I Rode the Entire L.A. Metro in a Single Day

Thank you for the ride, Now I will cross taking the metro link off my bucket list.

While the author brings up really good points about how people are on the metro, again, LA Weekly opens up another anti metro pandoras box.  What the LA Weekly, and most Angelenos, do wrong is formulate the transit discussion in the wrong direction. Let me Explain.  Angelenos complain too much. One side of their brain screams "Why are we wasting money on public transit, just drive a car!" the other side screams "Why does LA traffic suck so much?"

The problem with the Transit debate in LA is perfectly quoted by the author. "Why bother when you have a perfectly decent car?"  That has hurt LA's transit for years.  The thing is LA became a major city during the era of cheap gas and cars.  By the 1950's the old Red and Yellow cars were slow and outdated.  With Freeways, your own car, it was refreshing!  Freedom!  There was tons of space too.  However, the problem is, LA put all its eggs in one basket when it comes to transit choices.  

In LA there are two sides.  One side is "Why would you take metro? You have a car! Just drive there!" the other side is "You Have to take Metro because you have no car, and you are most likely saving up for one, so you're stuck here till you get a car."  This has created a one mode city. LA is a major metropolis, even denser than New York, but Major Metropolises need choices in terms of mobility.  Frankly we don't have that.  

I'm from back east, and most people there are not one mode transit types.  We will take a train, bus, drive a car, taxi, and its not a question of lifestyle choice.  Its just whatever is the best option at the best time.

Does New York City have great transit, sure.  Do people drive in New York City. Of course! Are there traffic jams. Everyday!  But even out in the suburbs, and in the outer boroughs, people who mostly drive, can find other options to get into the city, at any time of day, or they can drive.  

In LA we look for a silver bullet. That one train line that will magically decongest the freeways.  That doesn't happen. Each time it doesn't happen, we have the LA Weekly, (namely Simone Wilson and Patrick Range McDonald) decry transit planning as a waste of money.  In the Weekly, I've read "We can't build transit on the westside! Its not dense enough" and "We can't build transit on the westside, its way too dense."  LA Weekly, end your bias please.  

There will never be a silver bullet to transit planning, all we can offer is choices.  Now, to be fiscally conservative, Bus Rapid Transit, if we do separate underground (even trenches) or overground planning, can be a separate fast, cheaper alternative.  The problem is, most LA politicians want a legacy and will most likely not fund that.

In the meantime, LA. Stop decrying public transit AND complaining about traffic and gas prices.

Yeah good luck riding the train with no pass. Just because you weren't checked this one day doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I have no car, so I take it every day, and I get checked at least 2-3 times per week.

Note: "I rode the whole motherloving thing. Every line (OK, not you, Silver, sorry) and every station. In one day," would imply that you rode the Gold Line, which from reading your classist article, it appears you did not. 

A perfectly good car. Lol many people don't have a car, dude. 

Also the Westside expansion needs to be improved and expanded and it's also bs that it isn't being pushed along in a more progressive way. Metro needs to learn from their past mistakes/issues on the current lines to move forward, be more cutting edge and on time with progress on other lines too.

Most people that use the metro on a daily/weekly or even occasional basis for commuting and weekend recreation don't ride the metro all day. Not sure anyone does. So this is sort of an irrelevant article in the sense that it almost assumes that it's typical for someone who uses public transpo in LA would be riding all the lines all day. That's exhausting for anyone in any city. Some lines are better than others (few times I've ridden the blue line it wasn't very pleasant and tends to have a lot of delays) but am a frequent rider of the red line which has it's ups and downs but is generally fine. Also, LA needs to take some hints from other cities that have rockin', expansive public transpo (PORTLAND, SF BAY AREA, BOSTON, etc) and get over this fucking bs stigma about it and actually improve service.

You think you see some strange folks on the bus, you should see the weirdos people complain about riding in my car! And talk about smell!

I'm glad Lyft is launching in LA - safer and faster than public transport. 

I have ridden the metro lines often for pleasure, as part of the trip to where I wanted to end up. I luckily don't have to ride out of necessity, as the parking at the Norwalk end of the green line is pretty jammed, as well as the next stop up at Lakewood.

