LIKE MANY EPIC JOURNEYS of exploration, mine began not out of necessity but out of curiosity -- the ancestral human urge to test the boundaries of endurance and knowledge. My quest: to get from my house in the Hollywood Hills to LAX, using only public transportation.
"I had not anticipated that the work would present any great difficulties," said Sir Ernest Shackleton after surviving his harrowing, failed attempt to reach the South Pole in 1915, his icebound ship by that time at the bottom of the sea.
Nearly a century later, I, like Sir Ernest, would learn the folly of underestimating the awesome power of natural forces -- in his case, the treacherous ice floes and brutal cold of the Ross Sea, in mine, the mindless dysfunctionality of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Trains ferry passengers in and out of most big airports across the country, including Atlanta's Hartsfield, Chicago's O'Hare and even San Francisco International. But not at Los Angeles International Airport. It is the fifth-busiest airport in the world, with more than 60 million passengers a year, and more people start their flights there than anywhere else -- yet it is not served by any rail line. Like reaching the Pole, getting to the airport using only public transit is a feat requiring courage, fortitude and very bad judgment.
As most of history's great explorers have quickly discovered, a lack of proper equipment can have tragic consequences. Overconfident, I leave the house with only one real piece of survival gear: a cellphone, which, I figure, I can use to call a cab if all else fails. Soon after reaching the bus stop, I recognize my first mistake. The most critical piece of equipment when riding L.A. public transit is -- a book. Or a magazine. Or a newspaper. Anything to relieve the crushing boredom.
Twenty-four minutes later the bus arrives. Knowingly, I put $1.25 in the slot and take a seat. Leaving the bus at Hollywood Boulevard, I ask the driver for a transfer. He fixes me with a fishy stare. MTA buses do not issue transfers. You have to buy a day pass, which is $3. I hold out a $5 bill. The driver looks at it as if it's a used tissue. He does not give change.
So begins the 1.5-mile trek to the Hollywood and Highland Red Line station, with not a sled dog or Sherpa to lead the way. Yes, I could take another bus, but I'm still steamed about the day-pass snub. Along the way, I pass a fearsome reminder of the perils of this expedition. A sleek black Lexus has just been in an accident, looking like a seal carcass half-eaten by polar bears.
The MTA had tested my mettle, and I had failed. It would not happen again.
At least I didn't have to contend with bus drivers anymore. Riding the escalator into the bowels of Hollywood, I enter the Mercedes of L.A. public transit, the $4.5-billion Red Line subway. The 17.4-mile system is fast, semi-clean, quiet -- a wonder of efficiency with nearly 120,000 boardings a day. It would attract many thousands more if only it went somewhere. Originally planned to run all the way down Wilshire Boulevard, the city's densest corridor, it instead ends with a whimper at Wilshire and Western Avenue, its spine hacked off by community opposition and weak-kneed politicians.
Inside the station, I insert my $5 bill into the ticket machine that dispenses a $3 day pass. Again, the bill is found wanting. The adjacent machine finds it distasteful too. As does the next. Everywhere I turn, my path is blocked.
At last I spot it across the room: a change machine. I insert the bill, gingerly, with Lincoln's face pointed in the instructed direction. The bill disappears like a dogsled falling into a crevasse. "Out of Order," the machine blinks.
Ten minutes later, I wait at a platform, having tracked down an MTA worker to rescue my cash. From here it's 17 minutes to the 7th Street station in downtown L.A., where I transfer to the Blue Line. Eight minutes later, I'm flashing through downtown at 25 mph.
It is on the Blue Line that I discover my second equipment oversight. A man wearing wraparound sunglasses and a backward baseball cap raps at the top of his voice, alternating from English to Spanish and demonstrating an encyclopedic, bilingual knowledge of profanity. By the Slauson station in Huntington Park, I try to puncture my eardrums with my house keys to make the noise stop. I look around at my fellow passengers. They are pod people, staring ahead, seemingly without awareness. Then I notice the wires leading from their ears to devices tucked in pockets or purses. Not pod people at all -- they're iPod people.
Several days later -- or maybe it's 24 minutes -- I'm at the Imperial/Wilmington station in Lynwood, prepared to transfer to the Green Line. Thirteen minutes later, I'm on the train heading toward LAX. At last I can see it up ahead -- the LAX/Aviation Boulevard station. But my adventure isn't over.
