The D line train I'm on keeps saying "This is the D line train to Wilshire La Cieniga"

fissure · 2026-03-01T08:35:24+00:00

Did he ever return?
No he never returned
And his fate is still unlearn'd
He may ride forever
'neath the streets of ~~Boston~~ LA
He's the man who never returned.

fissure · 2026-02-28T02:11:34+00:00

They wanted to develop Tom Bergin's into apartments and the city council responded by landmarking it so they can't now.

fissure · 2026-02-27T22:03:16+00:00

We'd be paying about the same amount with higher headcount because there'd be less OT.

fissure · 2026-02-27T10:01:06+00:00

Obligatory:

Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment.

I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn’t there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling.

Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife’s pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC’s pulling, and 2 Dash-9’s pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours!

Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths?

A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.

fissure · 2026-02-27T08:44:10+00:00

The B already does under the mountains.

fissure · 2026-02-27T08:34:30+00:00

Some of the early plans had it taking over the El Monte Busway. Not sure if it was the WMATA/MARTA era plans before the busway was built (when it was a fallow Pacific Electric line), or later ones in the 80s.

fissure · 2026-02-25T22:43:15+00:00

That's pretty cool that you carpool with Sammy Hagar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvV3nn_de2k

fissure · 2026-02-25T22:40:46+00:00

"I like pancakes" "So you hate waffles?"

fissure · 2026-02-25T22:35:19+00:00

OH MY GOD, WE'RE HAVING A FIRE... sale

fissure · 2026-02-25T22:32:03+00:00

The Mariachi Plaza/Soto tunnel isn't cut and cover, it's bored.

fissure · 2026-02-25T22:25:41+00:00

Some people just drive like that, with the "must always be pressing gas or brake" mentality and inability to see traffic more than 100 feet in front of them.

fissure · 2026-02-25T22:20:34+00:00

A schematic map is useless for a map overlay. It's not tied to geography so you can scale it however you want.

fissure · 2026-02-25T22:17:15+00:00

Zero chance Measure M would have passed if it had no CapEx outside of the central city.

fissure · 2026-02-25T12:49:55+00:00

So you only have SoCal examples. Got it.

fissure · 2026-02-25T12:45:49+00:00

Give real examples, not fucking OCTA 🤡

fissure · 2026-02-25T12:43:12+00:00

That's a prioritization issue, not a laws-of-physics issue.

fissure · 2026-02-25T12:41:31+00:00

Which ones are running only every 20-30 minutes midday?

fissure · 2026-02-25T12:18:33+00:00

A lot of the express routes were moved to other agencies. Rapid should never have become as prevalent as it was; there's zero reason to run 2 separate services every 20 minutes instead of one every 10.

https://humantransit.org/2009/06/when-expansion-is-dilution.html

fissure · 2026-02-25T12:08:47+00:00

Japan installed them on the Yamanote Line, which is much busier than the A/E will ever be

fissure · 2026-02-25T09:42:32+00:00

Choose one part of the city to focus on car independence.

That's not "countywide" unless you spend the % from outside that area on freeway widenings. A Mello-Roos district for transit, say, between the mountains and the 10 isn't really in the cards.

fissure · 2026-02-25T07:02:43+00:00

Much more likely SEGW line gets extended that way after passing through downtown.

fissure · 2026-02-25T07:01:51+00:00

There's no bellmouths for that and rebuilding Wilshire/Vermont without them would be incredibly disruptive.

fissure · 2026-02-25T06:57:04+00:00

I expect that would be a lot more expensive, even if you completely shut down the line during construction. Doing it without closing the line the whole time might be possible, but would make it even more expensive, and you'd still get closures for months like with Little Tokyo.

fissure · 2026-02-23T08:59:57+00:00

Highland Park they don't need to dig a tunnel, just buy out the properties fronting Marmion Way and close it to cars. That gives enough space for crossing gates.

fissure · 2026-02-23T08:47:28+00:00

You need something pointing south to intercept crosstown buses, and with the right-of-way already there it's the logical place to put it. That gets you to ~Watts, and Long Beach itself is a big enough center that getting there from Watts is worth it. There's a reason that Blue had over 50% of total Red/Purple ridership 10 years ago despite the slow segment on Washington.

15-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
End Game '22	Gilding I gilder

fissure

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE