When I landed in LA to start college at UCLA in the fall of 2016, I was ecstatic. I grew up in Boise, Idaho, a far cry from a big city, and the vastness and excitement of LA was almost overwhelming for me. But since those first days in Westwood, I began to feel as though I still lived in a small, boring town. I felt dishonest when I said I lived in LA, wanting to add a footnote explaining that I actually live in Westwood, which isn’t LA, not to me.
I constantly have a hard time understanding myself as a Bruin within the broader context of an expansive metropolis like LA, which certainly has more to offer beyond our little corner of Westwood. The city sprawls ceaselessly across neighborhoods, communities and freeways, and envelops every single person along its route into the identifier “Angeleno.” But, stuck in Westwood, I’ve become too caught up calling myself a Bruin and I’ve almost forgotten I exist within a certain duality, like all Angelenos.
“I’m from Echo Park, I’m from Koreatown, I’m from Venice.” These are some of the different ways of distinguishing ourselves and generating nuance under an umbrella term that doesn’t quite fit us all.
The recognition of this tension that came with my move to LA and the limitations of living in Westwood urged me to explore my fragmented identity, and what I can do about it. I started to see UCLA a little differently in relation to the rest of the city: I began to view it as a strictly limited space, tucked into the Westside. I wanted to know why I feel so disconnected here.
UCLA is a space without close Metro rail stops, nestled among mansions and “drunk food” spots tailored to student life. Sometimes in Westwood, I feel like I can’t understand the Los Angeles that exists south of Wilshire Boulevard or beyond the Westside.
I had nearly the opposite experience while living in Berlin for a study abroad program. I felt at home there and even now that I’m back to life in LA, I still feel quite a bit like a “Berliner” in a way I haven’t yet been able to replicate with “Angeleno.”
This question of identity that life at UCLA poses had a simpler answer when I was studying in Berlin during fall quarter. Within less than a month of arriving in Germany, I felt I could call myself a Berliner. Immediately, I recognized a difference between my identity in Berlin and my identity in LA. So, I tried to pinpoint what aspects of my Berlin life I could bring home to LA with me. I wanted that same comfort associated with home I had found in Berlin, but I wanted to feel it when I was actually at home in LA.
One morning it hit me as I made my 11-mile, hourlong commute to Freie Universitat Berlin in Lankwitz from my apartment in Prenzlauer Berg on the east side of the city: Despite the lengthy journey, my commute never bothered me. Instead, it was one of the main ways I was able to stake out a space for myself among so much newness; all around me sat Berliners sharing a morning quietly, and here I was, indistinguishable from them, so long as I didn’t open my mouth and let my bad accent spill out.
I felt a mundane sort of kindness in our ability to share something seemingly insignificant, as small as a bump in the road or a few stops between transfers. And it stuck with me, not only the sense of belonging I noticed that morning, but also the appreciation for the possibility of unlimited movement throughout a sprawling city.
My commute meant a lot to me, but it would be simplistic to say this belonging was just about the cozy mornings on the train. It was also about understanding the array of spaces and communities that lie alongside transit routes – spaces I would have never interacted with if it weren’t for the train.
Witnessing the changes in the neighborhoods out my tram window enabled me to form a holistic picture of the communities, people and areas that make up Berlin. Not to mention the small, but kind, interactions I experienced with other commuters – small “entschuldigungs,” the German word for “Excuse me.” At UCLA, I don’t have this same experience. But that isn’t because it’s impossible. If I learned anything from Berlin, it’s that public transportation is a powerful tool, and it can change the way I understand myself in relation to the spaces and people around me.
“When you ride the bus you see a shift in different parts of LA. You see different neighborhoods and different cultures all spread around,” said Michelle Morales, a third-year art student and lifelong Angeleno. She said transit was one of the things that gave her a sense of connection to LA as her hometown, as she reminisced on cutting high school classes and taking the bus wherever it would go just to explore.
