from the Bus Riders Union
Thread started by
P-3000 at 11.27.07 - 1:11 pm
JOIN THE BUS RIDERS UNION RALLY
International Day of Action Against Global Warming
December 5, 2007@ 3:30 PM
Wilshire & Western
As 180 countries will gather in December for the Climate Change summit in Bali, Indonesia, the Strategy Center & Bus Riders Union rally will be part of a worldwide mobilization demanding the U.S. to take urgent action against Global Warming and Climate Change.
What are we waiting for-- another Katrina, more fires and floods?!
While Third World countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, and Tuvalu are demanding 60-80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the worst case climate disaster, the US increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% between 1990-2005 and continues to be among the top polluters in the world. Instead of reconstructing New Orleans for Black people, the US government is bombing Iraq for oil. Instead of committing to stop fossil fuel extraction like Ecuador (nearly 920 million barrels of oil), the US seeks to extract more of it from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and in other Indigenous lands. If the United Nation's (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that failure to act now will leave nearly a billion people with water and food shortages, droughts, coastal flooding and severe storms, the U.S. cannot continue to drag its feet and endanger the rest of the world. The UN Kyoto Protocol called for a 5% international reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but the nations are evading it and the 5% reduction of 1990 emission levels was a joke to begin with-a concession to the auto and oil companies that control most governments. To really stop global warming, we have to talk about at least a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
What does fighting Global Warming look like in L.A?
Join us Wednesday Dec. 5th at 3:30pm on the corner of Wilshire and Western for the Bus Riders Union Clean Air Campaign Climate Justice Rally. We are calling on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other L.A. City Council members to secure the $27 million necessary for the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project.
Mr. Mayor, Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Now!
Let's face it 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions are produced by cars in California. Therefore reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the car capital of the world, must include taking on the 7 million autos in L.A! Mayor Villaraigosa's Green L.A. action plan on transportation lacks real initiative to reduce the number of cars in the streets by challenging its space and prioritizing buses. Any elected official who is serious about fighting global warming, has to aggressively push policies like the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes, which puts high capacity buses before single passenger automobiles. Wilshire would be a first step in creating a countywide network of bus-only lanes and reducing auto emissions. Mayor Villaraigosa secure the $27million funding for Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes today!
Join us
Wednesday
December 5, 2007
3:30 PM
Wilshire & Western
Bus Riders Union
Press Conference
& Rally
Helps us build this day against Global Warming
Click here to access flyers to help
spread the word
For more information
please contact:
(213) 387-2800
sun@busridersunion.org
3780 Wilshire Blvd. #1200
Los Angeles, CA 90010
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fucking bus riders union. yeah that'll help, more big stinking busses to combine with traffic and as each stop piles on takes even longer to get somewhere than traffic itself.
the bus riders union is funded by the auto industry. bus riders union demands more buses and denounces rail. seems odd huh?
Wink Martindale11.27.07 - 1:15 pm
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Time to form "The Bike Riders Union"?
Hell Yes!
or even a
Vehicular Cyclist Union
trickmilla11.27.07 - 1:52 pm
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No offense to anyone whose experience is different, but the Bus Riders Union seems like a f**ked up collection of anarchist/communist malcontents who like to force other people to pay the price for their philosophical decisions.
I am all for making bus riding cleaner, faster, and cheaper - but I don't know how that will help me as a cyclist, and I sure as hell don't know how joining the BRU is going to help any of that happen.
ubrayj0211.27.07 - 3:50 pm
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Surely it's possible to criticize the BRU's platform without resorting to broad-brush redbaiting bullshit.
PC11.27.07 - 4:15 pm
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PC, are you trying to start another race?
tern11.27.07 - 4:23 pm
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ubray - with all due respect I tend to agree with PC's roughly phrased sentiment.
When I'm injured or sick I take the bus. For those who can't ride it a much more sustainable form of transport = even a half full bus is making WAAAAY better passenger miles to the gallon than LA cars with average occupancy of 1.3 passengers. They take up a lot less roadspace.
