It just makes sense.

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.

Better off on the bus.

It's 7:30 AM and I walk about twenty minutes from the Bundy Expo Line stop to meet up with Max Cabaj who moved to his apartment off of Barrington and Santa Monica Boulevard about a year ago after completing his undergrad at USC. Despite living on the Westside, which sometimes has the reputation of being a transit desert, Max commutes the 2.5 miles to his cardiac research lab at UCLA each day via the Big Blue Bus. For Max it isn't a necessity, but a choice; he has had a car since moving to the neighborhood but Max finds it easier to leave the car at home. The same is true for many of his colleagues, "Most of my coworkers live in the Westwood area so they walk or bike or they live in Culver City or Palms where there are a lot of buses that go up Sepulveda or Westwood. Actually, a lot of people in my building take the bus there. Parking is $80 a month at work." 

“Most of my coworkers live in the Westwood area so they walk or bike or they live in Culver City or Palms where there are a lot of buses that go up Sepulveda or Westwood. Actually, a lot of people in my building take the bus there. Parking is $80 a month at work.”

While walking two blocks to the Big Blue Bus stop, Max talks about how quickly this part of town grew on him, "I actually really like my neighborhood. It's very walkable. There are tons of restaurants and shops; there a Ralph's and a Trader Joe's withing walking distance...Sawtelle is like 0.4 miles away." An example of the access to nearby shops is the corner bagel shop where we stop to grab a coffee. Located in a strip mall with no available parking, we realize it would have been quite an ordeal with a car. While waiting in line, he jokes that the bus was an obvious choice compared to "having to pay to park at my own job," but it makes sense when you consider how many people drive on and off UCLA's campus. UCLA states they have 43,301 students enrolled and 4,300 on staff, not including the hundreds of contracted employees that keep the school running on a daily basis that's roughly 47,000 people at one location, and that much parking on prime L.A. real estate isn't cheap. Steep parking prices are an essential tool  that allows dense job centers and businesses to prevent a complete traffic standstill. However, it isn't acceptable to price people out of parking and not provide a viable alternative, and that is where the Big Blue Bus 1 comes in, which Max describes as "a direct shot" to work.

“UCLA states they have 43,301 students enrolled and 4,300 on staff, not including the hundreds of contracted employees that keep the school running on a daily basis that’s roughly 47,000 people at one location, and that much parking on prime L.A. real estate isn’t cheap. ”

With Max's morning coffee in hand we walk one block to his stop and he adds, "my TAP card is $33 a quarter for unlimited taps on the blue Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus and green Culver City Bus." I ask him if growing up in Boston has played a role in his transit experience while living here: "I think I that's part of why I am very inclined to take it in LA. I think that I grew up with the idea that taking the bus or the train is very normal; just because it often is the most efficient way of getting around the city there. I feel like I seek it out often, whereas people from other parts of the country may not." Even with his transit history, Max was surprised about the ease of taking the bus to work on the Westside. "I think it's surprisingly very good here. You just have to spend ten minutes looking it all up. I think that people on the Eastside are more used to it, having more rail lines running through gives people more wiggle room, people are down to take the train but not take the bus. People think it's a hassle even though it's really not...this bus comes every 10 minutes."

“For the longest time all I wanted was to have a car in LA because it’s just the thing people do...but the end result was I was paying $110 a month for car insurance and my car just sits, and I’m paying $1,200 a year to insure a car I barely drive”

After waiting just a few minutes the bus came on schedule, and we receive a warm "Good Morning" greeting from the driver. As we pass under the 405 I ask Max how often he uses his car: " I would say my car is vacant about five days out of the week unless I have to go somewhere on a weeknight across town or something. If I'm going to meet up with a friend sure, I'll use it, but to go to the store I walk half the time because I'd rather not lose my parking spot." His car use has reduced to the point where he has considered selling it numerous times, "For the longest time all I wanted was to have a car in LA because it's just the thing people do...but the end result was I was paying $110 a month for car insurance and my car just sits, and I'm paying $1,200 a year to insure a car I barely drive...eventually I switched insurance to a pay-by-the-mile service called MetroMile. I pay a flat rate every month and then I pay six cents per mile. My bills are now about fifty to sixty bucks...It's this little device you plug in your car, it monitors where you drive...it has these stats, they text me when I'm on a street cleaning spot."

