Drive or Ride to Work? It’s Slow-Going Either Way

Who would get to work first?

That was the question we Times transportation reporters posed on a recent morning in Santa Monica.

After years of chronicling traffic woes, from transit strikes to budget shortfalls, we wanted to boil down our work to the most basic level: For a straightforward commute in the Los Angeles area, what’s the difference between driving a car and taking the bus?

We picked one of the most difficult commutes in the region, traveling east during the morning rush hour from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles.

We started at the same place, near a bookstore on the Third Street Promenade. Sharon would drive a company car, a white Ford Contour parked a few blocks away. Kurt would ride the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s candy-cane colored Rapid Bus. Local transit officials tout it for its speedy efficiency: It is said to run 20% faster than regular buses.

The goal was simple: Make it to work at the Los Angeles Times building, corner of 2nd and Spring streets, as fast as possible. Loser buys lunch.

The journey began at 8:10 a.m., as Sharon pulled out her keys and marched toward the car and Kurt walked to the nearest bus stop on car-clogged Wilshire Boulevard.

*

Kurt is shivering at the MTA’s Rapid Bus stop nearest the Promenade. It’s 8:25. He’s been there for 12 minutes and his Rapid Bus, which is supposed to show up every few minutes during rush hour, has yet to come. Of course, 12 minutes isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, but he’s antsy. He’s gone nowhere, so far, and it’s cold. Sharon, he imagines, has already made it to a freeway exit. She may be in traffic, but she’s probably comfortable, listening to her favorite country band in her heated little Ford.

*

By 8:30, Sharon’s on the Santa Monica Freeway, heading east. The freeway is wide open. “This,” she thinks, “is going to be a breeze.”

*

Kurt’s bus finally arrives.

He settles into his seat, in front of an accountant and next to a homeless woman. He asks a standing passenger how often she rides the bus. “I live near Wilshire, so it’s easy, and I end up on this thing almost every day,” says Loretta Jones, who is heading to a doctor’s appointment. “It’s almost like riding the subway, this bus is.”

Kurt wishes for a subway. If this were a subway, he’d be in an underground, traffic-free tunnel, traveling at 50 mph toward downtown L.A. Instead, at 8:40, the bus crawls past the San Diego Freeway in Westwood.

Traffic. Rapid Bus kryptonite.

Even though the Rapid Bus is meant to move swiftly along Wilshire Boulevard -- with sensors that communicate by radio wave to keep traffic lights green -- when there are too many cars and too few lanes the Rapid Bus is stuck, along with the other buses, trucks and cars.

*

She may be moving faster, but Sharon’s still in traffic hell.

As she approaches the National Boulevard exit, the freeway becomes a parking lot. Sharon is now in full-throttle commuter mode. She’s multi-tasking in the car. Her notebook is balanced on the steering wheel and she’s jotting down notes. Her cell phone rings and she answers. Her blood pressure rises.

*

There’s an odd and wonderful thing that sometimes happens on a bus stuck in Los Angeles traffic. Instead of passengers growing nervous and antsy and angry, they often tend to relax and let down their guard. Resigned to the fact that the trip is going to take awhile, people even smile. They sometimes start chatting up strangers. Yes, even here, in “keep to my own space” Los Angeles.

As Kurt listens in, Jennifer Hranilovich and Kristina Jolly are experiencing this phenomenon. With the bus lurching through Beverly Hills, the two women, who have never before met, start talking about traffic in Los Angeles.

Jolly is originally from Boston. She likes the Rapid Bus and rides it every day to work in downtown Los Angeles. But she can’t believe L.A. doesn’t have a better transit system, with trains and a user-friendly bus system, like the one in her hometown. Hranilovich agrees.

The two women happen on an irony. Hranilovich is a manager at a land conservation group that works to keep open space, well, open. Jolly works for a real estate investment firm that pushes development. “You’re my opposite number,” says Jolly. “Yep,” says Hranilovich. “And we would have never met if not for this bus.”

The bus is cool, Kurt thinks. It draws you closer to people. Then he looks out at the traffic and grows restless. If he weren’t on this bus, he’d probably be on the freeway, in his Honda clunker, God bless it. He would have ESPN sports on the radio. He’d be caught up in his own world, wending through traffic in bliss.

*

Bliss is not exactly what Sharon is feeling. At 8:53, she reaches the La Brea Avenue exit and for the next few minutes feels almost like she’s caught in a demolition derby.

A bus peels out in front of her. A Lexus cuts her off. There’s an accident to her left, construction to her right. Traffic stops. She’s hemmed in. Stopped cold. Six minutes later nothing has changed. She wants to change lanes. But the two drivers behind her swing around and she’s got no space. Next moment, she’s going for it, gunning the gas, cutting people off without signaling to get in the next lane.

At 9:10 she’s heading north on the Harbor Freeway, passing Staples Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center. Whoops! A red Ford with Nevada plates swipes by, just inches from the left side of her car -- one final scare before exiting the freeway.

By 9:22, after an hour and 12 minutes, she’s in front of The Times building. Where is Kurt?

*

Kurt’s still on the bus, near MacArthur Park. There are few passengers aboard. He’s reading the paper, resigned to losing the race. The cement-hard bus seats aren’t making him any happier.

Eight minutes later, he’s downtown, getting off the bus at 7th and Spring streets. Charles McMillan, the driver, asks what he thought of the trip. It’s always fun to see the city go by through those big bus windows. To read the paper. To chat on the cell and meet new people.

But the 16-mile trip took more than an hour, and there’s still a five-block walk to The Times. The Rapid Bus wasn’t exactly rapid. McMillan admits there are problems with the sensors. “They don’t work a lot of times,” he says.

At 9:50, an hour and 40 minutes after he began, Kurt arrives at the paper.

Where is Sharon?

She’s sitting at her desk, where she’s been for nearly half an hour.

Lesson for the day: The bus is a good place to relax and rub shoulders in a largely closed-off city. But even in the midst of rush hour, the car is king. Kurt buys lunch.

*

If you have a question, gripe or story idea about driving in Southern California write to Behind the Wheel c/o Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or send an e-mail to behindthewheel@latimes.com.