Train dreams and bus wishes

My mass transit life is on a downward spiral.

In May I started taking public transporation to work when I could. And back then I could fairly often -- two to three days a week. It was our "quiet" time when it's possible to leave right on time, or even a few minutes early, to catch the bus. I was leaving traffic and congestion behind and living the life.

But lately my public transporation commitment has been tested. We've gotten busier at work and I've started twice-weekly rugby practices, which I need to drive to. So now I'm down to taking public transportation just one day a week.

It would be more convenient to drive every day but I'm trying to stick to one day a week. For one, I want to save on gas. Even with prices back to what I was paying in May, it still ain't cheap. But my real motivation is to do more than just talk the talk of an environmentalist. It'll get harder again as summer fades and it gets darker sooner. I think it should still be safe but I have a feeling I won't be quite as carefree (and by that I mean zoned out reading the paper or listening to the shows I've podcasted) going through Watts and Compton on my way home.

The other day at the bar after rugby practice, one of my teammates mentioned that she carpools to work in Glendale. She lives in Long Beach too and I know she's been carpooling for years, way before it became cool because of global warming/high gas prices. She said she could take the train but it would take way too long. How long, I asked. Two hours. Man I felt like the uncool kid -- why was I putting up with these long trips? And this was a day after I'd worked late with a student and then ended up taking the train with her and giving her a ride home to San Pedro from where my car was parked at a Blue Line station. That meant I wasn't home to Long Beach until 9 p.m. My teammate is probably right that carpooling is better, but I don't think I can carpool since I wouldn't have as much flexibiltiy. But maybe I should keep an open mind. I used to say that taking public transporation wasn't an option because my office isn't near a rail line stop, but I've proven myself wrong. Well, kind of.

I wish LA had a better public transportation system so it was faster and easier to get around. Having to transfer from a fairly fast rail line to a bus really slows things down. And even with my office moving later this year to a slightly closer location, it'll still take just as long (and require two stinkin' transfers). I was asked today by someone why I lived so far from where I work. I told him I loved living in Long Beach. I've said that for four years and it's still true, but I'm definitely tired of driving to work and, at the moment, of my alternative.

One less paper cup on the way to the landfill ... almost

What inspired me to start this blog was coming back from Coffee Bean with a funny story about environmentalism gone awry.

At Christmas one of the former students at my work gave the editors Thomas Kinkade gift baskets with a mug, tea and sugar swizzle stick. Say what you will about whether mass produced art is really art, these mugs were great. Tall and thin, they were the perfect size for an experiment I'd been wanting to try.

One day I took my mug and walked next door to The Coffee Bean, where I treat myself to a latte about once a week. At the counter I told the girl, "Small mocha latte, half powder. And can you put it in my mug?" The young girl behind the counter looked a little confused, but said OK. My chest was bursting with pride. "I'm doing good for the environment," I thought. Then I watched in horror as they made my latte in a paper cup and then proceeded to pour the drink into my mug and THROW THE CUP AWAY. When I explained to them that I had wanted to save them from having to use a paper cup (which isn't recyclable), they claimed that the mug was too big to fit under their machine (hogwash! It's shorter than the commuter mugs they sell). I couldn't wait to run back upstairs to my office and tell my coworkers about my failed attempt and laugh at the idiocy of these alleged baristas. (And on top of it all, the commuter cup discount is only 10 cents. I'd been all ready for my green plan to be a bargain to boot.)

I'm happy to report that things are better now. The second time I tried, I held up my mug and said in a slow and clear voice, "I'd like you to make it IN my mug." And then the barista, one of the competent ones, made it in my mug just fine. Since then I've had no mix-ups. And last time I was there I discovered BYOM had gone from "secret" menu to mainstream. There on the drink blackboard was a note saying drinks made in commuter mugs get .10 cents off.

Half the time I forget to grab the mug when I go on my coffee run, but when I do remember I feel good about not killing a tree for a cup with a life span of a few hours. I just have to walk slowly so I don't spill coffee all over myself on the way back to my office.

