Are we there yet?

I interviewed Art Leahy, head of the MTA, for the July edition of Los Angeles magazine. We talked about building the system, making the trains run on time, and about the culture of transit. An ebullient sort of guy - and a big USC fan - Leahy got a kick out of chatting with passengers on the Gold Line to Highland Park while I interviewed him.He needs to keep those riders on the Gold Line (and all the other legs of the light rail network) if the MTA is to make any headway on balancing the cars vs. transit equation in Los Angeles.

Leahy wants drivers to want light rail because it benefits them, not just out of the perverse expectation that they won't have to ride but that you will. In answer to my question about getting more riders on buses, Leafy said, "We need to offer on-time service, reliable service, with the best frequency of buses that we can."

Unfortunately, even efficient service won't put L.A. riders on trains (let alone buses). As Mike Anton noted in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month, public transit is . . . well . . . really public. "In a place dominated by freeways and the automobile's numbing isolation, the 22-mile light-rail line -- the oldest in L.A. County, marking 20 years of service this summer -- is a rolling improvisational theater where a cast of thousands acts out a daily drama that is by turns poignant, sad, hysterical and inexplicable. Whoa! Did a guy just get up from his seat and urinate before stumbling off the train? Yes, folks, he did. Five bucks gets you a day pass to one of the most unpredictable shows in town."

I've been on the Blue Line at the worst of times. I've seen my share of the city's cruel theater. I've ridden cross-county buses late at night when the poor make their way in darkness and silence. I've been afraid. I've been saddened. And I've defended public transit as much as a school for civility as for any transportation purpose - as the place where we might learn conviviality because it's a moral imperative. But it's a hard education.

Art Leahy is a wonderful ambassador for the MTA, but he doesn't really know how to get us to ride willingly. And those who think to compel us to ride are full of passionate intensity.

I think I'll jump on the 191 LBT bus today and take the Blue Line to 7th and Metro and maybe walk around downtown for a while, wandering in the city because it's a good thing for me to do on a Sunday in June.

The image on this page was taken by flickr user vistavision. It is used under a Creative Commons License.