With the price of gas creeping toward $5 a gallon, I spent last week riding various forms of public transportation to and from work. I embarked on this little science project expecting to find -- no surprises here -- that L.A.'s buses and subways are impractical, inconvenient and frequently uncomfortable.
Well, I can report today that L.A.'s buses and subways are impractical, inconvenient and frequently uncomfortable. But the system does work.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, June 17, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 62 words Type of Material: Correction
Public transit: David Lazarus' Consumer Confidential column in Business on Sunday about creating incentives for Los Angeles residents to use public transportation said the travel-planning website of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority at www.metro.net does not include other transit services. In fact, it includes most regional systems, but users have to be specific about travel times to get complete results.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, June 22, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 64 words Type of Material: Correction
Public transit: David Lazarus' Consumer Confidential column in the June 15 Business section about creating incentives for Los Angeles residents to use public transportation said the travel-planning website of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority at www.metro.net did not include other transit services. In fact, it includes most regional systems, but users have to be specific about travel times to get complete results.
And it can be easily improved.
First of all, let's be honest: This isn't an easy town for the car-less. Without your own set of wheels, it can be a big challenge to run errands, attend events, handle the kids, enjoy outdoor activities and, not incidentally, earn a living.
So I'm not trying to make the case for leaving your car at home and switching entirely to public transportation. What I'm saying is that you may be surprised at how easy it is to do this one or two days a week.
And with gas prices at record levels, you can pocket some serious coin to help defray other costs, such as your equally alarming grocery bill.
According to the Automobile Club of Southern California, it costs, on average, 23 cents a mile to drive a car with gas at $4.50 a gallon (not including depreciation, insurance, taxes and other fixed costs).
Let's say your round-trip commute is 40 miles a day -- a conservative estimate for lots of people, I know. Factoring in the $1.25 one-way cost of many bus tickets, you'd save almost $350 a year by leaving your car at home one day a week.
If you could pull off two car-free days a week, that's about $700 in savings. And that doesn't include what you'd save on parking.
How doable is this? It depends on how flexible you're prepared to be.
I started my mass-transit odyssey with what I rightly assumed would be the ugliest option: local bus lines.
On the plus side, L.A.'s bright-orange local buses run relatively frequently. On the minus side, you'll spend a lot of time on the road.
Getting from my home on the Westside to The Times' downtown office took about an hour and a half. Returning home that evening took almost two hours.
That's 3 1/2 hours for a 32-mile round-trip commute that usually takes me about 45 minutes each way by car. And by the time I got home, I was exhausted.
Hector Barbosa, 41, whom I encountered twice during the week as he traveled to and from his home in Pacific Palisades and his job in Beverly Hills, said local bus lines take some getting used to.
