We’re only about two-hundred feet from Tommy Fleming’s front door, located on a side street off Western Ave., before we see the first of about five homeless tents in our two block walk to Hollywood/Western Station. We are on our way to Tommy’s job as a video editor at the NBC/Universal lot.

Crossing Western Avenue, Tommy says, “When I moved to this neighborhood, I moved all my stuff in and…when I was smoking a cigarette this guy asked me for a cigarette and I said, ‘no.’ The guy punched me in the jaw, and just kept walking,” Tommy is laughing while saying it, reassuring me “…that never happened again. I’ve never really felt unsafe since.” He acknowledges that homelessness has definitely increased in the two years since he has moved there, but adds that “for the most part they’re respectful and I don’t have any issues with it, but it’s just kind of sad.”

This sense of hopelessness around homelessness in Los Angeles is something almost any Angeleno can relate to. Particularly when using the transit system, it tends to seem the epidemic of homelessness is only increasing. Tommy, like a lot of residents who take mass transit, seems to do his best to acknowledge the situation while still moving through his day. It’s a dilemma a lot of people in the city face. The struggle between how much time and effort to give an issue that feels so gigantic and beyond them and, while uncommon in Tommy and my experience, potentially dangerous when factoring in interactions with those facing mental instability or drug usage. It’s important to note that Tommy was hit by a random man, who wasn’t necessarily homeless, but this fear of safety is real for a lot of riders, and whether it is substantiated or inflated by some, it is certainly true that until the city finds a way to make the majority of Angelenos feel safe while taking transit, there won’t be the amount of ridership Metro hopes to obtain.

We just miss the northbound Red Line train so, while waiting ten minutes for the next one, I ask Tommy if he has to take public transit to work or whether driving is an option. “There’s parking at work and at my house, but I was in a pretty bad car accident around three or four years ago…totaled my car…the guy was drunk and didn’t have any insurance. It was a total loss on my part, and left me slightly traumatized. I just thought after that I didn’t want to deal with driving for a while, and…yeah I just didn’t go back. I’ll drive still if someone needs me to, but my general stress level is lower when I’m not driving.” Unlike when Tommy was smiling and telling about his cigarette altercation, this experience is being relayed to me in much more serious tone. Bad things can happen on transit or in a private vehicle, unfortunately bad luck is part of living in a city of millions, however the close access of the Red Line allows Tommy to pick his poison, and for him that includes not being behind the wheel.

While waiting he adds, “My boss takes the Metro to work from Studio City, but I would say most people will ask me ‘Do you take the Metro?”’and when I say, ‘yeah,’ they respond, ‘“WOW!”’ Which I think Is ridiculous because it would be such a hassle to drive in comparison to this.” As he finishes the thought the train is arriving, on time.

We get on and I ask him if it bothers him that while the Red Line has cell service from Union Station to Sunset/Vermont, cell service is not yet available from Hollywood/Western onward, “Truthfully I don’t mind it that much, I’m on my phone so much the rest of the day. There is an argument that it’s good for safety, but I just bring a book or download the songs I want to listen to.” Also the whole train ride lasts nine minutes so there isn’t too much time to account for.

While getting off the train, Tommy mentions how he wished Metro was better at advertising it’s convenience, but he finds, and I agree, that it can sometimes be a hard system to figure out how to use. So much of what we feel about a mode of transportation is which aspect we focus on. By making the experience easier to understand, it could allow people to remember the convenience of a nine minute train ride, rather than the headache-inducing ten minutes of finding out which train is going where. Yet, Tommy says, that pales in comparison to the one thing he hates most about driving: parking. “A drive that only takes six minutes turns into fifteen minutes spent parking!” he says, which in Los Angeles can often be an optimistic prediction if one is street-parking or in one of those ten floor parking garages.

Instead, we exit the station with a large number of tourists on their way to Universal Studios. They take the pedestrian bridge to the park, and Tommy and I cross the street to the studio entrance where I leave him. A twenty-eight minute commute, and that includes missing the train and waiting ten minutes. It just makes sense.

It's 7:30AM and as I am walking out of Heidi Ippolito's apartment, a spot only two blocks away from an apartment I lived three years earlier, I realize I already have a problem with this week's story. I don't know what the proper title is for this neighborhood. I would call it Thai Town, others would call it Little Armenia. One could, incorrectly, throw it in with Los Feliz. A few count it as the fringe of Franklin Village, and finally there are those who just chalk it up to East Hollywood. Whatever you call it, the stretch of Hollywood Blvd between Normandie and Gower, and its neighboring streets, are some of the most dynamic and dense in the city.

Ferndell Trail at the Western/Los Feliz Griffith Park Entrance.