I do wish we demanded more from bus drivers in terms of driving style. But we pay them shit . . . so what do you expect.
Alex Thompson11.27.07 - 4:24 pm
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Yeah, Tern, you shit-stirring motherfucker, I'm trying to start a race. With you. PC vs. Tern!
PC11.27.07 - 4:30 pm
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only if you let me ride the most beautiful Bianchi in the world.
[laughs]
tern11.27.07 - 4:33 pm
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Winky Martindales said:
"yeah that'll help, more big stinking busses to combine with traffic and as each stop piles on takes even longer to get somewhere than traffic itself. "
FOR. REALS. The other day I took the 720 home. It was stuck in so much traffic, along with the other 100 720 busses, that I got off and walked down Wilshire for 1 mile. And beat the damn bus.
HATE!
City Hobgoblin11.27.07 - 4:36 pm
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okay....not trying to jack the thread....
PC, put a big picture of that bike on Ridazz and their bikes....
tern11.27.07 - 4:37 pm
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Thread jackers race. Tern I'm calling you out. Most of you is a fucking asshole, you slow piece of shit.
City Hobgoblin11.27.07 - 4:39 pm
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I am not aware of who the BRU really is, but I have to admit that busses are a help to the environment....unless they are running annie off of the road on DarkCenM.
tern11.27.07 - 4:40 pm
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Oh man, you guys would roll me over in a minute!!
[big laughs]
tern11.27.07 - 4:41 pm
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ummm...also there is this woman that I am kind of talking to at the moment....
So, I'm gonna have to tern you down, City Hobgobblin.
But, it was nice for you to ask me out!
tern11.27.07 - 4:55 pm
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:-(
Well if your luck with the ladies is anything like mine, you'll be free again in a few hours. Then we can go out!
City Hobgoblin11.27.07 - 4:59 pm
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Back to the Subject.
When I was on my first CM...in Arcata, California...of all places, I was riding with the group on a round-a-bout. Traffic was being blocked for a minute. Then people started screaming at me, "Hey, let public transportation through!!"
Then they told me why...less traffic overall...better on the environment.
Public transportation is better than personal vehicle (although usually much slower) and much worse than riding your bike.
tern11.27.07 - 5:01 pm
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lols...demon and gobblin!
You guys have scary names!!
tern11.27.07 - 5:03 pm
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"Public transportation is better than personal vehicle"
What about the Rape Bus? I think that's considerably worse.
City Hobgoblin11.27.07 - 5:12 pm
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ummm....what is a rape bus?
I am talking about Metro.
You are probably right about the rape bus. Damn, I'm glad I don't ride that one.
tern11.27.07 - 5:17 pm
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In many lands, far far away, there is this magical device that actually travels under the ground.
It has the ability to transport many many more people in a faster, more efficient, cheaper way without impacting surface traffic.
I hope that one day this city will catch on to this amazing new device known as "the subway."
kyber11.27.07 - 5:36 pm
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The Bus Riders Union has taken MTA to court many times to block them from building more subways and spend the money for more buses instead.
They consider subways a yuppy mode of transportation for some reason.
marino11.27.07 - 6:00 pm
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LMAO
Ever seen who rides the subways in NY?
Everyone.
kyber11.27.07 - 6:02 pm
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When you say New York, are you talking about Staten Island or Manhattan? Out skirts of Queens and Brooklyn or they areas closest to Manhattan.
Why is there such an effect subway system in NY (Manhattan),
take a look at the geography of Manhattan, about 16 block wide and 3 miles long. Doesn't take too much to make a great subway system on that Island, How about Wash D.C. , the pentagon district, look how it subway system is set up and look at it's georgraphy.
So looks at Los Angeles and its geography. Where do you suppose would be the best place to set up a set up. The redline served the area that took lots of RTD passegers that would board the old 420 line, which is now the MTA 156,( which turns into night time for when the train is shut down 656 line). That serve lots of passenger. At what price to make that did it cost.
