New to mass transit? We want to hear from you

Gas prices are up and so is mass transit ridership. If you're new to taking mass transit in Southern California, we're curious about a few things:

Is this a temporary move or do you plan to stick with the bus or the train?

How much money are you saving, if any?

Is your commute faster or slower and by how much?

Overall, what do you think of the level of transit service? What would you change?

Feel free to leave a comment below or send your answers to steve.hymon@latimes.com and joe.mozingo@latimes.com. Joe is working on a story about new transit riders and it's something I plan to post about on this blog. Please include a phone number in the e-mail at which we can reach you.

-- Steve Hymon

Comments

[M]

Cathy - I am exactly the person you talk about when you mention your college-educated, professional-type friends. I don't know if I could have expressed the situation better than you!

I came out here for college and did well without a car. I walked where I needed to go and my world was fairly small. Now my world is a bit bigger. I am happy on my bike, feet and on the trains, but it takes a lot of planning and effort to end up in the situation where these things are reasonable or even possible modes of transportation.

For the year I drove to work, it was a 15-25 minute drive in each direction. Now the train ride between the same home/work destinations takes 50 minutes and always includes at least a 10 minute wait when transferring trains and 15 minutes of walking to my work/home for a total of 75 min each way on a good day. (I recently calculated that I spend 12 hours a year simply waiting at the traffic lights between my work and the train station!)

Luckily I like reading, there is a library near my work and I don't have any kids, but otherwise there is no way I could deal with this life. I have to plan my bike rides carefully and try to go out early in the mornings to avoid traffic. I can't bring my bike to work on the trains to run errands or visit people, buses stop running too early for me to get home from work in a theoretically more direct/faster manner and are too unreliable. I rarely go out at night because I can't get home on public transportation or safely bike home and I rarely see some friends living only 20 miles away because getting to them with public transportation or biking is incredibly time consuming or unsafe, but it shouldn't be that way. I talk to people while walking or riding the train, but overall my social life has suffered as the result of taking up a way of life that includes walking, biking and riding public transportation.

I have a lot of hope for LA and am doing my best to make it a better place to live. I don't want to live in a place that is nothing more than an overpriced, polluted trash heap jammed with cars next to some mountains and an ocean that I can't access or see. I don't think anyone wants to live in such a place. However, there is a point where I know it will get to be too much for me if things don't change - whether it be mentally or health-wise. I could be putting all of this effort into a city and community that actually wants these things and is willing to grow and change in such ways. If I decide to have children, there is no way I would subject a baby to the living conditions I have to deal with (very close to the freeway). My friends know it, I know it and maybe a lot of other people know it subconsciously. I really hope my solution isn't to move away to another city, but each year I get a little closer to leaving.

[Cathy]

It is not just the poor who take public transit. The working poor can't afford the bus. I have 3 friends who are all single women with kids. 2 are widows and raised their own kids, now raising grandkids. One is younger. They strive for a better life and work 2 or 3 jobs at a time, take
the kids to school and activities. Their time is too precious to be waiting around for buses that don't come. The result is they drive cars that are probably unsafe, or too polluting because they can't afford better. Soon they will be defeated by the rising fuel prices.

There is a new generation of young people that want to save the environment and are willing to ride bicycles or buses - now. If we don't have a working transit system in place until 2030, the city will lose them.
Most of my college-educated, professional-type friends came here for school or a job, and have since left - not to live in the 'burbs with their car culture, but to small towns that you can walk or bike across,or cities with decent public transportation. They know that here in LA they can't afford the life they want and they don't want a life-draining 2hr each way commute from the burbs.
It makes you wonder, who is coming to live in LA? The very rich can have the lives they want. They also have enough political clout to prevent taxation. The very poor come for the only opportunity they perceive they have and you can't get much money out of them. The "middle
class," which pays most of the taxes, is leaving.
So, we can wait until gas is so expensive that only the rich can drive and they have the streets to themselves (wonder what they will do when there is no one doing the jobs that the middle and working classes do) or we could build a system that is usable by the working and middle class and keep them here and attract more tax revenue. But we need to do it now. And we need to reform or discard MTA. If you are just reading their reports on their web site, you need to out there and
see what is really happening. Buses don't run - I mean that they don't start out on their route. The driver is parked and asleep somewhere, or MTA management just cuts some bus times and figures that the poor people left in the lurch won't complain to anyone or won't be believed.

[Dan]

I don't ride the bus regularly, but I have ridden it occasionally into work. First, it's very cheap. Torrance Transit fares are 50 cents. I have a short commute, and gas prices don't bother me that much, but just for comparison, gas for that trip in the car takes $1.70 and even my motorcycle takes $1.00. If i were paying the Metro fare, it would be a wash.
It takes over double the time compared to driving, and that's with no transfers and a reasonably short walk (under 1/2 mi) on both ends. I would take it more often, but I'm not a morning person, and it's not easy waking up a half hour early. If I had to make a transfer, the bus would be useless.

