Novel idea….jury duty summons include free metro passes that you can use on ANY Metro line or bus.

Driving in downtown LA is a nightmare and the train makes it so very simple.

The hard reality is that taking the subway downtown and back during rush hour will take much less time than driving in from the Valley. That alone should be incentive.
The only downside, really, is the lack of phone service for the 30 minute, tops, trip.

The whole phone not working thing in the subway, that can work as an excuse for a variety of things.

I will take the Red line to from Noho to Union station just to get away from people.

Remember the 80s when people had to wait until you got home to bother you…good times…

Browne

Am with browne on this one, 30 minutes with no phone is heaven to me and an argument for subways, not against in my little book.

Unfortunately, this is LA and the train will only get you near hundreds of destinations. Where you will have to transfer to a shuttle or bus thereby adding 30 minutes to your trip and making it longer than driving. Even with traffic.

Quite true blueline the state of the system as it stands now adds has a long way to go. Right now unless your journey ends at a handful of destinations what we have in place it is a big time waster. I do have to admit I support Jason’s building a transit system that works. IE fast and multiple destinations is a good goal. Getting the system to that point is goint to be long, painful if you are in a construction zone and expensive for all of us.

I think as a stop gap until the dreams gets built they should add more busses that run on time and have them run later. The rail ending service at 12am is simply crazy, on the weekends at least have it run until 2am.

Good point browne. Trains and heavy bus runs until 2AM to catch the drunk rush hour. Back in the day…well we’ve all done it, a good night out and had to get home. Can think of a few times I would have liked to have had cheap public transit available rather than call a cab.

When I used to live in Los Feliz some places were hard to get to via bus at night (Highland Park.) I go to lots of art shows, anyways I tried to catch a bus back and the bus didn’t come (now that I live in downtown this kind of thing rarely happens) not only that a cab refused to pick me up. I would call and it would never come (but they are complete d*cks about the whole thing they won’t tell you they aren’t coming they’ll just keep claiming they are lost,) I realized at that point that Highland Park to cab companies (at least where the art galleries are) is viewed as a “bad neighborhood.”

Anyways no bus service, no cab, but then I learned of the gypsy cab service. A guy pretty much picks you up in his minivan, sedan, whatever and take you were you want to go and then looks at you to decide how much he’s going to make you pay.

Now in places like that the MTA should run all night and frequently, because I’m sure everyone in transportation knows the “we don’t go there” zones, the MTA should accommodate that.

Anyone needs a number to a gypsy cab let me know, they’ll pick you up anywhere no matter how wretched everyone else thinks it is.

Browne

i live in burbank and my girlfriend lives in chinatown. i’ve been using the red line from universal city to civic center regularly to visit her. i walk to the disney concert hall, and in a few minutes, she drives by and picks me up.

i highly encourage everyone to use the metro!

browne, i would like that gypsy cab number. please email me at josephtsai@sbcglobal.net

thanks!

Jason, please don’t give away our transportation secret to everyone, its bad enough that advertisers are now starting to put ads in stations because they realized there are actually people using this thing.

By the way, it was FREE 7 day MTA Pass that the courts offer to all jurors in lieu of a mileage payment that got me to start buying passes instead of paying fares. It started with the weekly pass, then I got into bi-weekly and tokens, now I’m full-blown into it with monthly passes delivered via mail. It´s so bad, I only can wish they would sell a yearly pass!

threepointonefourfiveninetwosixfive,

Speaking of yearly passes, I am getting a TAP card that is good for one year. My work makes the monthly payments, and subtracts it from my check, but I keep the same card and do not have to get the monthly pass @ HR. I wonder if this is available to the general public?

“she drives by and picks me up.” fac21

What!!? Ok, I’m being anal here and forgive me for being a self righteous greenie, but you can get a Dash (DD on the weekends, or the Dash Lincoln Heights, Chinatown) for a quarter to get you into Chinatown or even buy a day pass then you could transfer to the Gold Line at Union Station go one stop and you’re in Chinatown. The public transit solutions will save you time and money, I know how much it costs to park in downtown at night, at least five bucks plus tip…and parking on the street is getting harder and harder, it’s not like how it was during Al’s Bar days or even when the Smell was actually very smelly…
Just think about it.

And yes I understand that the train doesn’t run that late, but you’re not going home :)

From the Cars are Bad Committee Chairwoman, Browne Molyneux