‘Why You Ride (or Don’t Ride)‘ is a series where you, our faithful readers, share your transportation routines in L.A. and your thoughts on how to make things better – read more about the concept here.
Want to share your story? Take the survey here if you ride transit regularly, or take this one if you don’t ride.
Who You Are:
Name: Ciacci
Occupation: Artist
Location: Miracle Mile
Your Transportation Routine:
How often do you drive and for what purpose?
I ride a 150cc Scooter 5 days a week to and from work.
Where are you typically traveling from and going to?
Miracle Mile’s Fairfax and Wilshire to EL Segundo. Straight down La Cienga.
How many vehicles do you or your family have?
None. But I’m looking to buy a Vintage VW Camper Van for the weekends!
How long does your commute typically take?
On my scooter it takes 30 minutes each way – traffic is never a problem. I can take La Cienga or I can go through Culver City. It’s great passing by all those chumps sitting in traffic!
Briefly, how would you describe your typical driving experience? Love it, deal with it, or hate it?
I love it!
On average, what do you spend each month on transportation?
Less than $50
Do you use any forms of alternative transportation?
I have two bicycles that I use on the weekends and when I was taking the Metro sometimes I would car pool with a colleague on the Harbor Transitway from Artesia.
Why do you drive?
Instead of paying $119 for a monthly pass I decided to buy a ultra- fuel efficient GAS scooter for $1200. In 10 months I’ll have the scooter paid off and I also cut my commute time in half! Plus I can still sell it and make a profit.
Your Perspective:
Have you tried to use transit before? What was your experience?
I used to ride every day before the fare increase – I used Amtrak California to get around and I used to use Metrolink before they slashed weekend Ventura serivce.
I organized my friend’s birthday with a Metro pub crawl, starting in the center and ending at Hollywood & Highland. You should try it! Just don’t get stuck when Metro shuts down for the night.
What could local transit agencies do to encourage you to take transit more often?
Metro has to find the funding, perhpas through private corporations like they did for Christmas 2008 and have the trains run until 3AM on the weekends. Perfect for Downtown bars, Hollywood bars, etc. As it is now the last Purple line trains ends at 11:17pm.
Metro also needs a strong North/South Rapid Circular that perfoms like line 720 that hits Hollywood/Western/Fairfax/Olympic.
Metro should consider cutting morning sevice and instead of starting at 4am start at 5:30am instead and let the lines runs longer at night.
How do you feel about buses?
I’d ride a bus if there was a route that served my needs.
How do you feel about rail?
I’d ride rail if it there was a route that served my needs.
Given limited funds, how would you address L.A.’s transportation issues?
Given that The Alweg Company had offered to pay, build and maintain a HUGE monorail system in the ’60s that was simply shrugged off by the corrupt RTD Board of Directors and by the City of Los Angeles I don’t think there is any way a government agency can run a decent transportation system here. Why doesn’t the CEO take a payout instead of making $300,000+?
With all the lobbyists paying off the city counsel, it’s better to open up the transit to private companies. Imagine if Google had a underground Metro? It would probably have free wi-fi and run 24-hours!
Categories: Feedback, Metro Lifestyle, Surveys
Private transit is responsible for getting us where we are, with less mobility than what existed in 1945. Leave private transit for non-essential routes like Disneyland.
It would be great to have a 24 hour train schedule. I live by the 24 hour service on Wilshire and think it’s great but getting back from Hollywood late at night is a hassle. Cabs are a bit pricey. I do, however, love that the Red Line runs until about 12:30ish. I think a 24 hour service would be great. A Chicago or New York like train service would be even better! I can’t wait until we get funding for that. I think that would be a positive use of my tax dollars.
There is a lot of misinformation in this post. For example, Metrolink has never run regular service on the Ventura Line on weekends, ever. (There is annual Ventura County Fair service from Chatsworth to Ventura a couple of weekends per year.) So, while Metrolink has never run weekend service on the Ventura Line, Amtrak does run on weekends and has never reduced any weekend service. Metro Bus and Rail service starts at 4 a.m., as people need it to get to jobs. Many trips can take over 2 hours and food service workers need the early AM service, as well as many others. Metro has 24 hour service in the Miracle Mile with Line 217 on Fairfax and Line 20 on Wilshire.
The 1963 ALWEG monorail proposal was rightfully turned down. ALWEG could build a 1 mile demo mono in Seattle, but there was no way they could financialy afford to build a 40 mile line in LA.Did you know ALWEG went bankrupt in 1967? LA would have been left holding the bag, without money of their own to finish,and besides, monorail just cant touch the passenger load of even a light rail car. The ALWEG myth is comparable to the oil companies buying out the rail lines, and then converting to bus myth.Lets learn from the past, and continue to improve our present system. Thank you.
Thanks David. And as a reminder, the commentary in these survey results represent the views of the people who completed the survey – not Metro, its employees, The Source bloggers or the readers.
Fred Camino
Lifestyle Writer, The Source