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movingstoriesla · 4 years ago

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19. Jonathan L.

Meet Jonathan, a supply chain consultant in the waste industry. He currently lives in Pasadena but originally grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

[Editor’s note: I originally conducted this interview in June 2018. Wow, how time flies! A lot happened personally between then and now, which meant transcribing, editing, and posting this interview kept getting pushed to the back burner unfortunately. I hope you enjoy this snapshot of life BC (Before Coronavirus)!]

As a kid, how did you get to school?

I remember I always walked to elementary school because it was only about two blocks away, although it was up a really steep hill. I also used to walk to middle school, which is about a mile away, with my friends. I feel like times have changed because parents wouldn't let their kids walk one mile unsupervised anymore.

I used to walk to high school, which was about maybe three-quarters of a mile away. When I was 15, I got my learner's permit and I got a learner's permit to ride a motorcycle, so then I started riding my motorcycle to school, probably because I had the ability to.

Why a motorcycle?

I have no idea. I don't know what my parents were thinking. My dad had one, it was pretty small. I really wanted to ride it and I think he was excited that I wanted to learn but he opened a can of worms [laughs]. I used to ride it a lot and then I got my driver's license. I used to drive or walk, it depended, but I think I started school early, at 7:30, so I think I drove, even though it was right there. I guess it seems lazy, looking at it now, but it was probably the pride of being able to drive.

How would your parents take you around?

We always had a minivan and a small car and between the two of those, that's how I would get around. I remember going on family trips with my two sisters. I swear, we would go in the Toyota Corolla, a five-seater car with five people because that got the best gas mileage and is the most reliable, so that was how I got around.

The BART train came to my town when I was like 13 or 14. For the most part, it was driving in the car to get everywhere.

For college, he moved down to Los Angeles County and attended Cal Poly Pomona.

My parents actually insisted that I start school without a car, that I go to college without a car.

Why did they insist on that?

Because I think they wanted me to live on campus and embrace it. I was far away, so they didn't want to worry about me driving around but it only lasted a month. For anyone who knows southern California, Pomona is very suburban. At the time, the campus was very commuter-oriented, so there weren't a lot of people staying on campus, there wasn't a lot to do on campus, and it was very isolating by not having a car. Anyone who knows where Pomona is, they probably think if you're not from the Inland Empire and not from that area, like oh my gosh, it's so far away because it is probably 20 or 30 miles east of downtown LA. But I ended up getting my car and using it all through college to get around.

What did you use the car for in college?

Everything. Going to the grocery store, you had to drive a car. Nothing nearby.

After college, Jonathan got a job nearby, in Ontario.

I was living in the Ontario area and over those next two or three years, I was in Ontario, in Rancho Cucamonga, in the Inland Empire, which is very big and spread out, so there's really no way to get around the car. I'm sure there are buses -- it sounds silly saying that, right? There's gotta be buses there, but I feel like most people would not have taken the bus, they would've driven.

I ended up moving west because one day, my boss said, “Starting on Monday, we're gonna have you switch to the operation that's in the city of Vernon.” I went from having a 6-mile commune with no freeway and 15 minutes, to having a 45-mile commute that was an hour and 15 minutes in the morning and two hours in the evening, which is why I decided to move west. I still had like a 45-minute commute but it made a big difference.

Do you remember what it was like getting around southern California around that time?

If we take it even further: when I started college in my undergrad in the fall of 2002, the 210 freeway expanded east of San Dimas, all the way to San Bernardino. At the time, it was this huge, huge thing because you could just get on that freeway and you could drive as fast as you wanted because it was brand new and nobody used it. At the time, it was like the greatest thing ever and I'm sure it caused plenty of people to buy houses in Fontana and San Bernardino and Riverside, knowing that they had this brand-new freeway to get there, whereas now it's like a horrible commute. When I'm in Pasadena and I cross over that freeway, it seems like it's always stopped in the direction of the commute, sometimes it's both directions.

I don't really remember [what it was like driving around southern California] because at that point, I feel like I was pretty stuck in Pasadena because it's a great place to live. There’s so many fun things to do there and there's bars and restaurants. The Gold line, which goes downtown, was there but I never rode it. I only rode it a few times but it was limited. It only went to 11:30 at night, so if you wanted to go out for dinner and drinks with your friends in downtown, it was either get on the train at 11:30 or you gotta take a taxi because there was a little bit before Uber was around. Like, who takes taxis?

