MetroRiderLA

Izzy Skenazy was 9 years old when he first rode the subway. The above video is the aftermath. The below is the exclusive journal entry from the day of his legendary voyage, as well as the tumultuous days that followed. A fictional account by Tyke Johnson.

I have a map because my mom gave me one. It’s huge. A tri-folder type to which I have no use. But it was apart of the requirements for me taking this trip. I told her I had already memorized the subway system but she’s my mom and moms are cautious. So I put it in my bag and forgot about it. She then handed me twenty dollars and an MTA card. The twenty was a “just in case” fund and I took it to mean, just in case I came across a WIRED magazine and Red Bull at the newsstands. I did.

Before I finally got away from her in the handbags area of Bloomingdales she asked me to clean my room when I got home. I laughed a little. She said she was serious. I said I would and I got the hell outta there.

I hate the smell of Bloomingdales. I hate the smell of department stores, the handbag area is almost as bad as the perfume area, but in case my poor nostrils had naively started believing in a God, I had to pass through that section on my way out. A hell only three hundred different fragrances—glassy and sweet, wooden and sour—could produce, finalizing my verdict on the omnipresent.

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‘Twas the night before Metro

Orange Line began

and all trough my body

I had goosebumps and chills

in anticipation of my very first ride.

I had been thinking

about that very moment

for the last couple of years

ever since I heard

the busway was coming my way.

I can still remember

when I would ride my bike

even drive a car

parallel to the busway

the old right of way.

Just dreaming and waiting

for the day to arrive.

And when they started testing

with no passengers yet

I would stand in awe near the stations

just watching the artics go by.

But alas! The day had arrived

five in the morning

I was ready to board

from Winnetka Station

to NOHO and back.

This feeling of anticipation

I cannot describe

unless you’re a MetroRider

you can’t comprehend.

I’m just waiting

and anticipating

the Gold Line extension

out to East L. A.

Come late 2009

God willing

I’ll sure to be there!!!

© Rogelio Gómez

Who says you need a car to buy and plant a Mexican dwarf lime tree?

I’m terrible to go shopping with. I like to wander. I have no problem being at a grocery store for a half an hour to leave with nothing but bread and a twelve pack.

I’m a phase kind of person. I live through ideas that may last only an afternoon. Public transit lifestyle and advocacy might be the only thing in my life not based on phase theory. This Sunday I was in such a phase. This Sunday I was going to garden, and by God, I was going to do it car free.

Now this isn’t all that new really. I’ve been through this phase before and on such days I spend a couple hours at Home Depot spending more money on the items to make/plant than the item/plant will ever yield. Recently was a compost pile and making it, albeit fun, will in no way produce the amount of fertilizer equal to its relatively meager cost. Not to mention I don’t go through all that much fertilizer. The same can now be said about the Mexican dwarf lime tree I decided to buy yesterday.

To move this along—when I stepped up to the register I had in total: a 25lb bag of manure, a 25 lb bag of potting soil, a gigantic black plastic pot, a lime tree that stood about 3 feet tall and had thorns, as well as 2 succulents (the reason for the trip), a lavender plant, and spider killer.

The pretty black girl in her orange apron, after talking about how cold she was and giving me the eye (probably not), was blown away that I was taking the subway from MacArthur Park back downtown with all this stuff. I assured her it was no big deal and that it was worth it to not have to drive. She summed up the point of MetroRiderLA in 7 words by questioning where I was from because “that’s not what people do in LA.” I gave her a smile and she gave me a good luck.
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“Gold Line, Pasadena” Image Courtesy of Nevin.

I leave the house five minutes just before

the scheduled time the bus is set to arrive.

I got my pass, schedules and the map

within my pocket just waiting to board and go.

It’s one more minute

I see it down the street.

It’s right on schedule, not often

but this time has managed to arrive within the slotted time.

I board and grab a book

I’ll read along until I get

to the transfer point so I can get

the Blue Line and then the Red.

I love the Metro if you can’t tell

and try to speak about it to other people

you could say it, I guess

I try my best for them to use it and convert.

© Rogelio Gomez

The Taj Mahal gets romantic today. Photo courtesy of Metro.

Metro is celebrating the February 14th holiday by lighting up the Metro Headquarters Building  (aka the “Taj Mahal”) with a heart on all four sides. You can see the luminous ode to love today from 6pm - 10pm if you’re in the Downtown area.  MetroPhotographers, grab your sweethearts and make sure to capture this adorable architectural gesture on digital emulsion and share it with us on the MetroRiderLA Flickr Pool.

Taking your significant other to see lights on a building, no matter the shape they produce, does not a Valentine’s Day make.  However, is it even possible to have a Transit Oriented Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles without the day ending in a nasty break-up?  Does a Metro Bus really set the mood for love?  Is a 4-car Red Line train entering a dark tunnel a clear enough euphemism for the physical act of love without being so overt as to offend? Does the number of cars a train has even matter?  Or has your car-free lifestyle left you riding solo?  We all just want someone to sit with us on the bus, if only to avoid having that vagabond with personal odor issues take the seat next to you.

In the spirit of the holiday, I’d like for everyone to upload their favorite romantic Transit Oriented Picture on to the MetroRiderLA Flickr Pool so that we can prove that a car-free life isn’t a love-free life!  Plus it will be really cute… even cuter than Metro’s glowing heart building.  You can check out my contribution right here, adorable isn’t it?  So, please, if you’ve got a picture (and I know you do) of you and your significant other riding the bus, rails, or just being transit oriented in general, share it with us.  Just keep it PG please, ya freaks.  And then tell us your Transit Oriented Plans for this Valentine’s Day!

The Year in Transit is not the most important thing to look forward to this year, but it is the brightest spot in a year filled with the tedium that is the unfortunate byproduct of leap years. The first comes in the form of the Summer Olympic Games, this year in Beijing. American athletes usually dominate the games so much that they made winning go out of style. The must-see event is the opening ceremonies, where the United States formally passes the torch of world’s only superpower to the host country, China. How often is there a chance to make the symbolic literal? Then comes another pointless quadrennial ritual that occurs every November but fortunately is only participated in by half of all adults and by all indications, like oil production and newspaper readership, trends downward to the point of losing all relevancy and simply be forgotten. There is, after all, segments of the population that view these trends with a smidgen of hope. It’s not large, and not welcome in most communities and places of business. But The Year in Transit salutes you.

The last thought ran on too long, and the transition to this thought about politics is therefore not that fluid. A young almanac is precocious enough to discuss politics, and has a surprisingly vivid memory of events dating back to the terrible toddler years. The year 2008 offers unique reflection not of the more timely prior year, but an eight-year epoch of monumental importance. The Year in Transit uses this opportunity to write history’s first draft.

Don’t worry. The predictions are here, as usual. The introduction is longer than in year’s past, because 2008 offers a time of unmitigated spleen-venting that comes along, well every four years. That’s just too long to wait.
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