We jump off at Westwood and La Conte Avenue for a mere two-minute walk to his work. As we make our way to campus we talk about how the future purple line will make coming to Westwood increasingly easy. The subway won't make or break Westwood as a pedestrian-friendly area. Improvements in street crossings like the diagonal scramble are helping facilitate a safer experience. As Max explains, the stigma many have about the bus keeps transit mobility stunted even if it is the best option. He has been lucky enough to pay $10 a month to get to work, though most Angelenos would rather drive, no matter the cost. 

“my TAP card is $33 a quarter for unlimited taps on the blue Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus and green Culver City Bus.”

Unfortunately, Max is moving soon and is a little nervous he won't be able to find an apartment that offers the same level of transit access as his current set-up: "just under half an hour, door to door." It is unfortunate that, due to the sprawling nature of the city, one street can be a transit dream and another just a few miles away can be a nightmare - a problem all Angeleno's with a commute share. If you ask anyone in LA what is on their mind when deciding where to move, no matter the means, transit is often near the top. If only we had a more interconnected system that could reliably move people around...perhaps one day we'll get there.

Big Blue Bus route 1. Provided by CityMapper

One Stop.

It's 6:30 on Monday morning, and while most of the work force is sleeping in on Labor Day, Maria Akis is walking out her door. She lives on the edge of MacArthur Park and is going to her job as a restaurant server at a hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Considering it's a holiday, and Metro schedules usually run on an abbreviated schedule, I'm a little worried that we aren't going to make it to her job downtown by 7, but she assures me, "Metro takes half an hour." Even I – who prides myself on my confidence of in the Metro – seems skeptical, but we venture forth.

As we walk, sun still rising, I ask Maria what it is like to have always lived in LA without a car, (she moved here only a year and a half ago from Pittsburgh) and she admits, "It's sometimes annoying to get to places where you have to talk multiple trains or buses. Uber's are expensive, I was at the Annenberg seeing this show called "Generation Wealth"...the Uber was $17 from my house, and surging, I walked part of the way to get home...there isn't much shade in L.A. once you get off transit." This feeling of walking in a pedestrian wasteland is particularly strong coming off the week-long heat wave. In too many areas of the city, particularly around the Annenberg Space for Photography, heat coming off the wide boulevards of black asphalt and low concrete buildings offering little shade for cover makes pedestrians feel alone and unaccounted for.

However, MacArthur Park couldn't be more different. Even at 6:30 AM on a holiday, the streets are activated. This dense population of over 103,000 people in under 3 square miles makes it the second largest neighborhood by population in Los Angeles. Very few buildings have parking options and it's all centered around a large park that dates back to the 1880's. "I love MacArthur Park like it is. I would hate to see the chaos taken away. What's really nice is the breeze that comes off the lake, the little bit of grass, it makes a difference," she says. She talks about how even though she doesn't spend a lot of time physically in the park it affects the environment of all the apartments that face it, she even laughs about how she has a hummingbird that sometimes visits her on her balcony when she has her morning coffee. 

“I love that about my neighborhood. I’ve thought about moving to other parts of the city but having both lines here is amazing. The train comes every four minutes toward Downtown in the morning.”

“I also love how each of the stations are different! The blue and orange tiles of the MacArthur Park Station...when my best friend was in town we did a photo shoot in the Pershing Station because of the different neons.”

It only takes about three minutes to walk to the station that she uses to get to her two jobs downtown. While many neighborhoods on the Eastside are transit-friendly, MacArthur park is the first that I've seen that is almost anti-car; there just isn't any room left to add parking. There is no parking at Maria's building and very few nearby lots. Transit here is the best way in and out, that's probably one of the reasons why there is such a vibrant market of vendors at the entrance of the station. In fact, as we are walking I realize my fear of making Maria late is unfounded, I forget that MacArthur Park station is served by both the Purple and Red Lines so trains run frequently even on a holiday. She says, "I love that about my neighborhood. I've thought about moving to other parts of the city but having both lines here is amazing. It comes every four minutes toward Downtown in the morning." 

As we get down to the platform I ask her what aspects about her commute she wished could be improved and she quickly brings up that her second job has her coming home from Pershing Square station and the lack of seating there is disappointing. She assumes it's because of the large transient population that hovers around that station causing Metro to resist adding seating but as we look around at the station we're in, another preferred stop of the homeless population in LA, there is plenty of seating. Whatever the reason, it's an unfortunate truth however that the Pershing Square station feels barren despite its cavernous size and multiple entrances. It does not have the vendors of MacArthur or the volume of 7th & Metro.