Pasadena is very walk-friendly, so I think that's why I didn't leave often is because I was in a little bubble. Even today, I can walk to public transit, to bars, to restaurants, to grocery stores, to farmers market. Part of the reason why I like living there is just because of the access to everything that I need without a car.

Is that why you choose Pasadena?

No, I chose Pasadena because it seems like the nicest place I could find that was close to Vernon and there's always the chance my boss would say, “Oh you have to go back to Ontario” at some point, so I didn't want go on the west side to have to fight to get through downtown LA and then still drive another 40 miles. Pasadena was a safe area, there's tons of amenities, it's relatively easy access to Vernon, but it's also easy access to go back east at some point.

Jonathan then left that job and then worked from home in Pasadena (“I would work from home a lot and I would ride my bike around and I still drove, I still wasn't- I was still pro-car. Not pro-car but just like, that's how you get around, so I didn't really think about the alternatives.”) He then accepted a job in Bakersfield and briefly lived there, but then took a three-month trip around Europe and afterwards, moved back to Pasadena.

Did you sell your car before you went away?

Yeah, but then I ended up getting a motorcycle because after quitting your job and taking three months to travel and then doing contract work, that's hit or miss. Cash flow was a little tight but I needed to get around, so I got a motorcycle. I found myself riding it way more than I would've liked to, getting around everywhere because that was my only transportation.

I'm curious about that six months of car-free life. You eventually got the motorcycle but what was your life like transportation-wise in that interim?

I spent a lot of time in and around Pasadena and I think that's when I started to embrace the Metro Gold line train, which was able to get me downtown and all over LA. I've never been much of a bus person or I hadn't been. I've been more inclined to use the bus more recently because I have a better understanding of how to get around and how to use it and whatnot.

And then you got a motorcycle and used that to primarily get around.

Yea, I was doing work and have to go to businesses in the San Fernando Valley and it's 20 miles or 30 miles each way. There'd be traffic and I was splitting lanes, where you drive in between the cars.

There was one day in particular where the traffic was horrible, it was completely gridlocked going to the Valley. I was just splitting lanes very slowly and something didn’t seem right, like there had to have been an accident or something was wrong because it just was not moving and people were looking at me and I didn't have any way to know what was going on and I wasn't listening to anything and finally I got the front and there is a motorcycle that was laying on its side and there was a coroner van, so obviously someone got in a motorcycle accident and died. I felt like, “What a schmuck. Here I am, splitting lanes and getting up to this accident and turns out it's a motorcycle fatality.”

Shortly after that, I’d been riding a motorcycle off and on for 15 years and had never gotten in an accident. Maybe now's the time to count my blessings and be done with it because when you ride a motorcycle for commuting, you have no choice but to split the lines because otherwise you're constantly putting your feet up and down, you'd be crawling, your motorcycle would probably overheat, so you just kind of zip on through. I didn’t get this to commute on, I got it to get around and I found myself commuting on it. I was like, “Well, now is the time to get rid of it,” so I ended up getting a car.

How was it getting around the LA region in a motorcycle?

It's great because there's never traffic but it's also stressful because when you're on the freeway and in the carpool lane and the carpool lane is going 50, 60 miles an hour and the rest of the traffic is stopped, it's always in the back of the rider's mind: “Is a car going to pull out in front of me? Is someone going to change lanes in front of me? Is someone going to get road rage and not try let me get past them?”

I also noticed over time, from my first time riding a motorcycle when I was like 15, 16 years old, no one had cell phones and smartphones didn't exist, so I felt like people were much more focused on the road 15, 16 years ago than they are today because now we have so many distractions. By default, we always have GPS up, getting text messages, getting phone calls. I can tell you with relative accuracy who is distracted while they're driving and who isn't because when you're on a motorcycle and you're going between the cars, you can see which cars are driving straight line and which ones are veering back-and-forth because they're not paying attention.

