, that way the Federal Transit Administration would not come down on you so hard and so often. More importantly, you would be serving your ridership, NOT forcing the LACMTA’s poorly thought out plans down their throats!

Oh, I didn’t mention that you may cite this Mole as the source for these ideas when you next meet with the Federal Transit Administration and tell them how good it’s going to beJ.

This list could go on and on and will do so in 2012.

This wish is that the County of Los Angeles would use its investigate powers to apply some oversight to the LACMTA.

On January 27, 2009, Wendy L. Watanabe was appointed [emphasis – Mole] Los Angeles County Auditor-Controller so with almost three (3) years on the job and extensive experience she should be able to assemble a task force to audit the LACMTA.

That said, note the fact that hers is an appointed position; she would certainly run into political barriers to a full and detailed investigation, don’t you think?

This is the juncture where la Taupe asks Ms Watanabe to contact Ms Zavala and determine if SOCAL Connected has another year or so to devote to the LACMTA. This Mole would be all eyes and ears if and when KCET rolls the tape.

<<En France, on étudie les hommes, en Allemagne, les livres.>>

Madame de STAËL (1766-04-22~1817-07-14) De l'Allemagne, chap. 13

[In France, one studies men; in Germany, books.]

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

The Los Angeles Times documented (Stevens) the thoughtfulness of two students: Ms Lesly Heredia and Ms Paulina Sanchez who are fourth-graders at Jaime Escalante Elementary school. They say that students at the school were discarding eatable food and suggested that usable food be distributed to the needy. What a great idea!

Brava ladies! This Mole will look for more great things from you in the future.

In the same paper we find (Weikel) that more of the planning for the high-speed “train to nowhere” (with apologies to the terrific cities of the Central Valley) is suspect. The “planners” are suggesting that Amtrak could use any facilities left ~~when~~, if the plan fails.

There seems to be neither resounding agreement nor funding from Amtrak to support the “plan”. It appears that people involved in public transit LOVE to spend money without regard to its effectiveness.

Does this sound like any other agency that you might know? (Hint: think LACMTA).

Another Times article (Bloomekatz) (reinforces your Mole’s thinking that testing should be incremental, i.e., as soon as two stations are completed one can run test trains between them, therefore finding problems whose solutions can be integrated into the nest stations. But, NO, not when our LACMTA is in charge. They waited until the complete (well, as much of it as they could build before they exhausted the budget they had) line is built; then they start testing. Of course now we find the problems that could have been discovered and fixed years ago.

The following quote pretty much tells the story: “Some officials said the problems occurred because of an initial bewilderment about funding sources and a disjointed process of construction, design and other contracts.”

Then the Times records (Bloomekatz) that “failure is an orphan” when elected officials pile-on to Metro management, after the fact. They could have seen the many end-arounds of the ridership much earlier. La Taupe has been critical of the manner in which the LACMTA obtains the “buy off” of the ridership for their ~~schemes~~, errr, plans? They do it by holding meeting at times and places that obviate attendance by ordinary people, perhaps I should say the 99 percent.

The busy Mr. Bloomekatz of the Times has another story about how the LACMTA [confuses your Mole’s take] having “… blogs transit news in English and Spanish and provides some language assistance to those who attend meetings of its governing board” [with actually providing good reliable transportation Mole].

Su Topo could not parse the following quote: "You put in a new rail line, if at the same time you're taking out some bus routes, people might have to walk further," said Daniel Levy, director of Metro's division of civil rights programs compliance”, as an apology or simply a statement of fact which might be stated as “they’ll figure it out”.

Please note that your Mole is not aware of ANY bus lines which are planned to connect with Expo Line stations. Any rational organization would have had such lines up and running in advance of the Expo Line opening in 2015, sorry, just joking.

The Times reported (Bloomekatz) how the LACMTA will respond to the Federal Transit Administration charges of civil rights violations.

Said response was a link to a purported 47 page document ( http://documents.latimes.com/how-mta-plans-correct-civil-rights-violations/ ) which showed a nice, clean, white, blank page for your Mole. Perhaps the Times will fix that but after 15 days I have my doubts OR, then again, perhaps the white page is their "do nothing" plan J.

A technical magazine which I read, described (Albright) some of the benefits which accrue to those who leverage their on-board GPS. After reading what they accomplished I find myself sure that the LACMTA is not making full use of the on-board bus GPS.

The article points out that GPS is an excellent tool with which one can monitor driver behavior and reduce accidents. As a result insurance cost can be reduces and in the case of the LACMTA perhaps even fares could be lowered.

¿Musica?

How about something beautiful from the French pianist Hélène Grimaud?
http://grooveshark.com/s/Beethoven+Piano+Concerto+No+4+In+G+Major+Op+58+3+Rondo+Vivace/3gtjcd?src=5

Thank you for this beautiful music, GrooveShark.com!

The New Yorker has an excellent piece on Ms Grimaud here, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/07/111107fa_fact_max

Ear to the Rail

Please accept the SOCAL Connected report (vide supra) as the “Ear” and “eye” contribution for this month.

Cosmology

Here is a nice simple discussion of time travel and related ideas.
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/11/the_science_of_warp/

Also covered is the second law of thermodynamics, which says that the total entropy of the universe increases as time increases. Entropy is, essentially, the amount of confusion — mixing — in the universe.

The London newspaper The Telegraph covers the use of the Large Hadron Collider as a tool with which to find the “Higgs Boson”, the particle which imparts mass to objects. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8947263/Higgs-boson-scientists-reveal-first-tantalising-glimpses-of-God-Particle.html

Harpers Magazine allows us to think about multiple universes.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/12/0083720

Mount Valley Astronomy takes that theme a little further. It has been estimated that the “string landscape” contains 10⁵⁰⁰ different possible universes. For all practical purposes, that number is infinite.

In an inset, we are given a nice, simple, easy to understand video, by Professor Michio Kaku of City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and other experts discuss multiverses. Thank you to the History Channel for this excellent program.
http://mwvastronomy.net/2011/09/the-universe-multiverse-parallel-universes/

The Mole Rides Again, so you don’t have to suppress the feeling of wanting to stand up and shout “shut up”, “shut up”, “shut up” at the ear splitting dispatch radios on lines contracted to MV Transportation.

(All times are expressed in the 24 hour system.)

2011-12-19 @ 11:00: A 232 Line driver change is made at Plaza El Segundo but the oncoming driver leaves the dispatch radio set on high volume.

Lots of out-of-town travel and rides with friends this month so, that’s all folks.

Fare Box Score Box and related Lists of Shame

I.D. Numbers of buses with Outs of Order Fare Boxes: 8431;

Note: No or few entries above do not necessarily mean all fare boxes are in operation.

I.D.Numbers of Distracted Drivers: xxxxx (iii),;

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: 5211, only partly visible yet identifible; this also serves as proof that NO LACMTA project, however small, is ever really completed;

~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 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: xxxx ;

Format is Bus number followed by Headsign number/Tailsign number.

ID numbers of Buses without Braille signs: XXXX;

METRO drivers 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.

23320 F[Y] C[+1.5]; 74831 F[-3], C[Y]; xxxxx F[+], C[]; xxxxx F[+], C[]; N.B. distances are in metres, think yards.

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(-); 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.

BBB = Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus

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

LAXCBC = the LAX City Bus Center.

OCTA = Orange County Transportation Authority.

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 am hoping that one of their developers will someday read this, copy my code and improve their text to HTML engine. Until then, lo siento.

Mole’s Copyright Statement

All photographs and original written materials are copyrighted © 2007~2009 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 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

Albright, Brian. “Improve Fleet Safety And Security With GPS”. Field Technologies. Nov. 2011:14. Print.

Bloomekatz, Ari. “Technical problems delay Expo Line's debut”. Los Angeles Times. Dec. 25, 2011. Web. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-expo-problems-20111225,0,758848.story

Bloomekatz, Ari. “Metro board members lecture agency over civil rights violations”. Los Angeles Times. Dec. 16, 2011. Web. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mta-meeting-20111216,0,4398882.story

Bloomekatz, Ari. “Audit faults MTA for lack of planning”. Los Angeles Times. Dec. 10, 2011. Web.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mta-audit-20111210,0,3475552.story

Bloomekatz, Ari. “MTA responds to civil rights violations cited in federal audit”. Los Angeles Times. Dec. 13, 2011. Web.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mta-response-20111213,0,1200317.story

Stevens, Matt. “Girls find way to share school’s extra food”. Los Angeles Times. Dec. 27, 2011:AA1. Print.

Weikel, Dan and Vartabedian, Ralph. “High-speed rail’s backup plan criticized”. Los Angeles Times. Dec. 27, 2011:AA1. Print.

