It’s a general assumption that when you live in Los Angeles, you need a car. And this is mostly true. People will tell you that the city was built for driving, and this is true, too. The veins and arteries of LA are the streets and freeways. The freeways are built for cars. So if you want to get around, you better have a car, right?
Because if you’re not driving a car, you’re traveling in the seedy underbelly of public transportation.
In LA, public transportation is a second-class citizen. Most of the native Angelenos you know have never used public transportation, and probably wouldn’t know where to begin if you asked them. Seriously, we don’t know. We have cars. We live here.
If you really want to confuse a native Angeleno, just say that you never learned how to drive. And you’re 46. And you’re rich.
And white.
Because in Los Angeles, public transportation is for poor people. This is of course the perception, but unlike a lot of LA perceptions, it is also the reality. According to the 2006 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, in Los Angeles, 75.5% of public transportation users earned less than $25,000 a year.
What I found really interesting, though, is that 67.3% of Los Angeles public transportation users still have cars! So even if can’t afford to drive a car, you still have one.
Or two. Or maybe more. This is what cinder blocks are for, right?
As poor people, I’m now utilizing public transportation. But let me stop using the euphemism. To really get the taste in your mouth, the taste that Angelenos get when they hear it, you need to say, “the bus.” I ride the bus.
Here’s how I explain it to everyone I know in LA: “Actually, it’s not that bad.” To which they slowly nod their heads and say, “Oh.” I imagine it is the same response you would get if you said, “I was born without a bottom, so my waste is shuttled from my body through a plastic tube implanted in my lower intestine and collects in this sack I wear around my ankle. Actually, it’s not that bad.” New Yorkers don’t require this apology, which makes it too bad that everyone I know is from LA (and it’s not that often I will suggest there is something advantageous about being a New Englander).
But really, it’s not that bad. In fact, I like it. The buses are regular and reliable. They’re as clean as any public place. I get to listen to my iPod and read. The only problem is that they drive on streets and freeways, with cars. Thus, they are kind of slow.
But listen to this: when I started working at UCLA, I did the math on my commuting costs. By riding the bus, I am saving about $1500 a year.
Good enough for me! Even if riding the bus was as bad as Angelenos imagine it to be, I would still ride the bus for $1500 a year.
And now that everyone is poor, maybe I’ll start to see some of you on the bus (though I doubt it, cause I know you are all still too cool for school, bless your hearts).
Too Cool for School.
