How sweet is this?  On Monday, LA DOT started a public beta for receiving live tracking information of your friendly neighborhood DASH service.  If you go to http://dtdash.com on your computer or phone, LADOT has provided four equally convenient ways for you to get your bus information:  1) you can live track your downtown DASH using Google Maps; 2) for the minimalists, you can simply use drop down menus to plug in your route and stop to get expected arrival times; 3) for those of us without Internet-equipped phones, call (213) 785-3858 and navigate the phone menu to hear arrival information; and 4) for those of us who don’t like talking to machines, but don’t mind texting one, figure out your stop number, and send a text to dtdash[stop number] to 414111.

Now, if we can get this set up for the MTA, that would be awesome.

Public Eyebrow Groomer as seen on a Metro Bus

Since I began my adventures in public transportation earlier this year, I have seen a lot of rude, inappropriate and often strange behavior from my fellow carbon-based life forms. I have seen people carelessly put their shoes on bus seats.  I have seen someone leave a half-eaten sandwich on the floor of the train. I have seen a perfectly nice looking middle-aged woman forcibly push her way to the front of a line of people boarding a bus, just to be the first one on. I have shared personal space with people emitting body odors that would make a mortician gag. Yes my friends, I have been to hell and back and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

While annoying, I have grown to accept many of these acts of humanness as part of the deal when taking public transportation. Still, when I see something like today’s featured Metro rider, I can’t help but make a public mockery of it.

Today, while making my connection to the Metro Red Line, I sat across from this girl who was plucking her eyebrows. Maybe some of you think this is OK, but let me tell you, YOU ARE WRONG. Some personal grooming is acceptable on public transportation I would say. Like powdering your nose or putting on lipstick. However, anything involving body hair is an absolute disgusting DON’T. You wouldn’t shave your armpits on the bus, would you? Would she? I don’t know. Fortunately, I made my connection before I had to find out.

Except that there is no rule prohibiting public photography in Los Angeles subway systems. And any detainment would require a reasonable suspicion of the subject having committed a crime… which may have occurred, but the only unusual activity the Sheriff ever cites is Discarted’s act of taking photos.

After handcuffing Discarted, the sheriff doing most of the talking, Officer Richard Gylfie, is heard threating threatening to put him the FBI’s “hit list” and will be flagged and detained before boarding planes, trains, or other forms of transportation where an ID is checked. And why? Apparently for not shivering in fear to Gylfie’s demands to tell him why he’s taking photos… or maybe I’m missing something.

As if it needs repeating, photography is allowed in public spaces, including the subway system. Its a shame that the same people who we pay to enforce our laws are blatantly ignorant of this, and instead abuse the power that we bestow upon them to harass and intimidate.

Feel free to leave your thoughts here, or at Discarted’s blog.

(unable to embed here – click here to watch)

The Untidy Germaphobe

Today in LA fashion I bring you the “Untidy Germaphobe,” as spotted on the Metro Red Line to Union Station. Yeah, yeah, I know. Criticizing fashion on the Metro is too easy, but I go with what I know.

When I first saw the “Untidy Germaphobe” sitting across from me on the train, I only noticed his surgical mask.

“He must be wearing that because of the poor air quality due to the Station Fire,” I thought to myself, smirking arrogantly at my own reflection in my iPod.

Then my eyes moved down to his hands, which were tautly sheathed in blue latex gloves, perfectly color coordinated to match his jaunty mask.

“Hmm. Germaphobe,” I nodded, feeling quite satisfied that I had him all figured out.

Glancing over one more time, I took in the rest of his ensemble, which continued to vex me for at least three more minutes, or however long it takes to get from Hollywood & Highland to Sunset & Vermont.  The gloves and the mask seemed to match a Mysophobic personality disorder sure, but what the hell was going on with the rest of his scene? First of all, his clothes and boots were visibly filthy. Not approved Germaphobe attire. Second, he smelled like he had not showered in quite some time. Definitely the type of violation that could get you kicked out of Germaphobe Camp.