This compilation of communities has caused for a neighborhood where you can get award-winning Thai Food, go to a comedy show at UCB, check out the more pedestrian friendly entrance to Griffith Park, and finish at one of the most iconic bars of Hollywood all within a square mile, but ask anyone who has lived here and they will tell you one aspect that defines the neighborhood over all else is parking.

Made up mostly of two to five-story walk up apartments and strip malls, the neighborhood has limited parking. I remember the anxiety when I lived here with my car. Even in a smart car finding a spot was like winning the lottery. I would often spend twenty-five minutes circling the neighborhood. It became a ritual.

“when people told her about the freedom of having a car she just felt that freedom got her stuck in traffic.”

So as I'm walking with Heidi to the station, I wonder where her car is. Her answer surprises me; San Diego. She first moved to Franklin Village proper in 2008, then Los Feliz proper a couple years later, all with a car, but after she left to pursue a graduate degree in Scotland she returned to the stretch of Hollywood that lies between her two former neighborhoods. Having lived in the area before she knew how the neighborhood worked. She decided to leave her car at her parent's house in San Diego, waiting to see if she would need it, and after landing a job at the University of Southern California, another notoriously frustrating place to park without a parking pass, she decided she was better off without it.

As we walk underground, Heidi talks about how she became a Metro commuter. She remembers as a freshman not having a car, but utilizing the Zipcar locations that USC offered, and would take the Amtrak Surfliner to visit her home in San Diego. However, starting Sophomore year she brought up her car and had it for five years until she left for grad school in Scotland. After living abroad, she felt that not having a car made her life easier. "To not be driving felt more luxurious than having a car...there's more freedom not having a car," she recalled and said that when people told her about the freedom of having a car she just felt that freedom got her stuck in traffic. Heidi views Metro as "freedom within a structure (she) can't control," and that gives her the ability to find peace in her commute. She feels in the age of ride share, if something really goes wrong with a delay she can always call a Lyft or Uber for work.

“Every once in a while you get a character who is filling the space entirely with their own vibes, and for the most part you’re just making eye contact with everyone else like ‘you see this, yeah I see this too.’”

We get in a packed train downtown, and Heidi acknowledges she is asked about her safety on Metro from friends. She says she has her tactics but that they are the same she has at a bar or on the street. While admitting she doesn't usually take the Metro alone late at night, she states that she finds comfort in being surrounded by the other people on the train, unlike when she drove and had to park far away from her apartment alone late at night. Heidi, like other passengers, creates her bubble, riding the line between being friendly and keeping to herself. "I just stand, walk, and sit with a purpose...it's awareness and experience, nine out of ten times it's same old same old. Every once in a while you get a character who is filling the space entirely with their own vibes, and for the most part you're just making eye contact with everyone else like 'you see this, yeah I see this too.'"

About fifteen minutes later we pull into 7th & Metro where, in the middle of the morning commute, Heidi snakes through Metro's busiest station and heads up to her next train. She finds that after the transition to being a daily commuter she is now slowly using Metro more in her social life as oppose to ride-share services. If she has to go to The Grove, she will take the Purple Line as far as she can then use ride-share the rest of the way. What she loves the most about Metro is the freedom it has given her to make stops on the way home. "I can meet people Downtown on the fly. (When I had my car) I would always want to rush home to park while the spots were still there before going out, and that didn't make me feel free. I stay on campus more often now going to screenings and classes because I don't feel like I have to rush to my car."

“I can meet people Downtown on the fly. (when I had my car) I would always want to rush home to park while the spots were still there before going out, and that didn’t make me feel free.”

The last ride along the Expo Line is a frustrating stop and go experience, due to the cross-traffic that is notorious among this particular section of the Expo Line, but Heidi enjoys the line that didn't exist when she was a student at USC. It is an option that helps make USC feel more integrated into the city of LA. She even notes that she sees a good amount of younger faculty using the train, which is a frustrating observation considering USC disbanded their $30 subsidy toward a $100 monthly pass. Heidi would certainly benefit from that subsidy but says that she still saves money by no longer having to pay for the various costs attached to her car. It costs Heidi about $70 a month to commute to work.

It took about another fifteen minutes to get to Expo Park/USC Station, and we walk the last ten minutes through campus. In the end it took forty-nine minutes from Heidi's front door to Heidi's desk in the center of campus. While it's important to note there are still great subsidies for Undergrad and Graduate students at USC it is a missed opportunity that one of Los Angeles's largest employers does not have a program that encourages a non-car commute.

Until that changes, Heidi will enjoy the other social and monetary benefits that this shift has brought to her life. She has even considered opting for a monthly pass at $100 a month so she can be encouraged to use it more outside of her commute. As for that car in San Diego, she has decided to sell it.