Nobody walks in LA....

but what about taking the bus? I have a couple friends in LA who have tried hard to utilize public transportation as much as possible. It's certainly not easy, but it is do-able. Especially if you are doing most of your traveling in certain corridors, like downtown LA to mid-wilshire or downtown LA to Hollywood.

However, getting from suburb to suburb can be ridiculously difficult. One friend tried to come to Torrance from Westwood (about 20 miles) and had to transit through LAX and take three different buses. It was about 2 and a half hours and six dollars or so. I myself tried once long ago to go from Torrance to the Long Beach airport. The story was largely the same, three buses, one crazy drugged out woman, two and a half hours, and about 3 dollars.

So it was with a little trepidation that I happened upon the idea of taking a bus to downtown LA to meet with a friend for lunch. The thing that made me hopeful was that the City of Torrance operates a direct bus to Union Station that only costs 2 dollars and is supposed to get there in less than 90 minutes. It seemed do-able, pretty cheap ($2 one way), and relatively painless, so I decided to try it.

I am happy to report that although the trip is somewhat long, it is definitely a viable choice. It routes around Torrance and Gardena a bit too much, but there are no transfers, the bus is pretty comfortable, and surprisingly, it's actually ridden by a larger number of people than I expected. The route goes from Del Amo Mall to the South Bay Galleria to the Artesia Transit Center, and then finally drops you off at Union Station.

Which, by the way, is actually a lot prettier than I expected... and as ridiculous as it sounds, this is the first time in my nearly 3 decades in LA that I have actually been to Union Station. I inquired about Amtrak fares, and I am seriously considering taking the Amtrak up to the Bay or even Portland.

Anyway, the icing on the cake is that the bus actually got there a bit early, despite all of its stops and the circuitous route. Still much longer than the 30 minutes it would take me to drive (without traffic), but like I said, a completely viable choice for living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. We still have to do a lot more about routing to places other than downtown LA, but it's a start. It may also be the first of many trips for me on the bus to downtown LA!