You’re sitting on the spanking new gorgeous Orange Line bus, the one that travels along the beautifully landscaped, fully dedicated Busway. It’s a sunny day, the bus is uncrowded, you decide to open the LA Times and catch up with the news on your way to North Hollywood.
As the bus gains speed, you suddenly are aware of an annoying intrusion of robotic sounding voices. It is called Transit TV and it broadcasts loudly into every Orange Line bus. There are advertisements for trade schools, banal weather and sports casters whose voice is automatically designed to increase in volume as the bus goes faster. You can no longer read your newspaper in peace or enjoy this brief moment of aloneness. You are a captive of TransitTV.
There is something insidious, rude and completely disrespectful in allowing a private company to install televisions in a bus. It is the polar opposite of an ipod because you cannot escape the drivel, you must endure it. It would be like Metro installing open bags of foul smelling dog doo in every bus. You would try and hold your nose, but the smell would get worse until the bus ride ended and then you would jump out and thank the Lord.
That is what Transit TV is: an assault on the senses.
Here in Van Nuys 