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ART OF TRANSIT: Four swans visiting Union Station last week. Check out Metro’s promotion with the Music Center for tickets to “Swan Lake” by clicking on the photo. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

Metro removes “Red Band Society” ad over offensive language (The Wrap)

Metro staff announced they were pulling the ad on Wednesday after receiving numerous complaints about the way that Octavia Spencer’s character was described in the ad.

Metro officials said that the contractor who sells ad space on buses didn’t properly vet the ad with Metro before it went up. Metro Board Chair Eric Garcetti apologized for the ad at a Board committee meeting yesterday and Board Members said there’s a need to better oversee which ads end up on Metro buses. Also, coverage in the L.A. Times.

Who’s on board? (TransitCenter)

Perhaps the most interesting finding of this new survey is:

Americans under 30 are 2.3 times more likely to ride public transit than Americans age 30-60, and 7.2 times more likely than Americans over 60. Even after controlling for other factors, older people are less likely to ride transit than younger people.

That certainly jibes with trends in recent years that have received a lot of media attention — with millennials less interested in driving than their parents and more interested in living in cities. The question: what will transit agencies do about it? The findings certainly suggest, at the least, that transit agencies need to have their act together on social media and that other little thing — offer service that complements the lifestyle of those 30 and under.

How’s Metro doing on that front, people? Comment please.

At continent’s edge, an epic rail ride concludes (Grist)

The concluding post by Heather Smith on her recent cross-country ride on Amtrak. These two graphs are great and relate to the previous item in today’s headlines:

Stories like this, about rehabilitated towns, fascinate me: I spent my teens and early twenties feeling like a member of a subculture of a subculture of subculture, all because I loved walkable cities and hated driving. Where was the place for surly punks who wore all black and read Jane Jacobs? Where was the place, come to think of it, for anyone who read Jane Jacobs?

It’s a surreal feeling to realize how my teenage ideas aren’t that out-there any more, and that a lot of cities in America are places where I’d be happy living. I know from experience that this could all disappear, like the road bike fad of the ’70s, but I hope that it lasts.

Why do planners love charging for parking and not congestion? (Urban theory and practice)

Lisa Schweitzer of USC asks a provocative question and offers an answer: charging for parking is relatively easy and contributes to depleted municipal coffers whereas congestion pricing is a much more difficult sell politically. The discussion continues in the comments.

The post reminded me of something UCLA Brian Taylor said during the Zocalo Public Square forum earlier this year on the SR-710 Study and a possible freeway tunnel for the 710 between Alhambra and Pasadena. Brian’s point: congestion in our region could be fixed today if there was congestion pricing that tolled the freeways to discourage everyone from trying to drive somewhere during peak hours. He’s probably right, as is Lisa: that’s like ask our local pols to climb Mt. Everest without supplemental oxygen or Sherpas.

Fun video posted last month: