Pushing air

When a Metro train approaches an underground station, as the Purple line does every 10 minutes during the rush hour, you can feel the air begin to move. It shifts back first towards the approaching train, then sprays forward as the cars glide past the loading platform. It's as if the massive weight of the train cars create a vacuum, sucking the air towards the tunnel...as the train approaches the tunnel's opening, the air is pressed forward, like a plunger forcing fluid down the body of a syringe.





It's a steel dragon, inhaling and exhaling hot breath as it sprints from its lair, stopping just long enough to pick up its prey, passengers who step willingly into the belly of the beast.

The train stops. The doors open. We move inside.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Blue line, Florence Station

Two hours a day

After two-plus days in Sacramento, it was back to the trains today. I spent the time with my head down, reading and writing mostly work stuff.

One benefit of using public transportation is that I've stolen back two hours a day from the universe for 'me' time. Instead of white-knuckling my steering wheel on the 405 I now spend the time reading, writing, working, or Facebooking (is that a word?). Sometimes after a long day, it's nice to just sit with my eyes closed and breathe. Quiet alone time is hard to come by, and if it comes on a crowded train, so be it.

Two hours a day...that's ten hours a week, a little more than a full work day. Hummm, hadn't thought of it that way before now.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Bed

It starts at Willow Station

My ride begins at Willow station, across the street from Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. Willow was built for commuters and features a well lit, 4-story parking garage, free for riders. It's not clean, but there is usually a police presence of some sort, which is a plus on this side of town. The Sheriffs often hang out on the platform, busting ticketless law breakers as they try to sneak through the exits. Each infraction is a $250 ticket, and most days there are usually 1 or 2 criminals caught from my train alone. Good revenue for the city I guess, but I'm not sure how they collect from the homeless dudes and vagabonds that are usually the ones caught in the act.





Other infractions that will leave riders $250 lighter: eating or drinking (neither is allowed on the train or platform, which is brutal...oh how I long to bring my morning coffee along for the ride, especially since it's been around 40 in the mornings for the past month), littering, smoking, loud music, or "loud or rowdy behavior". Which means most days there is someone in my train car that deserves a ticket based on behavior alone. Rarely it's me.

This week I'm traveling to Sacramento for work, and won't be on the train again until Thursday.

Location:Long Beach Airport

LA Times: Blue Line cut's across LA county's invisible boundaries

Take a few minutes and read Mike Anton's column in the LA Times from June 2010.  Funny and factual.

All aboard

I've been commuting to work using LA's Metro system since August 2010, and in my short time as a regular user of public transportation I've learned a lot about Los Angeles, and about Angelenos in particular.  There are some beautiful parts of the city that in my previous life as a freeway commuter I never would have seen.  I've learned that most commuters friendly and kind.  They look out for each other.  I've seen a lot of beautiful places and acts of kindness from beautiful people.

I've also learned that some don't need a public restroom to relieve themselves in public, and that Santa Clause sells flashlights.  More on that later.

Most of my ride is spent on the Metro blue line, which runs from downtown Long Beach to 7th street station, just west of Union Station. The blue line is a major Metro artery, connecting the county's southernmost city, Long Beach, to downtown LA.  I then transfer to the purple line, which runs east from Union, intersecting the 7th street station and terminating at Wilshire and Western, one exit after my stop at Wilshire and Normandie.

The morning crowd is mostly business types: doctors and nurses, young men in black suits and new shoes, women in heels and skirts. College students toting backpacks and iPods talk quietly; single parents bring their children to the babysitter.  On a typical day, it's a mellow half-asleep crowd and there are plenty of seats.

The trains home are crowded.  The professional types from the morning keep to themselves, looking disheveled from their workday and making eye contact only enough to navigate to the train car door when it's their turn to disembark.  The rest of the crowd makes things interesting.  Young men walk the cars, selling bootleg DVD's and stolen watches.  Old women, with kids in tow, sell chocolate bars and chewing gum. Kids on bikes crowd the entryways, music blasting in their ears loud enough to hear several rows down.  The occasional crazy person serenades us with nonsensical musings of lives wasted, opportunities lost, or worse.

The PM crowd is like a tale of two cities.  The haves and have-nots.  The privileged and the used.  The hopeful and the hopeless.  It is Los Angeles.