This is part 1 in an expose of public transportation and cycling in a major metropolitan area that is NOT public trans or cycling friendly.
While reading the August edition of Bicycling magazine, I saw a small blurb about a study mentioning that immigrants are the highest rising demographic of cyclists in the U.S. I found this to be really interesting and wanted to know more, so I reached out directly to the doctorate candidate at UCLA that is doing the research, and he agreed to be interviewed.
In honor of this interview, I figured I should take public transporation to meet him in downtown Los Angeles. Now, there is only about 20 miles between where I live and downtown LA, which I could have biked (although not safely, there are some sketchy neighborhoods I’d have to go through) but I didn’t want to show up all sweaty and gross.
A more observant person would have noticed this is a bus
So! I stared at metro.net for almost an hour. Here I am, college edumacated [sic] and over half done with my master’s, and metro.net just had me confounded.
I decided to not bike to the metro station, and drive instead. I go to what I thought was my local metro station – turns out it’s a maintenance only station. No humans board trains there.
Ohhh kay. So I find the next station. Park my car in a lot that seems a half mile away from the train station, and haul my butt forever over to the station. Now I’m starting to sweat. Board a train; part 1, success!
Now, I’m from Boston. When they say things like ‘take the green line to the red line’, we all know they are talkin’ bout subways. Apparently here in LA, taking the green line to the silver line means you get off a metro train and onto a freakin’ bus. This took me awhile to figure out; I kept looking for another metro entrance.
Also, EVERY BUS in LA has a silver color on it! So.. which is THE silver line!?
I digress. I wanted to share some photos of the transition area where I sat and waited for the silver line.
What is going on here? Are those giant gum wads stuck to the side of this giant pillar? Hideous public art at it's worst
I feel oppressed here
I am under like, three highways.
I eventually made it in one sticky sweaty piece to the interview at the Lost Souls cafe (great name) in downtown, alive but late.
Part 2 will have the interview!!
Public transportation in LA is not easy. It's almost as if they purposefully make it harder to take public transportation. I did not know immigrants were the highest demographic for cyclist. Look forward to reading the interview and thanks for sharing.
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