I’m guessing you had somewhere to go. I mean, obviously, since you couldn’t wait the few seconds between the train stopping and the train operator opening the doors that you had to pull on the emergency door stop.

Maybe it was a life or death situation.

Maybe those seconds were crucial in a 24 montage way and I should actually be addressing this to “Dear Guy Who Thinks He’s Jack Bauer” and thank you for saving the world.

Erm…somehow, I don’t think so.

You didn’t look very secret agent-y or like you were special ops.  You just looked annoyed and impatient.  And, not that this is an excuse, but you didn’t seem to be scurrying out the door to somewhere special either.

So here’s some advice about safety: The subway doors are not your personal car doors.  The train operator opens them at a specific time for a reason.  I have seen moments where the train stops and then needs to move a few inches before it stops again to open the doors.  So, given that scenario, pulling the emergency stop is probably not the best thing to do unless there’s – oh I don’t know? – an emergency.  And squeezing yourself through the doors is both un-becoming and probably not the smartest move either.

Do you know what also happens when you pull the door stop?  It is not a emergency door that automatically closes after it’s been open.  Someone (in this case: me) has to push the door knob back in.  I did this while I walked in, but just as the train was ready to go, it turns out the other door in the car had also been open by an emergency door stop.  This means,

• You probably passed on your bad behavior to someone else.
• The seconds you saved were seconds an entire subway train lost because we were delayed by the unnecessary use of emergency doors.

This is the anti-thesis of the Pass It On campaign.

So, next time, do the rest of us a favor: Be a little patient.  We all have somewhere to go and let’s get there safely.

-cct, a carless Angeleno

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.