Since last Tuesday, I've built a collection of 11 $3 Metro Day Passes, using them to get on buses and metro trains to get from Echo Park to Hollywood, downtown, Chinatown, Koreatown, MacArthur Park, Little Tokyo, Silver Lake, and all the other neighborhoods I tend to frequent in my work and life. A drunk driver rammed into my car, when it was parked, silent, on the street in front of my house. Deductibles, policies, claims. For the foreseeable future, I'm an L.A. transit rider. Now I know there are people who operate in L.A. like this for their whole lives, and I have extensive experience navigating other major cities without the luxury of a car. (Such cities, of course, have what are often called "proper transit systems.") But for me this is an entirely new -- and super-exhausting -- way of experiencing a city where not having a car is an automatic social faux pas. It means creating schedules that accomodate your transit options, putting faith in the frequency of certain lines, and learning to collect all your basic needs in your immediate neighborhood. There are pluses (lots more reading time) and minuses (a stifling regional inmobility). And on another upside, suddenly my legs are in tip-top shape. But, I wish, I wish ...
* PREVIOUSLY: "Take a train from Echo Park to Venice."
