Tuesday night, I took the Blue Line to the Long Beach Plug-in 2009 Conference in 2009. At first, I was excited to take the Metro Rail once again; earlier that morning, I had visited Pasadena for a meeting using the Gold Line. I kept wondering, “Why would anyone diss mass transit?” Well, when I finally arrived in Long Beach, I remembered why.
Well, let me give you a diary of that afternoon:
- 2:50: leave the house for the Metro Red Line at Beverly & Vermont
- 3:06: arrive at the Beverly & Vermont station after walking under two overpasses and along filthy Silver Lake Blvd.
- 3:17: The Red Line going downtown arrives
- 3:25: Arrive at the Seventh Street station, transfer to the Blue Line
- 3:31: The Blue Line departs
- 3:50: Arrive at 103 rd Street, transfer point to the Green Line. I shift seats as I was on the wrong side of the train, getting way too much sunlight.
- 4:24: Arrive at the Long Beach Transit Mall, wondering what the hell I was thinking.
It’s not that I went through areas like Compton and Watts, though that alone would dissuade enough Angelinos. The trip took so freakin’ loooooooooooooooong! I was almost exhausted. I was thinking about parking downtown, but I just didn’t want to deal with navigating around a parking lot, wondering if my car would be there at night, and well, 20 minutes could better be spent walking. But would I do this every day if I had to work in Long Beach? Ugh. I’m eco-conscious, not unconscious!
At a fundamental level, public transportation has to be efficient, fast, cheap, and comfortable. At $1.25 a ride, LA Metro is certainly cheap, and for $5, you can get a day pass, which I’ll use to explore the neighborhoods along the Gold Line. But for a 30 mile trip, we’re talking insanity. I remember when I lived in the Bay Area, and BART was considering adding more parking spaces at its station. The mayor of Berkeley at the time made a snarky comment that BART was just one means of public transit, and that other means should be taken there instead of driving. I don’t know about her world, but in my world, TWO HOURS of public transportation a day would do nothing but spark cravings for aspirin . . . if not something stronger.
The worst was in the evening. The train was so noisy, full of people who had no concept of personal space or quiet, a homeless person in front of me who reeked, a 20-something kid playing his electric guitar, and another poor old homeless man shrieking, “Can anyone give me 27 thousand dollars and 29 cents?”
That should have been my hazard pay for taking the Blue Ride Tuesday evening.
