Re “Almost with a Smile, West Accepts Bus Sked Compromise. Residents Don’t”
Dear Ari,
If it is “not entirely clear why a small but quite vocal band of homeowners is erupting now to protest,” why not ask?
I gave you my card at a City Council meeting last September. I'm easy to track down, easy to Google. Just call me or e-mail me. Or, better, listen to our statements at the City Council meetings.
Seems like you're satisfied with your own snide point of view rather than citing what we're actually saying.
As for bus service onto the West Los Angeles College campus probably predating the residency of most Lakeside residents, what does that matter?
PXP wells predate virtually all of us, but if they create a nuisance, we all have a right to object.
Truth is, we've been complaining about bus noise for several years. Why? Because we are fed up with it. What does it matter if this noise has existed for 10 minutes or 20 years? We've made it very clear in our statements how it affects our lives.
Perhaps you have swallowed the college's well-rehearsed lines that this issue is about “access to education.”
It's not.
It's about unnecessary bus noise.
We don't complain about the routine noises associated with campus life, including vehicle traffic, baseball games, etc. They are part of the fabric of campus life. The buses are extraordinarily loud and utterly unnecessary. I repeat: utterly unnecessary. The campus entrance is well served by Culver CityBus and will continue to be.
There is NO reduction in service to the entrance to campus.
But 120 buses a day rolling right onto the campus to save a small number of students a four-minute walk? Unnecessary.
As for that walk, no one ever said, quoting your slanted characterization, that “young, healthy, energetic college-age students should be able to handily cover the hillside campus on foot.”
We have said that ANYONE who is not disabled can easily handle THE DISTANCE THAT THE BUSES COVER.
It's a four-minute walk if you lollygag, on a very gentle slope, from the Overland/Freshman bus stop to where the buses currently drop riders off on campus. After that, the walking gets a little steeper. It's a seven-minute walk (including waiting for a light change) from the farther stop by Denny's.
But that stop could probably be relocated closer. These times are my wife's walking times. She is 63 years old and has traumatic arthritis in both feet.
So we're talking about a few minutes' walking time for a small number of bus riders vs. a gross intrusion into the lives of hundreds of residents, hundreds of times a day.
Also, no matter how you slice it, taxpayers pay 80 percent of the tab. Whether it comes from regional or federal grants, we pay for it.
As for truly disabled people, I quote once again a letter from the city to the college I have cited numerous times: “It is the City's position that it is the responsibility of the College to provide those with disabilities access to the College campus and facilities.”
The college has the means and the obligation to serve those very few who are unable to make this simple walk. The college already serves disabled bus riders. We're simply suggesting that the service extend to the bus stop at the campus entrance.
Bob
Ari Noonan responds: Thank you for your reflective letter. Thoughtfully and persuasively, you have covered every corner of the debate that had occurred to me, but one perhaps errantly.
You and I may shlep across the campus, back and forth on foot, craving the exercise. The generation behind us is not so inclined. I was married once to a princess who wanted to drive next door, providing me with one of the two smiles I enjoyed during our years together. May I offer one overarching reason and two satellites for continuing bus service:
1. Cross-campus bus service, we are told, has been embedded in the culture of West for the last 25 years, and it will take more will than I have seen to reverse it. For the foreseeable future, turning West into an exclusively pedestrian campus falls into the category of unbreaking a window and unringing a bell.
2. The aforementioned generation’s aversion to walking when wheels are available.
3. Married students with families, working and going to school, may mean arriving a minute or two before class begins.
Mr. Howells may be contacted at bob@howells.com
