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Bus experiment happily now in rear-view mirror

MY monthlong experiment with public transportation ended Friday. Except for a couple of “emergencies,” I left my car at home and traveled this city by bus for 30 extremely long days. This really big city.

I went to work each day on the bus. If I needed groceries, I’d take the bus or harass a friend for a ride. When my sister came to town, I made her ride the subway to Hollywood, rather than shuttling her around sightseeing. When I had to go downtown for a fancy press awards dinner, I rode the bus in a spaghetti-strap dress.

For the month of June, I experienced life in Los Angeles as many other people do without a car and hating it.

I’d like to say this experience made me a better person. I’d like to report that I’ve made life-changing connections with other riders. I’d like to say that I’ve had profound revelations about the human condition or about the state of social justice. I’d like to say I’ve become a public-transportation convert.

But I cannot say any of those things, not truthfully. The only thing like an epiphany to hit me was something I already knew: Riding the bus in Los Angeles sucks.

Most of the time while attending school I either walked or caught a ride with a classmate. The few times that I had to take a bus (we moved a lot) I wasn’t crazy about and to this day I would rather walk, ride a bicycle, or beg a ride. Ok one exception, when I lived in Bermuda. The roads are narrow and twisting, and the buses are smaller. The drivers are a little crazy, like they think they’re The Blue Brothers on a mission, passenger safety is their last concern. It was like taking a wild ride at some amusement park every morning.

A Community College Dean Looks at the Macroeconomic Situation, and Panics 

Confessions of a Community College Dean: In Which I Get a Little Panicky: I’m not an economist. Readers who actually understand economics are invited to explain why I’m off my rocker on this one…. [T]he U.S. is running nasty and increasing deficits at the government level, the household level, and the international level. We owe more to other countries than we ever have, and much of that debt comes from selling government securities to foreign central banks (esp. in Asia). Household debt is skyrocketing, and the interest rate increases of the last year or two are poised to nab anybody stupid enough to have taken out an adjustable-rate mortgage in the great housing boom of the last five or six years. The national debt grows apace, and has been refinanced over the last few years to progressively shorter-term loans, meaning that higher interest rates will hurt badly and quickly. Think of it as putting the national debt on an ARM, then watching interest rates go up.

More at Brad Delong’s blog. He thinks we’re going to be OK. I waver back and forth, some days I think that given ten years or so things will work out. Other days I think we’re screwed for at least a generation. I call it the less pain outlook versus the greater pain outlook.

Except for all the dead bodies, things are going really well.