Lake Arrowhead

Yes, I really enjoy my car.

But recently when I had to take my car down for dealer service, I thought I would be "daring" and give MARTA a shot.
I caught the downhill bus in the L A Village, rode it down to Court and E, transfered to an Omni, and got off in front of the dealership! All for less then $7.oo!

Now you say,..that as fair piece of money,..not so,..if I had asked a friend to drive me down and then drive back up, and I was a good friend, and paid for their gas,..that would be about 2 1/2-3 gallons of gas,...let's do the math boys and girls 3 x 4.70= ???

The bus was clean, the driver friendly and helpful(Thank You Dan),..the other people on the bus were normal (look like several students going on to college, people going to work,shoppers, people connecting with Metrolink etc)... same for Omnitrans. Ok the bus stop at Court and E is a little interesting, but it was about a 10 minute wait, no big deal.

In the future I plan to use MARTA for other little trips around the mountain and save GAS and WEAR and TEAR on my car. You are right, it doesnt work for everything,..but give it a whirl.

Think About It.

We're part-timers in Cedar Glen and I'm off in the summer. I came up last Wednesday with the dog. Later in the week, DH took the Metrolink out of Los Angeles and then caught the 7:05 MARTA from the Metrolink station in San Bernardino to Lake Arrowhead Village.

Fares for both added up to $14.00. The only negative was that my husband had to hang around the Metrolink station for two hours waiting for the MARTA bus. Next time he might catch the earlier one to Running Springs instead.

It doesn't take much to save money on gas.
1 less car trip a week, 1 marta ride, share a ride with someone, walk...
I have a neighbor who drives to the starbucks here everyday in his truck. He lives about 300 yds from the starbucks. I keep telling him he is an idiot. How long does it take to walk 300 yds? 5 minutes? 6 minutes if you are slow.
It's little things like this that are killing the country.
If everybody in the USA would take just 1 less car trip a week we would reduce our gas use dramatically. It is idiots like my neighbor who are destroying us.

And all these SUV drivers and jacked up magna trucks, going up your butt on the mountain roads, getting 10 mpg, causing the price of gas for all of us to go up and up...They constantly have the accelerator floored. What's with these idiots? How can they have the money to buy these things, but no common sense?

Photog: Why do you believe that my gas consumption has anything to do with the price you pay? Everyone knows this is not a supply/demand situation. Recent increases in production resulted in price increases. Huge tracts of oil leases already in oil company hands are not being developed. Many wells are not pumping and the oil companies are cool with that. Why? because they make more money selling less for more than the converse.

They will still have lots of gas to sell when consumption increases as India and China come online with their autos. They are conserving a commodity to sell to those future consumers.

I'm merely using the same old story from Bush, Cheney, Rockefeller, Rotheschild and all the other crooks....They always hide behind "the law of supply and demand"....But driving up people's butts, is just plain wrong!

Of course there are always the slow pokes, and you have to gear down because they do maybe 35 in the straights, and 20 in the turns...And they never pull out. Few people drive a decent speed. It's either too fast or too slow. Maybe 30% drive a reasonable speed.

one of the best ways to save gas...

slow down.

I found that by just going like 5mpg under the speed limit (and having the courtesy to pull over whenever someone is behind you) boosts my mpg in my suv by at least 2mpg (and in a 19.5 gallon tank, gas at 4.63 = savings of almost 18 bucks a tank for my car)

dont do jackrabbit starts

and DONT TAILGATE because you are constantly giving uneven pressure to the pedal and it sucks ur mpg!

Back to the topic, I think it's great that we have a transportation source up here that provides clean and friendly transportation. I hope the more folks that use it the more buses they'll put in route, as well as in the IE and LA...make more mass transportation.

My son has taken MARTA down the hill and picked up there. How does it work transferring to a bus from MARTA? Do you buy another ticket?

Does MARTA go to Citrus Plaza, or Inland Center Mall, or Costco, etc along Hospitality? Those are major destination areas that would see lots of ridership if they would go there. If they would hit those places on a route, I'm game to try it. Also, do they still have a route from Lake Arrowhead to Big Bear Lake? Someone told me a number of months ago they no longer do this. I'd love to just take a ride over to Big Bear to, say, the village, walk around a few blocks, eat, shop, and come home, especially if it made a stop in Running Springs.

MtNeighbor,

So basically what your saying is it costs $14 dollars to take your own vehicle up and down or $14 to ride on MARTA up and down plus bus connections. Not really much savings there plus the extra time it takes to accomplish all of this also detracts from public transit. Takes about 25 - 40 minutes to get almost anywhere in the IE in your own vehicle. Probably take you an hour and 15 minutes to ride Marta and find a connection bus. Just not worth it unless they dropped the price by at least 50% or more. If you have a high mpg vehicle you can get up and down for like $6-$9.

We started using MARTA this year to send our son down for his music lessons. He takes MARTA down and DH picks him up (he works dth) and it saves an additional trip for me which saves money and time. I've been thinking of using MARTA to go down (I can use DH's car while I'm down) and ride home with DH.

Rafi, Are you sure your idiot neighbor isn't handicapped?

I checked out all the schedules. And they do not go to Big Bear from here. Nor do they go to any of the three main areas I mentioned. So its of no use to me....

Roger, you could hop on the off-mountain bus in Running Springs to go to Big Bear. Jeff said that people were still getting on and off the UTH MARTA when they stopped at Crestline and other stops. You'd just have to make sure you didn't miss the DTH bus to get back.

I used Marta several years ago when I had surgery on my neck. I went to the Village for mail and other things. I've been thinking of doing that again as it was simpler driving and parking most of the time.

But they still don't go to Citrus Plaza, or Costco/Hospitality areas, or even Inland Center Mall. They go to Carousel Mall, which is a failed shopping center with a couple of two bit coffee shops and a government office or two.....They need to reconfigure their routes. It's fine they go to the transfer stations (Metrolink, etc.) and they go to the "bad" areas of SBDO, but not to the areas that are doing business...Just take a look at their maps.....

PHOTOG and Others

I asked the driver about MARTA going to the Inland Mall,..He said that there is a deal between MARTA and OMNITRANS. Marta will get people off the mountain, but OMNITRANS will transport in the Valley..

Also the person who asked about the cost of going up and down the mountain. First of all I took my car down to a dealership to be worked on, and I had to leave it for a couple of days,...so I had to get back up the mountain (thus MARTA) Then in a few days I had to go back down the mountain to pick up my car (MARTA). It is 22 miles from my house to the 210 freeway (that's at least one gallon up and back, plus driving around S B to the dealer, who is out by the 10FWY...That is just short of 3 gallons for one trip by my book.

The BOTTOM LINE is Thank goodness for MARTA, and use it when you can.