I remember when I was 16 years old and I had a driver’s license and no cellphone. I was just around and going from my house to school or my house to my girlfriend's house or to the mall. I'd just be gone for hours and I was on my own, I didn't have a GPS as a crutch, I didn't have a phone as a crutch. I had to know where I was going. I think it's interesting because as amazing as technology is, we also use it to reduce our decision-making and the amount of decisions we have to make -- in a sense, dumbing ourselves down because we don't have to think about how to get a route.

I actually went to a friend's house in Glassel Park, Eagle Rock area. I know where she lives, I don't need to put my GPS on, like what if there's traffic or an accident – but no. So I went to and from her house without using the GPS, it was like 8 or 9 miles, but it was one of those things where I’m normally like, “Oh what's her address?” I don't even know what her address is. But I was like, no I'm not going to do that, I know how to get there. I'm going to use my brain and I feel like when I rely on my GPS to get around in my car, I actually miss things more frequently than when I can used to ride a motorcycle before I had the GPS or didn’t have a mount for my phone, so I would have to look in advance where am I going, I'm going to take him at 134 or the 101 to the 118, I'm getting off at the street and then you make left and when I get to this street, I go right and it should be over there somewhere and I would just figure it out. And now the thought of just getting on the road without using a phone as a crutch to get me around is like crazy, although I do it from time to time.

I must say though, that whenever I travel, I try to use the public transit system of wherever I am. It's fun just to see how the people who live there get around. I'm always paranoid and I feel like I always want to have my phone out and it's like where am I getting off, what stop is it? I remember in Portugal and I cannot for the life of me in Lisbon, I could not understand what the person on the speaker was saying and if I remember correctly, they didn't have the stop posted in the train. So the train gets into the station and it sounds like Charlie Brown [womp womp sounds], like what is this and it's really stressful.

I think a lot of it is, to take that back to local life, now that I have lived in Pasadena for nine of the last 10 years and I know how to get around everywhere and now in the last year, I come downtown for work and I know downtown so well. I was afraid to come downtown because it's big, it's crowded, I don't know where anything is located, whereas now I feel like I know it, not like the back of my hand just yet because the way we label our streets is confusing. But I'm getting a much better sense. To your point, we met at a coffee shop that’s at 800 and something Olive, so I know it’s on Olive between 8th and 9th Street. I literally don't need to look at my phone to get here. I think more people would benefit from doing that and I know that’s not necessarily about driving in a car but it's about how we get around. It’s like, we use our phone so much as crutches where we actually don’t think logically. Now that I’m here I understand that if the address starts with 800 that is between 8 and 9th blocks and 900 between the 9th and Olympic in downtown LA.

After the motorcycle, Jonathan went back to owning a car.

I did the same job where I would be going out to the Valley, to South LA, and I bought a Chevy Spark, which is a really small car. Like, bigger than a smart car but smaller than a Corolla, like a micro car. I bought it as an F-you to the system, like what is the cheapest car I can buy that gets good gas mileage and it’s small because logically, this doesn't make sense so many people spend 30, 40, 50 70, a hundred thousand dollars on a car and all it does is, it’s something gets you from A to B. So I bought a Chevy Spark and I got a really good deal. I got one of those price advertised specials and it was really cheap and it was great and I had it for six months until I got my first car accident ever

When you're a Chevy Spark, I think they err on the side of caution because it’s such a small car that I rear-ended it going 5 miles an hour because I was distracted, looking at my phone, and four airbags deployed there is like a knee airbag for me and the passenger and the two regular air bags and because it was like a $12,000 car and the airbags alone were like $2,000 each, it was a total loss. But then ended up just buying a Prius because I needed a car really quickly.

How did you decide on a Prius?

Because I'm really indecisive. I can spend thinking about what type of car to get but it's the number one most sold car in America. It's a hybrid which fits my vibe and at the time, my next-door neighbor was the automotive editor for the LA Times and he was like, “Of all the cars, if you buy that car, it's not going to cause you any problems.” Okay, I don't even think about it anymore but I ended up buying a car twice as expensive as the Spark but it is also more way more comfortable to drive on the freeway. Driving four-cylinder car with a 1.2 liter engine; I've owned motorcycles with bigger engines than [the Spark]. It could go 70 miles an hour on the freeway but then it was really a struggle after that. There were a couple times on a hill, where I literally couldn't go up the hill because it didn't have enough power but I still loved it. I would do it again, I wish I still had that car and I would still have that car if I hadn't rear-ended someone going 5 miles an hour.

