Down on the District: Becoming a Virginia Slim, Thanks to the Bus

by Mike Plunkett

This is not how I wanted to start this.

Here I am, sitting on the bus bench for 45 minutes in 40-degree weather, contemplating the intrinsic value of President Zachary Taylor's Administration, as well as the value of a beanie. The first contemplation happened because I was standing next to the Zachary Taylor Nature Area and wondered what Old Rough and Ready did (or maybe didn't do) to warrant his moniker in a place in nature, while the second occurred because I was freezing my ass off.

In addition, I really had to take a leak after I traipsed through some of Arlington County, Virginia. It was a nice but unwanted and rather annoying tour. I went on a nice but annoying residential tour because I can't read a map and, because I can't read a map, I misjudged the proximity of where I was. Therefore, what was expected to be a 15-minute jaunt through the neighborhood because an hour climb. It was a climb because some of the residential streets in Virginia are hilly. The map told me that too, but I can't read with comprehension.

My 45-minute wait at the bus stop could have been about a 15-minute wait but, because I don't know the difference between east and west, I was on the wrong side of the street.

It's cold and windy, and with my double hoods over my beanie-less head, I'm convinced residents think I'm one pair of sunglasses short of being the Unabomber.

Did I mention that my brown Vans didn't match my blue pullover?

All of this happened because I can't read a damn bus schedule.

I can't read a bus schedule because I didn't have to take the class on public transportation in high school. I didn't take the class on public transportation in high school because a) there isn't one, and God forbid schools actually teach skills that are applicable to reality, and b) I was going to a four-year, overpriced private college and didn't need to learn about the L.A. public transportation system.

(Wow, that sounds elitist of me. Maybe that's because it is elitist of me and if we were slightly honest with ourselves, it's the attitude of most citizens of the good county of Los Angeles, but we'll get to the moral of the story in a second.)

I just moved to the Washington, D.C. area after spending the majority of my life in Los Angeles. I'm staying with a friend in Virginia while my sublet is getting together, and it's my first full day in the area. She's a teacher, so the night before she gave me directions to the two bus stops closest to the house and told me to go to the Metro's website and use the travel finder to figure out where I wanted to go. Thinking I was past using flash cards and jellybeans in educating myself, I followed directions to the letter.

Of course, I have a hard time following directions to the letter because my handwriting is atrocious. My handwriting is atrocious because a) I'm left-handed and never learned that funky way of overextending your wrist to avoid smudging the ink, and b) I'm a proud member of the digital age, so there's little reason to write in cursive, print, or, in my case, print in a mix of hieroglyphics and prescriptions for medications. I would have been a doctor, but that would require me to be intelligent and pass Organic Chemistry. Neither happened.

I wasn't worried about the Metro rail system. The Metro is just like the Underground in London and the subway system in New York City. If I just mind the gap and mind the sleeping bum, I'm in like sin.

It was the regional bus system that worried me. Stupid stuff like this: I have to have exact change to ride the bus? The last time I tried to count exact change was while working at the stupid coffee house during my masters level course work in graduate school. Somewhere in the mix, I forgot how to count.

I left my car in L.A. and decided to become a public transit user. They say that public transportation is much easier in D.C. and that everyone is doing it. Usually, I wouldn't be doing what everyone is doing because a) I'm my own person, and b) going upstream against the grain is the same as doing 15 reps on the bench press. And everyone is doing the bench press.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have ridden the bus in Los Angeles. Two of the times were for job interviews. One in particular took me to this advertising agency in Torrance. Except, it wasn't really an advertising agency, but rather those schmucks that walk around in suits selling crappy toys at discount prices to inner-city residents. I would say that was what they call a "character-building experience," but it didn't build my character. Instead, it made me never want to ride the bus again.

Once, I did ride the bus to visit some friends while staying in Portland, Oregon. That was cool, except the stereotypical drunk homeless guy had to sit by me and had to spill his beer (organic and artisan, of course) on my shorts. At least he was wearing a Hüsker Dü T-Shirt and had a bag from Powell's bookstore, but that's because he bought into the perception of Portland people.

Nevertheless, after sitting, walking, sweating, shivering, cursing, pleading, wondering, sighing and counting, I made it to my destination, which ironically was the Arlington National Cemetery.

It would be at this point where I would wrap up my shenanigans for this article. I usually would do that in a few short sentences, but I think I'll highlight some final parting shots about Los Angeles in bullet style:

• What does public transportation have to do with development and affordable housing? Everything. All these elements are integrated, not in the "circle of life" sort of way, but ... well, yeah, in the "circle of life" sort of way. While our city officials are still trying to figure out how to make Pico and Olympic Boulevards one-way streets, another development plan got passed that doesn't take into account mass transit or affordable housing.
• The only way that Los Angeles will ever find a plausible, long-term solution to public transportation is by first changing the perceptions and innuendoes of who uses public transportation and why. Until then, there will never be a subway to the sea, Metro lines won't hit city spots that are most conducive to work/live/travel combinations and when freeways become toll roads (it's going to happen, I assure you), officials won't know what hit them.
• Encouraging residents to gain an education of the city and the ins and outs is vitally important. For all the metaphors that Los Angeles is and is not, standard isn't one of them. That's why most live/work ideas (hell, a lot of urban planning schemes) are often mixed in result.

On a programming note, this begins a new series called "Down on the District." I'll be looking at issues of housing, development and whatnot that helps and haunts D.C. and the surrounding area. First up, an analysis on why President Taylor should never have had a park named after him (and a park with no restrooms, which sucks!).