[PRCo] A summer trip through the west

[Fred Schneider]

For those who care about the travels of the wanderer ... her is the
account of six weeks charging around the western United States and
Canada.

Some of you receiving this note have been selected deliberately to see
what comments this might flush out.  Feel free to add your opinions to
mine.

The trip.  Well I'm worn out.  Saturday afternoon I went up to take a
nap at 1:30 and woke up
at 6:00.  Drove 9,022 miles.  Never made a trip of that length without
some problem.  Replaced disks and rotors at Fort Collins, Colo. on the
way home and made two oil changes enroute. Tried to drive over concrete
log in a parking lot in Vancouver BC and found out how weak the front of
the car is ... about $1,000 damage to the plastic front below the
bumper.  Come look at it.

But I did pretty well stay on the tentative non-schedule ... ironically
I was never off by more
than 75 miles and I picked up an extra day at the very end because I was
able to
get through Pittsburgh and pick up my computer without staying over
night.  Met
some nice people.  Learned a few things.

I remain convinced that the Ugly American is alive and well, even on our
own continent.  I was particularly irritated by how we treat our
Canadian neighbors.  If I look at Canadian television, I can find out
the weather in Philadelphia.  If I look at United States television, we
cut off the weather at the border.  Mexico and Canada don't exist, even
though many of our weather systems come through Canada or Mexico. I can
hear about U. S. politics on Canadian television, but I cannot hear
Canadian news on U. S. television.  The Canadians generally know where
Pennsylvania is,  Or California.  Or Wyoming.  But American televisions
and magazines simply say Regina, Canada and never Regina,
Saskatchewan.   I am particularly disturbed because 90% of Canadians
live receive United States broadcasts in their homes.  When I mentioned
my observation to several Canadians, I received comments ranging from
agreement with me to half hearted attempts at telling me the U. S. has a
right to be dominant.  Bull shit. No one has a right to make enemies.

Non rail:  Went through Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan but had
no time
for the Ford Museum or the monorail or the heritage trolley line
downtown
Detroit. Did you know that the Ford Motor Company built 8 or 10 brand
new Model T Fords last year for operation in the museum?   Mackinaw
Island was cool and pleasant.  Liked the drive across western
Canada.  Vancouver is a very pretty city.  I have concluded that Canada
is very
fragmented with little intercourse between east and west ... almost no
traffic on
the highway around Lake Superior.  I opine that it is four countries or
maybe
five:  the Francophones, the Maritimes, Ontario, and the Rest of
Canada.  John Bromley is free to argue with me.

Southern California is out of control ... the San Diegans drive like the

Lancastrians ... neither can accept the fact that they no longer live in
small
towns.  There is no freeway in the Southland that is uncongested.  To
avoid I-5, I
went from LA to San Diego through Riverside ... no better .... still six
lanes of
mayhem.  Las Vegas ... no I didn't drop any money but I couldn't help
wonder what
would happen to its 1.2 million inhabitants if California legalized
gambling.
Bused through Zion National Park (you cannot drive in the summer months
because
the "Do Gooders" are telling us how to live).  Saw Arches National
Monument and
took a two mile hike to see an arch (in a rain too).   Salt Lake City
population
also out of control.  Weather stinking hot ... most days between 90 and
114
degrees Fahrenheit except the day in San Francisco was in the high
70s.   I
believe it was the World War Two era news commentator Ernie Pyle who
quipped,
"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."  Entire
west
looks like the Golden State because of the drought.

Traction:  Calgary --- photographed the extension to the south; looked
at the
construction to the north.  Still one heck of a nice city.

Vancouver:  Skytrain is a cute toy but hasn't the needed capacity.
Bombardier, the builder, however never planned it as anything more than
a airport terminal connector.  Had a good
Indian dinner and met a real nice trolley bus operator who pointed out
all the
prostitutes on the street.

Seattle:  I need someone to explain to me the logic of running dual
service vehicles for 20 miles on a freeway (the only part under wires is
in the subway tunnel downtown).

Portland - a great traction city which I concluded happens because there
are so few blacks that the whites continued to shop downtown instead of
fleeing to a suburban mall.  The railway just capitalized on what was
already there ... stores, restaurants, theaters.  Don't blame the
messenger here.  It is the only reason I can conceive for the
unqualified success of the light rail lines. I'm not the racist here.
The usual rules simply don't apply.

Sacramento - still a rush hour trolley operation...no heavy off peak
loading...some rush hour trains are
now up to four cars (four three-section artics) which stretch more than
a full city block.  Remember, it is a state capital city, and government
workers need to congregate together to hold meetings when they get
lonely.  Then they all need to go home at once.  Then the city can die.

San Francisco:  The F line varies from seated loads in the off peak to
as many
people as you can pack into a PCC in the rush hour...I mean "crush"
loads.
Looked at the extension of the N line to the replacement for Candlestick
Park and
to the Caltrain (nee SP) station ... it was the tail end of the rush by
then and I
have no idea how well it works in the rush or when the ball park is
open.  BART
has settled down to a real part of the society ... even the new
Dumbarton -
Pleasanton line hauls people all day long (in spite of a $4.30 cent one
way fare
into San Francisco).  BART has now agreed to extend the Hayward line
south to San
Jose and the Daly City end to SFO.  The state is in the process of
electrifying
the old Espee line from SF to San Jose (which should reduce the time on
the 50
mile line under the present 90 minutes).