So how long were you doing this kind of commuting all over this the region?

Probably three or four years, five years, and then it got even worse because I started doing projects, waste audits and waste education outreach related to California's environment regulations. I started doing it for the County of Los Angeles, which is 4,600 square miles and I was routinely working from home but I'm driving to Rowland Heights or Hacienda Heights is like 30, 35 miles each direction, going to Compton, Inglewood, there's a lot of unincorporated areas, that's 20 to 30 miles south. I was going west all the way to the Ventura county line, which is like 30 or 40 miles and then the kicker was I would be going to Palmdale, Lancaster a lot which is like 70 miles each way, so it actually worked out probably having a Prius because Prius got great gas mileage but it could also get up Highway 14 really easily, whereas the Spark is more of a city car and it definitely struggled. As much as I hate to be living this zero-waste lifestyle [while] totaling a car that’s only six months old. And there's nothing worse than buying two cars in six months. It’s the worst process, buying a car. Speaking of my relationship of transportation, I hate buying cars.

What do you hate about buying cars?

They make you feel horrible. Their goal is to wear you down, to get you to spend as much money as possible. I went to buy the Spark and I was there for three hours. I was like, “This is the car I want, I called you in advance, you told me it was there. We already discussed the price, the gap insurance, I don’t want. I don't want your financing, I don't want anything, I just want the car” and they still try to drag it out to wear you down and I think it really does impact the culture of how people get around. I think most people, there’s a lot of things they would rather do than buy a car. It’s just such an unpleasant experience and that’s the only thing that we do. I may buy a house and hope that it goes value. You buy antiques or collector’s items, they maintain their value. Cars are the biggest waste of money, it’s the biggest money pit. Literally you buy it and then you take possession of it, the moment you sign the contract, you already lost money and then you would have to get insurance, whether you drive that thing or not, you have to have insurance and gas. People say they love their car but if you think about it, it's like the worst thing ever and I really struggle with it because I don't drive my car five days per week and if I got rid of it, I guess I would get used to but it would impact how I get around on the weekends.

I have been looking for some new furnishings for my apartment and just yesterday I found a desk on craigslist and it was 12 miles away. If I didn't have a car, it would've been in a different story: is it available, can I come look at it, do I have to rent a truck or borrow a car from a friend and then incur a cost and then I decide I don’t want buy it or don't want it instead? It's expensive to own a car but it could be expensive to not own a car as well.

When did you actually start working downtown?

I still do that work [waste audits], although usually it's my employees that get to do far-off projects now, but I've been coming downtown for about a year and then July 1st, it will be a year of coming downtown. I love that I can take public transit but for only being 8 or 9 miles away, it's still a commute. Originally, when I started doing it, I was walking to the train station, which was half a mile, so an 8-10 minute walk to the train station. I would come to Union Station, I have to transfer – which, if anyone's been in Union Station, the lines are not close to each other, so it's a 5-minute brisk walk but it could be longer and transferred two stops, get off at Pershing Square, and then walk. It's like 45 to 60 minutes each way, depending on whether I make the connections or not, so it’s easier than driving because we don't have parking at my office but also, driving downtown stressful because there’s tons of traffic, there’s no parking, there’s lots of congestion. I think they're trying to make it more pedestrian-friendly in downtown, so they're making it less desirable to drive a car anyway.

Maybe five or six months ago, I started riding my bike to the train station, which saves me five minutes getting to the train station and I have to wedge my bike onto the train, which is a pain. But instead of getting off at Union Station and transferring and walking, I take it one more stop in Little Tokyo and then have a mile and a half bike ride to my office. It saves at least 10 minutes each direction but sometimes it can be 15 to 20, depending on what the timing of the train and I don't have transfer, so that actually really opened up my eyes to using a bicycle to get around.

