[All the de-car-ing posts are here. Month 4's here.]
My efforts to de-car, in dollars and cents:
- $ 60 for gas (none to ExxonMobil).
- $105 per month of insurance (go Progressive!).
- $47 for yet another parking ticket :( Damn that street cleaning!
$212 total for September 2006
Goal for Oct: Start taking the bus to school, and bring the gas costs down under $50.
At my old apartment, it was tough cuz I had to take like 3 different buses. But with my new apt., I can take the rapid Wilshire bus down, then transfer to the rapid Vermont bus — If you have tips for getting to USC from around 17th and Wilshire in Santa Monica, do share!
Update, 10/6/06: My first trip to USC by bus took an hour and a half –
[All the de-car-ing posts are here.]
A tip for Santa Monica to USC:
Use Santa Monica Line 10 to get to downtown. It is much faster than the Rapid. In downtown, catch Line 81/381 and take it south to Figueroa, or any Harbor Transitway bus (440-series) and take it to the 37th Street Station.
Santa Monica schedules are available at http://www.bigbluebus.com. Line 81 runs every 10 minutes, but you trade frequent service for reliability, so the times on the schedule aren’t reliable. Line 381 is 81’s limited-stop sibling (think Rapid buses without red paint), but it only runs during rush hours.
If you choose this trip, buy an EZ Pass with a Zone 1 express sticker. It’s $73 a month. The pass is good on MTA and all the major municipal carriers in the county.
Comment by Wad — October 5, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
Thanks for the tip! Ok — So now my plan’s to take the Big Blue Bus’ #10 downtown, then take the Dash F bus to USC — cuz both the 81 and 381 sound kinda unrealiable. I’ll let you know how it goes — Thanks again!
Comment by Siel — October 6, 2006 @ 1:09 am
I forgot about the DASH F. It’s also good, but about as reliable as 81/381.
Keep in mind that the more frequent buses are, the less reliable their schedules are.
You have a third option as well. Line 38/71 travels on Jefferson Boulevard, and runs every 10-18 minutes. It’s a tad more reliable than 81.
If you wish to take a more direct route, try 534 in downtown Santa Monica and transfer to 38 at the West L.A. Transit Center. Despite the name, the transit center is merely a bus stop underneath the 10 freeway at Fairfax Avenue. It’s very depressing, and hopefully when the Expo Line opens, the transit center gets focused near the Culver Junction rather than here.
Comment by Wad — October 6, 2006 @ 3:31 pm
Ok — Lemme try the BBB 10 to the Dash first, then if that’s still sketch, I’ll try out the 534. Thanks for all the tips! You’re like a bus route genius –
Comment by Siel — October 6, 2006 @ 6:13 pm
Yeah, I’m a veteran. I used to have this web site that would have the schedules of every transit agency in SoCal, from San Luis Obispo and Kern vounties to the north, San Diego and Imperial counties to the south, the ocean to the west and Las Vegas to the east.
It just became a pain to update schedules, and the guy with the computer smarts couldn’t keep up with maintenance because of work, and it ended up ceasing to operate.
Comment by Wad — October 6, 2006 @ 7:13 pm
Wow — That schedule project sounds daunting, just reading about it. Still, now you’re a walking, typing resource for the rest of us :)
Comment by Siel — October 7, 2006 @ 5:15 pm
It wasn’t that daunting once I found the formula to add time in Excel. It’s useful if you want to keep a cache of bus schedules on your own computer and print them, since Metro in particular has odd paper sizes.
It’s =sum(CELL+(FREQ/1440))
CELL is the cell above. You enter the first time row manually. FREQ is the frequency, in minutes, of the bus line. If the first time is 6 a.m. and the next bus is at 6:30 a.m., enter 30.
That sped up the work. The hard part was redoing everything at different times since agencies have different shake-up dates. Shake-ups are transit agency lingo for periods when drivers get new bus runs and new schedules are released. Metro’s two are in June and December. Long Beach has three, but not in even four-month increments. Some agencies don’t update schedules frequently, and Gardena has not done a new schedule since the Green Line opened 11 years ago!
Comment by Wad — October 7, 2006 @ 10:49 pm
Ok — That still seems complicated to me… I’m glad I have yr email now, so I can ask random bus Qs if need be :P
Comment by Siel — October 13, 2006 @ 8:54 pm