Stepping on the train, she says that beyond seating she doesn't have many qualms with her daily commute, "I can rely on it...It's honestly interesting to me seeing the different vendor's and peddlers on Metro...there is an incense guy...I asked him how business was going once and he said it was good!" The interaction is one I know well. I too have had meetings with the incense man, while sometimes pungent, he's a nice guy doing his thing and I am often amazed by the number of people looking to buy the scented sticks. As we step out at 7th & Metro, only one stop later, we cut through the new entrance via The Bloc and Maria remembers, "I also love how each station is different! The blue and orange tiles of the MacArthur Park Station...when my best friend was in town we did a photo shoot in the Pershing Station because of the different neons." I admit that while used to think of them as superfluous when I first saw them, and still think a few are strange (the flying people at Civic Center is very unnerving in my opinion), and yet I have seen tourists enjoy them...I chalk it up to quirky L.A. charm.

Even though we had only gone a single stop, we walk up into a different world. Downtown L.A. with its high-rises and smaller population it is a vastly different place than its neighbor. Maria talks about how she fears gentrification may risk the city becoming more homogeneous one day and she hopes Los Angeles can figure out a way to keep neighborhoods intact even as new people move in. One thing MacArthur Park has the going for it is that the lack of car accessibility, slowing the influx of change. While the neighborhood will inevitably evolve, as all neighborhoods do, one can hope that whatever happens we can find a way to keep the vibrancy, the vendors, the life. 

“I love MacArthur Park like it is. I would hate to see the chaos taken away. What’s really nice is the breeze that comes off the lake, the little bit of grass, it makes a difference”

However, not all change is bad. As for Downtown, along with all the new high-rises, one improvement she hopes to see is additional green space and trees just as she has in MacArthur Park. Her own neighborhood is a good example that density doesn't mean one must forego nature. Walking through the neighborhood of construction zones you can see the newly planted tree's and rising towers but only time will tell what they will bring. By the time we reach the front door of her restaurant a few minutes later I look at my clock and realize the whole trip took twenty-one minutes. Not bad for an L.A. commute.

Route provided by CityMapper

The Evolution of an Angeleno.

Morning walk to the Red Line through Virgil Village.

Picture this. Rene wakes up every morning, leaves his apartment, walks a couple blocks to a subway station, goes four stops, walks about five more blocks and is at work in roughly 30 minutes. Door to Door. If that was the only information I gave you, where would you say he lived? Perhaps Midtown Manhattan. Another option is Virgil Village, a neighborhood along the Red Line, sandwiched between Silverlake and East Hollywood. Rene moved here about 3 years ago, but was raised nearby in Thousand Oaks, a city about 15 miles past the northwest border of Los Angeles. Throwing even more LA mass transit stereotypes out, Rene doesn't take the train because he has no other option, Rene has a car. I ask him how often he uses it and he semi-jokingly says, "twice a week. Moving it from one side of the street to the other...for street cleaning. I think I'm going to sell it soon."

“Therefore, on top of savings gained by not parking, not only does Rene save $4 a month commuting to work, any other time he uses Metro, he’s saving money.”

Always ask your supplier if they have B-TAP. 

It surprised me that Rene wouldn't use the car he has. "It's too expensive. Every time I drive it's like $10 for the day (at a parking lot near Ace Hotel)." He has the option for a monthly parking space, but at about $100 a month, it isn't a solution for him. A more appealing option is the subsidized TAP card the hotel uses through a program with Metro called B-TAP. This gives him an unlimited monthly TAP card for about $66 a month. A standard monthly TAP card is $100 a month. He learned about the option in an orientation that new hires at Ace Hotel take. It's a great option, which allows you to use it 24/7, not just while commuting to work. If Rene payed for single use rides he would be paying $3.50 round trip each day. Thats $70  a month. Therefore, on top of savings gained by not parking, not only does Rene save $4 a month commuting to work, any other time he uses Metro, he's saving money. That's a great reason to work at Ace Hotel. Only a handful of companies currently are enrolled in the B-TAP program, but for many companies it makes a lot of sense. It's  not just an advantage for Rene, Ace Hotel took over an old office building from 1927 built long before the private automobile engineered how we designed our city. The cost of providing parking for all of their employees would be far too high, a predicament many companies see. More and more companies, and even cities (See what Columbus, Ohio is doing), are finding new ways to get their employees to work.