Now where else should we build these underground trains, who get them, and why should that area get them first. LA is huge place. It would cost more money then we could afford to dig out the whole city and put trains in to service so much that the buses do now. Yes Wilshire would be a good start. Yes I know the history with the Methane gas under Ross, and Waxman holding out the funds if they built it where people in his district didn't want it.
Take a look at NYC and manhattan in particular they have a huge bus system also. Yes, lots of people take the subway there, it is also much more dense. So you build the trains in the more dense area. With what? who pays for it. Is the long term gain worth the cost?
There was a reason why the BRU did what they did, MTA could have provided more people service if they would have spent rail money on buses. BRU case was solid, and thats why MTA settled on the case, they couldn't win.
Did we talk about this before, we sure did. Are we proverbial old folks setting on the porch or in the barber shop or cafe, saying the same thing over and over again. It looks as this is what we are becoming around here. We just do it on at computers before most of us have even reached the ripe young age of 50.
sexy11.27.07 - 6:53 pm
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I'm talking about the entire metro area, sexy.
If I wanted to, I could take a train from the end of Long Island all the way up to Poughkeepsie.
For those who don't know, that's roughly....175 miles. All in the same network of trains.
http://mta.info/
Check it
kyber11.27.07 - 7:11 pm
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or, how about a system like london, which covers aproximately the same surface area (actually a bit more) as LA, and has great transport system, which EVERYONE rides.
FuzzBeast11.27.07 - 7:41 pm
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Page 5 of
http://www.laweekly.com/news/features/the-subway-mayor/349/>The Subway Mayor article in the LA Weekly gives a great analysis of the BRU.
Or from
here:
Anybody ever see Bus Riders Union founder Eric Mann getting to work on a bus? Mann and his wife, with a combined average annual salary of $204,000 between 2000 and 2004 from the Labor/Community Strategy Center, don’t exactly fit the profile of the average bus rider. Yet Los Angeles’ transit policies have been held hostage to the antirail freak ever since he set up the Bus Riders Union to fight a bus-fare increase in 1994 on grounds that it was racist — and to protest any transit money going to rail projects. In 10 years, the terms of the resulting consent decree forced the MTA to spend $1 billion to double the number of buses to 4,000; yet, during the same period, bus ridership did not keep pace. Meanwhile, ridership on Mann’s hated Red Line subway is up 425 percent since 1996. Today, Mann and his group do not serve the needs of the average transit rider — consider his latest mantra, “1,000 fewer cops, 1,000 more buses.”
Definitely not anarchist. Buses play a role in healthy transportation, but not at the expense of rail.
1,000 fewer cops, 1,000 more bikes?
bike punk11.27.07 - 8:09 pm
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On the BRU.
It is a fact that the reason why we have more busses, clean(er) fuel busses, daily, weekly,and bi-montly passes are all due to the efforts of the BRU.
At least thats how I remember it as a 10 year user of the MTA.
Now the way the BRU got a consent decree against the MTA is by getting a judge to agree that the MTA behaved in a racist manner.
ie: the MTA dumped a dispropotionate ammount of funds into the the Subway than busses ... just guessing here but lets just say the subway is used 60% people of color and the busses 85% people of color
Well, the BRU argued that the bus system was getting short changed because it was serving people of color.
Personally I think the MTA doesn't give a fuck what color the skin is of the poor people they are screwing over. It just so happens in this society more of the poor people are not "white". It also just so happens in our capatilist culture that there isn't any laws saying it is illegal to discriminate against sombody because of their income or class.
Therefore, right or wrong, the only way the BRU could get a court order for the MTA to shape up the bus system was to play the race card.
I like the results, on principal I disagree with the method.
On the other hand I kind of despise the BRU's love the bus but hate the train attitude.
But hey, they are the bus riders Union lookin; out for bus riders, and it is certainlly not their fault that their isn't a Metro Riders Union.