Taking the bus in LA isn’t the same as it is in Berlin. LA public transit sees fewer riders, buses run less frequently and travel times can be a lot slower. But speaking with Morales reminded me that avoiding these inconveniences comes at the cost of losing out on community. In the Westwood bubble, I’m getting a one-sided picture, and it’s hard for me to situate myself among the rest of the city when I’m not even sure what or who is out there.
In many other cities – Berlin included – public transportation serves as a contact point between members of the community, but in LA we don’t see the same interaction. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible; I think there’s room for the UCLA community to begin fostering a multifaceted and informed identity for itself within Los Angeles that relies less on our university and more on our position as young people within a diverse city. One way to do this is to make a commitment to truly acting as members of our greater community and using what LA makes available to us.
Having grown up in the Fashion District, Morales said there’s a lot to be found on the east side and in areas she thinks UCLA students don’t often access. She said she avoided living in Westwood because it is wrapped up too heavily in UCLA’s influence. Instead, she lives in Brentwood and spends a lot of time where she grew up in east LA, where she appreciates the number of locally run businesses.
Of course, LA is home for Morales and it always has been. But for me, it’s been three years and I’m still trying to find out how to feel like it’s my home, too. Based on my experiences in Berlin, I think public transportation could help.
Other students have had similar experiences to me. Take Leilani Dulguerov, a third-year mathematics student from just outside of Geneva. We bonded over our shared excitement about LA, a love of European transit systems and our disappointment in the UCLA-centric spheres we navigate.
“I feel like I belong in Westwood, definitely, because you know it’s UCLA students, people that you have things in common with. But I feel like depending on where you are in the city, people are so different and the atmosphere is so different that it's kind of hard to be an Angeleno,” Dulguerov said. “There's much less a sense of identity.”
Dulguerov talked about how, in Switzerland, she used buses and trains every day to get to school and also to go into the city at night. She said navigating Switzerland on her own gave her a sense of independence – she didn’t have to rely on anyone else. Dulguerov doesn’t feel the same in LA because she doesn’t often use the public transportation and relies instead on Uber, Lyft or friends with cars, options that are often less complicated.
Convenience plays a large role in transit decisions, my own included, which makes a lot of sense. LA transit is hard to use and it can seem like it takes longer than a car. In places like Germany and Switzerland, there aren’t as many barriers. But since I’ve been back in LA, I’ve felt a growing need to re-evaluate the way I look at our transportation.
My main concern is sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to take a 50-minute bus commute when I could get to my destination by car in 20 minutes.
Although transit might not always lose in a race against the car, Josh Mayer, a graduate student in anthropology, said he thinks there is a misconception of what transit times can actually look like.
“There's this sense I think that it would take much less time to go by car, but if I go at the same time during rush hour to campus, door to door is still going to take me about an hour,” Mayer said.
He added this time is much better spent reading a book or getting work done than fretting over if he’s going to hit the guy next to him on the road. Plus, he said he just feels better about being on the bus.
LA public transportation has its problems, but reconceptualizing it might uncover a path to a sense of belonging. And there’s hope that someday navigating the city will be much easier. For one thing, Los Angeles has been working hard to solve these problems – just look to the extension of the Purple Line and reinvestments in public transport with bills like Senate Bill 1, which invests $5.4 billion toward California’s public transportation infrastructure annually for 10 years. We’ve also heard a constant conversation about how to address congestion on the highways and reduce the ecological impacts our car-driving habits continue to have on our environment.
These are steps in the right direction, and perhaps they’ll have a long-term benefit on the city. But right now, despite investments, Angelenos are actually choosing cars over buses according to a recent study done by UCLA researchers in the urban planning department.
This trend could pose a big problem in the long run, said Hannah King, a graduate student in transportation planning. It isn’t just an issue of tax dollars going to waste, King said. Because public transportation in Southern California tends to be more of a social service, a decrease in ridership means a decrease in revenue. This could cause transportation services to experience a “a death spiral.”
In talking to King I realized this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. If ridership goes up, we could instead see a sort of positive feedback loop, not only in terms of financial gains that could improve services, but also in relation to a stigma that exists around LA’s transit systems.
