MetroRiderLA

This past week I moved to a new office building with all the trimmings and gadgets a new building trying to prove to the world that it’s creative must have. Decorative basketball hoops, couches with digi code, giant carpets and hanging flat screens for no apparent reason, airing whatever’s in HD. Yesterday was a local news segment about a lady who makes earrings specifically designed for cats, but it was in HD so it was newsworthy. But building spoils aside and to the point of this post. With a new location comes a new commute to work. I accepted this with open arms and blessed my future mornings without the insanity of the 720.

So there I was, Monday morning and smiling. Getting off at Beverly, mocking those poor souls I’ve seen so many times who I knew had to get off at Wilshire. I wonder if they noticed me getting off? And if not on Monday morning, at least by today? I wonder if they now hate me? I hoped not, but what could I do I thought, it wasn’t my fault they had to ride on the most popular corridor in Los Angeles, if not the United States, and do so without a train. (I try to throw that in as much as possible. Damn you BRU, that too.) I walked casually to my new transfer spot and waited for my new love… the 14. But the love affair, as all love affairs with busses, didn’t last.

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Here’s your chance to make up for the time(s) you ignored the poor kid in the lunch room getting beat up for his snack pack. The next time you’re on the bus and a crazy cracked-out homeless lady runs on, screaming about how she wasn’t going to pay and that everyone can go “f*%#” themselves, taunting the driver to call the “ma-f*@#in” cops, kick her off.

How it all well down was absolutely inspiring. A group of friends and I were taking the 2 bus east on Sunset, just east of Wilton, when a lady dressed in rags and carrying several empty folded-up McDonald’s happy meal boxes as if they were gold, rushed onto the bus. She stormed passed the driver screaming for him to take her to the police station. It seems she had exactly a “dolla seventy five” that the bus driver’s mama either wanted or had, I couldn’t tell. Though confused by her bewildering comments, I assumed it was a put down. When the bus driver patiently informed her that he was going to call the cops she encouraged him to do so in so many words and the bus was silent.

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Following the footsteps of fellow MetroRiderLA blogger, Wad, I’ve also decided to add a definition to the expanding Los Angeles Public Transit dictionary.

Timetables - n. - a listing of irrelevant times that say when busses are meant to arrive at specific destinations, but instead arrive four deep as if the drivers are in a race.

As of late I’ve been addicted to a show on the Discovery Channel called “The Deadliest Catch.” It’s about the Alaskan fisherman that risk life and limb for the jackpot of money that is Alaskan King and Opilio crab. However, sometimes luck isn’t always on their side and the pots dropped into the freezing water below don’t produce the prized crab of Bristol Bay. The deckhands and captain alike grow weary and frustrated as they wonder what they did wrong. This is how I felt Sunday afternoon when I took my first FlyAway ride from LAX to Union Station and little Rosalie our driver must have felt like Jeff, Captain of the Billikin, when gates kept coming up empty and our ship left for Union Station with just nine crabs to count. Just nine.

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LA-o-file MilesThink has just linked MetroRiderLA. Hailing from Atwater Village we hope you can help spread the fever of public transit to your freinds and community, and be sure to let MetroRiderLA know of any and all that may be happening in your area and more. Thanks again MilesThink!

I’m sitting outside of the Federal Building on Wilshire and Veteran looking at four Metro Rapid busses parked in front of me… wait, make that five, a 761 Rapid just joined the flock. The grass looks soft, the best our federal tax dollars can buy, so I take a seat and take in the sun. Must be a Bermuda mix, worth every penny. And it seems like I’m not the only one appreciating the soft grass because to my right is one of the Rapid drivers, a large black woman reading what looks to be one of Tom Clancy’s latest nail biters. To my left is another Rapid driver, and another and another after that. And wouldn’t you know it, here comes that sleek looking 761 to join the party. I smiled at my situation.
5 Rapid busses. 5 Rapid bus drivers. 20 some Rapid riders. And nobody going anywhere. Something seems awry; does it not?

Then I awake from my pondering to the honking of a forty something lady with dyed hair who’s yelling out the window of her Volvo station wagon to an equally annoyed and overly stressed woman in a white Mercedes. The honking and muted yells continue till the Swedish rectangle wins the heroic battle and moves forward two extra feet in front of her German engineered nemesis. And watching it all, as I just did, sits a man in a jeep wrangler staring at me with envy. I point to the bus and smile, pressing my ass a little bit deeper into the soft federal soil, for I’d rather wait an extra couple minutes than sit in that mess any day of the week.

*Just after posting this I happened upon a like-minded post by fellow Metro rider, LA Metro Mole (June 10, 2006 “so you won’t have to stand in the hot sun…” post). He offers more helpful advice though and I suggest you all check it out, both rider and administrator alike. Thanks LA Metro Mole.