All in all, I support the BRU in spirt for getting shit done ... but I could never join them because I feel that they are short-sighted by being so anti-train.
I beleive that its gonna take a public transportation system that is a viable alternative to cars (that means: streetcars, subways, elevated trains, busses, mini-busses, pedi-cabs, etc.) and a gigantic can-opener before the majority of people of all stripes get out of their cages choose to rely on public transportation for their daily needs.
right now public transportation really sucks for most people in this city and most people who can afford it, perfer a crappy 1 hour drive to a crappy 2 hour bus ride.
trickmilla11.27.07 - 8:19 pm
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I respect bus drivers. I think the bus is useful. But I have no respect for the BRU.
ephemerae11.27.07 - 8:47 pm
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btw/ as far as all the bullshit excuses as to why LA can't have a world class subway system consider Mexico City the capitol of a 3rd world country .. bigger than LA, built on a swamp that's on top of a old volcano and the subway goes everywhere ... last i checked it was about 15¢ us ... the bus is more, i think they do a private/public thing and the busses cost 20¢ they also have tons of mini busses and taxis and taxi busses.
The only thing lacking in making LA a world class city in terms of public tranportation is WILL.
trickmilla11.27.07 - 8:47 pm
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Why is it that some people can't discuss the BRU without either redbaiting them or mentioning Eric Mann's salary? It's not like there's any shortage of easily refutable and wrongheaded assertions in the BRU's platform, yet most of their detractors are even less skilled than they are at making a simple
ad rem argument. It's like watching the Flat Earth Society being denounced by the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth.
PC11.28.07 - 3:39 am
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I should also add that no matter what quibbles one may have with the BRU or their leadership, this demonstration is a good thing and they deserve props for organizing it.
More busses,
More trains,
more bikes,
and less Global Warming
and less Global Warring
i don't wanna move to Alaska
i heard they have a shitty public transportation system.
trickmilla11.28.07 - 9:23 am
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We should go with signs like 'more bike less pollution'.
bike punk11.28.07 - 10:44 am
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trckmilla,
Consider my mind changed.
Those are good enough reasons to support this effort.
I didn't mean to accusse the BRU of being pinko commies, but their opposition to light rail really pissed me off when I read about it in the paper.
ubrayj0211.28.07 - 10:46 am
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Damn I hate this either or mentality with so many arguments.
The bus system ideally should work together with the subway (aka metro) system to feed the metro system. The metro system in turn feeds the bus system. One does not live without the other. At least that has been my observation in some of the world's cities I've been to that have an efficient system.
User111.28.07 - 1:18 pm
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great discussion.
I posted it mostly because of the general message of coming together against global warming.
We will never find total common ground with possible allies.
On some level, like global warming, we can agree we need to act at every level, literally, figuratively, actively, spiritually.
So it is was the BRU that put the call out to fight global warming.
Hey I'm down.
I don't have to join their organization but I can support this idea, which is also mine.
P-300011.28.07 - 10:01 pm
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oooops bad typo finger!
I meant to write at the end of the last sentence that I agree with the idea.
Anyhow I thought that bike riders, who also fight global warming, would want to come and represent.
If I can make, I will be there with my bike.
P-300011.28.07 - 10:04 pm
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I found this article by Daniel Friedman
"Subway to the Sea is not the solution"
thinkpeace11.28.07 - 10:47 pm
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Let me try again....
I found this article by Daniel Friedman
"Subway to the Sea is not the solution"
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_27_29/ai_n19394944
I tend to agree 10-billion to build 14 miles of subway is not a wise use of our tax dollars. A dedicated busway like the orange line can be built far cheaper and more quickly than a subway. Daniel Friedman also brought up the issues of the higher costs of maintaining a subway and issues of saftey.
I'm only somewhat familiar with the Bus Riders Union, and although they may not be right on everything, I feel they are an allies of bike advocates.
