MetroRiderLA

For my first two entires in the What a Rush series, I used Commuter Express service in the San Fernando Valley. One is a hard-working line very familiar to thousands of commuters on US-101; the other is a fading relic of mid-to-late 20th century transportation planning.

There are a few more commuter routes in the Valley that I did not try but plan to in the future. Meanwhile, come along on a fantastic voyage. Exact change required.

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I’ve ridden just about every line on just about every transit system in Southern California. That’s nearly a thousand different routes on over a hundred systems. Yet there is a small yet vast sector of bus services I have never used: peak-hour commuter buses.

Until now. “What a Rush” is a public journal entries of using the suburb-to-job center buses that only operate during morning and evening rush hours. Where do they run? Are they comfortable? How many people ride them? Find out in this occasional series.

Another day, another let down. But I can’t write another complaint; I don’t have it in me. This blog has to be informative as well. So here’s a short informative post on one of the many ways to beat the heat this summer while riding Metro or any of the other modes of public transit this wonderful city/county has to offer.

Step 1, lean against the bus sign and take in the constant entertainment around you because you just might witness this.

Though it was blistering outside, the wait seemed to pass in cool fashion. Perhaps it was the breeze from the gas burning Chevy Tahoe’s and Nissan Armada’s passing by that was cooling me. Or perhaps it was the ranting of two crazies yelling at each other from across Beverly Blvd.

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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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If I were to pick a birthday celebration that I am most fond of, I would have to say it is July 13, 1996. The best birthday present I ever got was a subway.

It was 10 years ago today that the Red Line extension to Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue opened. Yes, a whole decade has passed by since the subway was extended out of downtown L.A.

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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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