California wants its residents out of its cars. If you think that is a good thing, read no further. Bike away until you're 95. Walk everywhere. Be a sardine in public transportation. I did that part, when I was a New Yorker, for 20 plus of my 27 years of life there. So, I do know whereof I speak when it comes to the wonders of government run transit in a big city. Yes, if you have the infrastructure connections, you can get anywhere. But it won't be pleasant.
But it is a mandate, like it or not, of our glorious California politicians, to create a New York type system in a place like Los Angeles, which was built, for the car culture. How to get us there? Make driving as unpleasant as possible. We thus can go from one orchestrated unpleasant experience to another unpleasant orchestrated experience in the name of progress.
While the public transit is being built, the car roads are being neglected. And where they are being built, by the by, are obstacle courses day and night on the major drags that will become stations in years to come. Here in Los Angeles it is La Cienega, Wilshire, Fairfax--serious main streets. And then, there is the building, often near where the stations are scheduled to be, large boxes in the noisiest areas, replacing the once beautiful traditional homes.
The other day I had an appointment in North Hollywood. There was not a street, great or small, where some public worker was not digging while five or six others watched him. Cones, slow down signs, detours. I tried to take off streets and even on those, I was blocked and waited.
I have been hit, twice, in 2017, spun around by a driver with an Uber tag (she said she wasn't on an Uber run at the time; ironic as Uber is one of the golden solutions to the too many cars problem) from the West Bound to the East Bound Santa Monica Boulevard, and lucky not to be pounded once I landed. That was February. Then just a couple of weeks ago, I am waiting for traffic to move on Fairfax Avenue and someone runs into me--a startling shot, with damage that adds up to over $1,000.00, but wasn't quite as dramatic. It has occurred to me to give in, get out of my car, and begin to rely on others, Lyft, Uber, Cabs, friends, to get me from A to B, only because it is nerve racking. It doesn't have to be. Driving was once pleasant in Los Angeles and not that long ago. And while it might be more tolerable to be waiting for buses and trains in the warmer clime of California, I will be waiting, along with the multitude, while a government employee slows so as to maintain some arbitrary schedule, or passes me by because the bus is too crowded to accommodate. I will become a dependent in yet another aspect of my life.
The solution is not to force me to rely on others to go from A to B. The solution is to fix the roads, to widen them, to enforce license requirements, to be sure that people who get licenses can understand the traffic signs, to make better, more environmentally friendly cars (which is being done), to end bike lanes where people swerve, listen to music and hold everyone up--to stop the social engineering. No one signals anymore. There is tailgating. And speeding. And plain old discourtesy. Puts me in mind of the moment on Fairfax the other day when I let a car ahead of me on a narrowing construction zone, when a blonde millennial in a large SUV pushed me out of the way so she could also go ahead of me. If I hadn't moved, she would simply have hit me. She waved her slender hand out of the window to "thank me" for succumbing to her youthful aggression. These true microaggressions are considered small fry in the area of law enforcement so the rules aren't enforced. Enforce them!
My love for Los Angeles has been eroded in the last 34 years. I stay here now purely because of the weather and because at this stage in life, relocating to a place where I know no one seems imprudent. My opinion doesn't count. Slowly I am becoming accepting of that fact. At least, when I am fully relieved of the right to drive, I live in a neighborhood that allows me to walk to various stores that I will need to survive in my dotage. I won't be able to go far, as I won't have a car, but I probably won't need to, since I will be old and thus, completely insignificant. The further destruction of Los Angeles will be safely in the hands of those with the keys to power and brainwashing.
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