Taking all of the above into consideration, I finally narrowed this guy down to one of three stereotypes, placing the most weight of course on his peculiar outfit (who wears a snow hat in LA during a heat wave?):

1. Recently discharged Vietnam War veteran

2. Construction worker from the 1950’s

3. Anti-government militia soldier

I can’t decide which one, so I’m leaving it up to you fine readers to decide. What’s this dude’s deal? Feel free to offer your own guess.

LASnark just broke the news about Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan to fix California. Since the elected guys have no idea what to do, they’re asking the internet.

The Governor would like your suggestions via Twitter. Simply post your idea, followed by #MyIdea4CA. I tweeted mine, which referred back to an earlier post here on Metblogs. All suggestions become part of an ongoing forum at myidea4ca.com.

Why didn’t Villaraigosa think of this?

The state is broke. Unemployment is high. So, why are we still outsourcing production of our rail cars to other countries?

Curbed reports that delegates from 12 Korean companies are on their way to bid on a $45-billion contract for our state’s high speed rail network. I’m sure they’re all fine companies. So are the ones from Germany and Italy. But, what if Los Angeles got into rail manufacturing? The city claims that it wants to be the “clean tech” leader.

Los Angeles is home to the largest port complex in the nation, the world’s fifth busiest airport, the country’s largest municipal utillity, world-class research universities, an unparalleled workforce, and the largest manufacturing center in the nation. From pipe-fitters and electricians to engineering PhDs and Nobel Laureates, the business and labor communities are teaming up to make Los Angeles the most productive place in the nation for cleantech. The City is building on these assets with billions of dollars of investment and attractive incentives to make Los Angeles the destination for the cleantech industry.

Would a clean tech high speed rail network fit the bill?

If Los Angeles, and the state of California want to get back on track, we should start building trains. Here. In our town. California needs them. So does Florida, the Midwest, and the rest of the nation. An American high-speed rail network – made for Americans, by Americans.

We’ve done this before. Why not do it again?

Not Smart. Not Simple. Secure? One can hope!

A few days ago I railed about how patently stupidious it is trying to get a new Transit Access Pass (TAP) card for use on Metro buses and trains. As I left that first post, I had been told by a TAP customer service representative that the only place I could obtain a TAP card and load it with a  cash amount (as opposed to an expiration-driven monthly pass for $62) was Union Station.

It just so happened that on Tuesday I found myself at Union Station to catch the No. 439 bus to work and decided to see if that was indeed the case. Sure enough and to no real surprise, it wasn’t. The clerk at the counter there parroted the TAP rep.

“But,” I countered, “on the TAP website it says that a card can be used to store cash value!”

“Metro isn’t set up to do that,” she answered.

“Will it ever be?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as the lamest most ironic thing ever in the history of mass transportation and fare management to offer an access pass that people can’t use?”

She just smiled and apologized from behind her tinted bulletproof glass.

I could do nothing else but walk away resigned that passengers such as myself for whom monthly passes are cost-inefficient, were basically assed-out of the TAP game.

But! Later that evening instead of taking the 439 home from work, I charted a course that included the No. 6 Culver City bus up Sepulveda to the MTA’s No. 4 on Santa Monica Boulevard. And in the course of checking the No. 6’s schedule online, low and behold and hallelujah, I found mention that Culver City sells TAP cards with a cash amount of the card-holders choosing. Easy peazy.

Sure as shit, on my bike ride in to work this morning I stopped at Culver City Hall and in a manner of a few minutes, I became the owner of a TAP card loaded up with $20 — but I was immediately more skeptical of my acquisition than proud. Because when I told the clerk who assisted me that Metro doesn’t allow cash loading and only sets up TAPs with monthly passes, he solemnly sounded an ominous warning.

“Looks like we’ll be getting rid of the cash option soon and going to passes-only as well!” he said.

“Why?”

“I guess there’s more money in it,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

I almost told him to keep the card, but he said that the changover wouldn’t happen for “another six months or so,” so I continued the transaction, if somewhat harumphantly.

