I parked at the Lancaster Metrolink Station and took the Antelope Valley Line south to Los Angeles Union Station at 0655. After a brief coffee stop I switched to the LA Metro Red Line subway to Pershing Square Station. The station exit dumped me right at the northwest corner of Hill and 4th St, where I caught Metro Local 81 (bus) southbound on Figueroa St., arriving at Figueroa and Jefferson at 0920 for a total outbound trip time of 2 hours, 25 minutes.

This is about 45 min longer than driving through morning traffic. That’s an additional 45 minutes taken out of my day each way right? Lame. On the surface, this seems like an insurmountable deficit for the public transit argument.

However, the advantage of public transit is seldom that it offers a faster solution… other factors need to be taken into consideration.

Snapshot out the window while crossing the San Gabriels on Metrolink 208 from Lancaster to Union Station.

First of all, let’s consider the fact that I didn’t have to drive. This freed me up to actually use part of my commute time studying, something which is impossible (or, at the very least, highly dangerous) to do while driving in LA traffic. In practice, this was difficult to do on the subway and bus portion of the trip, as well as during the transfers of course, so chalk that up that time as nada. However, on the Metrolink train from Lancaster to Los Angeles, I got a good 1.5 hours of pretty quiet studying in.

Engineering analysis of this first point; non-engineers, you may skip this paragraph and not lose a beat. I estimate an outbound commute time of 2.5 hours at 0.7 productivity efficiency, 11 hours on campus at 0.85 efficiency, and a return trip of 2.5 hours at 0.7 productivity efficiency (including composing this blog post, and sleeping, which I cannot safely do in the car despite my early morning for work tomorrow). For the car I assume 1.75 hours outbound commute at 0.1 efficiency (I’ll allow catching up on KCRW’s Which Way LA? and To the Point as productive), 12.25 hours on campus (can stay longer when driving because I don’t have to catch a particular train back) at 0.85 efficiency, and 1.25 hours return trip at 0.1 efficiency (calling people I need to catch up with). Net utilized hours were 10.71 (0.7025 overall productivity) for driving and 12.53 (0.7881 overall productivity) for mass transit.

On a first cut estimate, I got more productive hours out of my day for less overhead of my time by taking mass transit.

Secondly, let’s consider cost. No skipping the math this time… Total fare down and back on mass transit was $28.50. For driving, I estimate 3.5 gallons of fuel used (just over a quarter tank in my ’06 Nissan Sentra, 33mpg avg) at the current Lancaster gas price of $3.80/gal (yeah I know, shut up mid-westerners). With an additional $5 for parking, that comes to $16.90. BUT, what about the miles put on the car? The cost of maintenance on your vehicle, averaged out over time, comes out to…. well, there’s all sorts of estimates with different assumptions, most between $0.35 and $0.60 per mile.. in reality, it depends on your car, your driving style, and how well you care for it. Let’s go with 0.25/mile, pretty conservative. That makes the total-cost-of-driving estimate come out to $55.80! Transit wins again in the long run.

Oh yeah, and you’re freaking saving the environment. That’s probably a separate article.

The major drawback to using mass transit today was the bus. It was a bit crowded. With close proximity to… interesting people. However, I am going to wait for more data points, as, today, approximately one-third of the bus appeared to be loud, elderly Japanese women with bright suitcases. Even for Los Angeles, that has to count as an outlier, right? Maybe not. We’ll see.

Important, subjective, additional point: I could snag a couple shots of fiery Irish whiskey at Casey’s on the way up, which is definitely not advisable when driving.

At the end of the day, the real question is: would I do it again? The answer is yes. I think I’ll buy a TAP card next time I pass through Union Station.

The novelty of a new environment was tempered by the discomfort of uncertainty as I boarded the train to the city center. “Did I get on the right train? What if there is some procedure for train-riding I don’t know? Did I do the train-passenger secret handshake?” The most ridiculous of concerns passed through my mind as I let the world slide by the windows, eased only slightly by another passenger asking me if I knew where a certain stop was – at the least I didn’t look too far out of place. A little more at ease after paying the conductor for my ticket – at least I wouldn’t be thrown off of the train now – I settled back to consider my purpose here.

Too pragmatic to simply let myself have a much-needed adventure, I gave myself a pass with the justification that by attending a conference in my area of academic interest I would make connections useful in my graduate studies. On a deeper level though, I had simply reached a point where I needed a new and difference experience. The stress of finishing my undergraduate studies had taken its toll on my morale, and a subconscious need for variety and escape had pushed me to an uncharacteristic spontaneity.

“Center City Philadelphia,” the voice of the conductor woke me from my reverie. Stepping off of the train and into the night the voices nagged at me again, darkness and sleet joining in now, questioning my wisdom in coming here. Banishing them with thoughts of how pleasant it was to be able to hop on a train with remembering my stop as the only concern. I stepped down to the platform and began looking for an indication of where the subway was, I wandered through the station attempting to orient myself when suddenly the doubt, concern, looking for the subway, all of it evaporated. As I stepped through an archway the ceiling vanished into an immense abyss above. The magnificence of thirtieth street station had me in awe, I had never seen such architecture before. I half expected to see clouds gathering in the upper reaches of the room. I was struck not just by the size – I had been in plenty of large hangars – but the careful adornments of the building, the ornate and polished floor, and elaborate molding. It seemed unreal that this could be a public building – perhaps my imagination was not off so far in envisioning the “east”.