San Jose:  My opinion has not changed.  Still an LRT operation that
should not
be.  No passengers.  After running excessive empty service for years,
they
abolished owl cars the first week of July and reduced the day time
service from 10 to 15 minute headways
(30 to 60 might be proper).  The owl service was allegedly popular with
the
homeless who could scrape together enough for a monthly pass or a $3 or
$4 day
ticket.  (I know there will be someone out there who will tell me how
vastly successful this system is, but its success isn't in terms of the
volume of passengers carried.)

Los Angeles:  This was a city needing mass transit.  A quarter century
ago the bus routes on Wilshire Blvd and Hollywood Blvd carried huge
crowds.  The Red Line (the
subway to Hollywood and North Hollywood)  was hauling standing loads on
Sunday
morning when Don Duke and I rode it.  I understand the Blue Line (Long
Beach) is now
up to 70,000 passengers every weekday.  The Green Line (Century Blvd.)
is a weak
performer on weekends but apparently does well on weekdays in spite of
the fact
that it was ruled out of LAX.  I'll be delighted to go back for the Gold
Line opening to Pasadena.

San Diego:  This has been around so long that the early cars look like
Pittsburgh
equipment in the 1960s ... the primer is showing under the red paint!
Even
though they need a hundred barrels of paint, the cars do what they were
purchased
to do ... haul people.  The whimsy is still there ... the sign on the
end of the
elevated last station on the Mission Valley Line reads "TO BE
CONTINUED."   The
we build, they shall follow theme works.  The Santee Extension ended no
where.
Malls are now going in all around it.  Met an interesting transit cop in
San
Diego who discussed profiling with me.  I pointed  to the east line on a
map and
remarked something about it not being a good neighborhood.  he remarked,
"Very
bad ... all Black ... they all carry guns ... we had to put one down at
22nd St.
this morning."  He want on to describe the San Ysidro line ... "Mostly
Mexicans
... carry knives."  Up in Mission Valley, "They're all white.  We have
some
problem with store robbers around closing time."  The policeman was
black.  In spite of the opinions of the ALCU, CORE, AACP, this man was
telling me that profiling his own people worked.

Salt Lake City:  They run like a desert breeze.  I remember reading
early this year of an accident where a
girl wiped out her car by driving around the crossing gates.
Her lawyer suggested bankruptcy because Utah Transit Authority was suing
her.
She didn't carry enough insurance to pay the damages to their light rail

car.  She followed the advise of counsel.  Then she found the bankruptcy
wiped her out of college because
she couldn't borrow money.  A motorman told me what I hadn't seen in the
papers
... she later found out that bankruptcy didn't protect her from UTA
because
government debts come first.  I'm also reminded of the answer when Simon

Bamberger was asked why he ran his trains at 50 mph through North Sale
Lake: "You
must keep the motorists suitably intimidated." Well TRAX does that.
Interesting
operation that serves downtown and the college but I wonder why it
doesn't run
another mile into the state capitol complex.   I've heard a lot of
positive
comments about TRAX but I hesitate to be too affirmative if we look at
their
share of all passenger/vehicle miles in the corridors in which their
cars run.

Fort Collins, Colorado:  That restored Birney car is the sweetest little
toy
anywhere.  Nothing quite beats riding down a grassy mall in a small city
where
the cars ran before.  A whole city mile through the streets.  Best
interpretive
tool I've ever seen.  People get on and off anywhere.  Did I say small
city?  I
think it is around 125,000 now ... maybe more. It is part of the
continuous
sprawl along the Front Range.

Denver:  I didn't ride it.  I noted that the Union Station branch has
opened,
which adds one more trolley line to the list serving amusement parks.  I
remember
UMTA telling Los Angeles that they could not put a station at the
Hollywood Bowl
and that, if they did so using their own funds, the feds would deduct
the value from
the basic grant on the theme that they didn't need the federal money if
they
could afford to pay for the station on their own.  The basic purpose of
the Union
Station Branch of the Denver system is to serve an amusement park, the
Pepsi
Center, and several other entertainment centers.  Hmmm.  Bus service
appears well
integrated with LRT.  The northeast line appears to be social
engineering.  The
south end uses the old ATSF/DRGW alignment through a host of older
suburban towns
all the way to Littleton.  The newer and more affluent neighborhoods
appeared to be a drive or a bus ride away from the line.  (We wouldn't
want trolleys in our neighborhood, now would we?)

St. Louis:  Looked at the line to the east.  It appears to work and work
well.  I
would suggest that over 4,000 free parking spaces and an artificially
low fare are the
keys.  The fare?  $1.25 all the way from Southern Illinois College east
of
Belleville to the airport on the other side of St. Louis, a distance of
about 30
miles.  Most parking lots are full.  They also have long term parking (a
week) for those
going across town to catch a plane.  In contrast to the western part of
the Bi
State trolley line, which is urban in character, the east end is rural
and
suburban ... I managed several pictures of trains among the soybeans and
corn
stalks.  My mind cries out for an answer.  How many people would ride if
the fare was $10 to the airport and the long term parking was $5 a day?
Is it transit's job to replace downtown parking lots?

Thanks Ken, Bruce, Don, Jack, and all the rest of you who made it a
great vacation.

And I'll wait for the flack.