Thanks to Caesar E. Chavez and the holiday named in his honor, trains and buses were not only empty but eerily quiet. We actually managed four full stops before anyone decided to join us in our car.
The trip back, however, took a whopping two hours when one would normally do, thanks to Opening Day at Dodgers Stadium.
What's the similarity? Both legs of the round-trip ride were relatively empty.
Public transportation is a wonderful thing. We all pay into it and reap the savings in gas and occasionally time while sitting in traffic. The problem is that so few people ever ride the system to make it stand out and shine. (Yes, the rail even shines in Compton!)
With gas prices at all-time highs, the freeways as squeezed for space as ever, carbon dioxide feeding global warming, and road rage reaching horrific benchmarks, I would think commuters would have reason enough to make the full METRO conversion. But, alas, we still find ourselves short.
L.A. Times columnist David Lazarus recently offered some radical advice in this article to drive up the number of METRO riders while driving down oil consumption. Among his suggestions were significant changes from speed limits and hourly road closures to cutting oil subsidies and broadening the traditional workplace.
Radical thoughts, but sometimes it's needed to get the conversation moving toward real change.
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