### .. . ###

The above is ### 30 ### in Braille

2011-11-30T10:10:00.000-08:00

Vae Viator21

Institutional???, ummm, I forget♪

Well, it's “Institutional Memory” but who could expect the LACMTA to have it? Had they remembered, they could have saved a small fortune on installing their expensive NextBus, err, NexTrip signs at bus stops.

They could have used what this Mole calls “Snoble Stickers” (Please see photo above) which were installed and soon made obsolete by schedule changes, all during Snoble's reign. Your Mole believes that when the world ends these things, in addition to cockroaches will be the only surviving artifacts.

So they not only wasted taxpayers money on their ~~NextBus-~~NexTrip fiasco, they wasted too much money. Keeping in mind that no service improvements will result from any of the expenditure, and even if they did, those improvments could very likely be a achieved in a more direct and cost effective manner, e.g., using the on-board, GPS, passenger counters and etc. to improve routing/scheduling. All this waste of tax dollars is what la Taupe rightfully calls “Taxation without Transportation”.

The last time, (Please see my: 2011-08-30 post), I rode a Metro bus from Wilshire BL up Fairfax I reported on the illogical and dangerous placement of the Regular and Rapid Bus stops on Fairfax. It turns out that someone in the organisation can read and does read your Mole's blog. I arrive at that conclusion because about a month or so ago the stops for regular and “Rapid”, limited express buses now share stops. Although la Taupe has never received a direct “Thank You”, his inherent politeness forces him to say “You're Welcome, I think.”

<< Entrez hardiment parmi les Anglais! >>

thème Sainte Jeanne d'Arc (1412-06-01 ~ 1431-01-30)

[Enter boldly among the English!]

Source : thème Sainte Jeanne d'Arc - citation

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

A short article Daily News (Associated Press) has a headline which tells the story “9 injured in Blue Line train crash with car in LA”. It is reported that all injuries were minor.

Bottleneck♪

The time for implementing the access control gates must be near because a LACMTA brochure (It's time to TAP”) is available. It begins with the notice “We're now testing locked turnstiles.” It does not explain, although there is, as usual, lots of white space left, in a straightforward manner that: Turnstiles will be locked and passengers must tap a valid TAP Card in order to enter or exit [Mole].” They also omit the important caution to be patient and courteous when faced with opposing traffic caused by the bidirectional gates. The photo above is of the West side entry at Aviation Station on the Green Line, you will notice that there are only two gates in this direction for this busy station.

And, they forgot to indicate that TAP cards can be purchased and loaded on buses. The usual second rate Marketing Department work? ¡Claro! Su Topo plans a trip out of town for the early weeks of access control gate operation until the LACMTA figures out what they have done wrong and attempts to “band aid” it.

The photo below is of the East side entry at Aviation Station on the Green Line, just picture this cuello de botella at a typical rush hour, that act of visualation is somthing the the LACMTA is incapable of doing. Oh, and there are many of these bottlenecks scattered throughout the poorly designed system.

Bottleneck2♪

¿Musica? Feliz Navidad (bilingüe)

http://grooveshark.com/s/Feliz+Navidad/3ndp82?src=5

AND Joyeux Noël

http://grooveshark.com/s/No+l+Joyeux+Noel/3Wuzd6?src=5

provided by our friends at www.grooveshark.com .

Ear to the Rail

Our Mayor reported that the Expo Line is in the process of testing and testing. It sort of makes one wonder what they have found wrong at this late date. doesn’t it?

Cosmology

A Scientific American piece, (online: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/07/28/physicists-simulate-the-end-of-time-in-a-maryland-lab/ ) describes how the end of time might mean the end of motion. Yes, it is stranger than you think and much stranger than we are able to think; but interesting.

Your Mole also read more about the “big rip” where it would be possible for someone, at the unfortunate moment, to stand in front of a mirror and watch himself dematerialise.

The Mole Rides Again, so you don’t have to think about reminding people that they have the right to remain silent.

(All times are expressed in the 24 hour system.)

2011-11-02, 11:00 @ the 183rd Street Blue Line Station: A woman paces the platform talking on her cell. It is difficult for this Mole to determine whether she is rehearsing a “rap” or having an actual conversation. She seems to be including too little profanity for the one and too much for the other. My Long Beach bound train crawls past crews working along the line and keeps the slow pace after passing them for no apparent reason.

2011-11-07 7:35: I ride a CCMBL number 6. It is driven by operator number 5 who is both a typical and an atypical CCMBL driver. Typical in that he is a skilled driver. Atypical in that he is talking non-stop with a passenger who is seated in the front of the bus. He is carrying on this conversation so that everyone on the bus can easily hear it. Part of the conversation involves partying and a trip to Atlanta. I have got to get out of L.A. ... the real estate agent told me that it was not a million dollar neighbourhood, more like $200K ... you could walk from there to Holyfield's home” and on and on; he just couldn't shut up.

2011-11-09 9:00: Aboard a 117 Line bus, east bound on Century BL: Three rows ahead of me a man and a woman carry on a conversation in sign language. Su Topo is amazed at the rapidity of the conversation especially when BOTH seem to be signing simultaneously! A radio plays Conjunto fairly quietly, it against Metro rules, but nice :-).

Through the window one can see a man pushing a dog along the sidewalk with his foot. It is some kind of play and the dog is not unhappy as he lies on his back and allows himself to be moved in this somewhat strange way. Perhaps he is just a lazy dog.

2011-11-10 12:37: Two West bound 115 Line buses pass each other, one

is a Block 5 bus, the other Block 6. This means that the Block

5 bus is about an half-hour late. The Block 5 bus with a destination more convenient to me passes me by and I ride the less convenient Block 6 bus.

2011-11-14 about 14:00: I board a Line 4 bus headed West behind two women, they are ESL students who don't share a native language and carry on a painfully slow conversation in English.

2011-11-17 @ 6:25: “It is not the cold weather that gets you it's the wind.” The cell phone conversation continues, loudly. It makes me wonder why playing radios are forbidden on board Metro buses by lengthy, loud, inane cell call are permitted. It is time to forbid them except in verifiable emergencies. Texting could be permitted, IF the key click noises are muted.

A surprising number of LACMTA passengers have, apparently, nothing better to do than carry on fatuous exchanges without regard for their fellow passengers. There should be signs aboard all Metro modes of transportation reminding them of their right to remain silent.

2011-11-17 @ 12:00: I wait at Veteran AV and Santa Monica BL for a line 4 bus. The stop is dirty. The bus bench is filthy, unusable by an ordinary person. By plan, I ride the 4 Line bus a short distance until it terminates at Sepulveda and Santa Monica. I plan to transfer to a CCMBL number 6, but three out of four of my fellow passengers thought that the bus was headed to Santa Monica. If you can read a headsign, thank your teachers.

Dirty LAXCBC♪

The LAXCBC seems always to be dirty, the photograph above makes it look cleaner than it is in real life.

2011-11-29 @14:40: Aboard a 232 Line, bus number 22056 driven by operator 71232. He busies himself attaching a trash bag to the fare box as we drive. After about ten (10) minutes he finally fastens his seat belt. Mr Leahy, would you please instutite some driver standards so that these MVT contractors turn their dispatch radios DOWN!

2011-11-30 @13:30: Aboard a Blue Line train, Car number 150A, returning from Long Beach. The seat back on the longitudinal seat at the front right side of the car has its back torn off and stuffed down in the seat frame. Lack of maintenance, which this Mole frequently points out, is one of the things for which the LACMTA is noterious. Rather, they would spend money on schemes which contribute NOTHING to improved customer service, like say, "NexTrip". Other amenities badly needed and which funds are better spent, are rest room facilities for all the major transit centers, think LAXCBC.

I transfer to the Green Line and find a seat accross from a yound lady of 16 ~ 20, who is in the midst of a cell phone call. Her choice of words would make an Airbourne jumpmaster blush.

At Hawthorne station I board a 740 bus. This time I am seated across from three young ladies who are perhaps near 16. What a difference, as they chat politely and quietly with each other. One has a teddy bear wih a Santa Claus hat :-).

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

¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année!

Fare Box Score Box and related Lists of Shame

I.D. Numbers of buses with Outs of Order Fare Boxes: 8101;

Note: No or few entries above do not necessarily mean all fare boxes are in operation.

I.D.Numbers of Distracted Drivers: 28167 (iii), Driving while functioning as a preacher;

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 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: xxxx ;

Format is Bus number followed by Headsign number/Tailsign number.

ID numbers of Buses without Braille signs: XXXX;

METRO drivers 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 frame. 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.

21544 F[Y] C[+1]; 58010 F[Y], C[+1.3]; 75238 F[Y], C[+1]; xxxxx F[+], C[]; N.B. distances are in metres, think yards.

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(-); 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.

BBB = Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus

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

LAXCBC = the LAX City Bus Center.