The 720

Sometimes when I'm on the bus and the minutes are ticking ever more quickly toward 9 a.m., I wonder if there's a faster way to get to work using mass transit than my current route of the Blue Line and 16 bus. I chose the route because of it's simplicity (hey, just one transfer!). The rail portion isn't so bad but the mere seven-mile bus ride that takes 35 minutes slows things down. I also wouldn't mind incorporating more walking since that's one of the benefits to using public transportation, but with 30 miles to go morning and evening, that has the potential to really slow things down.

One alternative route is taking the 720, the Rapid bus that runs along Wilshire. On a bit of a lark, I decided to try it yesterday after work. I left the office and didn't feel a bit of remorse as I headed off to Wilshire and La Brea, even when two 16 buses passed me. I was enjoying my .8-mile walk through the neighborhood just south of my office.

Google maps, with it's awesome new feature of showing walking routes, said it would take me 17 minutes. I got to the Rapid stop in 15 -- take that Google maps! There were about a dozen people waiting in the hot sun. A fancy schmancy electronic sign told me a bus was coming in three minutes. The bus came but then, in classic bus horror-story fashion, it passed right on by. I looked at the sign again and saw I had five more minutes to kill until the next bus. It was about this time that my walking high wore off. I stared across the street at a building with a pilates studio, thinking I could be there instead of wasting time on this street corner, one more missed bus away from becoming one of those sweaty bus people.

The next bus stopped and we all piled on. Some people jumped on through the rear doors. I used the front door since it was my first time on a Rapid bus and didn't know if that was against the rules.

That worked out because I had the best view on the bus. I stood next to the bus driver and got to watch the street ahead through the giant windshield. I felt like a passenger in a car since we barely made stops (just one at Crenshaw). It was the closest feeling to driving I've had on a bus, even with standing, my foot touching someone else's foot and my back lightly caressing the person behind me (but he was cute so that was OK).

I got off at Western and Wilshire, bolted for the Red Line station and waited just a few minutes before the train pulled away. Eight minutes later I was back on familiar ground, the downtown 7th Street Metro Station. I got off the train and looked at my watch. I had missed the 6:46 p.m. Blue Line train by a minute. One damn minute! If only that first 720 had stopped.

I got back to Long Beach at 7:33, pretty much the same arrival time as my old route. So in theory this walk-bus-train-train route would be faster if I could catch the 720 right away and didn't have to wait much for the trains, but lets get real folks.

I might take this route again on a day I feel like walking. Maybe I'll take the 720 all the way downtown. That's one less transfer. Ooh, maybe that's my "miracle" route. I can keep dreaming, can't I?

Bus woes

Last Friday was not a good day for the bus.

I planned to see a movie (yes of course Batman) after work with a friend. I drove to work since I didn't want to take the train home late at night. But impressively, my friend took the train, knowing he'd be taking it back late at night after the movies. He's taken the train to work before but this time he was boasting of his "zero carbon emissions" since he biked instead of driving to the Red Line station near his house. Yet when he asked how to get to my office, which is near the Grove where we'd be seeing the movie, this is what I ran up against (recreated as best I remember):

"Is there a train station near your office?"

"No, it's three miles away. The easiest way is to take the bus."

"No way."

"No it's not bad, really. I take the bus. You can get on the 16 downtown. It'll drop you off right in front of my office or the Grove."

I wasn't able to sway him so the discussion ended with me agreeing to pick him up from the Red Line station three miles from my office and then drive us three miles back to the movie theater. For anyone counting, yes that's a total of six miles that I hadn't planned on driving.

"These are your six miles," I told him. He was a good sport and accepted them.

So he didn't have a zero carbon footprint day but he could have if riding the bus was more accepted.

