Day Four of 14 Days of Gracious Reflection (Note: these messages are not meant to be derogatory in nature, they are just my opinion after some reflection. Sorry this one is so long... it is literary styling to mimic the amount of time spent in traffic. ;) ) Grease for Gridlock? After an hour in the shuttle from the airport (LAX) to the hotel in Long Beach, I was wondering to myself when we would ever get to the hotel. We boarded the Super Shuttle at 11:15am at LAX and on the map it read that our hotel was 22 miles (give or take) away. Just getting out of the airport was a major effort because of traffic. It was like a stirred up fire ant bed trying to recover from someone stepping in it. Peoples attitudes were just as vicious as a fire ant bite, but mine would be too if I had just been in the traffic that they had been in. As we drove around Compton (Yes, you read that correctly. One of our shared ride passengers was being dropped off at his grandmothers house so we got the Grand Rap Locale Tour free of charge. 2Pacs California Love was on repeat in my head-- In the citaaay, the city of Compton, we keep it rockin...), I began wondering when we would reach our destination of 22 miles as the clock ticked by. We arrived at our hotel at 1:45pm. (Doing the math, 22 miles in 150 minutes equates to between 14-15 miles per hour. To be fair, we did stop 2 times which accounted for maybe 5 minutes per stop. That brings our average speed to between 15-16 miles per hour.) This was a result of gridlock as far as the eye could see. What caused all of this gridlock? It can easily be chocked up to the fact that all the areas that we visited had an average population density of between 7500-12,000 people per sq mile and Mississippi has a population density of 63 people per sq mile. So I am not used to these close confines. All of these people have to go to work, go to school, go shopping, etc. In turn, they have to be on the road. I have visited other areas around the US and the traffic has never been this bad. Keep in mind, I have driven in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington DC, New York City, The Eastern Seaboard Megalopolis, and various other cities so I am not just the fellow that loads the dogs up in the pick up truck and heads out with broken tail lights in the middle of a country road doing some Sunday Driving. As it turns out, there was a (sinister?) plot by GM, Mack Trucks, Standard Oil, and a few other major players spanning from roughly 1922-1966 to destroy (or convert depending on your personal view) public transportation as the country knew it at the time. (See GM Streetcar Scandal Conspiracy or just watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit) Electric railway lines (trolleys) were bought up and dismantled while every politician in sight was bought off with Cadillacs for political favors. One of the most devastated (converted) areas was the Southern California area. The freeways in Los Angeles were once serviced by the Red Car line of trolleys. The lines were scrapped and the roads were built. The plot also destroyed the LARy (Los Angeles Railway) which served the Central LA area and surrounding areas. Why would they do this? Because gas was cheap, greed was incited, population density was not as heavy as it was today, and the major players were losing revenues to electric transportation that was turning a profit. The major corporations would buy up the lines after paying off officials with Cadillacs, convert them to bus lines, contract that only their products could be used, and then spin the corporations back out to privately held corporations leaving them in a profit deficit because the bus lines were 300% less efficient than electric lines. . The other side of the story is that bus lines were more efficient at taking care of urban sprawl. Whatever the case may be, it lead to alot of grease money that resulted in gridlock. I hope the Cadillacs were comfortable because the elected officials were in turn spending alot more time in them. They were later indicted and forced to pay $1.00 in most cases for taking bribes. I must give credit where credit is due. The City of Long Beach offers the Passport bus line which is a free bus service around the resort area of the city to move cash-laden tourists around more efficiently so that more money can be spent. The bus line connected to hotels, shops, the convention center, and nothing else. The buses, as we found out, were less than reliable. I stood at a bus stop for 45 minutes waiting on a bus before a friend of mine came rushing by in a taxi saying the buses were not running due to a car show in the area. I had already called the bus company and visited the web site and was assured that the bus was just running late, but was on its way. I just barely made it for my class, but I guess you get what you pay for, right? The same applies to the fact that if you give your government too much power, you will get what you pay for. I have always been told be careful what you pray for, you just may get it! So what does this have to do with gratitude? I am grateful that I live somewhere that I do not have to plan 5 hours for a round trip drive that would take me 45 minutes to travel in Mississippi. In 5 hours, I could drive to New Orleans (130 or so miles away), stay an hour, and come back home instead of just driving to Wal-Mart in Brookhaven. I believe time is precious and can be better spent beyond sitting in a car. Life is too short to sit in traffic. I do wish we had more public transportation here to help save the environment. Maybe we can convince Toyota to give away some Priuses so that they can build electric/hybrid bus lines out in the country? Just a thought...
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 13:53:18 +0000
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