Good Golly, Miss Mollie!

I just happened to notice a sign at the register at my local Mollie Stone's grocery store:

Mollie Stone's has decided to take a positive, aggressive approach to help stop the spread of smoking.

As of today, October 5, Mollie Stone's will no longer offer tobacco products for sale.

We respect your right to smoke and thank you for understanding our position.

Now I have no quarrel with Mollie Stone's selling whatever products it thinks will move off its shelves.  If MS doesn't want the hassle of selling tobacco products--checking ID, collecting the various taxes that the federal, state and local government imposes on smokers, etc., who can blame them? 

No.  What really urks me is the unctuous, sanctimonious way they deliver the bad news to all those Marlboro men out there.

Mollie Stone's has decided to take a positive, aggressive approach to help stop the spread of smoking.

Mollie Stone's as guardian of society's values.  What the heck is a "positive, aggressive approach" anyway?  Positive and aggressive aren't two words that are usually paired in a sentence.  I imagine Mollie Stone as the ur-Mill Valley house wife, casual blouse and sweater, expensively understated jewelry, slacks and loafers, hands on hips, forced smile and slightly furrowed brow, standing in front of her BMW SUV--Look, guys I'm REALLY TRYING to be positive here...just don't cross me or I might get aggressive...

The other part that bothers me is the defiant yet insincere nod to individual rights. 

We respect your right to smoke and thank you for understanding our position.

Mollie seems to be saying "Hey, pal, you made your choice and we made ours; now get over it".  The whole thing strikes me as a bit defensive.  And no, Mollie, I don't understand your position. It's not consistent.  If you want to go around taking positive, aggressive approaches to health issues why not stop offering red meat for sale to take a positive, aggressive approach to heart disease? Or stop offering liquor for sale to take a positive, aggressive approach to alcoholism?  Or stop offering candy for sale as a positive, aggressive approach to diabetes?  Now here's a chilling thought for the day after Halloween:  Maybe those are the next things to go on Mollie's list....

The Procrustean Bed of Jonathan Kozol

In Greek mythology, Procrustes was a bandit from Attica who lived in the hills outside Eleusis where he had an iron bed.  He would kidnap unwary passers-by and force them to lay in his bed.  If they were too tall, he would chop them down to size; if they were too short they would be painfully stretched to fit. It was a no-win situation for Procrustes' victims; no one ever fit because the bed was adjustable; Procrustes would size up his victims beforehand and adjust the bed to insure they would be too tall or too short.

Educrat Jonathan Kozol is a latter day Procrustes.  His "bed" is racial equality in the schools. In his latest book The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America Kozol argues that socio-economic stratification is leading the country's schools back to a pre Brown v. Board of Education era.  And there is no measure that is too draconian for Kozol to take in pursuit of perfect equality.  In an interview with the Sacramento News & Reviews this is Kozol's response to the observation that resegregation is largely the result of housing patterns:

At the same time that we battle to integrate public schools across district lines, we also have to launch a relentless attack upon residential segregation--of which the real-estate industry is the architect. It’s time to enforce housing laws vigorously, to stop the notorious racial steering that goes on. Give a heavy tax advantage--a major deduction on mortgage interest, for example--to families that purchase homes in racially mixed communities or to families that don’t flee from newly mixed communities.”

For forty years the Civil Rights Act has made it against the law to put whites only clauses in mortgage documents. Today, people live among members of their own racial or ethnic group by choice.  It was not an evil, racist real-estate industry that steered ethnic Taiwanese into buying property in Monterey Park, California; they chose to move from Taipei to the San Gabriel Valley in large numbers so they could enjoy a suburban, Southern California life among people who spoke their language and shared their cultural values. Leave it to a radical egalitarian like Kozol (who also happens to be a white male) to tell people of color what's good for them.  Now who's a bigot?

Jamison's Excellent Adventure

I was surprised and delighted to read in San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty's newsletter that Jamison Wieser was appointed to the MTA's Citizen's Advisory Committee by Mayor Gavin Newsom at Dufty's behest. Back in May, I had the pleasure of meeting Jamison over coffee, and found him to be a well-spoken and very informed advocate of public transit.  Jamison is an excellent pick--smart, savvy and not one to be ground under by the machinations of city government.  Gavin scores a goal with an assist from Bevan!  Congratulations, Jamison!  

Not so Marvelous Marin II

At first blush, Golden Gate Transit seems like an ideal system.  Clean, cushy buses and swift ferry boats that whisk commuters from their sylvan suburbs north of the Golden Gate to their offices in downtown San Francisco and back again--what could be better?  It even runs on schedule (pretty much).  And yet, and yet...after taking GGT to my evening classes at Dominican University of California for more than a year, I have noticed some serious issues that make it less than ideal.

