Public Transportation in L.A.!?

There’s an unexpected – or at least “previously unknown to me” – advantage to the location of my new apartment (the one I’m moving to in a couple of weeks). It seems that it is located easily within walking distance of the LA Metro “Orange Line”. What this translates to is that, theoretically, I should now be able to get around Los Angeles without needing to put Precious (my ’02 Trans-Am Firehawk for those just joining this discussion…) at risk on the mean streets that are the freeways of the L.A. Metropolitan Area. This, as anyone who’s had the privilege to partake in this madness knows, is a good thing … a very good thing…

All I now need to do is figure out the system. I think I’ve made quite a bit of progress in the last few days by investigating the Metro.net website (we’re between tapeouts here at work which gives me plenty of free time…); although I am still a bit confused – mainly with the fares, passes, and this thing known as “TAP”. I’ve even been able to (at least I think…) find two bus lines that I could basically take to work. If I’m correct with my research, then I do believe I’m going to once again become a frequent user of public transportation as I so easily was able to do during the time I spent in Europe. Now granted, this depends greatly on whether or not I have successfully cracked the Enigma code that is the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Here’s what I’ve surmised thus far…

The two lines that I should be able to use to commute to and fro work are the LA County Metro Local line 161 and the aptly named Commuter Express line 422. Both lines (as well as a few other intermediate local Metro lines) were presented to me via the Metro Trip Planner tool. All I did was enter my apartment address as the start point and my work address as the destination. This got me the 161 line. The 422 line was discovered after messing around with the day and time settings a bit and increasing the maximum walking distance. It soon started looking like the Commuter Express (line 422) was my best bet as the travel time was somewhere on the order of half that reported for the 161 line. I decided to check out the maps and timetables for these routes to see why this was, exactly…

I was able to find both a map and timetable for the Metro Local 161 line directly on the Metro website. The 422 line, however, was mysteriously absent. The reason for this is because the Commuter Express lines are actually part of the LADOT (The City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation) system as opposed to the LACMTA system covered by the Metro.net site. The trip planner found on the Metro.net site includes connections utilizing the LDOT (Commuter Express lines – perhaps DASH lines too although I haven’t checked this yet…) routes as well. It’s very convenient although a bit more explanation might be helpful to us newbies there… I was able, in time, to find the map and schedule for the 422 route through the LADOT website.

These two routes differ in a couple key areas. Although the Commuter Express 422 route is actually a somewhat quicker trip (it has fewer stops than the local 161 route), it has the disadvantage of having a much more restricted service schedule. It only travels from the San Fernando Valley (where my new apartment is) to Westlake Village (the location of my work) on weekdays between the hours of ~6:00am until ~8:30am and the return trip utilizing this route would need to be done between ~2:15pm and ~6:45pm. Buses basically run every 20 minutes within these hours and this route is not available on weekends.

By contrast, the Metro Local 161 route (although the trip could take up to an hour) is usable throughout the day from about 5:45am until approximately 8:30pm for my commute each and every day – weekend and holiday service is a bit more limited, however it is available. The main problem with this route is that the buses are far less frequent – runs are scheduled with as few as one run per hour at times. I do however believe that I should be able to figure out an optimal routine utilizing these two routes in time. If only I could figure out the fare issues…

You see, that’s currently what I’m trying to make sense of. It’s rather obvious that I could pay for each trip with cash (exact change only) and keep track of any transfer fees I would need to purchase; however carrying the amount of coins this would require would quickly become a nuisance. What I’m looking to do is purchase some sort of monthly pass that would allow me to use the public transportation systems easily. When I was in Braunschweig, this was easy to do – I purchased a monthly pass at the train station that allowed me to take any bus or tram in the city without hassle. I was even able to figure this out without speaking any German – the system was very user-friendly. Here in L.A. – where I speak one of the common languages rather fluently – it’s quite a bit more complicated … or at least it currently appears so to me…

So I’m pretty sure that what I need to get for my standard work commute is an EZ Transit Pass (“Good for travel on Metro bus, Metro Rail and many additional carriers”) and one EZ Premium Stamp (in order to travel between the “San Fernando Valley” and “Thousand Oaks / Agoura Hills” zones on the 422 Commuter Express line); but what the heck is all this nonsense about a TAP card? Apparently “all Metro passes are now sold on TAP” which is “a durable plastic card you can use again and again.” That’s great for the Metro passes; but what about the EZ Transit Pass? Since this pass appears to be equivalent to a Metro Monthly Pass with additional features (allows travel on additional carriers outside of the Metro system – LADOT, to be more precise…), am I correct in thinking that this card can be used in lieu of a TAP card for intra-Metro travel? I suppose I should call somebody and ask about this…