OCTA = Orange County Transportation Authority.

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 am hoping that one of their developers will someday read this, copy my code and improve their text to HTML engine. Until then, lo siento.

Mole’s Copyright Statement

All photographs and original written materials are copyrighted © 2007~2009 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 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

(Associated Press). “9 injured in Blue Line train crash with car in LA”. www.dailynews.com. Nov. 25, 2011. WEB.

“It’s Time to TAP”. Metro Brochure . 12-0121IJL © LACMTA 2011. PRINT.

### .. . ###

The above is ### 30 ### in Braille

2011-10-31T14:00:00.000-07:00

Vae Viator20

It only seems like forever♪

Headed to Long Beach, I start thinking about the access control system which has been physically installed at many stations.

I compare progress of the installation of this “system” here in Los Angeles with my personal experience in Tokyo. The speed of installation, and therefore the ROI (Return on Investment) here ranges from glacial to turtle-like.

In Tokyo all the big transportation centers were installed first. Based upon the rapidity of the installations, I assume the electrical, electronic infrastructure was in place and tested prior to the physical installation of the gates which effort took at most, a few days at each major center with many, if not most, major centers installed concurrently and ready use after an install over a weekend. So after a weekend the system was operational between major transportation centers like the stations at Tokyo, Ueno, Shibuya, Shinjuku and etc.

Then in short order teams installed the secondary level stations and finally the tertiary level stations.

The JR East system today has 30,000,000 (thirty million) Suika (access) cards in use. How many other than day-pass cards do you think the LACMTA has in circulation?

Su Topo has been predicting rush hour bottlenecks when too many people are queued up at gates which may be locked by someone without a valid TAP card and traffic impeded in BOTH directions . This will be unpleasant, tempers will flare, people will push and … . This is what happens when “systems” are neither planned nor designed”

La taupe’s plan? Avoid rush hour at stations with bottlenecks like the one described at Imperial Station.

Here without comment, other than to say it is reflective of the LACMTA’s general approach to expenditures is the LACMTA’s own words in response to an audit recommendation by the organization’s outside auditors about the way buses were sometimes improperly depreciated.

“The Board of Directors

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
December 16,2009

Page 5/6

Management Response

Capitalization and subsequent depreciation of purchased rolling stock is recognized upon its receipt and acceptance in accordance with past practice and procedures. The fiscal year 2008 mistake of early capitalization and depreciation of purchased buses was an oversight due mainly to shortage of resources in the department and had been corrected in fiscal year 2009.

Management believes that this $2.3 million overstatement of depreciation expense out of a total depreciation expense for the year of $410.5 million was immaterial and did not constitute a material misstatement of net assets.”

You can see the complete report along with the verbatim recommendations from which this response, a tiny fragment of the total report, here.

<< Il n'y a pas de liberté pour l'ignorant.>>

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat,

Marquis de Condorcet (1743-09-17 ~ 1794-03-29)

[There is no freedom for the ignorant.]

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

A Los Angeles Times article (Weikel) involves more problems from “The gang that couldn’t route straight”, aka the LACMTA. In another example of why it is NOT a good idea to commit, then plan, the location of the “subway to the sea’s” Century City Station is being decided.

Opposing groups feel either (i) that it is just great to tunnel below Beverly Hill High School or (ii) that doing so is the worst idea in the world.

This Mole feels that station locations should be decided as part of the planning and EIR and occur before budgeting is approved. Not our “friends” at the LACMTA where everything, it seems, is negotiable. Your Mole sees some logic in a more centralized station in Century City, but wonders why the route couldn’t be gradually curved to intersect the location which seems to be surprise addition.

Atlantic Magazine (Erickson) quotes a DePaul University study about Wi-Fi on intercity transportation. Joseph Schwieterman, Professor and Director, Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, cautions against reading too much into the data. Professor Schwieterman writes, "It would be a stretch to argue that portable technology will appreciably diminish the share of travel by car anytime soon … ”. Still, Wi-Fi might be a (relatively) inexpensive way for transit systems to get people out of their cars and onto trains, subways and buses.

The study focused on inter-city transportation but those of us, like su Topo, who use intra-city transportation could use onboard Wi-Fi to their advantage as well.

The LACMTA is really hyping ~~NextBus~~ , ahh, err, ummm, Nextrip (When’s my next bus?)! Doesn’t this fall under the heading success has a thousand fathers, If you doubt that Nextrip IS NEXTBUS, not to worry, your Mole will provide you a link, right here.

See, it takes you right to the selection page where a single depression of the Page Down key will expose “California-Southern and the fourth entry below that is, surprise, the L.A. Metro J. Although, the system on the NextBus site is called by its rightful name, NextBus. Perhaps this doesn’t fall under the rubric “Success has a thousand fathers …” It is probably more like NIH (Not Invented Here, at the Taj Mahal) so we, the LACMTA, will waste time and money making it appear as if it was invented here. It seems dishonest, doesn’t it? Why would they do that? To bolster a weak sense of self identity, perhaps J.

The translation of the brochure, like much of the LACMTA’s work, might have been better or consistent“¿Cuándo es mi próximo autobús?” It is not a big deal, but the English says “When” and the Español says “Donde” [Where]. Then too, the system is supposed to report WHEN the next bus will arrive at a given stop, not where it is right now. It the stop is a busy one that is shared by several bus lines, then your text message answer will probably contain TMI and you will have to figure it out.

In my test case I sent the format requested by the Nextbus site and I was rewarded with a technique that tripled my air time. I sent one message and received two replies (three chargeable messages) and NO usable data were returned.

It is likely a format problem but since I have no intention of EVER using the system again I will leave it at that.

Texting Next Bus for No Fun and NO Profit♪.

You can see, above, the format as supplied by Next Bus. It is different from that supplied on page (oops, they don’t number the pages – a cost saving technique?) in the expensive, glossy brochure (When's), so given the option of trying several things (I am fairly certain that I know what the LACMTA’s marketing department failed to communicate or poorly communicated) or forgetting about it, your Mole opts to forget about it. He prefers to just wait and know that sooner or later, usually later, a bus will show up. Knowing that it will be twenty minutes late doesn’t make him happy. It just makes him wonder why the LACMTA insists on spending his tax money on things that do not contribute to on-time bus performance.

In any event there is nothing wrong with selling information, when there is no alternative. In this case, the best alternative would be to develop a routing and scheduling system that assists in keeping the buses on schedule. Then too, the LACMTA may have purchased that module already.

Any organization that treats $2,300,000 (vide supra) as I treat the money necessary to buy a double dip Thrifty ice cream cone, wouldn’t be fazed by buying unnecessary services, would they?

Of course, this Mole sees such a money down the rat hole philosophy as “Taxation without Transportation”.

Now, la Taupe has often said, “If you don't understand the problem you can't fix it” or words to that effect. So, it is only fair for him to offer suggestions as to things that are “broken”, need fixing and offer a better ROI than the non-productive investment in Next_(whatever) (Please fill in the blank). Your Mole offers only four (4) but, please understand there are lots more.

Uno: I have included below portions of the Saturday schedules for the 130 Line and the 344 Line routes. The subject of this discussion is how routes are poorly linked so that passengers transferring between the east bound 130 and the south bound 344 at Artesia BL and Hawthorne BL have to wait unnecessarily.

Click on the schedule and note that the 130 Line bus arrives at Artesia and Hawthorne at 10:22 a.m.

Then click on the 344 schedule and you will see that its arrival is just 3 minutes AFTER the 344 has left the intersection, headed south at 10:19 a.m.! Now, you may study the schedules and find that some important connections actually do work. Your Mole will attribute these happenstance occurrences to the stopped clock is right twice a day axiom, rather to any planning by the "Gang who can't route straight".

The money lavished on NextBus which does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to improve linkage on these lines and on many, many more bus line routes and schedules.

Metro "Maintenance" and "Let the work speak for itself.

Dos: Pictured below are the ever worsening cracks in the glass above the platform at Mariposa Station. Soon some of these windows may fall on the head of an unsuspecting passenger. It may be cheaper for the LACMTA to settle law suits than perform proper maintenance.

Although the forecast 35 mile-per-hour winds did not materialise this week, what will happen when they do? Hint: Please look for the black dots because the cracks are easier to see in real life than in the photos.

Tres: The photo below shows the sun reflecting from some of the ticket vending machines at Mariposa Station. The bright reflection renders them as close to useless as possible with power still available.

Quatro: Again, at Mariposa Station, the still useless after all these years, access control gates bask in the sun. The LACMTA marketing department apparently feel that “the public” requires a decade long acclimation period. Please see the picture in the lead photograph in this post.

All these problems, with attendant plangent screaming to be worked on, yet the LACMTA's, what is the word?, “abby” something, brains confuse spending money on a project which includes no tangible benefit, with actually doing something.

