12 minutes to the LOOP

1.3.2k9

Thank Christ I don't drive in LA. Not only are the drivers distracted, most are terrible at driving. Most, despite a law prohibiting it, are on the frikkin' phone. Most are the only occupant in the car. I avoid driving in LA as much as possible, and I'm really, REALLY lucky that I can ride my bike to work.

When I did drive in LA, in 2006 for three months, I had a "reverse commute." Although it was still an average 32-minute trip - which to me is a lot - it woulda been a LOT worse had I been driving in a non-reverse commute. The side streets I take to and from work these days are usually a "solo commute," with no one driving down the streets I choose, except for the garbage, recycling and street cleaner trucks each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

But guess what? In LA, if one thing happens, even sleepy side-streets become choked with cars. Much like my commute last night. Not sure what happened up on Lincoln Blvd (CA 1), but something big enough to close the goddamn street happened, and desperate commuters invaded my sleepy commute.

It's not unlike seeing a city bus full of passengers on a side street. I was on such a bus, one summer afternoon in my beloved Chicago. It was a 13 mile ride south to downtown from my apartment, and the bus chugged along Sheridan Avenue, following the lake shore, until a point when it entered Lake Shore Drive itself, for the haul onto Michigan Avenue, downtown. But at the time of the neighborhood incursion, we were way way up in my neighborhood, Rogers Park. Sheridan Road, southbound from Rogers Park, takes a left turn at the neighborhood called Edgewater. If one is on Sheridan and doesn't turn, one will find oneself on Broadway Street, which is what our bus driver did. It took less than a second for damn-near everyone on the crowded bus to moan and say out loud, "wrong way!!!" The bus driver must have shaken her head and figured that she'd haul through the neighborhood to hook back up with Sheridan Road, so after a block or two, she took the left down a narrow street.

I happened to have a window seat, and it being summer, and hot, the window was open wide. The bus came to a stop sign and stopped. Two kids who were drawing on the slate sidewalk with big pieces of chalk, looked up at the city bus, clearly out of place. They caught my stare and I said, loud: "We're lost!" The two kids, god bless them, did not hesitate to jump up, heave their chalk at us, give us the finger and yell, "FUCK YOOOUUUUUU" as they took off chasing us, as we had started moving again. Those little fuckers chased us for three blocks. I laughed my ass off the whole way downtown.

Tonight - Doc's Clock.



bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!