MetroRiderLA

Clever Commute, a peer-to-peer tool intended to help train commuters, is the creation of New Jersey based IT-guy Joshua Crandall, a man with whom I had the opportunity to chat with about his efforts to bring CC to Los Angeles over a french dip sandwich at Philippe’s a couple of weeks ago. At lunch Josh told me about how he created Clever Commute in 2006 as a way for he and his commuting buddies to inform each other of any delays down the line. He set up a simple email list, and if any one on the list experienced a delay or noticed a problem, they’d simply whip out their trusty Blackberry (a prerequisite for commuters) and send a short message to the list describing the problem. Every member of the list would then get that warning and viola, plans could be adjusted accordingly.

Clever Commute has grown like wildfire since its humble beginnings. Once word of mouth caught on in New York, everyone wanted a piece of the action. Crandall set up his official website, clevercommute.com, so people could sign up to become a member of a list for their particular line. In New York there are now over 20 commuter rail lines, 5 commuter bus lines, 4 light rail lines, and 2 ferry lines that have active lists of Clever Commuters informing each other of delays and setbacks. Thousands of New Yorkers rely on Clever Commute daily to keep them informed of the transit situation. According to Crandall, after the New York Times caught wind of the phenomenon and wrote a story about it, things really blew up. Suddenly other cities were interested in the technology. Boston was the first on board and now has 10 commuter rail lines covered. Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, and DC are all experimenting with the technology.

And now Josh is bringing it to LA.

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Image courtesy of jon_hrach.

The transit oriented lifestyle in Los Angeles is often like a jigsaw puzzle, you’ve got all these oddly shaped pieces and you just have to figure out how to connect them. It may seem daunting at first, but it’s never impossible, and with a little work the full picture is bound to appear.

On of my favorite transit puzzles is getting to the airport without a car. Thanks to the FlyAway getting to LAX is like a 300-piece puzzle - even a child could do it. However, LAX is but one of many airports in the region and sometimes you’re just bound to fly out of one of those other aviation hubs. The last time I put together one of these 1000-piece puzzles was when I flew out of Ontario Airport to take advantage of a non-stop ExpressJet flight to Oklahoma City (full disclosure: I’ve actually made this trip a few times since then). A Metrolink and a taxi saved me about $100 and got me a non-stop flight to the mid-west. Not a bad picture for the work it took putting that puzzle together.

Last week I opened up a new 1000-piecer: Downtown Los Angeles to John Wayne Airport (Orange County). The price was right, the time was right, the flight was right, so I bought the ticket/puzzle. As the pieces tumbled out in front of me, I wondered if I made the right decision. Maybe this was one of those puzzles with no solution? Or maybe a few pieces would be missing? Shit. I wish I had a car.

Just kidding.

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As Good As It Gets starring Jack Nicholson made me laugh. It might have made me cry too but don’t tell my dad. I laughed like everyone else because of how crazy this man was and what a life such as his must be like. I cried because I saw way too many similarities between he and I.

For the longest time I had forgotten about most of those similarities (I’m not one to re-watch, re-read, re-whatever anything that points out things I’d rather not think about). Then I started riding public transportation.

When I first joined the world of public transit I tried not to hold railings, I wouldn’t sit down, and I carried anti-bacterial hand lotion with me. The little pocket sized tubes replaced chap stick in pocket priority for some time. Most annoying was that I didn’t really know why I was doing all this. I have my fair share of neuroses but at no point in my life was I victim to germaphobia. I may not have been open to the sharing of a toothbrush or underwear but a germaphobe I was not. Germs were never real to me. They were to absurd and there were too many products out there to stop the spread of them that the panic had to be fake—a marketing gimmick is all. To me, Airborne couldn’t have been more absurd.

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The 14 has long been hailed as one the hardest to find Metro buses. Photo via Flickr, courtesy of So Cal Metro

Aside from the enormous pain in the ass a missing bus can be—the overcrowding which compounds the already annoying delays further on the route—it’s also a drain on the soul. And seeing as Holy week is just around the corner for some, I figured I’d look at all things public transit in the same light priests see sinners. Forgivable, yes, but not without some serious penance. Unfortunately, Metro, at times, acts like a godless heathen with its lack of foresight and decision making skills so I don’t feel any Hail Marys or Our Fathers are going to whip her into shape.

Instead, I’m going do something even more pointless—I’m going to email costumer relations every time something isn’t to my liking. If a bus driver passes without stopping, if a subway’s doors stop working and I’m forced to take the train all the way to Union Station and then another one back to where I had planned on going, if the intercoms aren’t working, if the elevators are broken, if the ticket machine is broken, if the ticket line is absurdly undermanned and I have to buy a day pass for an entire week, if their fancy new monitors don’t warn me not to chew gum, and of course, if a bus doesn’t show up.

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Aus-car the Transit Grouch is a Seattle based transit blogger and family man. It seems that he, much to his wife’s chagrin, enjoys taking his kids on “bus adventures” in Seattle. Whether or not this counts as child abuse these days, I don’t know, but he does it anyways. On a recent trip to Los Angeles though, he did the unthinkable… suggested to his family that they take the bus to see a movie at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. Not surprisingly, the only person who took him up on his offer was his 5-year old daughter. His story of a ride to Hollywood on a Metro Local 2 with his daughter offers a charming and insightful look at our buses through the eyes of an outsider on an adventure.

Here’s one of my favorite bits:

My wife called via cell phone as we walked — she’d just arrived in line and was hoping and praying that we wouldn’t be too late. Apparently, some of her relatives had been laying side bets on how late we would be. The consensus was that we had no chance to get there by showtime. We got there 10 minutes early. Ha!

Read Aus-car’s story here: “A Bus to Hollywood”

It’s the last day of the month, you need a new Metro Pass, you happen to be at Union Station. Just outside you can see the silhouette of the MTA Headquarters or “the Taj Mahal” at it is snidely referred to because of it’s imposing grandeur. The Gateway Transit Center at the east side of Union Station is filled with spectacular light from the stained glass windows above. A mural representing the diversity of our city welcomes travelers of many races, genders, religions, and all of other possible human categories. The painting seems to come to life below as you see a line of the very people represented in the image, all of them waiting patiently to purchase their Metro Pass for the coming month.

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