Reviews and Comments

A good summary of the post Pacific Electric era of transit in LA COUNTY (important distinction). It's written in a direct style, and doesn't have as many personal accounts as I would have liked, but covers all the bases. It also explains why the system is so hap hazard and things weren't built when you would expect them to.

I was/am a big supporter of Metro, I even rode on the opening day of the Expo line to Santa Monica! But I don't think I could've read this while I was still living there. My support was external, internally I was constantly frustrated with it. Reading about how Metro essentially treated the bus system a lower tier thing matched with my experiences (being the one who volunteered to stand at the back doors of an ancient bus to close the doors at each stop so the operator didn't have to get up and do it themselves and waste time). I think the idea of rail transit is good, but it can't be the thing that somehow fixes bad land use in the first place. The south-west arm of the green line is still a ghost town when it doesn't have to be, for example. Countless times I would get on there and be the only one for several stops, on a work day!

LA is relatively flat and had wide roads. Investing in a bus/bike system that could radiate from hot spots seems like it would have been a better approach. The fact that at the bare minimum every Metro Rapid bus line doesn't have bus only lanes is the low hanging fruit that could've made things so much better.

BUT dealing with the 70+ cities in LA county combined with car culture just doesn't seem like a thing that can be overcome. The blue/green/expo all generally feel out of place or isolated in their own right, and then fighting with cars at street level for this level of investment is...incomprehensible to me.

Getting off a train to an environment that's still built at the scale of cars is not a nice experience, it feels like being dropped off in the middle of a desert each time (with the exception of the downtown LA stops, downtown Long Beach, or Santa Monica). You feel very vulnerable compared to systems in other "real cities".

It'll be strange not having the TYOLJ on my mind or on my 'To Read' shelf; I spent basically the past year reading all of Robert Caro's work and his writing single-handedly renewed my interest in books, and exposed me to not just different genres of books but to different perspectives as well. The fifth book is the only book I've ever looked forward to.

As for The Passage of Power, it was a solid story, as expected. The detail and writing style really feels like someone who was there for the entire thing has sat you down and is telling it to you personally. My only hiccups were that the section where the actual passage of the tax and civil rights bills happened felt rushed, but I guess the mechanics of the vote weren't really the point in this book like they were in Master of the Senate.

Ignoring everything else, it was satisfying to see Lyndon at the helm after so many hours of reading about his yearning for the Presidency, and it felt like "justice" when he was able to wield it so effectively for civil rights and for things in the spirit of FDR's legacy. I imagine the next book will change my view of him, though.