The Santa Monica/Vermont Station

Growing up in Thousand Oaks, Rene didn't use mass transit. He hadn't even tried Metro until 2012, while going to UCLA, when he found his way first to the Expo line and then on to the Red Line to go out one evening. Prior to that night, he didn't really think of it as a viable option. As we are getting on our train he says, "I didn't really think about it at all...it existed, but my whole life was on the Westside. I didn't try." 

“Five years after his first ride on Metro, Rene lives in a place where his car sits parked on the street.”

Video monitors display when the next train is coming. 

Five years after his first ride on Metro, Rene lives in a place where his car sits parked on the street. He gets around via Metro, and when time is of the essence he supplements his transport by ride sharing services like Lyft (a service which he spends about $25 a week on). He takes an average of four Lyfts a week. Having an unlimited TAP Card has made it more desirable for him to pick mass transit. I wondered how he got here. He wasn't raised to take mass transit. He isn't forced to take mass transit. Often in Los Angeles many assume that there are only two types of people who rely on Metro: the one's who can't afford private vehicles, or the transplants from more urban cities like New York or San Francisco that are used to the lifestyle of underground trains and shared spaces. Rene is neither. He's just an Angeleno who has chosen to participate in LA's great 21st century experiment: Can this city have more than one option for how we move around? Rene wants something different than the normal LA commute. He wants more time to do what he wants to do. He wants to be able to get around without a car. "It's made me write and read more, even though I have only about 10 minutes on the train." It gives him a reason to get a book started or brainstorm a project.

"I love walking into these stations and imagining what they are going to look like in the future." It's an interesting thought. Will there one day be enough traffic or political will power to justify the in-station concession stands we are used to in other cities? Will there be more digital visuals or art? More entrances and exits like the one that recently opened at 7th and Metro he uses to make his way to work. The new portal saves him two minutes on his walk. These are all valid questions. Our rail system is relatively young. The Blue Line, Metro's oldest line that streches from Long Beach to DTLA, only opened in 1990, a year before Rene was born. He remarks that he feels enjoyment that he's part of the big experiment of bringing rail back to Los Angeles.

Moving through traffic on 9th st.

 The interesting thing about talking to Rene is that he wasn't seeking to change the way he lived his life to survive in LA. He just made choices that made economical sense and gave him the ability to use his time the way he wanted. He wanted less time in traffic and more time with friends. He tries to encourage his friends to use mass transit to varying success, he did manage to persuade his roommate to get a TAP card. When we think about what growing up in Los Angeles means we usually have a few ideas that come to mind, but it's important to remember that this city is changing fast and those idea's might become more of an option rather then a rule.

“What would happen if we introduced mass transit education into schools the way we teach DMV handbooks?”

There are thousands of children growing up in LA today who have had an operational rail line within a mile of them their whole life. They might have already used their first TAP Card. What would happen if we introduced mass transit education into schools the way we teach DMV handbooks (as Seattle Mayoral Candidate Nikita Oliver recently stated)? How would this effect the next generation and their perception of transit? Would it be normal to them? Will they grow up and have to move to SF or NY if they seek a more urban life? Or might our future Angelenos just have to move to another part of town. As I walk up to the door at Ace to conclude our talk, Rene notes how he wishes the subway to Westwood had been built when he was in college, 25 minutes from DTLA to Westwood/Wilshire. Can you imagine?

Arriving at Ace Hotel. 

---

Rene's Commute from Virgil Village to DTLA. Provided by Citymapper.

Trying Something New.

It's 8am on Friday morning and I meet Izzy Schloss, a friend from college, who agrees to my request of joining her on her commute to work. With one condition: we take public transit. She agrees, with slight hesitation but an open mind, and I plot our voyage from Vermont in Los Feliz to Old Town Pasadena. 

Izzy's starting point in Los Feliz

Living on the southern part of Los Feliz near Vermont & Hollywood, Izzy has two options to get to work. There is the Red line that she can ride to Union Station and then transfer to the Gold line to Pasadena, walking included it takes about 1 hour. This is the obvious route. The one Google Maps would often advise, however there is an alternative. Metro's often criticized "Rapid Buses" (the red busses) were introduced in 2000 as a way to speed up bus travel. They make limited stops more akin to a subway or light rail. However, most common maps of metro don't feature them and the bus stops don't exactly advertise any particular significance so they are often overlooked, even by avid transit users. 

