My oppositional defiance disorder is such that I am here at El Monte Station along with about three dozen other people kicked off the Silver Streak (or just waiting) for the J Line to the alleged curfew zone, just to see what the bus will do.
Pro - new electric bus (first time riding!) Con - rear fare reader disabled and this bus has all door boarding.
The guy next to me is literally intermittently chugging a half gallon of milk straight from the jug. Now making the loop into Cal State LA which has had pretty good signage for buses. A few people get off. As of right now does Metro not have any fuckjng clue what route the buses are running, they don’t even know what bus numbers go to downtown.
Milk chugger was also munching on some sweet bread and offered it to the lady across the aisle. That’s awfully nice. There is a three bus convoy going westbound for some reason. I guess we really bunched up. They are running the normal detour route out of General Hospital to Union Station. And the stupid wireless alert is going off on random phones next to me since we are in the zone. The taco stand at Union Station East still running but empty. Now pulling into the east bus plaza.
Because the trains have shut down, a bunch of people are asking questions as to whether this bus serves various destinations. The J Line does deliberately come close to almost every rail station so the answer is likely yes. I saw FlyAway parked there still. Now going west on Cesar Chavez. Some guy says that if they try to pull stuff, “I’m from Texas and we know what the Second Amendment is.” I don’t know why people buy gas at that $7.89 a gallon station across from Olvera Street, but there are two cars there.
Traffic is deep on both directions of Cesar Chavez. Now turning on Broadway towards the civic center. This is actually Hill. And Metro apparently gave up and decided to run service after all. Nice moon this morning as a bunch of cop cars head towards the federal building.
First Street looked orderly. A bunch of people, maybe observers, in yellow vests on Temple and Hill. Currently going to Disney Hall. Metrolink is still reporting that Metro has shut down connecting service, although that was reversed about 15 minutes ago. Saw about a dozen people at Karl Strauss brewing across from One Wilshire. IHOP had about half a dozen diners and a security guard out in front. I think I will use this as an opportunity to ride down to I-105 and check out the new LAX Metro Transit Center. About half the bus turns over at Seventh Street which looked as busy as usual around this time of night. Despite paralleling the rail tracks, I haven’t seen a train yet. Got to freeway interchange station and got a bit of a workout climbing about eight stories from the bus to train level. I didn’t see any trains pass by on the A or E and normally even at this hour you would see one. Now at the LAX station where there are about a dozen security guards and ambassadors. They want to make a good impression on visitors I suppose. Actually see a good deal of people with heavy bags or luggage.
The restroom was as clean as the ones at the airport and not like the ones at Union Station. But this train station is IMHO ridiculously overbuilt. The bus plaza has maybe a dozen more staff in orange vests milling around. Also, green bubble discrimination.
This is a creative way to do seating that doesn’t look too hostile while enforcing its purpose. Although given the amount of security they could have full size benches and no one would camp there.
This reminds me a lot of the Milpitas BART station. So overbuilt for what it serves. Anyway, back on train to the Expo station.
I see about half a dozen flyers with luggage and/or backpacks who got off my train boarding the E towards downtown. They are running a three car train today and the ridership is quite good. Now that we are entering the so called curfew zone peoples phones are going off again Too bad I no longer see @ryanhassett.bsky.social here but he would get a kick out of the announcement for “B-M-O Stadium” Got off at Pico to catch the J Line back to the SGV. There are a couple guys outside the Moxy Hotel just blowing off a bong like no tomorrow.
About half a dozen guards are outside the convention center standing around waiting for nothing to happen. As I board the bus, more of those stupid wireless alerts go off. LA Live is shut down tightly and there are about four security guards being bored outside Fig and 7th, which has been barricaded off, again for nothing. There is so little traffic here the bus was actually early. Those LAC4You immigrant rights pamphlets are stuffed in the slots where the schedules would go.
There are probably about the same number of people I’ve seen on the bus the last couple of nights, maybe fewer. About a dozen people as we drive past an empty Grand Park and a bunch of cops just standing around. They must have closed down the plaza or something, because three of the people got on at Cesar Chavez and the bus didn’t go in the plaza. The taco guy alas packed up for the night. At General Hospital the bus did not follow the detour but stopped outside the hospital, which is more convenient for the people getting off but not for the folks who want to catch the bus at the station a block away. And the driver was almost going to skip Cal State until we yelled at him. I guess it’s fortunate we are still in the 20 minute service pattern, after I complained that the J Line was being treated like a rail line while offering 40 minute service after 8 pm until about 2016. It runs every 20 minutes until 11 pm, not as good as rail but close enough Finally made it back here to El Monte. Thanks for joining this adventure!