Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, May 18. I’m Justin Ray.
I have a secret.
There’s something I try not to discuss when in casual conversation with other residents of Los Angeles, a city known for its lengthy commute times and conversations about roads so infamous that “Saturday Night Live” (among others) parodied them.
The truth is, I don’t own a car. Why? Because I don’t want one. I lived in New York City for seven years and, before that, Chicago for four. During that time, I got around with public transit, as do many other residents of those cities.
Sure, people who take the bus or the train are causing less emissions. But that’s not why I don’t have a car. My main reason is because I don’t want to deal with fines, parking, fender benders and the other nonsense that makes car ownership a chore. Paying astronomical rent, putting out a daily newsletter and dating men is hard enough as it is.
When I came to California, I discovered that public transit isn’t one of its strengths. Many of the state’s biggest cities have failed to make their train systems connect to the local airport. There’s also the ongoing drama around the California bullet train, which — despite all its hype and cost — has yet to be completed.
But I want to talk about another transit issue: bad behavior on trains.
I have been in the city for 3½ years and I have seen everything: people getting jumped; arguments among passengers; a guy getting his phone stolen out of his hands; people smoking cigarettes and meth; a couple on a bus in Hollywood rolling up a dollar bill and doing cocaine off of a book.
You name it, I’ve seen it.
I have experienced some wild circumstances. I remember riding a bus in Los Feliz and looking down at some item on the seat next to me. It turned out to be a pretty hefty blunt. Although I had a good laugh about it, not all of my experiences have been funny.
I have been called the F-slur while waiting for a train in East Hollywood. While riding a bus in Pasadena, a man stood over me staring while crinkling up a plastic bottle and sweating profusely. Passengers stared at me, unsure of how to help me. I ended up running off the bus when it reached a stop. A woman soon after approached me to ask if I was OK.
I have sympathy for the person who did not intervene in the moment, because I am still traumatized by a situation where I also failed to act. I witnessed a transgender woman who was minding her own business get verbally harassed by a man. I sat for three seconds after the incident, wondering what to do. Before I came up with a plan, a young Latinx man who had more courage than I did confronted the guy who had caused the ruckus.
When gas prices began to rise earlier this year, The Times explained how safety concerns make transit a hard sell. I don’t blame anyone who avoids transit. The truth is, I don’t feel safe. I have paid a fare, and left a train station to take an Uber because I saw the crowd I would be riding with and decided to eat the cost.
Just last week, The Times reported that violent crimes had jumped 81% for the first two months of this year on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bus and rail system. That information was provided in a story about a 70-year-old Metro rail passenger who was set on fire.
Los Angeles is not alone. The New York Times reported that Americans are “confronting transit crime rates that have risen over pre-pandemic levels in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.” Just last month, a gunman set off a smoke grenade and fired a barrage of bullets in a rush-hour subway train in Brooklyn, injuring 10 riders.
The NYT article brings up a paradox about ridership and safety; one of the best ways for people to feel safe on public transit is for more people to take it and thereby increase accountability. But people do not ride, because it doesn’t feel safe.
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Read More: Riding public transit in Los Angeles can be scary. Here are some things I’ve seen