Hey, @rockofeighties -- not sure you're mad at the right person here. It's true that Metro is getting better and better all the time, and I was a proud supporter of Measure J despite the Weekly's shameful advocacy to the contrary. But @ptbradley wasn't writing an advocacy piece, he was writing his experience. As a railfan and as someone who's stuck riding the train in L.A. all the time, I'm glad he wrote it. Here are more thoughts from me on the matter.

http://emperorx.tumblr.com/post/41411846313/earwax-on-the-expo-line

You should check out this, too -- http://snobonabus.blogspot.com/. Way more touchy-feely than Paul's Vice-ist snark, but worth reading as a study in how "normals" react to riding transit.

Yet another LA Weekly article where the "author" is out to prove he's better than anybody else. Wait for the snarky come back...wait for it...

Sounds a bit pretentious. I ride as much as I can but we still more lines. I'm surprised that nowhere in this blog does he say that. The 405 expansion funds should have gone to a line stretching from sylmar to the airport. Strait down sepulveda.

only issue I have with the metro is there aren't near enough lines for the size of the county, still not a bad way to get around though. I also wouldn't recommend riding without a pass, I get checked regularly and have several friends who've been fined

I do all the time go metro :D

i get 7 day passes every week, the red/purple/expo lines are crazy enough for me

Gonna have to do this

KIM then load your own TAP CARD @ Metro rail station. If u know how to do it correctly u won't have any more problems finding a place so someone else could load it for u. The Ticket vending machine walk you through the process

I did this years ago (so, granted, there's no expo line), almsot got it in new angeles monthly, then the mag went belly-up. So I turned it into a blog post and it went splat: 

http://perrycrowe.com/pcrowe/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=69

Honesty is the best policy, right Torr? Let's trust people to live and act according to a true moral compass. Right on!

But, www.MTA.net does not make it easy. Only ONE MTA office distributes monthly pass/TAP card loading, for entire Westside. And this La/Wilshire ofc will be closed soon due to subway construction. No relocation office has been announced. MTA says RALPHS distributes passes, but grocery store personnel have not been loading TAP cards correctly. EZ paper passes Ralphs was able to handle correctly, but MTA eliminated those & replaced with TAP card, which is extremely difficult to find & will soon be impossible when La Brea/Wilshire office closes. I just tried setting up MTA account online, but their site was not working. Also, CC#s in MTA Databank do not seem secure. Basically, its a nightmare.

"In 14 hours, not a single person or machine asked me to prove that I paid to be here. Seriously, not one legal entity checked my TAP Card." That's because you don't want to pay for (more) fare inspectors and turnstiles.

"Oh, make sure you do the Orange line," he says of the bus line that runs from North Hollywood to Chatsworth. "You can't cheat BRT [Bus Rapid Transit], it has dedicated rights of way ... and it was supposed to be light rail." No, it was not "supposed to be" light rail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Line_%28Los_Angeles_Metro%29

"I'm on the Green Line, riding east to Norwalk. Guess who's already sick of riding the goddamn Metro? Heading either direction on the Green is basically cruising the 105 freeway on rails." That might be the dumbest sentence in the history of the English language.

I wish I could through rocks at the gentrified class without getting arrested and write about it. "OMG, I AM PRIVILEGED DOING POOR PEOPLE THINGS, EW, LOOK AT THEM!"

yes! Done it before and i love showing others the awesome spots they can see through metro.

my life story!

"I Rode the Entire L.A. Metro in a Single Day" ...except for the Gold Line, the Silver Line or any of the bus lines that apparently don't count as the part of "the Entire L.A. Metro" for some reason. 

Probably for the best, actually, since the moral of this piece seems to be that public transportation is only for the indigent, disgusting, insane and car-owners who fancy a day spent slumming.

Yet another article that scares people away from using Metro. Sure, there are strange people and filth here and there but this is what reality is like. 

You can continue to ride in your air conditioned cars commuting 20 miles to work in traffic breathing in hydrocarbons while paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas and contributing more CO2 than the earth needs- or you can change your lifestyle. Move closer to work and live near a train line like I did 10 years ago. 

The less time you spend being stressed out in a car and paying on average $10,000 a year for maintenance, insurance, and gas the better I think.  Metro isn't perfect and the same can be said for sitting in traffic but Metro is improving every year. 

What about the Gold Line?