¿Musica? You can create a do-it-yourself “karaoke Party” with some help from youtube. Switch to full screen mode and listen to an energetic version of “El Autobús” by Paizaz de guanaceví with lead vocalist Oscar Ramos. Thanks to the group and to youtube, too!

Ear to the Rail

Let’s take a closer and hopefully more revelatory look at quantum computers. First there is a recent article (Sartain) in Networkworld Magazine. The Web version has a slide show on the physical layout of a quantum computer as well as its environmental requirements, ( hint: very cold).

Ms Sartain does an excellent job of covering the current status of real-world quantum computing in a short article. She discusses one of the only actual installations of a QC “production” machine which I have so far discovered in the literature.

There are lots of quotes from people in the know. Like this one from Professor Phillip Stamp director of the Pacific Institute for Theoretical Physics, Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia [Canada] who says, “I think that for a genuine quantum computer, we may be talking about ten years for something that a very big company can buy and 25 to 30 years for the ordinary consumer.” Michael Peterson, analyst and CEO at Strategic Research Corporation is quoted, “I’d put quantum computing, even if it proves competitive and valid, 20 years out because of the very complex infrastructure that has to go with it.”

So, if you were planning to give someone a quantum computer this Christmas, it appears that you will have to wait.

Then, from the University of Melbourne we can listen to “A Quantum Leap in Computing” by Professor David Jamieson which is a bit later, from 2007, and less than 25 minutes long.

Also we have an audio lecture (77 minutes) from the “Free Library” about Quantum Computing presented by an MIT professor, Seth Lloyd about five years ago. The buildup is a little slow and, as he explains, “I can’t tell you how that happens but we build things that do it”, or words to that effect. Which response is something which one should accustom oneself to hearing when the topic is quantum computing.

Cosmology

A National Geographic piece (Than) contains the postulate that instead of matter resting in the center of black holes, small, dense and happy, it “ … rather gushes out a "white hole" at the other end of the black one, … and becomes the building blocks for galaxies, stars, and planets in another reality.”

“… Andreas Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California, Davis, who was also not involved in the new study.” is quoted, “… You can't say the less weird [idea] is going to win, because that's not the way it's been, by any means."

For those interested in time travel the article offers this link.

The Mole Rides Again, so you don’t have to wait for the driver to finish his conversation and decide to board the bus (late).

(All times are expressed in the 24 hour system.)

2011-10-05 @ 8:40, Aboard a 232 Line bus: The driver has the dispatch radio turned up to an ear-splitting level. The LACMTA make the contract with contractor MVT, yet provides neither supervision nor quality control. She is one of the jerky drivers too, making for an unpleasant trip on this rainy morning.

We stop at Mariposa Station and we change buses for some unexplained reason and keep the same driver. And soon we have the same loud dispatch radio to shatter the quiet. The Mariposa escalator is out of service but almost as soon as I climb the stairs to the platform, the Mitsubishi repairman show up. I learn that the rain trips the circuit breakers and he has to reset them and he soon has it back in operation.

A woman, ill dressed for this cold, wet weather waits on the platform.

She tells me that she is from the Ukraine; no wonder the weather doesn’t bother her. I greet her in Russian, which is a second language for most Ukrainians. She launches into Russian and in seconds has overwhelmed my abilities. We board the Green Line together and she works with her electronic dictionary.

At Imperial et al., I make my way to the Blue line platform and after a short wait I am on the way to Long Beach. The train is quiet and I can read.

2011-10-11 11:26 @ LAXBC: I wait for the driver, number 25084, to finish his lengthy conversation with a woman at the bus-side. Finally he boards this 42 Line bus, number 5322 and we leave, late. On board, he continues his chat with the woman devoting less than his full attention on driving. The windshield wiper blades make a loud clicking sound which your Mole can’t tell if it is an expected sound or not.

2011-10-21 8:30, Mariposa Station: A Metro employee is changing the platform waste receptacle trash bags and picking up minor litter. That seems to be the extent of the “maintenance” here although the track areas on both side of the platform have lots of litter.

Too, the LACMTA expects its passengers to have bladders about the size of a Gilbert rugby ball, for a number 5 ball this works out to about 2.8 liters, because no “facilities” are provided at any station, subway, rail or bus center

South Bay Center: There has been a long wait for a 740 Line bus. It was made longer because “they” have removed the bus benches, which provided seats for about eight and standing room in the shade for about that many more, from this busy stop. The bus arrives about 15 minutes late. Boarding at Imperial, I ride the Green Line. A mother and her little girl ride directly across from me on the longitudinal seats. The mother and a very thoughtful mother she is, peels some grapes and gives them to her daughter one by one. Then she gives the girl a drink from a plastic water bottle which has been refilled with milk.

I know, I know, the LACMTA frowns on eating and drinking on trains but this neat mother and her quiet little girl should be exceptions.

Finally, the mother takes a doll out of her bag and gives it to the toddler who receives it with a scream of delight. Before too long the doll is on the floor. Su Topo picks it up and offers it to the little girl who refuses it. The mother accepts it with “gracias” and receives a reply of “de nada”.

2011-10-22 Aboard a 111 Line bus to LAXCBC: The driver, uncommonly sensitive, stops at a point giving us easy access to the buses which he knows we (most of us anyway) will transfer. His I.D. number? I forgot.

A 232 Line bus is about to leave by the entry door is being blocked by a man who is pulling leaves off a branch and dropping them on the sidewalk. Just when one thinks he has seen everything.

2011-10-29 @ 8:30 aboard a 232 Line bus: "I can't go on Facebook at school because they block it", a young girl tells an older man who is traveling with her mother and sister. She continues, now in the role of instructor, "You can drag it to your e-mail ... we can go to the library and I'll show you." The man has an expression which communnicates something like, Why are you speaking Algonquin to me? His very professional teacher is perhaps 10 or 11 years old. Her younger siste hold a stuffed toy, a baby bird. It is a nie familial scene. The bus, quiet except for the always full blast dispatch radio chatter. The young lady reverts to child like paly, taking the bird from her sister and supplying its voice in a conversation with the man.

The driver is a no-nonsense profession lady who makes business like stop announcments. As I leave the bus the wo girls a r playing with the toy bird :-).

Fare Box Score Box and related Lists of Shame

I.D. Numbers of buses with Out of Order Fare Boxes: 7585;

Note: No or few entries above do not necessarily mean all fare boxes are in operation.

I.D.Numbers of Distracted Drivers: 25084 (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 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: 8184      117/XXX (unidentifiable);

Format is Bus number followed by Headsign number/Tailsign number.

ID numbers of Buses without Braille signs: XXXX;

METRO drivers 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 frame. 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[-] C[]; xxxxx F[+], C[]; xxxxx F[+], C[]; xxxxx F[+], C[]; N.B. distances are in metres, think yards.

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(-); 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.

BBB = Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus

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

LAXCBC = the LAX City Bus Center.

OCTA = Orange County Transportation Authority.

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 am hoping that one of their developers will someday read this, copy my code and improve their text to HTML engine. Until then, lo siento.

Mole’s Copyright Statement

All photographs and original written materials are copyrighted © 2007~2009 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 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

Bloomekatz, Ari. “Construction of Expo Line's second part to begin” Los Angeles Times. Sep. 11, 2011: Web. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-expo-line-20110911,0,6612096.story

Erickson, Amanda. “To Win Riders, Mass Transit Should Get Wired”. Atlantic. Oct 20, 2011. Web.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/10/to-win-riders-mass-transit-should-get-wired/325/

Sartain, Julie. “Is Quantum Computing Real?”. Networkworld. Sep. 26, 2011. Print. (p26-30) Web. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/092611-quantum-computing-250825.html

Than, Ker. “Every Black Hole Contains Another Universe? And our

universe may sit in another universe's black hole, equations

predict”. National Geographic. Apr. 29, 2010: Web.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100409-black-holes-alternate-universe-multiverse-einstein-wormholes/

Weikel, Dan. “Panel backs MTA subway extension under Beverly Hills High“. Los Angeles Times. Oct. 20, 2011. Web. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-subway-study-20111020,0,6878975.story

“When’s my next bus?” Metro Monthly. 12-0311MR © LACMTA 2011. Print.

### .. . ###

The above is ### 30 ### in Braille

2011-09-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

Vae Viator19

Stops and Buses ♪

Wow, was your Mole off on the number of LACMTA bus stops he quoted last month (6,000) when according to the dated (just about 5 years old) statistics available from the agency itself and shown above, there are 18,500 stops. This number will be somewhat lower due to the colocation of stops from several lines at the same physical coordinates. So, that will drive the cost up from my original estimate, perhaps up to three times the value estimated by su Topo ($300.000) which would put it within sight of $1,000,000. To see how realistic $1 million would be, let’s divide that by 18,500 giving us a reasonable cost of installation of $54/stop. In reality that is probably too low.

