One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Let's Talk About Metro-Riding Etiquette (Again)
Photo by erin-x via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr
L.A. took a lot of bashing this week thanks to the fine survey-takers over at Travel + Leisure and one UK-import Vice Mag scribe. One thing that hotly divides Angelenos is whether we have a decent public transportation system. Love it or hate it, if you use it, it's best to use it wisely. At least use it nicely.
As a Thought Catalog piece from this week points out, much like howwe've pointed it out before, it pays to mind your manners when you're riding the rails or the bus lines of L.A.
Okay, but first, Thought Catalog has some words for the L.A. transit haters:
We have a robust transit network, with only a few blind spots that aren’t even that discouraging. If you actually want to go to Westwood for anything other than a UCLA sweatshirt or a Jerry’s Deli, you should probably just move back to wherever you came from. You are the problem, not the solution. Madison, Wisconsin misses you, and there are plenty of Targets and Jamba Juices for you there too.
And now their rules:
- If you want to stand on the escalator, stand to the right. If you want to walk, walk to the left.
- Do not make unnecessary conversation.
- Get a monthly or weekly pass if you ride the bus.
- Learn to ignore crazy people.
Thought Catalog offers these four simple tenets of good Metro etiquette that would put us on equal footing with New Yorkers--at least when it comes to public transpo behavior.
True, it's best to not engage others in conversation or let yourself become engaged in conversation (or in the shenanigans of "crazy people") but there are still a few more aspects of Metroquette that still seem to elude most riders in L.A. And those "rules" are really just matters of courtesy and common sense that, if everyone tried to stick to, would make a bus or train trip all the more pleasurable. So we'd like to add (and reiterate) the following:
- Don't crowd the door! Let everyone get off the train or bus before you elbow your way in.
- Your bag doesn't get its own seat, unless it bought its own fare. That's what you have a lap or the floor for.
- Pay your fare. Don't ruin it for the rest of us.
- Don't leave your trash on the floor. Your mom isn't going to clean up those sunflower seed shells you've been spitting on the Red Line floor all the way from Pershing Square to Hollywood and Highland.
Happy riding, Angelenos! Alternatively, hate away with these easy steps!
Previously:
All Aboard the Etiquette Train (2005)
How's your 'Metroquette' Been? (2008)
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
