Time to Think
Nonetheless, you’d think a great city like L.A., which is also called the “creative capital of the world,” would come up with an all-American BIG IDEA solution for our horrendous traffic problems.
To the contrary, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a 30-year career politician, took a trip at taxpayers’ expense a few years ago to Curitiba, Brazil.
He copied that city’s bus riding ideas on the back of a cocktail napkin.
He returned to L.A. and flaunted his simple solution as being a cheap alternative to building a modern mass transit system.
Common Sense Takes a Holiday
In defiance of common sense and equal justice, he took away one-third of the traffic lanes on super-busy and world-famous Wilshire Boulevard and converted them into separate and exclusive Bus and Bike Only lanes at the burdened expense of all motorists.
With such a discriminatory doctrine as this, the question begs:
How can Mr. Yaroslavsky possibly be expected to enforce equal opportunity at the place of work when he doesn’t even enforce it on the commute to work?
Rationale Is Shameless
While he totally disregards his fiduciary responsibility to serve the best interests of the majority of his constituents, the imperious Supervisor dedicated these exclusive and privileged lanes to the less than 5 percent of bus commuters and minuscule bicycle riders.
His shameless rationale is that motorists will eventually get tired of sitting in the comfort and privacy of their own car while being stuck in gridlock.
Ultimately, he surmises, motorists will prefer riding in crowded buses with total strangers or riding a bicycle. And he proclaims all this with a straight face while calling himself a “progressive” politician.
Equal Opportunity? Poof
Not only does the Supervisor’s regressive plan punish 95 percent of L.A.’s commuters by forcing them into even more unbearable gridlock than previously, but he has unilaterally denied the greatest majority of our citizenry their right to equal opportunity on a public-funded facility.
Perhaps he has forgotten that L.A.s freeways and roadways are funded by gasoline taxes paid by motorists, while also subsidizing virtually all of our public transportation, including buses.
Equality Is a Casualty
So, in truth, even though fellow motorists essentially own Wilshire Boulevard, they are being denied equal access on this famed thoroughfare.
Think about this: Motorists are paying to subsidize public bus transportation, yet bus riders are getting special privileges at the stressful and time-lost hardship of motorists.
Where’s the outrage over this schismatic and gross injustice?
We Have Had Enough
It’s time to bring an end to Supervisor Yaroslavsky’s divisive doctrine that rewards a select few who conform to his bus and bicycle doctrine while penalizing motorists who choose not to adapt or are simply unable to conform?
Tragically, this special privilege defies a motorist his or her U.S. Constitutional right to the equal protection of our laws. Moreover, his discriminatory doctrine defies the fundamental principle of American democracy, which Andrew Jackson described as “Equal opportunity for all and special privileges for none.”
We Need a Reminder
Even worse, he overreaches the separate but equal laws of a darker time in American history as the Supervisor’s bus only doctrine extends far beyond with separate and unequal restraints placed against our citizens on a public-funded boulevard.
With government policy like this, it’s becoming more and more difficult to believe that we are still living in America where our national creed is supposed to be, “With Liberty and Justice for All.”