Actually it was the LA Metro bike docking stations in downtown and they were doing a promo, like a free month, and I started riding the bikes around and I didn’t really enjoy their bikes because they're only three speeds and it's like either up a hill, down a hill, or flat and they're heavy and I have a low center of gravity, so it's not really my jam but I was like, “I can spend $20 a month to maintain his membership to get around downtown, which is nice because I don’t have to maintain the bike, or I could just start riding my bike so I started riding my bike.

How did you decide to start riding your bike and taking it onto the train?

It was from that free month with the Metro bike share because they got me more comfortable riding a bike downtown. I started learning which streets have bike lanes, which are safer for bikes, where all the docking stations are and also too, my employees commute about 3 miles each way via bike and they were a good model for that, like “I can ride my back around, that's cool.” So I did the free bike thing, I like this idea, I just don't like this bike, so I just got my bike out of the closet, I didn’t even get it tuned up because I need to if I actually want to ride the thing first, so I started riding it and I started seeing the benefits of getting a little bit more accelerated cardio in the morning versus just walking but I was saving between 10 and 20 minutes each direction every day, so I still have a commute but it's much shorter and then now when I’m downtown, I find myself riding my bike just to get around in other places and then I'm even more inclined on the weekend, places that normally I would just by default driven my car to, because it was in the 1 to 3 mile range, now I can just ride my bike, it’s way more accessible.

On the weekends. what do you usually use your car for?

Yesterday I was looking for furniture, I bought a couple of lamps at a garage sale as well. Next Saturday I'm going to some event in Torrance, which is 30 miles away, it's like literally I'm going from the north side of the 110 freeway the entire length to the south side. I was looking at it: Google estimates two hours and 20 minutes each direction on public transit, which is just not very time efficient and that's assuming that they're on time and the buses are routinely not on time. I mean, I could talk all day about transportation and the problems of transportation but they drive on the city streets, they don't have dedicated lanes, so they’re subjected to the same traffic as cars are, so I have to drive, so I guess I could I uber 30 miles, cost $45 or $50 each way, if it's not the surge pricing.

You’ve taken the train and driven by car. What is your experience taking the bus?

I use it occasionally. It’s a balance, though. If I’m near home and I'm feeling lazy, it's easier to have the car but I do know that if I didn't have the car, I would take the bus more frequently. I have had appointments, I had an appointment recently in Beverly Hills and I was looking about driving during a work-related appointment, so I was looking about driving my car. It would take me 45 minutes to get here, I have to park it, then I would have to drive to Beverly Hills, and deal with parking, come back. And then I looked up a bus route that goes down Olympic Boulevard the entire way, it's only like 5 miles but it takes an hour, but I was like, I could do work on the bus in theory.

I took it and it as great because I got to leave my car at home, I was able to work while I was on the bus, I didn't have to deal with parking. I don’t think people think about the risks associated with driving, being the driver of a vehicle, the risk that you could get into an accident or you could get a ticket or both and I was like $1.75 each direction. Public transit is really cheap. I think it's one of the most heavily subsidized metro systems to the country. [Editor’s note: Although it would take some time to properly place LA Metro’s finances within the context of comparable transit agencies, as an FYI: their last Adopted Budget summary page lists: 57.9% from local sales tax and state revenue streams, 36% from bond measures, and 6% from operating and other.]

What do you like about getting around LA, by any mode?

I think that LA is a city with 4 million people, the county has 10 million people, so it's a massive area and the true Angelenos would be quick to say that I don't live in LA. I think the county of LA is like 88 or 89 cities or something make up the County of LA and within those, there's probably hundreds if not thousands of neighborhoods and what I like about it is that when you find the neighborhood that works with you and you learn how to get around, it's actually a really accessible city with a lot of things to do, so I really like Pasadena. I like downtown except downtown is too expensive for what you get, like $2000 for a 500 square-foot studio without parking. But once you figure out where you like to live and where you like to go, then it's great because as I mentioned, between Pasadena and downtown, I can satisfy all my needs, I don't need a car. The challenge is when you go anywhere outside of that bubble. Yes, I can pay $1.75 and take the train from Pasadena to Santa Monica, but I'll take me an hour and 45 minutes, whereas even in traffic it's like a one hour our drive, so it's really hard to justify that when I go to the beach or visit friends, it’s hard to justify that. It’s one thing, okay, I'm in downtown after work, I’m going to meet some friends in Santa Monica, it’s a 30 or 40 minute train ride but then now it's 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock and I’m looking at an hour and 45 train ride back home, that's not really feasible.

