bus route victory!

In an earlier post, I wrote about my love for the 550 bus, which goes right from the south side of campus to within three blocks of my house.

No more, bus 550. It's over between us.

After waiting no less that 45 minutes for you on Thursday, I decided that, to say the least, I needed to explore other options.

Since I had watched about ten DASH route F buses pass me by in my epic wait for the 550, I decided to try to find a route that put me on that line, since the DASH only costs a quarter and apparently runs much more frequently.

My house is northwest of campus. I had been planning my bus route based on going south along Western first, then east along Exposition. I decided to try the other way: east along Adams using the number 37 bus, then south along Figueroa, which is a major bus route with about five different lines on it.

Score! Bus number 37, you kick 550's ass! You stop one block from my house instead of three! During rush hour, you arrive every seven minutes! You can't get better service than that from LA public transit. Even during non-rush hour, you supposedly come every 12 minutes, as you're listed on LA Metro's "12 Minute Map." (I know your schedule says you sometimes come every 20 minutes. We'll see which is true.)

The best part is that the 37 stop at Adams & Figueroa is less than half a mile from campus--and the stretch of Figueroa north of campus is way less sketchy than the stretch of Exposition west of campus, which is grody, deserted and highwaylike. Which means that although I can pick up the DASH or any one of three or four other bus lines on that corner, I will probably end up walking to campus from there, at least during the day.

All in all, this new route cuts my door-to-door commute time to campus from up to an hour (no joke!) to around 20 minutes--about the same as walking. And I end up on the north side of campus, which is closer to my classes anyway. And my walk into campus takes me past Trojan Grounds, perfect for my morning coffee. Having a bike would probably still be faster, but since I don't currently know how to ride a bike, I'm pretty excited about this discovery.

As an added bonus, the corner of Adams & Figueroa sports this beautiful church (seen here with requisite strip mall sign in foreground.)

Update: The day after I wrote this, I waited 25 minutes for that mofo.  Now you're just fucking with me, LA Metro.