What does the pseudonym for Nextbus, Nextrip cost the taxpayer? Since our favourite transportation agency keeps its opex (operational expenditures) and capex (capital expenditures) closer than a gambling husband his poker winnings from his wife, it is difficult to say.

How about some transparency here? Ms Greuel?? In any event la Taupe became a data miner and offers this: for agencies which buy the package which includes the GPS from Nextbus the per bus cost is about $8000. Those agencies which already have GPS would pay about $4000 per bus.

This means that the LACMTA would pay $10,024,000 for its fleet quoted above at 2,506 buses. This Mole sees the sum of the two values, in excess of $11,000,000 as a capex. But wait, la Taupe is far from perfect and $10 million is a lot of money but it could easily turn out to be a per annum charge, then it would appear as an operating expense (opex) in the relevant reports. Pretty soon we will be talking about real money. After $10 million per year is only .003 of 1% of a $3,000,000,000 ($3 billion) annual budget. But in su Topo's view it is an unnecessary $10,000,000 expenditure. It is for "information" which contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to improved operations! What do you think, Ms Greuel?

What a nice investigative piece, just one of MANY waiting to be mined from the LACMTA. A team of ten working for three years would almost be guaranteed a Pultizer or perhaps several for the series. All we need is a newspaper to take it on. A title? How about "Taxation without Transportation? I like it!

Now, please, remember that this is only estimated startup costs and does not include lots of other costs like the, what should I say?, otiose renaming of the service, computer hardware, computer software, staff training, telephone expense, slick marketing brochures and etc. and etc. Plus one must consider the opex, monthly or annual charges for the Nextbus hardware/software licensing, maintenance and upgrades and more etc.

ALL THIS MONEY BEING SPENT and for what? Not a single dollar of it will improve service.

Not considered either is the accuracy of the information. This Mole will NOT be mollified by knowing that his “next bus” is twenty minutes away. He already knows that he cannot depend on schedules and his bus will be late many more times that it will be on time.

Above we have an illustration of “Taxation without Transportation” and what a perfect example it is. You probably thought that no one is perfect.

Further, what would on call an attemp to rebrand and existing service (did that cost extra?) and appear to assume credit for it? Creative? Dishonest??

Then too, the very idea of sticking things up on bus stops reminds me of Snoble’s, (You remember him? He was the man who used taxpayer money to fund propaganda in favour of Measure R.), changed all the logos, on bus stops and elsewhere, from the nice “Big Orange” of RTD days to the current dull “M”. He also had approximate bus schedule decals pasted on the “flag” poles. Many of these things are still extant.

Oh, and I can’t leave this topic without reminding everyone that “Measure Rx”, the repeal of Measure R, is the cure for thoughtless, wasteful spending.

I have anecdotal and other more specific evidence that in the event of bus accidents the LACMTA goes into stonewall mode, i.e., does not have a formal reporting process, vis-à-vis passengers anyway. The driver will give any injured persons the absolute minimal information: possibly driver number and a telephone number to call, which information may be written on any scrap of paper that the driver has at hand.

Only people who support the driver’s “facts” will be given report forms. That means that those injured will not have the names of witness who could possibly be of help to the victim(s) in pressing their claims.

Such a process places those whose command of English is below average at a decided disadvantage. I want to make special note that there is no shortage of Español advertising plastered all over the inside of the buses when they want to get their hands on our money.

I gets worse if one goes to the “Taj Mahal” to report injuries, in some case at least they will be told to make a written report and take it to the, I understand, “Board Secretary”.

The injured may receive letters from the LACMTA’s insurance carrier and other contact. But eventually the injured person will receive a letter denying the claim. If there is no blood involved in the accident attorneys are reluctant to get involved because of little expected monetary return; with the injured party left to grit his/her teeth and heal as best they can.

This is shameful on many levels!

First of all if an individual tried this approach after becoming involved in an accident he would likely be arrested.

In addition, however many hundreds of reams of positive spin brochures the LACMTA marketing department prints, one would think that they could issue each driver with an accident kit so that all concerned could have proper reports and witness statements.

Come on Mr. Leahy, hold the presses on some of the absolutely unnecessary printing that is left to turn yellow inside buses and equip each driver with an accident kit. It is the right thing to do. If your staff can’t figure it out, then please contact Long Beach Transit about whose accident reporting process this Mole has reported. I am sure that they will be glad to share best practices as implemented by a First Class organization.

Let the Work Speak for Itself

A Half-vast job is better than none♪

The 715 Line was cancelled months ago. Yet, the unnecessary barrier presented by the "Rapid" post (pictured above, left) remains in place impeding all of us, especially those who are visually challenged.

Speaking of onboard advertising, why don't we see many PSA (Public Service Announcments) on buses? Placing PSAs which encourage smokers to quit the habit would serve two purposes: firstly, the California non-smokers who stand in an approximate 3:1 ratio to smokers, wouldn't be forced to breathe second hand smoke and secondly, the LACMTA's clean up times and costs would be reduced, although most places seem always to be littered with cigarete stubs.

One of those places is the LAXCBC, which at most seems to recieve a cursory sweeping.

<< Une belle femme plaît aux yeux, une bonne femme plaît au coeur; l'une est un bijou, l'autre un trésor. >>

Napoléon Bonaparte (1769-08-15 ~ 1821-05-05)

[A beautiful woman pleases the eyes, a good woman pleases the heart;

one is a gem, the other a treasure. - Mole]

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

A Los Angeles Times piece (Boomekatz) discusses the beginning of Phase 2 of the “Expo Line” although Phase I is not yet complete. All I will quote is: “This phase will involve a new group of contractors, a fixed budget and a larger contingency fund for unknown costs, says the head of the Expo Line construction authority.” [New group of contractors? Is that to spread the money around? or to throw away the experience??, or BOTH???. Fixed budget and larger contingency fund is that approximately equal to an unbounded budget and a smaller contingency fund? – Mole]

The Times in (Boomekatz) with a story about jobs which will be created by transportation projects. But note this: “Thursday's vote authorizes Metro to negotiate the labor agreements. Those negotiations will require, among other things, that at least 30% of the workers live locally and that at least 10% come from communities hit especially hard by the recession or who face hardships such as homelessness or chronic unemployment.” [emphasis – Mole] How bloody generous!

This just in: It appears that Gardena Municipal Bus lines

(GMBL) is becoming a larger force in transportation under Gardena’s dynamic Mayor, Paul K. Tanaka.

Just one example, GMBL is becoming part of a real system by extending its Line 5 from the old terminus at El Segundo BL on Grand all the way to Aviation Station. The other end point is Imperial/Rosa Parks Station with convenient stops, mostly on El Segundo BL, along the way. The first Line 5 bus arrives at Aviation Station at 5:13 in the morning and the last one leaves Aviation Station at 20:25. Please note that this is weekday service only. Thank you GMBL! More information, fares, maps and etc. at: http://www.ci.gardena.ca.us/departments/Transportation/busmaps.html

I pickup brochure 12-0015JL © 2011 LACMTA. It is entitled “We’re a cheap date.” and on the reverse side “Somos económicos” in Español. The English title, at least, is weird. Under the heading “On Buses” it says, “As a convenience to those who don’t already have one [a TAP card], regular TAP cards will be available for purchase with [including the $5] Day Pass for a total of $6.” I know, I know, the grammar of my inclusion is a little strange BUT, it is more understandable. More “fine” work from the Marketing Department.

The brochure should have been entitled “TAP cards are now sold on Metro buses!”

Again they direct one who desires more information to its web site ; leaving it up to the individual to tease out the details by searching the Metro site, something I found a very poor investment of time. Why didn’t they give us a full link to the info? The only possible answer, “No se”.

This Mole questions the reason for the "stealth" of this announcment. This, for a change, is a service to the public, and one that should have never been dropped in the first place. Again, Ms Greuel, is it not "Breach of Fiducary responsibility" to spend the public taxes/money in such an ineffective manner?

After all, the English title, “We’re a cheap date”, of this expensive piece of paper does more to conceal than reveal the intent of the communication. It makes it seem as if the LACMTA is running a dating site, ¿es no? The Spanish tile is not so informativo either.

I am looking at bus drivers instructions on how to process TAP cards and stored value, i.e., money amounts purchased and transferred to a TAP card at the time a rider enters the bus. Using the TAP card to carry ones' cash is a feature intended for people who have a high level of trust in those whose financial management skills have been demonstrated repeatedly to be "below par".

