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 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.