Bus stops in the middle of Sunset!

Who thought it was a good idea to route a bus - much less a double-long one - around a hairpin turn from Sunset to Santa Monica, straight through the heart of Sunset Junction? This poor unfortunate bus is in a photo snapped by Blaire-with-an-e, one of the many Hollywood friends. This was taken and sent from a Blackberry, not an iPhone. I just want to make that clear. No rational reason for this - just pointing out that we liberals are not all Volvo driving, latte sipping, iPhone twittering lemmings; some of us have T-Mobile.

In the photo, we see another example of how the people who work for the MTA and with bus routes and schedules and public transportation don't actually understand public transportation - most of them don't even actually ride the bus. It's always in the L.A. Times when a public official or a reporter experiments with public transportation. (This is part of the reason I felt it imperative to stop my subscription to the Times - which I subscribed to since college. I just couldn't stomach one more reporter telling us how he rode the bus all the way to work from the West Side and it took him two whole hours!)

Mayor Villaraigosa should appoint grass roots organizer and environmental activist Ann Bradley to a new post: czarina of mass transit. She truly knows this system because she's been a dedicated bus rider for years. She's my own personal "commuter concierge" - the person I call for the up-to-date information on fares, points of interest along the route, how to transfer, etc. It's sad that in L.A. we have to to have a bus riders union to make known the needs of the people who ride the bus. In any other business, the people who use the product or service are called "customers." Shoppers don't need a union to make their needs known at Nordstorm's, eaters don't need a union to get service in restaurants, and drinkers don't have to organize to demand fair treatment at bars. In successful businesses, the needs of the clients are anticipated, not met with begrudging acquiescence.

So here's this bus, looking like a broken down "picture car" from a remake of Speed. No idea what happened or why. There were plenty of firemen around but no passengers. It was around 1:28 p.m. on Friday, 08/08/08. Send any further illuminating details...

See Seven McDonald's LA Weekly "24/7" column about Ann Bradley: The Unconsumed Life.