My Missed Connection Riding the L.A. Metro

A Passenger and Train Conductor Lock Eyes—But Poor Urban Planning and Four Lanes of Traffic Conspire to Keep Them Apart

Our eyes met on a Saturday evening in Los Angeles. I wanted to go home. He wanted to take me there.

Could we find our way to each other in this lonely city?

Sure, we were only 30 yards apart. But we were separated by Crenshaw Boulevard—and by the folly of transportation planning in 21st century Southern California.

The object of my gaze was the driver of a Metro train on the Expo Line, which runs from Santa Monica to downtown L.A., and is also known as the E Line. The driver’s features, …

by Joe Mathews | November 15, 2022

Will California Get SMART About Mass Transit?

A New Train Could Help Battle Climate Change, Serve Expanding Metro Areas, and Create a Northern California Mega-Region

by Joe Mathews | September 6, 2022

If this train is so SMART, why can’t I find it?

That’s the question I asked myself in Larkspur, in Marin County, after arriving on the ferry from San Francisco one …

How to Imagine a Los Angeles Without Traffic

The City Has the Solutions to Congestion, Pollution, and Accidents—We Just Need to Use Them

by JOSHUA SCHANK | March 31, 2022

For the last century, Los Angeles has been expanding its road space far beyond almost any major metropolitan area in history. We have built freeways and roads and parking lots …

Ode to the American Bus

Where Found Verse Meets Democracy in Motion

by Derek Mong | February 24, 2022

How many of us grow rapturous in the presence of a bus? The number, I’d guess, is relatively small. Hulking metal loaves of the urban landscape, buses do not, when …

Don’t Be Ashamed to Admit It: You Miss California Traffic

The Commute May Be Lousy, but Gridlock Is Also Good for Us

by California Traffic, as told to Joe Mathews | August 4, 2020

Admit it. You miss me, don’t you?

No? OK, maybe you’re not ready to recognize how much you need me. I understand.

I know you’ve never liked me, and for that I’ve …

Auto Draft | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

An Architect of L.A. Government Looks Forward and Back

Zev Yaroslavsky on How Politics Have Changed in Los Angeles in the Last 40 Years

by Jackie Mansky | February 12, 2020

Los Angeles has changed, declared Zev Yaroslavsky, a man who has played a major role in shaping the city’s politics in the last 40 years, during a Zócalo Public Square …

public transportation