Transportation is often regarded as a service for people who don’t have another option, King said. And other riders have noticed that stigma, too.
“People tend to ... racialize the entire public transportation system,” Mayer said. He said he takes the bus to UCLA from Koreatown on a daily basis, and that this tendency to associate transit use with marginalized groups results in some people being afraid to use the public transportation in LA.
The underlying causes that contribute to and perpetuate such misunderstandings are complex and multifaceted, and definitely worth delving into and discussing at length, but this would require an article all to itself.
LA transit is a site of misunderstanding in a way that other cities’ systems aren’t. When I was in Berlin, the train was packed full of young professionals, low-income Berliners selling newspapers and people from all sorts of careers heading to work. In LA it’s the opposite; it feels like transportation isn’t meant to be used unless you need it for financial or social reasons, but that doesn’t have to be the way I look at it.
King said she felt destigmatization of transit use could go a long way, and when riders like me who have the luxury of choice start to choose public transportation, views start to change.
“I think there's a sort of social-political value to that because it makes transit a sort of normal thing to do,” King said.
In fact, it doesn’t seem like all Angelenos think of transit in a stigmatized way.
I understand the desire to shy away from potentially uncomfortable situations, like those that people often associate with transit here. But for some Angelenos, despite occasional situations that make taking transit uncomfortable, they see it from a different, more tolerant and understanding perspective. For Morales this side of transportation is distinctively LA – a basic part of life in the big city. Morales said there are times when other riders yell or impose on her personal space. Still, she isn’t deterred from using LA’s transportation.
“It's just growing up here, you just know its LA and you just know what's it like,” Morales said. “All the individuals you see and all the individuals you meet, it's just like such an eclectic feel that a lot of people won't get in different cities.”
Morales said she never feels unsafe on the bus because for her, it’s one of the many distinct aspects of LA that helps her understand and appreciate the city better. Mayer also offered a comparison – like any public space, the train can be a site of discomfort, but it isn’t a deterrent for him because the benefits outweigh any small discomforts he might experience.
“Public transportation ends up being one of the key public spaces where I feel like I can interact with people who live or work in the same areas where I do,” Mayer said. “To some extent there is a kind of a feeling of shared purpose, in the sense that you're all working in the same city and I think everyone is kind of working for the betterment of the city.”
I realized that using transportation, even if it isn’t all the time, is a small, but meaningful way, to express my gratitude for the service and a continued desire for betterment. Who knows, maybe someday getting around LA will be as simple as hopping onto a Metro and beating the traffic and I will have helped make that happen. However, imagining the possibility of beating traffic in LA requires me to dream up an alternate universe in which LA hasn’t been opting for investment in roadways and shooting down public transportation plans since the 1910s.
Public transportation has a lot of practical advantages over taking a car: It’s cheaper, it’s better for the environment, and as King said, it could actually make owning a car less necessary here, but it’s also got all of these impacts on my ability to feel at home in a city in LA.
For Dulguerov, the pleasant experiences she had riding trains around Geneva were all it took to make her a public transportation lover.
“I like riding trains. ... Public transportation is a really personal ... journey to the place that you're going. ... But everyone is kind of in their own space in that sense, I think. You kind of share that aloneness,” Dulguerov said.
There are small things and bigger things, but from “just liking it” to being proud of taking personal steps to mitigate our carbon footprints, public transportation is a way to tether ourselves into our city, to live out our values and to lead lives with intention.
While in Berlin, I learned that in any city, there is a wealth of beautiful people, things and places all around me, but I have to put in the effort to find it all. In Berlin this effort was minimal, all it took was stepping outside and walking two minutes to a tram stop. In LA, it might be a little more difficult, but it doesn’t mean the same possibilities aren’t out there.
Public transportation doesn’t have to be a mere inconvenience, it can be the site of belonging and understanding. With a bus pass, I don’t have to see myself solely as a Bruin, but I can welcome and integrate Los Angeles into my identity the same way it swept me into its grasp.
