Letter to the Editor:
In 1996, I moved my business about 10 miles from Montrose to Burbank. At the time, my little shop was called ACME Comics. For a short period it became House of Mystery until I finally settled on House of Secrets, located at 1930 West Olive Avenue.
Running a small business is not always easy, and the pandemic certainly did not help. However, when your business is your passion, like comics are for me, you fight for it! Today, I am fighting for my passion and my business by voicing my opposition to Metro’s “NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit” Plan.
My beef with this proposal starts with the way Metro conducted community outreach, or rather a complete lack thereof. As someone who owns a business on Olive along part of the 1.3-mile route Metro is proposing to use, I was never consulted, much less asked for my opinion. This utter and complete lack of communication, and frankly respect, is an experience echoed by many of my fellow Olive stakeholders. And that is truly unfortunate because we will be the ones most impacted by the addition of dedicated bus lanes either on the curb (“Curb Running”) or in the middle of traffic (“Side Running”).
If removing all our parking or taking away half our travel lanes are our only options, we don’t support BRT! I object to both “Curb Running” and “Side Running,” as do most of us, but Metro would have known that years ago had they bothered to ask! These options for dedicated bus lanes purport to shave less than 2 minutes off travel time through Burbank. Sorry, but that’s not worth the harm to our businesses nor the detrimental impact on the quality of life for our residential neighbors. Not by a longshot!
I understand Metro is planning to vote on this plan as early as January of next year. I hope Burbank’s City Council stands their ground, supports their own staff, and firmly opposes the BRT. Protect your constituents from BAD POLICY!
Paul Grimshaw
House of Secrets
Spot on! Hopefully more affected businesses and the many residents that will suffer from overflowing business customers parking in front of their houses will voice their objections too. People living in and working in Burbank need to protect our beautiful little city.
Hello Paul,
I conduct community watch patrols and have been for many months. They occur at dinner time or later and sometimes on the weekend.
The Metro buses are always empty. Burbank does not have much ridership. I heard that LA has more riders but we don’t.
Look at the proof:
https://youtu.be/GO-p2Jd11Qc
https://youtu.be/u6Lgwk-mLlk
https://youtu.be/JE7hhjrYbiw
https://youtu.be/dnKApyC_p5g
https://youtu.be/J5zxOoEfA7s
In my opinion, this is not a good use of taxpayer money. These are essentially limos for a few people now. I recommended to the County that they partner with Lyft and Uber to provide the disabled and ultra-low income persons with a subsidized ride pass and in my view that would save us all a lot of money and eliminate the need for more infrastructure.
No one got back to me…
Christopher, your comment here suffers from a case of anecdotal insanity. I could go around right now and film completely packed buses during peak hours too. Nearly a million people ride the bus *daily* in Los Angeles. Are buses packed all the time? No. Are they limos for a few? Also no.
It’s time to support BRT in LA. We need the bus system to modernize to be more attractive to riders. Each city and neighborhood along the route saying “no” will keep the bus just as slow as it is now. It’s time for LA transit to improve and we need to get onboard with it happening all around LA, including in *our* neighborhoods.
Also, have you never heard of Metro Micro? Or Metro’s previous agreement with Via? They already do on-demand rides with services that operate like Uber and Lyft. They didn’t respond to you because they already do it.
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