Good Ol' Community Journalism
January 24, 2005 by Eric Richardson
The local community paper Canyon News today has a short piece titled "Downtown Skyscraper to be Built." Fascinating, if true, but I have to think this building isn't to be. As I posted ten days ago on blogdowntown, the PR piece that "unveiled" the building seems nothing more than a ploy for somebody to hire the company. — Continue Reading...
a morning hike
January 23, 2005 by Eric Richardson
So yesterday morning Kathy and I followed the lead of Will Campbell and took a hike in Bronson Canyon Park. The trail Will talks about was easy enough to find, but at times the "trail" was more concept than absolute: at one spot in particular we stopped for several minutes, thoroughly confused, before finding that the trail continued directly up the streambed. A good time, and much thanks to Will for blogging about his hike and thereby giving us the idea. — Continue Reading...
The TripMaster 5000 Needs a Tune-Up
January 21, 2005 by Eric Richardson
I was looking up some transit routes from my apartment to work just a minute ago and clicked on the "Advanced Trip Planner" link on the Metro's home page. It appears they're rolling out a new application here, and feature-wise it seems pretty cool. But when it comes to bugs, good programming, and usability -- egads. — Continue Reading...
Flexcar: Quick Response; Still Waiting
January 20, 2005 by Eric Richardson
Continuing my thread on Flexcar... I got a few quick responses to questions I had about the service. William del Valle, their SoCal GM, indicated that most current usage of the Downtown cars is during the day. That leads me to believe it's largely business people using the cars during the day after using transit to get here. It's also good since my usage would be the opposite: nights and weekends. He also said that their LA service is again starting to expand, though more slowly (and I might add realistically) than the first time. — Continue Reading...
Yikes... It's Them
January 19, 2005 by Eric Richardson
So I come into my Urban Transportation Planning class tonight (a few minutes late, thanks to traffic on Figueroa that made my 81 bus late) and find a girl from the Bus Riders Union presenting about an upcoming conference they're holding. Normally I'm pretty hesitant to express unequivocal dislike here, but I don't like the BRU. I ride buses all the time, and as of a couple days ago I guess I'm officially "transit-dependent", but when it comes to the BRU... well... I just don't like them. I'm sure they had a place back in the time of the consent decree, but the BRU these days is just a little nuts.