[Rich]

Cathy,

In answer to your question re "What does it take to revamp Metro?" I believe the answer is this:
People who truly care more about improving the quality of life for all within its service area. What we have now is a system which is merely good enough to serve those who are desperately transit dependent. Until we have a regional system which provides service for everyone, Metro will continue to be only a safety net for those without a car. I also have a transit horror story. Attempting to return home from a church event required 2 buses to traverse the 2.5 miles. We apparently missed a connection and then had to wait more than an hour because the next bus was late. Of course, when I called Metro to see when the next bus was due, they were closed. Two hours to travel 2.5 miles. In hindsight, my son may have proved wiser than me when I recall his asking me in half-way through our wait, "why don't we just walk?

[Rich]

John,

I would respectfully have to disagree. I don't think the societal toll of poor infrastructure is worth any perceived reductions of carbon footprints. In other words, is it worth making life a living hell for existing residents in order to foster an environment conducive to ZPG? There has to be a better way!

[Cathy]

Interesting that most of the comments seem to be about theory. Here is an actual experience.
Last Saturday night, I decided to take the bus from Hollywood, where I live, to West LA near Wilshire and Barrington, a distance of 6.8 miles. I have a car, but wanted to reduce my carbon footprint, not have to look for parking, and my arrival and departure times were flexible. I started about 7 p.m. and caught a 704 rapid bus on Santa Monica and Fairfax right away. It took
a few minutes for the bus driver to throw off a homeless person, complete with all his smelly possessions, and we were on our way in air-conditioned comfort. The connection at Santa Monica and Wilshire was easy to another rapid bus 720. I got to my destination in about half an hour.
I expected a longer wait to go back when I headed out at 10 p.m., but the bus schedules on metro.net show buses about every 15-20 minutes and after all, this is the heart of the city. But I got to the bus stop where people were waiting, a good sign that I hadn't just missed a bus. We
waited for over half an hour, while 2 westbound metro rapids went by , and then one regular Wilshire bus. When the bus finally came, it was packed with standing room only. This was one of the big articulated buses. I transfered again at Santa Monica and Wilshire and waited with a bunch of other people on the dark street corner. Traffic whizzed by. We waited about 45 minutes for a #4 bus. It was also packed, to the point that I could not get in the front door, but had to go in a back door waving my day pass in the direction of the driver and I had to stand pressed tightly against people for the ride back to Hollywood. The bus only stopped when people wanted to get off, passing large numbers of people waiting to board the bus at numerous stops.
I had a relatively frivolous reason for riding, but I pity the mother with 2 children, the old woman who had to stand, and the others on bus who had no choice, and probably are not going to write to the LATimes about their experiences. The 6.8 mile trip took me 2 hours.

Now, supposedly money is being spent already to run these buses on schedule. I ride the bus a lot and it is always like this. The money is going to waste and people are suffering. What does it take to revamp Metro?

[Dan W.]

Despite John's ridiculous entreaty for zero population growth, three million more people are expected to migrate to Los Angeles County over the next three decades.

The ONLY responsible way to deal with this is building more transit line and recentralizing development along major transit corridors.

Even if we had zero population growth, the best way to reduce our carbon footprint is to provide a public transit alternative to the ever declining-in-quality car culture.

Of course, the automobile-entitled will somehow twist logic to convince themselves that everyone driving a single-occupancy vehicle will somehow reduce our carbon footprint.

[Tony Fernandez]

John, you must realize that zero population growth is impossible. People are coming into this state no matter what, so we have to provide the necessary infrastructure for these people. This does not mean more freeway construction, as that kind of growth is not sustainable. We should be promoting density in urban villages connected by rail lines and promoting pedestrianization and cycling. Once we do that, we can handle much more people in a much more efficient way than we do now with less people.

[KateNonymous]

John, why not go for negative population growth? Let's just start killing people. That will lighten the load on infrastructure. Well, not on the funeral industry, of course.

We need to stop thinking of solutions in isolation. Interdepartmental teams should target specific parts of town, based on local needs. The Expo line should have clean connections to local bus lines long its route, regardless of agency. Housing should not be developed without access to supermarkets and other stores, libraries and public parks and pools--within walking distance. L.A. should be a livable city regardless of how many people live here. There's no reason it can't be, if we make good choices.

[dick bohanon]

why is getting to any of the local airports
such a hassle using transit.
from the west valley getting to lax or burbank is
a multi-hour endeavour that has no assurance
of timely success.
why is there no easy way from north hollywood metro
station to burbank?
if van nuys flyaway busses are full by terminal 4 @lax
why aren't additional busses assigned?
why do i have to call the dispatchers for the flyaway to inform them of this situation?
why is there no easy way to get from
orange line to the van nuys flyaway?
i guess since politicians and their financial supporters
dont do public transit these issues are not important
i"ll be driving my car from now on regardless of cost
because the dependabilty of mass transit is too questionable.

[John]

More infrastructure improvement, including mass transportation, simply enables the continued overpopulation of our state and thus should be resisted. That is the only way ultimately to reduce our carbon footprint. Zero population growth is the only way to go.