That goes into my next question of: what is it that you don't like here? What is the one big thing that you'd want to improve about transportation in LA?

I haven't been everywhere in the world but coincidentally, I was just in Colombia for vacation and one thing that they do really well is bus infrastructure. In the major cities where I visited, which were Cali, Medellin, and Bogotá, the buses have dedicated lanes in the center of the road, they have the bus stops on elevated platforms -- almost like a train platform -- and they're in the middle of the road and they have two lanes for the buses in each direction. That way, if the bus is stopped to pick someone up, another bus can still go around it. It was inexpensive: 2400 pesos to ride the bus, which is just less than a dollar, $0.75 or $0.80 to ride the bus. They had their own dedicated lines. Even though there was horrible traffic in the regular lanes, the buses moved freely.

It’s the single biggest problem that we have, I think, with the LA Metro and other bus systems I've seen around the country: the buses are stuck in the same traffic as the cars and everyone makes this decision: if I have to crawl, why would I crawl on the bus? I'll just drive my own car. The problem is so many people do that, it gets people out of the buses and into their cars. It takes away that incentive to ride the bus. Like me, riding in the carpool lane. If it's not flowing better than the other traffic, then why am I going to go out of my way to pick up a carpool if I'm not going to have the benefit of being in the shared lane? I think it exacerbates the problem because if I’m going to be stuck here, honestly I’d rather be stuck in my car and in my comfort zone, listening to my music, not sitting next to a stranger.

When you went to Colombia, was that your first time taking that kind of bus rapid transit?

That was the first time I've been on bus transit where the buses had their own dedicated lines and it was really really eye-opening to how much more efficient bus transit could be. It was jam-packed, it didn't matter. The morning commute was packed, but the middle of the day was packed as well because it works. The bus system seems to actually work and Colombia being a lower-income country, I’m assuming fewer people own cars, which means they’re more likely use the buses. [Editor’s note: Colombia is considered the third largest market in South America for automotive sales, after Brazil and Argentina] If I just got rid of my car, then I would start using the bus more regularly because it would be a necessity but I have this privilege, this ability, to spend hundreds of dollars a month for the honor of owning a car that I only drive one or two times a week, which sounds absurd when I say that.

I am going to be going to San Diego for the weekend in a few weeks and what I love about it is that I can take Amtrak. It's two hours and 45 minutes from LA to San Diego. It's not cheap -- having a $70 or $72 round-trip -- but I can leave work, I can go two stops to the train station, I can leave 5 PM on a Friday, at 5:10 I think it’s when the train leaves, I can get to San Diego in two hours and 45 minutes with no traffic. No driving the car, I can read a book, I can look at the view, I can drink a beer, I can do whatever I want. I don't have to worry about the driving because yes, San Diego can be an hour and 45 minutes or a 2-hour drive at 5am on Saturday morning but usually it's going take two hours and 45 minutes anyway. Since I'm going to visit friends, I don't need a car when I get there, so it seemed like a no-brainer like, why would I sit in traffic? It would take me 45 minutes to get out of downtown LA on a Friday.

Any final thoughts?

My background is in supply chain management, which is all about process improvements, about getting the foundation right, and I wish we’d spent more time improving the bus infrastructure, in making the train infrastructure more dense in downtown LA because downtown is the hub of public transit in southern California. We should be making it so good that you don't need a car in or around downtown and then start over time to expand it, whereas I feel like because the funding for LA Metro is countywide and we keep on building these trains to go farther and farther away. It already takes 20 minutes to get to Pasadena, it takes 40 minutes to get to Azusa, it takes 60 minutes to get from Claremont to Union Station on the trains because they’re all local, there's only one track in each direction, so there's no opportunity for express trains.

Rather than encouraging people to live further away because now they have this train that can get them there, I wish we would make the infrastructure denser in the center and then just slowly over time expand it out. That way, it facilitates the dense growth, it also facilitates just being completely car-free. I understand it's less equitable if you only spend [funding] in a certain area but the hub of the LA basin is in downtown LA, so that's where it all originates.

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