Whatever the case, it now looks like I’ll have something to occupy myself with once I move into my next apartment. I suppose this is good as my standard routine of doing basically nothing during my free time has become excruciatingly boring. Add to that the sure excitement I’m bound to experience with the myriad of tasks that need to be completed upon my move – furnishing the apartment and such – and it looks like an absolute flurry of activity is soon to be heading my way. Who knows? Maybe I can turn all this into something positive…? The ability to get out and about whilst avoiding the need to drive in the L.A. gridlock sounds like a nice start to me.

bis später,

Coriolis

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I’ve decided to find a bit more appropriate housing for myself next month. Not that I haven’t been enjoying the ability I’ve had of late to easily increase my overall net worth; I think, however, it’s due time for me to start living like the soon to be 40 year old man that I am. And what that means is that I really need to be moving out of the room I currently reside in and moving into an apartment – a place of my own. I’ve already found the place and am scheduled to be moving to the valley (the San Fernando Valley, that is … like, totally…) on the 10th of April.

I know, “big deal,” right? Well I guess it isn’t. It’s just the next adventure that this rather dull, increasingly lonely life that I lead has in store for me. As for the myriad of details associated with this move go, I’m beginning to wonder if I can cope. It all just seems like way too much hassle for yet one more thing that, to be completely honest, I really don’t “want” to do. But I’ve learned that life – at least my life – really doesn’t give a shit whether the tasks it throws at me are things I want, it’s going to bombard me with ‘em anyway. I suppose that feeling of control over my life that I once had after returning from Germany a few years back was only an illusion. I guess this next move could be seen as a desperate attempt to once again rein in my out of control life; to regain control and return to creating my life rather than just living it. I just hope I can survive…

The funny, somewhat interesting, rather pathetic and quite sad thing is that this is far from the first time I’ve traveled down this road. Hell, since becoming a college grad, I’ve “lived” (for a minimum of seven months) at 12 different “permanent” addresses in 9 different cities, 5 separate states and 2 unique countries. Granted there are many out there that these figures seem somewhat minuscule; however, for a guy who’s initial plan was to get married and live somewhere (perhaps with a family, perhaps just as a couple) happily ever after, it’s approximately 11 addresses too many. For god’s sake, I OWN a house in Colorado! I own a house and have once again begun the process of moving. Will it ever end…?

Oh well … as it currently stands, I’ve got quite a bit that I need to do in order to successfully accomplish this latest move. That’s the worst part about all these moves – they seem to be getting more and more complicated as time goes by. My first half-dozen or so moves were actually pretty simple – I didn’t own much and all that was required was to get my small amount of possessions transported to my new address then arrange for television and internet service to be furnished. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. All my moves were repeats of this same process until I finally bit the bullet and bought a house in ’01. That was, theoretically, supposed to be my last move. I’ve already moved three times since…

My plan has been to keep the house in Colorado, live on the cheap wherever I end up needing to go and, after the stars finally re-align themselves making it possible for me to live in Colorado again, move back into my house. Seemed like a good plan to me when I first decided to implement it some three and a half years ago; however I am now realizing that this plan is flawed in some very fundamental ways.

I attempted to address one of these weaknesses – the problem of property upkeep – by fool heartedly letting my buddy Todd live in my house (rent-free, mind you…) whilst I was living and working in California. The mess that is property upkeep of a house that one is not living in had become evident to me upon my return from Germany. For some reason (ignorance, I suppose) I was under the impression that leaving my house empty during the time I was away in Germany (and subsequently the time I spent with the family afterword – a total of about one full year) would not be an issue. I was wrong about this (check out my earlier post, Smoking Marathon, for more) and actually feel a bit silly about my initial naivety. The obviousness of the stupidity of such an impression is very clear to me now…

But I digress … having Todd actually living in my house would avoid this problem – or so I thought. I figured that we could help each other out – Todd needed a place to live and I could use somebody to take care of my house. This, of course, ended badly as anybody who’s ever been foolish enough to believe a living situation similar to this wouldn’t end badly has assuredly learned. Never, and I do mean never, let anybody live in your house rent free. All it’s going to do is give said person a false feeling of entitlement and, once this has set in, you can forget about your wishes having any import. Once Todd started taking advantage of his side of our deal with little to no concern for the upkeep of my house, I was forced to kick him out. It’s a long story involving alcohol, misguided machismo, some extremely poorly rationalized statements and the Longmont Police; however the end result was that I was forced to kick Todd out. This of course meant that my house was once again abandoned. I needed to do something about that…