Take the policy of not letting passengers exit throught the back door.  What's up with that?  Most transit system encourage--insist even that disembarking passengers use the back door.  Muni even has a recorded voice that instructs passengers to do just that. But if a passenger moves to the back door on GGT, the bus driver ignores him or her.  The passenger asks to be let off.  The bus driver tells him to move to the front door. The bus sits and waits, getting further behind schedule Why?  I asked a bus driver.  The bewhiskered old geezer's non-answer boiled down to "because that's the way it's done".  I called GGT and no one seems to have an answer, or if they do they're not saying.  It's a mystery...

And take the new schedule.  It seems like a good thing.  All departures on the hour and half hour from the major transfer points.  The #33 bus that formerly took me from the San Rafael Transit Center to Dominican was eliminated in favor of the new #49, a main line that runs to Novato on the hour and serves the area later in the evening than before.  Plus, a new shuttle to Santa Venetia, the #233 that runs every hour on the half hour, effectively doubling service to Dominican.  I should be happy...except the other day the #80 was running late, so I get to the Transit Center just in time to see the #49 pulling away.  Arrrgh!!!  Fortunately, the #45 that runs up Lincoln hadn't left yet, so I get close to where I'm going, kinda sorta....  Dear GGT, if you are going to make timed transfers, then buses should wait up to five minutes beyond their scheduled departure times for other buses before they depart.

And then there is the shuttle, which is operated by Marin Airporter, and is apparently a closely held secret.  No mention of it in the new GGT schedules; no signage at the Transit Center. I asked around and was finally pointed to it by a transit cognoscenti.  I know that they are different systems, but because they are transit partners, it would be in GGT's best interest to promote the other service, but no they pretend like it doesn't exist!  And don't get me started on the southbound stop at Grand and Elm in San Rafael that has been missing for almost a year...  I've come to the conclusion that GGT is a transit system designed by people who have never ridden a bus; they learned about them in school..

Closely Watched Trains

The Train Riders Association of California (TRAC) is making a big stink about the abysmal on-time performance of Amtrak's Coast Starlight, or as it is known to its less that affectionate riders the Coast Star-late.  After a big TRAC press conference at the Sacramento Amtrak station, the issue received some coverage in the press.  Typical of the passenger responses were these Letters to the Editor; one person looking forward to a relaxing journey free from the stresses of airplane travel found instead bad food, surly Amtrak employees and creepy stalkers.  She will never take a train again as long as she lives.  The other person waxed on about the beautiful views, roomy seats and tasty snacks; no matter that the train arrived five hours late.

TRAC is right--the Star-late is broken, but it has gotten so bad that it may be beyond the fix they are demanding.  One problem is that while TRAC is a California organization the Star-late traverses three states, making it no one state's responsibility:

A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said the governor doesn't have jurisdiction over the Coast Starlight's problems because it is not a state-operated train. Instead, he said, "The governor concentrates his efforts on areas where he has jurisdiction, like improving the intercity rail system."

In other words "not my problem".  And considering that by many accounts President Bush wants to scrap long-haul passenger trains altogether, there will be little to no help forthcoming from Washington, although perhaps the Congressional representatives from Washington, Oregon and California could manage to throw some pork at the Star-late.

But that would be a temporary fix at best.  There are simply too many problems inherent in long-haul passenger trains that make them unfeasible as a mode of transportation for anyone other than die-hard railfans--they take too long and they cost too much.  As a dedicated rider of the Capitol Corridor, Urbanities thinks the money wasted on long-haul trains could be much better used to develop a system of short to medium haul passenger trains.  For example in lieu of the Star-Late, imagine:

• Improved service on the Amtrak Cascades, with connecting buses to Astoria, Hoquiam, Mt. Rainier and Yakima.
• The Oregonian - A new service from Portland to Medford, Oregon with stops in Portland, Oregon City, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene, Roseburg, Grant's Pass and Medford, and connecting buses to Burns, Coos Bay, Klamath Falls and Redding, California.
• The Sacramentan - A new service from Sacramento to Redding, with stops in Marysville/Yuba City, Chico, Red Bluff and Redding and connecting buses to Eureka, Grass Valley, Mt. Lassen and Mt. Shasta.
• The Pacific Shoreliner - A Northern California version of the highly successful Pacific Surfliner that travels from San Diego to San Luis Obispo.  The Shoreliner would begin where the Surfliner leaves off, traveling from San Luis Obispo to Oakland, with stops in Paso Robles, King City, Salinas, Pajaro/Watsonville Junction, Gilroy, San Jose and Oakland and connecting buses to Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Monterey and Santa Cruz.

The new trains would be better equipped to find state and local funding sources.  People are more willing to pay their hard-earned tax money on things that will actually benefit them.  And the new trains would have shorter routes than the Star-late, so they would not be subject to as many delays along the line, giving them better on-time performance. 

With the increased difficulties posed by airplane travel, rail travel will become a more viable option--but it is high-speed rail, not the Star-late that will be the solution.