Tag Archives: L.A. Metro

The Six Things I Like Best About Being CarFree — A Six Month Update

The Blogger, with chariot at night.

I’ve now been car free for six months – that’s right, car free in L.A., living without owning a car in Los Angeles. Here’s a status report, and my favorite things about this major lifestyle change.

Saving money! Absolutely, my favorite. My last car, the 2005 Scion Xa, cost just about $400 a month to own and operate over the period of time I owned it (almost exactly 8 years). So that’s $2,400.00 right there. I did have transportation expenses, though, so I must subtract those. Metro fares: $280. Car rental: $200. Bicycle expense (a new seat): $25. So let’s adjust: $2,400 – 505 = $1,895 I’ve saved so far. And, that doesn’t even account for the sale of my used vehicle, which was $6,000 (thank you, CarMax!). So I’m really ahead $7,895.00.
Keeping fit! I lost about 15 lbs. doing WeightWatchers earlier this year and have been able to keep that off since going CarFree with very little effort, which I attribute to all the walking and biking I do now. My default modes of transportation in preferred order are: foot, bicycle, train or bus, taxi, rental car or ZipCar or other car share service. I live in Southern California, so it’s quite rare that any particular day is not a good bike day.
Not Having to Find Parking! There was a time, when I first lived in L.A., probably the early eighties, when it was fairly easy to find street parking in almost any neighborhood and there were very few restrictions on parking. That world is gone! Parking had become very difficult and most often expensive (if you just succumbed to the valet or a garage) but now I’ve never had to pay to park my bike against a pole.

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Never Having to Deal with Angry Drivers/Road Rage! There are a lot of angry drivers out there, sometimes they’re armed, sometimes they’re just fracking crazy and dangerous. I’ve yet to meet a raging urban walker or a raging bicyclist (though hey, it’s a crazy world, perhaps they exist. Yet they don’t have 2-ton weapons at their disposal).
Not Having to Remember Where I Parked My Car, or Worry About that (Insert Expensive Thing Here) I Left Inside It! There was always this nagging feeling that the apocalypse was there, just out of focus, that total disaster could happen at any moment and this Thing I depended on (the car) would be utterly destroyed or taken from me on a whim. To not have this object to worry about at all is a great freedom all its own.
Finally: Exposing the Myth that “You Need a Car to Live in L.A.!” No, you don’t. You don’t need to own a car to live in L.A. What the people who say that really mean is that THEY need a car to live in L.A., i.e., they’re not giving advice, they’re talking about themselves. There are hundreds of thousands of people living in the city who don’t own cars. If you step out of yours for a few moments, you might meet the real city.

A great resource for me has been Chris Balish’s book, “How to Live Well Without Owning a Car.” It’s been my roadmap for much of this journey. Thank you, Chris!

Adventures in CarFree L.A.: going to the dentist

My Chariot, at its former home in Palm Springs.

Another in my series of the occasional challenges of getting around town without a car.

This one being, the dentist — that I’ve gone to for over 20 years and is no longer near where I live. I moved (many, many times); he didn’t. So, I was presented with a couple of options: one of the philosophies around CarFree living is to live local, as in, to patronize and support your neighborhood businesses. I guess that means including dentists and doctors. So, I could’ve easily found several within walking distance of my home. They are legion, actually.

But there you have the rub: I didn’t want to change dentists. He’s a great dentist. He knows my mouth intimately (wait, that didn’t come out quite right . . .) But you know what I mean. There’s a fortune invested in those chompers.

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So, I vowed to get to him, and I did. I live in Valley Village, west and south of North Hollywood, north of Studio City, and east of Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley. The dentist’s office is in West Hollywood near the Beverly Center. For those non-Angelenos reading this, it’s about a 10 mile trip if you’re a crow. There’s also an ancient mountain range between these two locations, sometimes known as the Hollywood Hills.

There is no easy, straight, one-line public transport option between these 2 points. So, I opted for the best alternative I could think of, which is to take my bike on the subway.