Reluctantly pulling my eyes away from the grand building, I returned to the suddenly very mundane task of finding the subway. Leaving the grand terminal for the subway station, my thoughts were once again focused on navigation by the sleet, now pouring down in immense quantities. Fortunately I quickly found my way, and after only minor confusion in navigating the ticketing rituals was seated. The now-familiar uncertainty once again confronted me, was I sure of the right stop, could I hear the annunciator well enough? In the process of checking my directions for the umpteenth time a rather obvious realization came over me: my change of location was merely a catalyst. The objective of my travel was lose myself, my troubles, and my routine – and in doing so find something fascinating, real, and important.

I had touched that realization only minutes before, basking in the experience of 30th street station, but foolishly banished it with pragmatic concerns. Now renewed and embraced, the realization was completely liberating. Suddenly I didn’t care what my stop was – I would make it to the hostel eventually – I only cared that I made the most of what I saw and experienced. Without the stress I easily found the stop and my way to the hostel (yet another new experience to add to the list for this trip). Emboldened by my recent realization, I soon set off again, though with no destination. I set off not on some path I had pre-ordained for myself, but in search of what the now snow-hushed city could teach me if I but listened.

So when business called me to Cincinnati (another place I had never been), and I heard that I would be staying across the river in someplace across the river called Covington, Kentucky, well… to say the least I wasn’t expecting much. But despite harsh preconceptions, I have emerged from the bluegrass state pleasantly surprised. I was impressed at the urbane riverfront nightlife, the variety of ethnic food, the street cafes and bistros, the small live jazz and blues clubs, and friendly openness of a people I once was convinced were narrow-minded and backward.

So allow me to let you in on one of America’s seldom-explored destinations. For an inexpensive and fun-filled getaway, try (of all places) Northern Kentucky.

For one, it is beautiful country; deciduous forest grows thick and lush on endless green rolling hills, and the Ohio River (which, ironically, is owned by Kentucky) cuts a blue swath through some of the prettiest hills. I would very much like to come back for all the seasons, particularly autumn; I suspect that the photographer in me would revel in the color displays that can be seen here in the fall.

For the evenings during the earlier part of the week I was mainly looking for places to hang out in Cincinnati, on the Ohio side of the river. While the Queen City was certainly much better than I expected (again, that isn’t saying much), I hesitate to say that I was delighted. The James and I did manage to find a fairly good middle eastern restaurant at 6th and Vine that served hookah (see my earlier post on the subject), but besides that I can’t say that there was all that much. I think I would have preferred my much smaller hometown of Boise, Idaho for quality hangouts. I do concede that I had a very limited time to explore the area, and had not been advised by any locals on the subject of fun things to do; that said however, Cincinnati still has some convincing to do before I think of it as a fun place to go.

That Wednesday however was my birthday, and with The James’ departure that afternoon to head back to Arizona, I had resigned myself to spending my joyeux anniversaire far from home, family, and friends. On a whim, I decided to explore the Kentucky side of the river. My secondary camera, an old Pentax ME Super, was strapped around my shoulder, on the off chance that something interesting could possibly be found in a dull place like Kentucky. It turns out that I seriously underestimated the photo opportunities; my two remaining rolls of film rapidly disappeared over the next few days, and I found myself wishing for more.

On Covington’s simultaneously quaint and hip Main St., I ran across a sign for live jazz on the rooftop of Chez Nora, a small restaurant and live music bar. Curious, I stepped in… I didn’t step out until last call. Jazz singer Beckah Williams was singing that night, and boy, for a short blonde she could belt it. I was just sitting in the corner, finishing up my crawfish étouflée and enjoying the music, when the bartender walked up with a fresh pint.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I don’t remember ordering this.”

“The lady third from the left bought you this drink sir.”

Huh? Glancing over towards the bar, I noticed three fairly good-looking, middle-aged women smoking and chatting with the other bartender. Shrugging, I grabbed the pint and wandered over.

And that’s how I met the self-proclaimed “Covington Barflies,” who spent the next three days showing me all over the Kentucky side of the river, mainly in Covington and the hip “Levee” riverfront district of Newport. I can’t even remember the total count of beers, shots, jazz musicians, banjo players, marlboro smoking over makeup-ed bartendresses (“you from around here, sugar?”), and lovely photos over the river occured in those days.

The highlight of the trip was by far the bluegrass bar I went to on the last night. Walking in wearing khakis and a polo only intensified how out-of-place I was in a bar full of either white or black folks, guys in tight jeans and tucked in flannel shirts, gals in pretty dresses… very pretty. (And by the way, for the record, the southern accent is so hot it’s not even fair.) The momentary awkwardness was totally worth it though… I ended up joking with the band and learning (vaguely) how to dance, their style. I’d recommend the band highly by the way, The 23 String Band, out of Cumberland Valley, KY.

So all in all, I had a raucous good time with some very friendly people. Though I stuck out like a sore thumb and got some interesting looks (what’s this yuppie South Asian kid doin here with a goddamn camera?), people were on the whole very welcoming and eager to have a good time. The scenery was beautiful (especially the old churches in central Covington), the curries were delicious, the hookah flavors were varied, the cajun cooking nearly blew my mouth off, and the jazz was even hotter. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. Oh yeah, and call me up when you’re going, I can pack quickly.

More photos from my adventures can always be found at Adventures of a Quantum Cowboy.