Los Angeles Public Transportation

There are many ways to get around L.A. without driving. By Everett Griffiths

I don't know what it is, but people in America love to drive. And by drive, I mean "sit in traffic, pay exhorbant parking fees, and fret about whether your car is going to get shat-upon, dinged, or stolen." When I tell most people that I don't own a car and that I take public transportation to work, the general reaction is somewhere between mild curiosity and total disbelief. When confronted with this type of reaction, I for one, have no difficulty tracking down the origins of this city's famed pollution problem. Perhaps nowhere in the world is the disconnect so complete as here: if you drive so much, you will waste your life in your car, and the smog will be intense. And this type of behavior is somehow considered "normal."

Practically no one realizes that the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) named Los Angeles County's Mass Transportation Authority the best public transportation system in the country. Los Angeles is No. 2 in the nation in bus ridership and No. 3 in light rail, according to a recent article by the Washington Post. I don't think the driving habits of people in Los Angeles is any better or worse than anywhere else, but there are a lot of people here -- some 15 million in Southern California -- so any repercussions are compounded. Driving 40 miles between Irvine and downtown L.A. isn't any different than driving 40 miles between Lawrence, KS and downtown Kansas City, or 40 miles between Ft. Collins, CO and Denver. If you put 15 million people and their cars anywhere, you'd have a brown cloud on your hands, but at least L.A. has some alternatives to the driving.

The Metro system is extensive. On their web site (Mta.net) you can plug in your endpoints of your trip, and it will come up with a route, cost, and estimated time. The site isn't fail-safe, however, and sometimes you can come up with a better route by studying the system map, or by talking to fellow-riders. Some of those guys know the system inside and out. The light rail lines can move along pretty fast, but the bus can be slow for long trips. If you spend $3, you can get an all-day pass and ride anywhere on this system, with only a few exceptions.

Special buses are those that fall outside the Metro system. They usually are faster, but they usually cost more and you can't use your standard Metro ticket to ride them. For example, you can take the Big Blue #10 from downtown L.A. to Santa Monica for a couple dollars. There's also the free variety: if you're in Burbank, there's a whole series of small "around-town" shuttles that are completely free, but they only operate on a limited schedule.

The train system falls under the rubric of Metrolink, which partners up with Amtrak on some of the trains. Metrolink is a bit more expensive than the metro, but boy it is fast. You'll save all kinds of time if you can use the train for any longer commute. They are clean and on-time (not Swiss-style flawless, but on-time).

It's also possible to bike in L.A. -- there are books devoted to this, and a few sites as well. labikepaths.com has some of the more well-known trails, and Wikipedia has an entry for Los Angeles bike paths. These aren't the only ones out there... I know there's a pretty good path in Burbank, running parallel to Magnolia on Chandler -- it's where an old train-line used to be. You can put your bike on the front of most any bus, and nearly every train allows bikes -- this is quite different than some cities I've been in.

My employer reimburses my travel expenses when riding public transportation, so this is a great deal. I can get work done while on the train and I don't have to pay for it. AAA estimates that this trip costs me $13.38 each day (parking not included), so even if I had to foot the bill myself, I'd rather spend the $2.50 for the bus or the $5 for the train.