And in the aftermath, while I’m infinitely impressed that itsty-bitsy Culver City totally powned Los Angeles by being able to get me what I wanted with no hassles or run-arounds, at the same time I now possess a piece of plastic that could be obsolete in six months (if that), unless someone at TAP and Metro gets their shit together and realizes they suck.

I’m entirely dumbfounded that there isn’t anyone at any of the involved organizations and municipalities that hasn’t raised a hand in a meeting at some point and said something like “Uh, why does it have to be passes-only? Why can’t we give customers something called ‘options’ and allow them either to add a monthly pass if that’s what they want or load in a set cash amount? And why can’t it be done online, ya dim-bulb bureaucrats!?”

Silly me, that would be common sense.

Pressure from assorted houses of worship caused the Los Angeles Marathon to move to Memorial Day this year, as church’s complained that marathon related road closures resulted in reduced attendance.

While the return to Sunday during a cooler period will bring unanimous satisfaction to L.A.’s diverse running community, the new route may not. But what do you think?

Alas, the eventual day has finally come where I find myself down to my last few tokens, and while they’re still sold in bags of 10 it’s at $12.50, no longer at any discount. With that bargain gone as well as the news that fare gates are starting to sprout up at various rail stations (and I hate having to deal with having exact change), I figured the time was right for me to get myself upgraded to one of them newfangled reloadable Transit Access Pass (TAP) cards that are all the rage.

Wrong.

But off to metro.net I went where I clicked on the TAP card section and was taken to a Base Fares & Tokens page that gave me another link to a TAP Card page that finally assured me I could purchase one online, and gave me another link to do so. Yet when I clicked it up popped this thing of fail, of course:

At first I thought about submitting a comment alerting the MTA to the error, but I figured since it was the MTA and I’m deeply entrenched in middle age I might be dead before they got around to fixing the glitch. So instead I read the error message and since it was a bad secure connection issue decided to see what would happen if I took the “s” out of the “https” of the following address:

https://www.taptogo.net/ecustomer_enu/start.swe?SWECmd=Login&SWECM=S&SWEHo=www.taptogo.net

Sure enough, all that got me was a 404 Page Not Found error, so then I scrubbed off all that go_b.?ble/dy=gOOk after the dotnet, so the address looked like this:

http://www.taptogo.net

Voila, I was where I needed to be no thanks to MTA’s state-of-the-art web portal.

But am I now the happy soon-to-be TAP cardholder? Of course I’m not. Because no thanks to the patently lame way taptogo.net is set up, it turns out that my bad URL-dodging skills were wasted and I was no closer to setting myself up as a card-carrying TAPper.

See, in any basic online experience of this nature, you’d think I should’ve been able to purchase a card pre-loaded with a certain amount, or an amount of my choosing. But Taptogo’s shopping experience wouldn’t allow that. Pffft. It kept rejecting my attempts to check out with the 1 Blue TAP Card in my cart, telling me I need to also buy my choice of three separate monthly passes at $62, $80 or $98 — passes which I don’t want or need. Because monthly passes expire.

So I called Taptogo’s customer service number and of course I got the most impatient don’t-you-know-it’s-Friday-afternoon-and-I’m-done-being-helpful representative who told me what I already new: that the only way to get a TAP card online was to also buy a monthly pass.

“But I don’t need or want a monthly pass.”

“Then you can’t get a TAP card online.”

“OK, can I get one from you?

Not without also buying a monthly pass.”

“Then where can I get a TAP card.”

“You can’t get one online without a monthly pass.”

“Right. Got that. Is there any place in the greater metropolitan area that I can physically go and get one?”

“Union Station.”

“Great, thanks.”

“IsthereanythingelseIcandofo—.”

Nope. Click.

So until Metrodotlame and Taptogodotfail can figure out and implement some basic no-brainer internet point-of-purchase fundamentals, it’s “Taps” for TAP cards as far as I’m concerned. Full-priced tokens, here I come.