Which brings me to problem #2. As I was driving to pick up my friend, blocks away my coworker was stuck waiting 30 minutes for her bus to come. She arrived five minutes early but the 6:12 p.m. bus just didn't come. And this was a busy bus stop on a major street during a peak commuting time. She said she could have been home in 20 minutes, so she was making a sacrifice by taking the bus since she after her bus finally arrived she still needed to transfer to another one. Since she doesn't live too far away from work she's not saving money by taking the bus, she's doing it for the environment. But I'm sure stuff like this will make her think twice next Friday morning when she's thinking of taking the bus again.

So, if I had someone from the MTA in front of me, this is what I'd say. You need a new marketing campaign to attract professionals to want to get out of their cars and take the bus. You need a better website. Mta.net is a mess, especially for first-time visitors. It's enough to put you back in your car. And finally (and perhaps firstly), you need to make a bigger commitment to having your buses run on time. I know, you can't add more buses overnight but there must be something you can do now (more supervisors and oversight?). Taking the bus won't become more popular if it takes twice as long to get home.

Speaking of which, I'm planning on taking the train and bus to work tomorrow. Pray for me!

My 15 seconds of fame?

I have a confession. I want my blog to get noticed by Steve Hymon, the Los Angeles Times transportation writer. I'm not sure why, besides the obvious narcissism. He wrote a weekly column in the California section that was near and dear to my heart, Rode Sage (always liked that name). Then the Times kicked him to the blogosphere where he writes the Bottleneck Blog, which I can relate to more often than I care to admit. He's blogging about traffic, mass transit, gas prices ... I'm blogging about traffic, mass transit, gas prices. OK, so he's a veteran Times reporter and I'm, well, new to this whole blogging thing (but hey Steve, I am a former reporter). I feel a synergy in our missions so I just want him to know I'm out there, like I know he's out there, writing posts with the word "dude" in them. Maybe it's that casual tone that he gets to use on his blog that makes me feel like I know him and, by extension, makes me think he'd like to read my blog.

But don't you worry, I'm not sitting on my laurels waiting for him to find me at urbandieter.blogspot.com (need that repeated Steve? That was ur-ban-diet-er-dot-blog-spot-dot-com). Yesterday I commented on his post, which was about the most random and trivial of things: the loud gum chewer behind him on the train (the "dude"). "This happened to me too" I began. He had no comments yet, so being one of the first ones to comment will surely help me get his attention, right? When I filled out the form it asked for my name, e-mail address and URL. URL? Uh, not sure what that means since most people don't have URLs but what the heck, I'll just type in my little ol' blog address. And voilà, one step closer to being discovered.

I wish I were this cool

So as noted in my previous posts, I spend a lot of time in my car. And my favorite in-car activity is listening to NPR talk shows. Coming home from the gym last week I caught Talk of the Nation and the topic was about two things I care about: the green movement and the youth voice. Halfway through the show, which had as a guest Robert Redford, a teenager performed a slam poem she wrote about global warming. It was amazing! I couldn't believe she wrote that as a teen, and this coming from someone who has a lot of faith in teenagers' abilities since I work with teens in my job. She didn't rattle off boring statistics but told a story about this little girl she babysits (and being scared by the "global warming" game the girl played). I don't want to give any more away, I just highly recommend you listen. It's an example of great storytelling and of how the younger generation is growing up with the fear of global warming as part of their everyday life. But unlike the hole in the ozone layer that was the crisis of my teenage years, this problem doesn't have a simple and manageable fix. Scary stuff indeed.

To listen, go to http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92584973 and click on Listen Now. It starts at 12:30 into the broadcast.

Dear Bus Driver: Thank you

Maybe I'm a sucker, but if a stranger says good evening to me, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

"Good evening." That's what my bus driver said today when I got off the bus. That was a first. Most bus drivers don't speak to you at all, and then there are the ones who aren't very nice or drive so aggressive it's scary. She was the nicest bus driver I've come across, by far. She was even nice to the people causing her trouble.