Pretty easy, actually, and the bike ride turned out to be my workout for the day. I live about one mile west of the North Hollywood Station of the Red Line. I ride there using the Chandler Bike Path.

I get on the Red Line subway there and get off at Hollywood Highland Station, just two stops, 8 minutes, never a delay. But it does take you over (well, under) that mountain range and deposits you directly into the heart of tourist Hollywood.

Tough getting back on the bike amid the Marilyns and the Zorros. But I prevail. Google Maps tells me the best bike route to my dentist (Melrose and La Cienega) is to take Orange Drive south to Willoughby, then Willoughby all the way west to La Cienega. From there it’s a quick couple of blocks down La Cienega to my destination.

Can I tell you how much I love that Google Maps gives you a car, public transport, bike and walk option for any direction? Even if they’re sometimes wrong, I actually think it works better than Metro’s own website “Trip Planner” function.

I know we’re supposed to hate the Google right now because it’s farming our brains for their own sleazy 1% profit but just for the minute I’m liking this.

So here’s my thoughts:

The good: Nice sunny day for a bike ride. Kind of nice that I don’t have to go to the gym for exercise, my transport is providing it. Being early afternoon on a Thursday, there’s not a lot of traffic and no crazy drivers. I get there with minutes to spare, thus the Google Maps direction timer was accurate.

The bad: Parts of Orange Drive, especially just south of Santa Monica Boulevard, are in terrible shape. Let’s be frank, the street sucks. It needs new asphalt. Why they made it a sharrow street is like torture for cyclists. Also, Willoughby is a sharrow street too (which means you’re supposed to share the lane with a car – um, good luck). What we really need in Hollywood-West Hollywood is a dedicated east-west street with a full bike lane for riders.

Oh, and the cleaning and check-up went great. My teeth may last for another year!

CarFree Week: Getting to the Dentist

Today is Day 2 of the Car Free Week test run, which is basically to see if I can live without my car in Los Angeles and to see what that would truly be like.

I’ve been car lite for a number of years, off and on, so a lot of the strategies of walk, bike, bus, train, and combining all these modes, are well known to me and I’ve employed them in the past, both here in L.A. and in San Francisco when I lived there.

Of course, today would be the day where it rained like for the first time since last spring, although it was merely sprinkles. Not an issue. In fact, I’m loving the cloud cover.

My dentist, Dr. James McFadden, has an office in the pink and black building at the corner of Melrose and La Cienega in West Hollywood. I currently live in Valley Village, near Magnolia and Radford. Ugh. Probably one of the more difficult commutes of this week to do without a car.

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But I wasn’t. I was using my bike, the Red Line train, and the bike. My route getting there was the Chandler bike lane to the North Hollywood Station, then the Red Line to Hollywood/Highland. I took various streets, but mostly Orange Drive, south to Melrose. I crossed south over Melrose at La Brea to the first east-west street south of there, Clinton Street, and took that west on the bike to where it emerges at the intersection of Melrose/LA Cienega. Voila.

Coming back, I took Clinton all the way east to June Street where it ends at the Country Club. Took June north to Willoughby, then east again to Vine, which they’ve made into a more bike-friendly street with share lanes. I took that north for the few blocks to the Hollywood/Vine Station under the W Hotel and then took the train back to NoHo, then onto the Chandler bikeway back to where I live (just east of Laurel Canyon Station).

Thoughts: West Hollywood is not an easy place to get to with public transport, but it’s doable. Many maps will tell you the best bike route east-west in Hollywood is on Willoughby, but I prefer Clinton as it’s a nice neighborhood and few cars. Between June and La Cienega there are lights at every major intersection you need to cross except for Highland, where it’s fairly easy to get across because of the boulevard in the middle of the street, and “Keep Clear” signs for cars which seem to be followed. I didn’t like the bike options from the Hollywood/Highland station, but perhaps I just don’t know the route yet.

Looking at my calendar for this week, this is the most challenging car-less trip I have planned, that I know of for now. Perhaps someone will ask me to come out to Santa Monica or West L.A., but it hasn’t happened yet!