A foreign journalist coming to L.A. for a fellowship is warned by friends that he will need a car. He scoffs, and walks and walks and walks.
We just finished a late-night grocery run at the Walmart in Lawndale and spotted what, in our state of gnawing hunger, was a glorious red and yellow sign across the parking lot.It had been a long day, and my roommate Somesh and I were famished and exhausted. We trudged across the vast empty lot carrying our groceries in giddy anticipation of greasy food.
Needless to say, they don’t in Los Angeles. Public transport feels completely unencumbered by the burdens of punctuality, availability, geography and safety.Gasoline prices have reached record highs in Los Angeles, but convincing tens of thousands of Angelenos to leave their gas guzzlers at home is still a hard sell for many.
Of course they could. I think the whole incident implies that the city looks at people without cars as second-class citizens. I was in Inglewood when I booked my COVID-19 booster shot at Walgreens. The pharmacy was just over half an hour’s walk from my apartment. It was also a five-minute cab ride, but $14 for five minutes did not seem worth it. I couldn’t stop multiplying by 80. The cab fare is equal to 1120 rupees. With that amount of money, I could travel from one end of Mumbai to another in peak traffic, pay a handsome tip to the driver and still save money for dinner. A cab was out of the question.