This was the 316 fast bus, which skips some stops that the 16 makes. We stopped at a red light and some people tried to get off the bus at a 16 stop. "This isn't a stop," she said. "You can't get off here. You need to read the signs when you get on." Then she let them off or they pushed the door open anyway, and she still ended her lecture with "thank you."

She elicited thank yous from almost everyone who got off the bus. Some had a specific reason to be courteous, like the guy who has asked what stop was closest to the 16 stop he usually gets off at, but others hadn't said a word to her but still said thank you when they got off the bus. All I can figure is that it was an unspoken acknowledgment for making their bus ride a pleasant experience, for infusing the bus with a "lets all get along" vibe. Well, she had me at hello (actually she said good afternoon when I got on the bus). So when I got off downtown with only a few passengers remaining on the bus, I felt bold and yelled "thank you" from the rear exit.

I e-mailed MTA customer service tonight to let them know how pleasant and respectful she was. I didn't get her name but I told them the route and time so hopefully they can look up who was driving. She deserves some recognition because Metro needs more drivers like that. It would be great to have that kind of experience all the time because it really did put me in a better mood.

Who's in charge of this nut house?

The danger (or benefit, depending on how you look at it) of people knowing I have an environmental blog is that whenever I tell a story I get asked, "Are you going to blog about it?", which just reminds me that I should and if I don't, it's because I'm being lazy. So, to clear my conscious, here's a story about today's commute, with the theme: who's in charge of this nut house?

Things started off great. I left work early with a four-day holiday weekend ahead of me. After waiting seven minutes or so, the bus approaches, and it's the fast 316. I pull out my day pass, stand near the curb and "hail" the bus in the way I've seen others do it -- not raising my arm like I'm hailing a taxi, but subtly pointing my arm out toward the ground. Well, apparently I should have been more obvious. The bus zoomed right on by. I understand when buses don't stop because they literally don't have room for one more passenger, but I saw standing room. There was room for me. I text a friend in anger. Then after five minutes or so, the slow 16 comes by and picks me up. This bus is full too and it's the usual rush hour dance -- I hold the strap and sway to the rhythm of the road, then more space opens up farther back and I move, only to be in the way of a woman exiting the bus. Then I'm in the way again and keep moving back. It lightens up after Western and I finally sit.

But the first half of my commute was just the appetizer. Things got more fun when I got downtown. At the 7th Street Metro Station, I turned the corner to go down the stairs to the Blue Line platform and saw a mass of people on my platform. What are they all doing here? Now that's a photo for people who think no one takes the train. Before I felt the need to ask a stranger what was going on, they announce that a train is coming. Oh god, I thought, there's going to be a riot. They made another announcement, this time saying that three trains were coming within minutes of each other and not everyone was going to fit on the first train. I don't have much faith in people (individual people yes, but in a group they turn tribal), and sure enough, tons of people squeezed onto the first train like sardines, leaving those of us still on the platform to haughtily laugh at their shortsightedness.

The next train came a few minutes later and I got on. I spent most of the ride standing in the corner behind a guy with a bike with nowhere to grip. Inevitably, at a big lurch he fell back into me and I put my hand on his back to stop him (thankfully he wasn't sweaty or smelly, which is quite common on the train). He apologized but I said it was OK because I saw it as me helping him not fall over. We all have to work together here, people. Which leads me to the most interesting part of the ride. At the Florence stop a guy jumped on as soon as the doors opened and blocked the people who wanted to get off. Bike Guy yelled at him but he acted like nothing was wrong. So there I was squished against the wall, with Bike Guy in front of me and now Rude Guy pushing up against us as a dozen people squeezed past to get off the train. Oh hey, did I mention taking public transportation is just swell. Everyone should do it!

I can laugh about this because I was in a good mood. But if this had been a normal Thursday, I might have given Rude Guy a piece of my mind. OK, I'm totally not that person. I probably would have been crying on the inside by the time I got home, then washed away the pain with some chocolate. What I did do was tell my friend, to which she replied, "Are you going to blog about it?"