Visited L.A. This Weekend... Our experience with the public transportation

Normally a lurker (from Reddit) but I wanna do my part to improve this community!

So my wife and I met a friend in L.A. over a long weekend and we decided to try and get around exclusively via public transportation. At times it was fine, but mostly it was a nightmare.

Long post because of the many issues we ran into...

We heard LA was investing heavily in public transportation for the 2028 Olympics that they're hosting. I wont lie, I was a bit excited, we're from a small town so I've never been on a metro. Our research told us we'd be able to get a public transportation card and get almost anywhere. In the end we spent nearly $400 on Uber in just 3 days... (we did go to tons of places though).

Admittedly, much of our issues were our own fault, but some things just weren't clear enough for people not to be expected to make mistakes.

So we land at LAX and the first thing we do is order an Uber to go to a store to buy a bus/transit card (tap card). After the fact, I wondered if there was somewhere in the airport/transit hub that would sell the cards, but my wife used their website to find a store and I don't think it was listed. Anecdotally, the Uber/Lift/Cab staging area is wild at LAX. A bit of a shame to waste so much space on something so unsustainable.

So we get to the store and the guy tells us he doesn't sell tap cards anymore, and hasn't for a long time. Bummer, we take another Uber to the next closest store, they don't as well. I start calling places but it was already 7PM so places were closing, or didn't sell anymore. We order another Uber to our hotel.

The next morning I call 6 or so tap card vendors before someone actually sells them. For real. We Uber there and it took them 20+ minutes to figure out how to activate the cards for a week. No big deal. We use google maps to find a bus to meet our friend, and ended up having to walk just under a mile. Fortunately, it was fun, we got donuts from a little shop and the lady gave us 3 free donuts and a free coffee. Wishing I took note of the place so I could give a shout out... A couple connections and we were only a block or so from our friend.

Our friend had a tap card because she frequents LA for work, but I guess she usually Ubers because she has the money and it's far more convenient. I didn't like hearing that, but now I understand why.

The first issue we had with the metro was that "metro" means rail, AND bus, in LA. So at one point google tells us our connection is a metro line and we were wildly confused until a bus showed up with the same number and the driver confirmed that he was what we were looking for.

The next issue was that not all busses are free with the tap card. I guess you have to load extra money onto the tap card for these busses. So that was embarrassing when the driver told us. Google maps didn't make it clear at all. The driver let us on anyways though which was a relief.

So my wife spends the next hour trying to load our cards with money from the app and it never works. Eventually we go into a store to do it, but until the money was loaded, we were stressed every bus connection would need the extra fee.

The next hardship was bus stops on opposite sides of the road. We find our bus stop, which matches exactly what google says, and then watch our bus on the other side of a large road leave without us. Another Uber (which we took all the way to our final destination, instead of the next transit connection).

Every stop after that we tried guessing which way our bus would come from based on the map. We were wrong this one time, but the next bus was in 10 minutes so we crossed the street and got on, but we didn't notice it was the wrong bus. Google didn't notice either. Eventually we figured out that the stop names weren't matching and we got off and re-loaded google maps but were too far from reasonable travel times so took an Uber.

One other time we guessed the side of the street wrong and Ubered. I was pretty mad with us, but it really isn't simple to do.

The next missed bus was at a large bus hub with many stops. We found our sign and the bus drove right past us and away. Google tracks the busses so we knew it was ours. We guessed maybe the driver was done for the day or something. The next one was in 20 minutes so we walked around and found another sign that matched ours. Confused, we compared them and they did differ with a third tier of information (a road name) that wasn't obvious on google. Before the next bus came I noticed someone else at the stop we tried the first time and I let him know our mistake and turns out he was about to make the exact same one.

The next challenge we faced was at another large transit hub. We walked around 2 times looking for our stop and couldn't find it. It was super large so we missed the bus once already and weren't sure how it'd affect our connections later so we were panicking a bit. A security guard stopped us and asked if we needed help. We told him the stop we were looking for and he had no idea. After a few seconds though he said, "oh, that must be the rail, head upstairs." And it was. Finally got to ride a rail! But yeah naming busses and rails "metro" caused us confusion in both directions of interpretation... The rail was great and fast, but did smell terrible. It was bike friendly, but I don't think I'd ever risk my life biking in LA. Maybe some parts are better than others, but generally there was no shoulder, and a lot of very fast cars.