I'll try to make it, though 3:30 is kind of early for a weekday.
thinkpeace11.28.07 - 10:49 pm
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Well, LA is right next to a big, damned, ocean.
I say we draw up a lottery and demolish a few lines of freeway.
In their place, use a big-ass dredger to make miles of "ferry-canal" ways.
Use ocean water for the canal ways and the incoming current to move the ferrys around.
Depending on the speed of the current, it can/can't be a fast way to get around.
Or Hell, implement those "Pedal Boats" from that other thread.
Someone could pedal the boat, whilst tugging several "lazy-river tubes".
Now this 'ere, is my personal alternative for reasons unbeknownst to even myself.
bentstrider11.29.07 - 1:09 am
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thinkpeace wrote:
I found this article by Daniel Friedman
"Subway to the Sea is not the solution"
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_27_29/ai_n19394944
Utter bloody rubbish. Fucking laughable. What's less funny is the fact that UCLA saw fit to give this guy a master's degree in urban planning. One wonders whether this "urban planner" has ever actually been to any of the world's great cites, where millions upon millions of people have been happily riding subways for a hundred years without being overly troubled by the fact that the operator of the train is not within earshot. His fiscal argument against a subway reads like something out of an editorial piece from some small town right-wing newspaper. It's going to cost MONEY to build a subway! Money that the guv'mint will have to take out of YOUR PAYCHECK! ...as distinct from the money that the guv'mint has been taking out of people's paychecks for a half century to subsidize freeway construction and urban sprawl, eh, Adam Smith Jr.?
PC11.29.07 - 4:58 am
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@pc
A small town, right-wing, newspaper is what I would call the
"Daily Press" up here in Victimville.
The thoughts and opinions on things I read in there are quite laughable.
Most of the OP/ED consists of, "bring the fuel prices down", or "we get the troops home, the evildoers will follow.", or "the county better hurry up on that new overpass!".
So, on and so, forth.
bentstrider11.29.07 - 5:16 am
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The problem with alot of naysayers when they are argue against expanding the metro system is that they don't get challenged on their estimates on the cost per mile. Sure it's expensive to go under ground and build the system, but who saids we have to go under ground? Why not use the roads that we already have a right a way to? These are public roads and should serve all the public. This will eventually happen when fossil fuels becomes scarce and prohibitive to use. The government can also make it too expensive to use fossil fuels. So the roads become less conjusted with fewer cars. Why not add metro lines in the fast lane? This also the case for highways. LA county as a whole could handle the highway lines and each city could control how they handle the traffic coming off these main lines.
There isn't a problem with building and expanding the metro lines if they build them on existing traffic lines. I don't claim to know the cost to do this, but I would venture to guess it would be 1/10 or less per mile than going under ground.
User111.30.07 - 12:30 am
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Also at play in this long standing debate about public transportation in Los Angeles is big business and racism.
Big business made LA the car culture capital of the world way back in the day. Look up how Goodyear, car manufacturers and oil companies killed the red lines here in LA that got you anywhere you wanted. See 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' for a very thin overview of this. We as citizens growing up with this icon of the auto, are addicted to our cars. I am to a degree. It will take just as much PR and time to reverse this. Being fun loving bike riders helps.
Racism today has kept railsand some bus lines from getting to the Westside and other rich white enclaves. The argument is that then 'those' people will be able to hop on a train and get off im my neighborhood and rob me. Even in the downtown area, residents of Spring St. stoppped the northbound bus line from coming and dropping off South Central residents in front of their too cool lofts.
There is more to this than money, politics and will. Our psychology, fears and old bad habits get in the way too.
BUT screw that.
The Earth is in trouble, and thus we are too. Lets join some fight to help our mother Earth.
P-300011.30.07 - 9:58 am
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Whenever the red car comes up I have to offer this visual.
its been almost 20 years since the MTA strated trying to build rail lines
and look what a pathetic
And look how little they have done in that time toward recovering what we once had.
trickmilla11.30.07 - 1:45 pm
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Ridazz Roulette!
