Too much negativity?

I was reading this post about how transit agencies can leverage word-of-mouth advertising to increase ridership, and the thought occurred to me: I whine about RTA a lot on this blog. An unfamiliar reader might get the impression that our transit system is inconvenient, slow, and unreliable, their administration unresponsive and callous, and other generally bad things about the system. Let me make something clear right now:

I love my transit system.

I grew up in a place with anemic transit. There is a total of one bus stop in my entire hometown, with only one scheduled daily trip (with others available by 24-hour advance reservation). Riding the bus was something that had to be planned well in advance, and I didn't do it much. More than most of my peers, to be sure, but still not that often. (Transit there is even worse now, with no connection to the rest of the world besides Greyhound.)

I love the fact that I can roll out of bed at 9 in the morning and decide on a whim that I'd like to go to any of a thousand different places in Greater Los Angeles, and hop on the next bus and go. I enjoy the clean, comfortable and safe interiors of RTA buses and (especially) Metrolink trains. I have a warm, squishy spot in my heart for U-Pass, the program that provides me, and my fellow UCR students, with free rides from Montclair to Escondido. I really enjoy all the reading I get done on the bus. One of my favourite places to be in the world is in one of the sideways-facing seats at the rear of the bus (more legroom!), lost in a good book.

I'll even admit to enjoying that feeling I get when people around me complain about traffic and parking. And gas prices? I haven't thought about them in months.

RTA and other regional transit operators run, on balance, a well-designed an efficient system that's safe, clean, reliable and affordable. I truly encourage anyone and everyone to try riding for a while, just to see if it works for you. I'm not going to stop working to make our system better, but I don't want anyone to be turned off from riding because of my rants. Get out there and ride, folks.

Oh, and by the way, here's a story from the PE- I'm not the only crazy who loves the bus. :)

Google Transit Update

Called RTA today about the Google Transit meltdown. They are aware that the data is down, they say it's down due to inaccuracies, and there is no ETA when it will be back up. The CSR's best estimate? "It could be several weeks."

I am still NOT HAPPY. Google Transit bliss (with all of Greater LA's major operators- Metro, Foothill, Omni, OCTA, RTA) lasted less than a month.

Calvert does something right!

Okay, so I'm just about to leave the house to go looking for flying pigs and adverts for hell's new ski resort, so I have to quickly point out that Ken Calvert (R-Corona) has actually done something sensible with his position in Congress. He's proposed that goods shipped through ports have a fee added to mitigate the costs of transporting them to and from the ports. (Article in the PE here.)

Now, do I know what the motivation for this is? Yup. This is part of that age-old inland-coastal divide in California politics, and Calvert's long frustration with the massive amount of goods that move through the IE from Los Angeles and Long Beach without a commensurate tax benefit to us. He also suggests that this money be used to pay for railroad grade separation, which points out that his only real focus on public transport is to segregate drivers from those noisy, well-lit killer trains.

Does any of this make me think, for even a second, that Kenny is a friend to public transit? Nope. Does it change the fact that I'll be working very, very hard to ensure that he's jobless come 2010? Nope. Does it mitigate, in any way, the shameless right-wing pandering and hypocritical christian moralising that he's famous for? Not at all. But I will give credit where credit is due.

Pictures of flying pigs to come.

*NOT Happy*

View Larger Map

That abomination is what shows up when I try to plan a trip down Tyler way. "Drive to the Riverside Metrolink Station" it says. Not "Route 16 to Route 1". Riverside Transit data in Google Transit has been down for a few days, and I am not happy about it. I don't know who's fault this is. I do know I want it fixed. Now.

(EDIT: RTA's Google Transit data is back up, and the map now shows a proper routing to the Tyler Mall.)

The Loophole

As most of you know, I'm an impoverished academic, so the question remains- how did I afford to fly to New York on a moment's notice? Many of you may be familiar with the old method of flying standby- show up at the airport and fill a seat at a fantastically reduced price. You might also be aware that flying standby went the way of toiletry bags and goodbye hugs at the gate. In most cases, that is.

A midwestern discount airline, AirTran Airways, has a special program called AirTran U. For folks between the ages of 18 and 22, they charge $69 per short flight and $99 per long flight (LA is always long) if you're willing to fly standby. The downside? From LA, you only get three choices of destinations- Baltimore, Atlanta or Milwaukee. You're welcome to connect from there to anywhere you like- for an extra $69 per segment, standby only.

If you're like me- that is to say, cash-poor but time-wealthy and flexible- it's a fantastic deal. New, safe and comfortable aircraft with onboard XM and internet await the lucky traveler who gets a seat. I missed a flight once, the Friday night red-eye to LA from BWI, but everything else went swimmingly. College kids with the travel itch are honour-bound to check it out.

Triumphant Return

Sorry to all of you folks... it's been an interesting couple of weeks. I mentioned in my last post that I was heading to New York. Well, I did, on a shoestring budget that still amazes me. I'm going to return to writing on this blog with a short travelogue and review of the transportation services I used on the trip, in order. I'm skipping over old favourites like RTA and Metrolink, as you ought to know what I think of them by now. Which brings me to the first segment: LAX FlyAway.

FlyAway is a dedicated public express bus network designed to get folks from various points in the southland to LAX. They go to UCLA, Van Nuys and Union Station. I didn't check the schedules for the other routes, but the Union Station bus runs at least hourly, 24/7. It's quick and convenient to Metrolink, and it beats the Red-Blue-Green-Shuttle shuffle that links Metro's rail lines to LAX. I highly recommend the service.

That said, I have a couple of issues with it. One, and they don't make this very clear anywhere, all payment for the bus is done at the Union Station end, regardless of where you board. No signs or staff make this apparent at the airport, and this made for some stressful moments at LAX while waiting for the bus. A sign at each bus stop, "Payment due upon arrival" or some such, would improve this immensely.

Second, while the service does accept EZ Transit Passes (presumably for those who work at the airport) for credit equal to the pass' base fare, they do not accept Metrolink tickets as EZ Passes, for any sort of credit. If the goal of this service is to encourage transit riding to the airport, this seems counterintuitive. However, if the goal is simply to encourage parking elsewhere (as the parking information-laden brochure seems to suggest- Union Station's daily lot is $8/day), then I'm slightly soured on the service. We want to encourage people to ride transit, even to the airport. Even $1 off of FlyAway's fare would be an incentive for them to do so, rather than simply drive to cheap parking.

Lastly, the fare vending situation is a touch counterintuitive. There's a ticket booth at Patsouras Transit Plaza that you must buy your tickets from, and yet the booth requires cash only. If it's cash only, why can't it be collected onboard? If it's a fixed booth, why can't they install a Visa machine? And really, if you're going to have fixed fare payment, you'd lower the (remember: 24/7) labour costs of the service by simply installing a ticket machine. Put in $6, get out ticket. Life's good.

So, overall, FlyAway- awesome. Tune in tomorrow, when I actually go flying.

Metro now on Google Transit

So I was planning a trip to NYC last night and I absent-mindedly asked Google Transit about a transit route to LAX. I thought nothing about it until later, but it actually worked. Metro bus and rail services are now available in Google Transit. Enjoy all.