Reading Richard Cathcart’s long Letter to the Editor, published in the Leader on March 23, where he doesn’t get to the point of his complaints against all things modern until the ninth paragraph, he cries out “small town America is our desire, not to become a ghastly SoCal traffic grid.”
What Mr. Cathcart and so many others who have screamed from the rooftops over the plans to create a fast-moving bus lane along Burbank’s Olive Avenue fail to understand is that it is a vital linchpin for the L.A. Metro transit system to move riders quickly and smoothly from the North Hollywood subway station through Glendale, Eagle Rock and on to Pasadena. The bus lane will also permit safer bicycling along its path.
The almighty automobile has dominated life in L.A. since the 1950s, but serious efforts are now being made by far-sighted public officials to create public transportation that is convenient and reliable enough to encourage commuters to leave their cars at home and help reduce the kinds of emissions that is destroying the planet and creating the dire threat of global warming.
In the end, I hope that people like Mr. Cathcart will give public transportation the chance to succeed and stop loudly complaining about progress.
Doug Weiskopf
Burbank
First published in the April 6 print issue of the Burbank Leader.
