There’s also the newness of what feels like something absurd: a jet is faster than a bike…why would a bike win?  Yet, I haven’t really heard of anyone who is rooting for the plane to win.  Not to mention, everyone inherently understands the logistics of travel.  It begins from the moment you leave your home, and not all of us has a jet waiting for us in our backyard.

There’s something about the plane, something that – while it takes us across great distances – is more technology than man, even if it was invented by man.  It doesn’t dominate our everyday lives like cars do, where we – especially in this Los Angeles sphere – seem to exist in them like homes more than home itself.  The bike, on the other hand, is that mix of technology and human effort that almost requires equal efforts.  And of course as a public transit rider, I was also happy to hear that Gary Kavanagh (@GaryRidesBikes) took up that part of the helm, which is a space somewhere between FlightVSBike.

This all, of course, makes me look backwards at transportation moments in the past – the invention of the car, flights around the world, diving into ocean depths, and journeys into space.  And I don’t think we’ve had that sense of wonder in awhile nor do I think we were as entrenched in being used to technology as we are now.  All these elements that were once shiny and new in invention are now integrated into our perspectives of how the world is, events like #FlightVSBike & #FlightVSMetro really shine a lot on humans and our oft tenuous relationship with technology.  Not to mention, I doubt that this event would have been created so fast without web technology.

I sort of see the dominant support (as unscientifically discerned from the Twitter Feed anyway) for Bike and Metro as less a support about the technology as it is about the concerns of humans today.  We complain about TSA and fuel costs and flights costs and travel times.  We are becoming increasing advocates of a greener and healthier lifestyle.  And then there’s the missing element – the fact that the car is out of the equation, that perhaps we wouldn’t mind if it was less of the equation in general?

And having switched back and forth, and having written this thing piecemeal, I get to close by saying bikes WIN!  Metro team is closing in for second…and that jet?  Well, we’re all still proud and thankful for the Wright Brothers.

-cct

Pictured: Flight vs. Bike by walterrrr on Flickr

Hey – I’m all for this.  It makes me a more responsible rider and keeps people in check on buying the tickets.  Can we also get ride of this whole one-way line travel idea too?  First off, no one really follows it (I do, I have a monthly pass) or really understands it.  If you don’t have to go through another set of gates, I say that is a sign you’re ok!

Metro Gold Line? La Linea De Oro?

I’m all for transit-friendly literature bringing the masses together by crossing over language barriers, but naming the Metro Gold Line’s Eastside Extension as “La Linea de Oro” (literal Spanish translation of “Gold Line”) in Metro’s Spanish language  literature isn’t really the answer.  (See LA Times Blog: MTA Approves Spanish Translation of Gold Line)

I do like Gloria Molina and I understand her reasoning that a majority of users in the Eastside Extension are Spanish speakers, but here’s the thing about naming conventions: you want to brand with familiarity.

There are many different cultures and languages throughout Los Angeles and if we replicate this translation in those other texts, the brand of “Metro Gold Line” is going to get diluted.  As a public transit user, people ask questions all the time from other passengers of where to go and what direction.  What if the person looking for “La Linea de Oro” can’t tell a non-Spanish speaker “Metro Gold Line”?  My Spanish language skills are not that great, but I know what “La Linea de Oro” means.  However,  if someone were to come up to me and ask which one was “La Linea de Oro”, it’d take me awhile to realize they meant.

Not to mention I don’t think the “color branding” is fully utilized enough.  While I LOVE the monitors that tell you the time the subway is arriving (I honestly don’t know how we did without them for so long), they don’t say the colors of the lines – it’s “North Hollywood” and “Wilshire/Western” and “Union Station”.  Perhaps how we phrase things in any language woudn’t matter that much if we had colored boxes and color indications on trains?

This is not my hair. Could he have touched that hair instead?

These are the general approaches people take whether they’re walking on the street or on public transit:

1. Give them some spare change.
2. Tell them you don’t have any money (whether or not it’s true).
3. Ignore them.
4. Tell them to get a job.

I never say #4 because you really never know why people are asking for money.  I’ll usually do a range of 1 or 2.  But sometimes when I’m not feeling particularly nice or just don’t want to be bothered after a long day of work, I pick #3 – Ignore them.  Not the nicest thing in the world, but when you have your earphones on and you’re reading on your iPhone Kindle, it’s your most natural option without anyone disturbing your space.

So that was the scenario today – Earphones on + Reading my iPhone Kindle = Ignore.

Unfortunately the guy didn’t take a hint and just stood there.  So I looked up and said, “Sorry, sir, I don’t have any money.”

Instead of going away or thanking me for my time like most people do, this guy proceeds to say, “It’s okay.”  And then TOUCHES MY HAIR.

<RANT> What is up with that?!  Who does that?  I am not a pet.  Is this karma for the times when my friends say something quaint and I pet their heads?  At least I know them!</RANT>

In any case, I literally had to step back when he did that and then he went away.  I’ve had some weird transit moments, but that one might have been the oddest panhandling one by sheer act of touching my hair.

Now, when people usually ask for my help on public transit, it’s about asking me directions – what bus line to take, what direction the train is, etc.  This request was not that at all.  After some conversation, the request came out to -

“Can you help me get to 7th/Flower?  I’ll be really late to my bus if I try to get there by myself.”

Naturally I said yes, because you’d be a pretty lame person if you said no.  In any case, it must have been a pretty amusing scene for those who saw me pushing the wheelchair: this short and twiggy Asian woman pushing this larger white woman in a wheelchair with a brown poodle dog in tow.  But what makes the story even more comical is the route I had to taken:

1. Go across one part of the station.
2. Get in one stinky elevator and go up one floor and cross a little bit more of the station to find another elevator.
3. Get in another even stinker elevator (heck, the DOG didn’t want to get in) and go up one floor.
4. Wait on a corner to cross the street while the dog takes its time sniffing, only to have a bicyclist rounding the corner of the sidewalk get nearly tripped over by the leash.
5. Cross a street with difficulty while next to me a guy was pushing a woman in a wheelchair like it was nothing
6. Have a random/Awkward good-bye with on-lookers probably wondering why I was abandoning the woman in the wheelchair

But this post is more than just me recognizing the comical nature of these events (definitely on my “Top 10 of Weirdest Moments”), the entire scenario made me wonder how it was that the elevators could function in such a dysfunctional way.  I know that elevators and ramps are primarily for those who need them – those in wheelchairs or have difficulty walking – and in these days of standard regulations, they have to be built.  Their use is especially important in public transit because it’s quite likely the main means of those who aren’t able to drive.

But my experience the other day really made me think if that was the best way for the elevators to have been placed in the standpoint of those who needed them the most (versus that it was the easiest way to put them in design-wise).  Which, in turn, makes me think of everything going on the world today – how much of what we’re doing is just to keep us functioning even if it’s in a dysfunctional way?  At what cost do we pay heading into that direction?  To some extent, I know we have to, but you can only get so far.

I think the one thing that’s been really hankering me is that all I’ve been hearing lately is the “band-aid solution”, but no one is giving me the rehabilitation plan.  Like if I had just thought for two seconds of where the woman wanted to go, I would have known I could have taken her up the 7th/Fig elevator and just pushed her for an easy block down 7th street instead of my crazy “band-aid” effort of going where she was directing me.  But I guess that’s part of the adventure, working with what you have, what’s around you, and figuring out what’s next as best as you can.  Maybe functioning dysfunctionally is naturally a part of life, but I hope we don’t stop at “just trying to function”.  Striving to be excellent would be quite appreciated but, that could be Tom Morello influencing me (that’s a whole other post for later).