So now I own a rental property in Colorado (okay … I actually own a mortgage to a rental property in Colorado to be more precise). My former abode of dwelling is still sitting atop this property however somebody else’s family is living in it. PML (Property Management of Longmont) has been tasked with this property’s maintenance and upkeep and any and all repair costs are passed on for me to pay as well as a small percentage of the rent that goes to PML as a maintenance fee. It’s a pretty good arraignment so far even though I am, at best, only able to recoup approximately 2/3 of my mortgage payment each month – sometimes much less depending on repair costs… Bottom line is that I am dropping a decent amount of money each month already – long before I factor in the cost of housing for me out here in California. If the housing market ever gets back on its feet again, I should however be able to make back the difference (and then some, hopefully…) with the equity I am retaining. I suppose only time will tell on this gambit…

Getting back to the main point of this article, this mortgage ownership that I have has thrown a bit of a monkey-wrench into my usual new rental procedure. It’s actually simplified some things quite a bit as I ended up basically tossing out a large majority of my possessions after asking Todd to leave. And by a “large portion”, I do in fact mean a large portion. Of all my possessions that I had in my house, exactly one 5’x9’ storage unit of stuff is left – my home entertainment system (sans television set), a half-stack, my guitar, a few boxes of clothing and a file cabinet of primarily financial documents. This storage unit (located in a Public Storage in Longmont), along with the stuff I am living with here in California, is everything I now own. In other words, I am now going to need to do some shopping just to furnish the new, two-bedroom, two-bath apartment I am moving to next month. I am also going to need to arrange shipment of the stuff I have stored in Longmont. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth the hassle…

I don’t know, perhaps I’m just suffering your standard buyer’s remorse. It wasn’t until rather recent that I was finally able to get myself out from under a substantial amount of credit card debt. I’m very proud to now be able to announce that I am completely, 100% credit-card debt free! Getting here has taught me what I would consider a very valuable lesson – live within your means and do not, under any circumstances, buy shit on credit. I’ve made a complete U-turn when it comes to spending and now only buy things AFTER I have saved up enough money to purchase them. The absolute best way to use credit cards is actually to NOT use them. It almost seems too simple now – why would I want to pay more for something than it actually costs? That is exactly what you are doing when you charge something and keep any balance on your card at the end of the month. Now I realize that my readers are smart people and I’m not telling you anything you did not already know; however it was shocking to see the financial condition that the younger me was able to get myself into. I’m trying my best not to let history repeat itself here…

Now my current situation is great for me, financially. Living where I do (basically a room in a boarding house) is cheap. Very cheap when you consider it’s located in Thousand Oaks. So whipty-doo, I can increase my net worth. However in doing so, I have basically put my life (admittedly dull as it is…) on hold. I wake up, spend a rather large portion of my day at work, spend the remainder of the day in my little room, go to bed and repeat. Weekends are very similar except that, often times, the work portion can be removed. And yeah, I know what you’re thinking, “What’s stopping me from doing more?” You obviously have never lived in Thousand Oaks…

There’s this site name Walk Score where you can enter any address and see how walkable it would be to live there. It basically gives you listings of nearby attractions and how close they are to the address entered. It also gives you a score from 1-100 that rates your address. My boarding house rates 29 out of 100 – “Car-Dependent”. By contrast, the apartment complex I am moving to in Woodland Hills gets a score of 80 – “Very Walkablke”. The way I see it, having the ability to walk places might get me out more. Not to mention that the walking would give me some exercise – something that I have let slip seriously since moving to T.O. Will this pan out in the end? I don’t know, but I’m willing to try…

Apart from the location of my new place, there’s also the much more prudent aspect that it will be MY place. I will once again be able to go grocery shopping. Not that I can’t buy groceries now; however I’m basically limited to one shelf in the fridge to store my groceries. I have been told that I could use the kitchen for cooking; but the whole communal-living aspect of it all is very uncomfortable for me. I’ve done the “living in a frat house” thing long ago; I think I’m past that now…

Also, assuming I am able to get the place furnished correctly, I will no longer feel that I should be spending all of my time at home cramped up in my bedroom. No, far from it, I will be able to watch television in my living room, hang out on one of the two balconies that look out at the pool and communal area of the complex, heck … I can even head down to the gym and get a decent workout. Anyway you look at it, having a place of my own again should make me feel a bit more normal.

But it all comes at a cost and that’s what I’m having a hard time justifying to myself. Don’t get me wrong, I currently can afford it – rather easily, actually. That being said, this apartment will be costing me 3.5-4 times what I am currently paying for room and board. It’s not chicken feed… Even if the unforeseen happens (say I lose my job before the 12-month lease is done), I currently have enough cash in the bank to cover the rent; but then all that work I did at obtaining this savings would have been for naught. It wouldn’t be good, but I just need to consider that it would be survivable. After all, what’s the use of earning this money if you’re going to sacrifice your life in order to keep it, right? I think my attempt at shocking my life back into existence is long overdue. Here goes nothing…

bis später,

Coriolis