The processing instructions make me appreciate (i) how much drivers must know to collect fares and (ii) how poorly the “automatic” fare collection “system” is implemented. I Japan, as an example, when one uses a “TAP” card or one of the newer NFC (Near Field Communications), about which I will have more to say next month. As you attempt to leave a station, if the fare you paid is not correct, the access control system will so indicate and you will be required to go to a fare adjustment machine to pay the difference. The machine will issue you a receipt which will allow you to exit the station, untouched by human hands.

Ear to the Rail

¿Musica? Here is Muddy Waters singing the blues about a “Bus Driver”. http://grooveshark.com/s/Bus+Driver/48W4HR?src=5 And as always, Thank You Grooveshark!

Cosmology

A particle which travels faster than the speed of light? So far it appears that way. Neutrinos (sub-atomic particles with very little mass; see www.dictionary.com for definitions.) sent by CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider, over a distance of 732 Km seem to have slightly exceeded the speed of light.

For a little more detail please see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484

The practical application of this “effect” could be to make the LACMTA buses run on time J.

The Mole Rides Again, so you don’t have feel like a bobble-head due to all the rough and jerky driving!

(All times are expressed in the 24 hour system.)

2011-09-02 morning: I am aboard a CCMBL Rapid 6: The driver, “Oper # 153” according to the “scroll”, need more training. I am becoming sea-sick with all the rough stop and goes. He seemingly can’t drive a bus length without introducing a rough, jerky stop. It seems that CCMBL doesn’t road check these guys or have an unknown observer ride-along as a QC (Quality Control) measure. Although one of my smoothest rides ever was on a Rapid 6! The “R” in Rapid doesn’t also have to stand for Rough!

2011-09-02 @ 12:30: I ride a CCMBL #6. Eight UCLA Yell/Cheer Crew members ride behind me they sound like 16! This unfortunate few were all, apparently, born without an inside voice and absolutely no sense of decorum. Even the men chattered like women. I don’t expect much of my fellow passengers but this group is, supposedly, college educated?

2011-09-02 @ 13:15: LAXCBC, Everyone is smoking, well not everyone, just those who are upwind of me.

2011-09-05: The sum of the wait time for three (3) buses on my ride home was less than 10 minutes! Nice, but all-too-rare. Of course, this was due more to random chance than any scheduling planning on the part of the LACNTA.

2011-09-05: I exit the Green Line at Rosecrans. I would like to use the left side of the down stairway nearest the end of the train but, a homeless man who is charging his cell at a Metro receptacle also has 6~7 pairs of sox spread out to dry on that stairway. Typical of our Metro, there is absolutely no security.

2011-09-06 @ 7:30: This is my first bus of the day. A mother stands near the door with her young daughter. I point out an empty seat to them. The mother tells me that the little girl thinks that standing on the bus is like riding on a skateboard. A nice start to my day!

2011-09-06 @ 8:20: I am aboard a 232 Line bus. The dispatch radio is (blissfully) turned down and it would be quiet except that the driver is not using the microphone and is shouting out stops. Intersections and transfer options. This is pretty much a waste of time on a bus where most of the passengers are seasoned commuters.

2011-09-06: The penultimate leg of today’s trip is the Red Line. I immediately notice that the onboard P.A. system on this train is much better than usual. It is intelligible yet retains the sharp, tinny sound of a fast-food drive thru system which failed inspection. I will give them a C- for effort, after all one doesn’t expect perfection from the LACMTA.

2011-09-07: Aboard a 117 Line bus. A woman is involved in a cell phone conversation: “Where were you?”, “You took out money!”, “There is no barber shop open at 11P.M.!”, “I don’t care!”, “Stay wherever you’re at!” Sigh … human relationships. La Taupe assists two young ladies from Paris with their trip to Hollywood. We talk about how great it is to ride the Paris Metro J.

2011-09-12 @ 8:20: Aboard a CCMBL #6 Rapid bound for UCLA. These trips are always interesting. The passenger with whom I share a seat reads Sanskrit. Ahead of me a woman is reading a French paperback. It is beautifully quiet this morning: no loud cell phone conversations: no inane TransiTV; no blaring dispatch radios.

2011-09-14 @ 9:17: My Green Line Train makes a nice connection with the Blue Line and I am off to Long Beach within a minute of arriving on the platform. A lady two seats ahead of me does some kind of needlework; she is very fast. I read somewhere that people who use their hands a lot, like pianists, live longer than those who don’t. Two seats to the rear of me two strangers have a conversation which seems to this Mole to be turning into an interrogation. Passenger “A” continues to pump passenger “B” for information. I change seats and think about reading but no sooner does the thought cross my mind than a cell phone conversation begins nearby.

2011-09-26 @ 15:55: This is an interesting ride on a 733 Line bus, number 9520, headed Downtown. The fare box will not accept coins but seems to accept paper money. I ask for a transfer and the driver, number 29312, motions me to place my coins on a near overflowing pile on the coin receptacle. The woman behind me inserts a dollar and he says “OK”. A few minutes later he inserts some transfers into the bill slot, closing off access to that revenue flow, and covering up the pile of accumulated coins. This is an example of LACMTA logic and/or lack of a process to deal with routine occurrences. Why would he not accept dollar bills and forgo the change, I have some thoughts but who really knows?

Dedicated to the Dulcinea of my dreams

‘PANIAGUADO,

ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,

IN LAUDEM DULCINEAE DEL TOBOSO

SONNET

She, whose full features may be here descried,

High-bosomed, with a bearing of disdain,

Is Dulcinea, she for whom in vain

The great Don Quixote of La Mancha sighed.

For her, Toboso's queen, from side to side

He traversed the grim sierra, the champaign

Of Aranjuez, and Montiel's famous plain:

On Rocinante oft a weary ride.

Malignant planets, cruel destiny,

Pursued them both, the fair Manchegan dame,

And the unconquered star of chivalry.

Nor youth nor beauty saved her from the claim

Of death; he paid love's bitter penalty,

And left the marble to preserve his name.’

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616) Don Quixote (1605), excerpted from Chapter LII.

http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/cervantes/don-quixote/1/

Fare Box Score Box and related Lists of Shame

I.D. Numbers of buses with Out of Order Fare Boxes: 9520; 8101;
Note: No or few entries above do not necessarily mean all fare boxes are in operation.
I.D.Numbers of Distracted Drivers: xxxxx (x);
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 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: xxxx       HHH/TTT;
Format is Bus number followed by Headsign number/Tailsign number.
ID numbers of Buses without Braille signs: XXXX;
METRO drivers 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 frame. 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.
18770 F[Y] C[N+1]; xxxx F[+], C[]; xxxx F[+], C[]; xxxx F[+], C[]; N.B. distances are in metres, think yards.
nnnnn* = Contract Driver
I.D. numbers of drivers who are almost guaranteed to give you a Rough and Jerky (R & J) ride. 71932;
I.D. numbers of drivers who will give you a potentially life-threatening ride. XXXXX(-); 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.
BBB = Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus
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
LAXCBC = the LAX City Bus Center.
OCTA = Orange County Transportation Authority.
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 am hoping that one of their developers will someday read this, copy my code and improve their text to HTML engine. Until then, lo siento.
Mole’s Copyright Statement
All photographs and original written materials are copyrighted © 2007~2009 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 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

### .. . ###

The above is ### 30 ### in Braille

2011-08-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

Vae Viator18

6,000 Ways to do it wrong!♪

Q: Well, Sr. Mole, just how inept do you think that the LACMTA actually is?
A: I would prefer not to answer that question directly. Rather, let’s let the work speak for itself. In its usual oblique approach to problems, the dysfunctional agency fails to address the problem by causing buses to run on a determinate schedule, instead they waste precious resources on cutesy, off-the-mark ideas like allowing people to message them in order to find out when the next bus will arrive at their stop. It is part of the LACMTA’s having no resistance to becoming enamoured with technology and seeing it as the answer to everything, even when most of the time it is not. Even when technology might be of some use it usualy becomes horribly distorted in their hands.

Think about it, years have gone by and the access control “system” at the rail and subway stations isn’t a system and doesn’t control access. The TAP card project has been warped into some kind of debit card scheme while the majority of transit riders don’t have cards and in the cases where they do the access control system, ummmm, doesn’t control access (vide supra).

This new solution* approach which substitutes information for bus service, demands installing “things” at the 6,000 bus Metro stops or however many remain after the agency’s aggressive cutting.
“Things” like the signage at a Hawthorne BL stop, pictured above. I won’t even attempt to guess at the actual cost of this project, but just to make a system-wide installation I estimate that $300,000 would be in the ball park. They may cite a lower figure by factoring out the gasoline required to cover all the stops and/or financial manipulations which could well make even Enron appear to be “Honest John”.

Of course the $300,000 does NOT include all the computer hardware and software and telephony expenses, one-time and ongoing. These costs and the additional staff cost money even if it appears on the books as current expense, not capital investment.