We discovered this route worked well only because of my favorite transit app, CityMapper. Its interface makes it almost seem like Waze for mass transit. It is quick and efficient, and most importantly uses more logical connections then other interfaces like Google Maps. For Izzy, who wished to avoid cumbersome connections and being underground, the 780 was a great option. 

Using the Citymapper App

The 780 would get us to where we needed to go for $1.75 in about 45 minutes. About 50% longer then her average car trip that takes "20-30 minutes most days depending on traffic." Which proved Izzy right when asked to comment on mass transit in LA saying "it's terrible...not on time, and usually takes at least twice as long to get anywhere then it would in your car." I couldn't refute the time argument and there is a lot of room for improvement, however, I found it interesting that we usually talk about commutes from only a single angle: time. Izzy went so far as to say, "its about efficiency. I want to get from my home to work as fast as possible, I'm not saying that it's right, but if anything that means I get to spend more time at home, and if I get really illegal, I can do it in 15 minutes."

CityMapper

We begin snaking through Atwater Village and Glendale, and I ask Izzy if she has had positive experiences with mass transit. She talked about a recent summer spent in Spain being an Au Pair where a good bike network and bus system allowed her to get everywhere she needed to go. What struck me the most was that, while Izzy loved the efficiency of the system, what she really loved was how it taught her about her surroundings and helped her learn Spanish by listening to others. One could argue that we are allowed to be more carefree about time on vacation but being an Au Pair and taking Spanish lessons Izzy still had places to be and speed was a factor. Many of us love to utilize the social benefits of mass transit when we are in cities that have systems that are perceived as efficient, but ignore the benefits in our own cities. LA is a perfect example. Izzy doesn't use Metro because she perceives it as being inefficient but the irony is the freeway system in LA, particularly during rush hour is far from efficient with traffic jams and accidents effecting your arrival time (add to that a million other factors.) So if time wasn't the main issue, maybe something else was. 

The 780 Rapid Bus in Los Feliz, and the Local 181 behind it

As I asked Izzy what was the quality of time spent on her commute like she said she enjoyed "time to herself...listening to NPR.." I definitely understand the desire for alone time and it makes a lot of sense, but the funny thing was when asked what her least favorite aspect of her commute she responded, "well I don't like the terrible traffic sometimes...and it's funny I usually keep my windows down because I don't like the isolation. That separation to everyone around me." 

LA is the product of being a civic experiment in how far we could take the idea of privacy and private property. The car has become an extension of our home and many often end up with a community solely consisting of those either in their home or work. In many parts of LA, you can find it difficult to run into people in parks, or on the street, or any other public space because they tend to not exist or are engineered as an after thought. This can be tempting for the individual, particularly those that adore privacy, but dangerous for a society. We isolate ourselves. If desired, we ignore problems of those with different lives then us whether it be racial or economic. For example, the massive homeless problem brewing in LA can easily be avoided if one just turns up their radio, rolls up the window, and takes the right route. 

780 stop in Old Town Pasadena

So, is there a way to have a city that looks out for one another and yet allows for the very healthy desire of a certain amount of privacy? That is a very large issue and not the sole responsibility of any one Angeleno who's just trying to get to work. The funny thing was, by the end of the trip as we were passing through Eagle Rock, she remarked that trip had been so easy. She enjoyed seeing the evolution of the city between Los Feliz and Pasadena. She enjoyed a coffee. She talked to a friend. She wanted to try it again, and next time bring a book. The ride turned out to only take 39 minutes (I tried it twice just to make sure.)

Not everyone has  the luxury of the door to door route that the 780 offers Izzy, for many of us transfers are required. Increased frequency is needed. Those are all valid and very real concerns. Yet, the thing that I find most fascinating is that Izzy had no knowledge of this very convenient route prior to our investigation. There are so many transit routes in this city of 4 million that many have little to no knowledge of. Metro can do a far better job of advertising our system, but if you are annoyed by traffic and feeling isolated, if you want more time to read or watch a show, or even just desire the ability to feel like you live in a city, I advise you to download Citymapper, or any other transit app, and discover your options. Or leave me a comment asking for a hand, I'd love to explore the city with you.  

Passing the historic Langham Hotel.