In a very busy area, we missed a bus that I think just seemed to drive past because there were already 2 other busses parked in the loading spot.

Late at night once, a bus driver just announced it was the last stop, everyone off, even though we weren't where we needed to be. I'm not sure what happened but that was another Uber.

We went to the observatory which had bad traffic that only had a small section as a bus lane. Anyways we stayed until it closed which was a mistake because the next bus wasn't until the morning. We try ordering an Uber but no one would take us. Literally hundreds of people are trying. A park ranger comes by and explains that we have to walk out of the park because Ubers won't be allowed in. It was kinda a long walk, over a mile I would guess. We had fun and some solo individuals joined our group for "safety" and they were fun to chat with. But still, I couldn't imagine if someone with a disability was told they have to walk down a mountain. There was literally hundreds of people walking. there definitely should have been warning signs, or a shuttle. The sun barely set so I feel like that's when the most people would want to be at the observatory. Eventually, at the bottom, an Uber drive accepted us.

Multiple times our destination would take 1.5 hours+ so we would just take a 30 minute Uber. It felt bad, but we didn't want to use up too much of our limited time. Some times we would take a bus part of the way if we thought the Uber would be cheaper from the connection.

One cool thing was the freeway busses. The bus stop would be below a freeway and some stairs would take you to a stop on the left side of travel so the freeway bus could stay in one lane (the HOV lane) and avoid exits for stops. It felt pretty fast and efficient, but at that point doesn't a rail make more sense? This infrastructure was for elevated freeways and clearly a lot of elevated platforms were added for it. And holy crap, it was loud. The upper stop was between two many-lane freeways and it was loud to the point where I was covering my ears.

One very busy downtown street had tons of people walking and vendors, and a 4 lane 35MPH road with a small shoulder. What a failure of design. There was an outdoor mall off the road which was great. People obviously love the walk-ability, but I'd bet there'd be a city civil war if they tried to remove the cars from there.

On the way back to the airport to leave, we got to ride the rail again which was fun. It blew past some freeway traffic at one point. I was just thinking how much more convenient it was than dealing with airport drop off and parking and such, when we realized the rail didn't actually make it to the airport. We had to get off and take a bus, this bus appeared to be completely free, and I think they're just still working on the last mile of rail, but it was disappointing that the only time public transporting in LA might have been distinctly more convenient than driving, there was still a confusing connection. Also, the bus still was stuck in airport traffic so yay.

In the end, I feel like the main things LA should do is:

1. Eliminate confusion (different bus stop identifiers on different sides of the road, clear labeling on if the connection is a bus or rail, and no two signs in large hubs should use the same bus numbers)
2. Make it so all the busses use the standard tap card. No additional fees.
3. Sell tap cards at the airport and at all major bus/rail hubs
4. Maybe no tap card? just QR codes/NFC and an app. Or better yet, free
5. Cleaner transit that didn't literally smell like piss would be nice and probably bring in more users
6. Add more rails. They're more reliable and less confusing. I see that more are being worked on, but I don't know to what extent.

I think right now, the public transportation is more or less only usable by locals with some familiarity. Maybe if a route conveniently goes to your work. But Just trying to get around the city on a whim was a nightmare.

I hope they get things together before the Olympics as I can't image if all the visitors drove. The roads were crowded as is. One thing Uber drivers kept repeating to us was, "no matter where you want to go in LA, it's always an hour away" Because that's how long it takes to get on and off a few freeways, and if you're close enough to not need a freeway, the roads are still backed up enough to take an hour to go just a few miles.

Another interesting thing an Uber driver said to us was that the rails were all added during covid and that he heard it was a man made virus so that the streets would be empty so they could do the work. I don't wanna judge, but this man must think the world revolves around LA. But clearly there isn't great public opinion on their public transport and that's a bummer because they could benefit so much from it.

Overall, I hope to never visit LA again. We had tons of fun, but more from the company than the many things to do. I do think seamless transportation would influence my opinion. Anything you wanted to do came with the added frustration of just trying to get there, and even if we rented a car, I don't think the frustration would go away. I think we might try and go to the 2028 Olympics so it'll be fun to see if things improve.

We want to try and travel somewhere yearly, anyone have public transportation friendly destination suggestions? Would love to try somewhere with better infrastructure.