Blathr Wayne Lorentz

Today a guy walked up to me at the train station and asked if I knew how much the fine was for not paying to ride the train. I told him I thought it was $75.00.

“Two hundred dollars!” he proudly corrected me. He then explained how thrilled he was to hear that if you donʼt pay to ride the train, there are fare inspectors on patrol to hand out $200 tickets.

I tried to explain to him that if someone canʼt afford $1.50 to ride the train, they probably canʼt afford to pay a $200 fine, but he couldnʼt hear me over the sound of his own vindictive superiority.

When I lived in Washington, I once asked an Orca bus driver on a smoke break why he let vagrants board the bus without paying. He very briefly explained to me that the purpose of a transit system is to move people around, not to make money.

Thinking about it later, I started to understand that while a transit systemʼs recovery rate is an interesting measure of something, itʼs perhaps not a useful measurement of anything. Moving people around is good for a cityʼs economy. The economic impact of free movement to a society is of the reasons why various levels of government subsidize car and truck travel to the tune of trillions of dollars each year in the United States.

It would be interesting to see the same fervor that is used to prop up the auto and road construction industries applied to railroads and public transit.

If your crappy taxi can only handle “two fat chicks,” then perhaps you should do a better job of maintaining it.

Iʼve long moaned about how Houston is a city that would rather spend a lot of money tearing things down and rebuilding them, than spend a little money maintaining what it already has. Since Iʼve returned to the city, I see it over and over again.

This is the latest example. These are warning lights that were embedded into the stop lines of streets that cross Metroʼs Red Line downtown. They were pretty neat when the train first ran, taking the flashing lights usually hanging beneath a grade crossingʼs crossbuck, and putting them into the street, itself, nice and tidy. The resulting wigwag light pattern both alerts drivers to the approach of a train, and also lets them know where to stop.

That is, if theyʼre working. Which theyʼre not. None of them work anymore. I wrote to Robert Gallegos, my elected city councilman asking what happened to them.

Not only did he not respond to my letter, his office didnʼt even acknowledge its receipt. Having previously lived in Chicagoʼs 42nd Ward under its very responsive Alderman Brendan Reilly, Iʼm surprised that a local politician would simply ignore a constituent. I guess Mr. Gallegos doesnʼt need my vote.

Back to work day. The window never fails to entertain.

California license plate. Must be a local.

Itʼs nice to be a passenger for a change. Too bad thereʼs nothing to see

If the garage gives me a free limo ride home, I should probably worry about the repair bill, right?

What a cancelled vacation looks like.