Leaving aside whether waiting people will feel better knowing that the next bus is thirty minutes away or hoping that it will show up in five minutes; let’s simply analyze the above photo.

That no one involved in this ~~fiasco~~ project at the LACMTA has critically thinking skills is appositely demonstrated by the above photograph.

The sign itself is made of relatively thick aluminum and although not extremely sharp, it will cut someone who comes in contact with it. The base of the sign is about four and a half feet high (135 cm) and the top of the sign is just about five feet (150 cm) AGL (above ground level).

Just the right height to strike a child in the top of the head or an adult like mi abuelita in the face.

So when the law suits start coming in, and I really hope they don’t, please, remember you read the warning here first. The anti-Midas curse has struck the LACMTA again!

The sign indicates the assigned number for this stop but it is missing a digit due either to bad construction or vandalism.
Then below, you can see another, less lethal, version of the signage. The instructions for use on this one don’t match the expensive brochure on usage either, what? You’re surprised?

5,998 Ways to do it wrong remain!♪

*The actual system is supplied by Nextbus and appears to be “well accepted” by bus service providers anyway. Again, the goal of a pro-active transportation provider should be having their buses run on a deterministic schedule NOT to provide information about how late they are going to be this time. It is the complete misunderstanding of function with information and thinking that doing something, anything, is an accomplishment. It is my estimate that the per annum recurring costs will be in the neighbourhood of $500,000. That kind of money will fund actual transportation engineers who, if left alone to do the work could provide us with a better overall transportation system.

I went to the NextBus website a found that it required more parameters than were provided for by the simple texting method outlined on the lethal/nonlethal signs and the expensive, coated paper brochure; which brochure (When’s) led one to believe that this [magnificent] concept was developed by the politicians of the LACMTA; well, anyway, it didn’t mention NextBus J In fact they go so far as to rename their service “NEXTRIP” to obscure the true identity of the service which su Topo has traced and identified above.

Just as the “Rapid Bus” service is really just plain old “limited service” and any “rapidity” is derived by bypassing passengers this attempt by the LAVMTA to “sell” itself as a proactive organization by jumping on the smartphone bandwagon is simply a matter of using its marketing department in an attempt to convince us that knowing approximately how late (read behind schedule) a bus is somehow makes it acceptable; and this “knowledge/information” will be translated by the public as improved service. You Mole would insert a laugh track here, but it is NOT funny; it is just another of the seemingly infinite examples of “Taxation without Transportation” and frankly, just another way to waste our tax money.

Below you can see a sample NextBus screen. It is interesting to use the system while sipping a nice cup of coffee at my desk as opposed to standing in the hot sun wondering how late I will be for the must-attend meeting.

Fun to use at your desk but maybe not in real life♪.

The site also pictured the NextBus data center which helped me suss out the probable costs. I quote this mere snippet from the site: “Taking into account the actual position of the buses, their intended stops, and the typical traffic patterns, NextBus can estimate vehicle arrivals with a high degree of accuracy. This estimate is updated constantly.”

I am sorry but su Topo reads this as the 10 minutes we quoted you 2 minutes ago has turned into 20; but you won’t know that because you are not constantly checking –you were playing “Angry Birds”.
Now, in the case of a transportation center, or an intersection with lots of bus stops, it appears that they will give you a dump of all the buses which stop nearby. That should keep you busy trying to figure out what is what until your bus actually arrives.

Let the work speak for itself

In a below-the-radar effort which would catch the CIA off-guard, they have begun selling Day Passes on buses again. Your Mole helped four tourists from Parma, Italy buy them aboard a 720 Line bus. During the purchase the tourists were urged on by a extremely vocal rider at the back of the bus whose complaints went on for way too long. Welcome to Los Angeles.

<<Tolérer une loi injuste est un crime.>>

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794)

[Toleration of an unjust law is a crime.]

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

An Argonaut article (Walker) discusses how “a regional transportation committee” voted to ask the Los Angeles City Council to postpone voting on a street furniture [read bus bench & etc.] advertising contract. This Mole would suggest that the final contract include a 1:1 ratio of PSAs (Public Service Advertisements, e.g., the dangers of smoking and texting while driving/walking) to product/service advertisements. They seemed more intent on obtaining a share of the revenue.

“Es fácil” says a brochure from the LACMTA; which glossy, expensive brochure encourages us to add cash value to our TAP cards. Su Topo says: “Fat chance!”

But you might ask yourself: “Do I like the way they run the local transportation ‘system’?” If you do then you may want to give them some of your cash. I don’t really know, but I doubt that if your card is lost or stolen, you will receive any more than the unused days of the pass portion. But please, ask the LACMTA and get the answer in writing. By the way, good luck on getting an answer J .

The racks on the buses are always FULL of the expensive, glossy output of the LACMTA “Marketing Department”? Is that like “Military Intelligence”? Truthfully, they shame me into reading this stuff, I am pretty sure I am part of a tiny cohort that does. The one which today I force out of its tightly stuffed compartment (Which is really strange because lots of buses seem to be out of schedules for the line which they are “headsigned” to drive) is titled “More Service on the Metro Silver Line" (More). The “Silver Line”?? –it’s a bus folks!, which you Mole feels is lightly loaded on a route that is already over served, will now run more frequently. Your Mole translates this as: the same few people will now have more options which means that they will have more empty seats from which to chose and the LACMTA’s cost for their ride will increase.

The Los Angeles Times best transportation reporter (Bloomekatz) writes about a group which is attempting to have the Federal Transit Administration investigate the policies of the LACNTA. Su Topo says “Do it!”

BUT, please ensure that we don’t try to have a bus only system, properly planned rail has a place and we need a transportation SYSTEM: rational, professionally managed, linked and efficient with functioning access control and importantly an oversight of plans, operations and expenditures that is free of political influence. Factor out the politics and one is half way to success. The group is free to quote me on anything here, with attribution, of course.

The Sunday Arts section of the New York Times features an excellent piece(Pareles) about a young Méxicana named Ximena Sariñana. She can sing in both Español and English. Here she is enunciating something very important about being truly bilingüe. “Languages open a window to seeing the world wider or clearer, in a different light,” “It adds another color to your spectrum, and it makes things more complete because you see them from two different perspectives.” The lady is beautiful and brainy!

Ear to the Rail

¿Musica? Parallel universes? Let’s listen to “Vidas Paraleles” by Ms Sariñana who is referenced just above. Click the link below

to hear it, thanks to our friends at Grooveshark; Thank you very much, grooveshark.com!

http://grooveshark.com/#/s/Vidas+Paralelas/3XCLne?src=5

Cosmology

Here is an excerpt from Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene. Copyright © 2011 by Brian Greene with a Thank You! To Discover Magazine. Please see: http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jun/03-our-universe-may-be-a-giant-hologram

“Since the information required to describe physical phenomena within any given region of space can be fully encoded by data on a surface that surrounds the region, then there’s reason to think that the surface is where the fundamental physical processes actually happen. Our familiar three-dimensional reality, these bold thinkers suggest, would then be likened to a holographic projection of those distant two-dimensional physical processes. If this line of reasoning is correct, then there are physical processes taking place on some distant surface that, much as a puppeteer pulls strings, are fully linked to the processes taking place in my fingers, arms, and brain as I type these words at my desk. Our experiences here and that distant reality there would form the most interlocked of parallel worlds. Phenomena in the two—I’ll call them Holographic Parallel Universes—would be so fully joined that their respective evolutions would be as connected as me and my shadow.”

Interesting and different!

Dr. Greene, who is an excellent communicator, has been a presenter on PBS and you can see him interviewed at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/video-a-look-at-the-universe-with-brian-greene/

And read about his current work and background at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/physics/fac-bios/Greene/faculty.html

The Mole Rides Again, so you don’t have to listen to a word-for-word recitation of someone’s boring text message!

(All times are expressed in the 24 hour system.)

2011-08-01 @ 13:30: I wait on the Imperial platform and a young woman approaches me to ask about transbordo to a Long Beach bus. I suggest purchasing a Muni Transfer from the machine at Del Amo where she wants to catch the L.B. bus. I ride the lead Blue Line car to Long Beach and want to read. But someone is shouting (is there any other way to talk?) into his cell. I move to the second car. A man is singing (shouting?) a rap song into his cell. I move again. 2011-08-03 LAXCBC @ 19:00: A man works his way through a trash container, “mining” cans and bottles; he finds one, partially full of some liquid and, thankfully, dumps it into the gutter.

It has been a very long day, now exactly thirteen hours since I left home. I have attended an all day technical seminar and still have an 18 minute wait and a bus ride before I am home again.

Another man approaches the recently “mined” trash can but he is out of luck.

As sunset nears, Los Angeles turns into a country town with respect to bus service.

A young woman wheels her bike to a Torrance Transit bus but is refused entry at the door apparently the 2 second rule applied here, i.e., the door had been closed for two seconds when the young woman arrived. Torrance Transit has a few rude drivers too.

2011-08-07 LAXCBC 15:50: A man, who appears as if he should know better, finishes his bag of chips and drops the bag in place. This place is filthy with spills that remain uncleaned for YEARS and litter everywhere.

2011-08-09 waiting on Santa Monica BL and Sepulveda @ 13:30 : I have been waiting for a Santa Monica bound 704 Line bus. Two number 4 Line buses and a 704 Line terminate across the street. I wait some more. I notice that the “promise” of a 704 every 15 minutes has disappeared from the bus stop “flag” pole. Another 704 Line bus terminates at the south west corner of this intersection. It would be great if BBB accepted Metro Passes but they don’t. I am not inclined to subsidize BBB because of the LACMTA’s poor service. Another day in L.A. and another day of living with “Taxation Without Transportation”. At last, a 704 shows up its crowdedness an indication of its lateness.

I ride a 232 Line bus. A woman across the aisle has a giant bag with a picture f Elvis stenciled on it. She combs her hair and removes the hairs from her comb and drops them on the floor. Oh ye of little manners.

These 232 Line buses, contracted by MV Transit, seem to be driven by hearing challenged drivers. They all keep their dispatch radios cranked up to the max!

2011-08-13 aboard a 740 Line bus @ 10:30: La Taupe is headed for South Bay Center after transferring from an east bound 125 Line bus down Rosecrans. The MVT driver was very helpful to a passenger who, like many, knew the numerical address of her destination but not the nearest major cross-street. This driver even called dispatch for help and got it too. This is a first for your Mole who has never seen this act of kindness performed by a Metro driver.

2011-08-16 I ride a late-running 232 Line bus which goes through a ten (10) minute driver change at El Segundo Plaza which makes us even later. Something about efficiency?

2011-08-21: I’m home and take the Lot C shuttle as far as a stop near the Depot so that I can help an associate load some equipment into his car. He offers me a ride but I thank him but since he is headed in another direction, I walk to the LAXCBC. On the way I pass a sign which reads: “Do not feed the birds as they pose a hazard to aircraft.” That makes sense, but several time each week I see people at the LAXCBC feeding the birds, not far off the approach to LAX either. Just another case of no security at the LAXCBC: provision of security would keep people from walking in the active lanes of the center and the incursion of civilian cars but, ostrich like with its head, err, in the sand, the LACMTA misses the point.

2011-08-22 LAXCBC @ 8:20: A man has his possessions, about a dozen items, spread out on the sidewalk between Bays 9 and 10. He does kind of a “robot” dance and mumbles something incoherent. This situation and the many variants of it speak volumes about the complete lack of security here. My one word description of this guy? ¡Loco!

I board a CCMBL Rapid 6. The driver of this bus, #92, is excellent!

Smooth, no jerking and all on a street known for its potholes, Sepulveda BL. But, all good things come to an end as I no sooner open my book and a nearby woman starts one of a series of LOUD cell phone conversations. “I’m not goin’ down that road”, “I called you at 8:15 what did you do?” Followed by a word-for-word reading of a text message that some guy sent to her.

Wilshire BL and La Cienega is an excellent point from which to see how little the LACMTA cares about your safety and time. The bus stops are split across Wilshire BL: the northbound 105 stops on the southeast corner of the intersection and the southbound 105 stops on the northwest corner. The northbound 705 “Rapid” stops on the northeast corner of the intersection and the southbound 705 “Rapid” stops on the southwest corner. This arrangement practically guarantees that, if you can ride either bus, you will be positioned at the wrong bus stop. When you see that you need to change corners in order to catch a bus you face a hazardous trip across the always busy Wilshire BL. Your mole thinks that this is definitely an irrational arrangement, bordering on, how shall I phrase it, ummm, stupid? But unlike a flexible organization once the LACMTA makes a decision it is set in concrete.

Dedicated to the Dulcinea of my dreams

‘Ask what thou wilt, Sancho my son," returned Don Quixote, "for I will satisfy thee and answer all thou requirest. As to what thou sayest, that these who accompany us yonder are the curate and the barber, our neighbours and acquaintances, it is very possible that they may seem to be those same persons; but that they are so in reality and in fact, believe it not on any account; what thou art to believe and think is that, if they look like them, as thou sayest, it must be that those who have enchanted me have taken this shape and likeness; for it is easy for enchanters to take any form they please, and they may have taken those of our friends in order to make thee think as thou dost, and lead thee into a labyrinth of fancies from which thou wilt find no escape though thou hadst the cord of Theseus; and they may also have done it to make me uncertain in my mind, and unable to conjecture whence this evil comes to me; for if on the one hand thou dost tell me that the barber and curate of our village are here in company with us, and on the other I find myself shut up in a cage, and know in my heart that no power on earth that was not supernatural would have been able to shut me in, what wouldst thou have me say or think, but that my enchantment is of a sort that transcends all I have ever read of in all the histories that deal with knights-errant that have been enchanted? So thou mayest set thy mind at rest as to the idea that they are what thou sayest, for they are as much so as I am a Turk. But touching thy desire to ask me something, say on, and I will answer thee, though thou shouldst ask questions from this till to-morrow morning."

"May Our Lady be good to me!" said Sancho, lifting up his voice; "and is it possible that your worship is so thick of skull and so short of brains that you cannot see that what I say is the simple truth, and that malice has more to do with your imprisonment and misfortune than enchantment?

But as it is so, I will prove plainly to you that you are not enchanted. Now tell me, so may God deliver you from this affliction, and so may you find yourself when you least expect it in the arms of my lady Dulcinea-"

"Leave off conjuring me," said Don Quixote, "and ask what thou wouldst know; I have already told thee I will answer with all possible precision."

"That is what I want," said Sancho; "and what I would know, and have you tell me, without adding or leaving out anything, but telling the whole truth as one expects it to be told, and as it is told, by all who profess arms, as your worship professes them, under the title of knights-errant-"

"I tell thee I will not lie in any particular," said Don Quixote; "finish thy question; for in truth thou weariest me with all these asseverations, requirements, and precautions, Sancho."

"Well, I rely on the goodness and truth of my master," said Sancho; "and so, because it bears upon what we are talking about, I would ask, speaking with all reverence, whether since your worship has been shut up and, as you think, enchanted in this cage, you have felt any desire or inclination to go anywhere, as the saying is?"

"I do not understand 'going anywhere,'" said Don Quixote; "explain

thyself more clearly, Sancho, if thou wouldst have me give an answer to the point."

"Is it possible," said Sancho, "that your worship does not understand 'going anywhere'? Why, the schoolboys know that from the time they were babes. Well then, you must know I mean have you had any desire to do what cannot be avoided?"

"Ah! now I understand thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "yes, often, and even this minute; get me out of this strait, or all will not go right.’

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616) Don Quixote (1605), excerpted from Chapter XLVIII.

http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/cervantes/don-quixote/1/

Fare Box Score Box and related Lists of Shame

I.D. Numbers of buses with Out of Order Fare Boxes: xxxx;
Note: No or few entries above do not necessarily mean all fare boxes are in operation.
I.D.Numbers of Distracted Drivers: xxxxx (x);
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 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: 5194       42/344;
Format is Bus number followed by Headsign number/Tailsign number.
ID numbers of Buses without Braille signs: XXXX;
METRO drivers 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 frame. 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.
28317 F[Y] C[-1] a long step from the curb!; 70623 F[+5], C[Y]; N.B. distances are in metres, think yards.
nnnnn* = Contract Driver
I.D. numbers of drivers who are almost guaranteed to give you a Rough and Jerky (R & J) ride. CCMBL #51 – first time I noted a non-Metro driver here!;
I.D. numbers of drivers who will give you a potentially life-threatening ride. XXXXX(-); 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.
BBB = Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus
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)
LAXCBC = the LAX City Bus Center.
OCTA = Orange County Transportation Authority.
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 am hoping that one of their developers will some day read this, copy my code and improve their text to HTML engine. Until then, lo siento.

Mole’s Copyright Statement
All photographs and original written materials are copyrighted © 2007~2009 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 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

Bloomekatz, Ari. “L.A. transit activists rally for a federal probe” Los Angeles Times. Aug. 21, 2011: Web. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-stranded-20110821,0,2808704.story

Pareles, Jon.” Straddling the Border, Eccentrically”. New York Times. Jul 31, 2011:AR21. Print.

Walker, Gary. “Transportation committee asks for ‘hold’ on bus advertising contract”. The Argonaut. Aug. 11, 2011:8. Print.

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