Hey...do you know what time it is? asks the young man standing on Hill near 3rd. My phone died and I been waiting for the bus for a long time.

It's 10:36, I tell him.

He looks dejected. And concerned. He needs to get off the streets, he says. He just got home. By which he means he just got out of jail. He's trying to leave gang-banging behind, get a job, and find new friends.

He needs to keep a low profile in the meanwhile. Standing on the street late at night is not the best idea. Neither is walking home to Eagle Rock from DTLA, which he is contemplating b/c he only has a dollar on him.

I lend him my phone and he calls his mom.

There's been a lot of family stuff going on at home, he tells me. That appears to be true. Mom can't come get him - she doesn't drive. Other relatives live a bit farther out and have kids and probably couldn't come get him either, he says.

I am kind of useless b/c can't call him an uber (i don't have a smartphone. i know. i know.) and I am on my bike. What about a taxi? I suggest. They sit at Union Station. I have 11 bucks on me. It could get him close enough.

He reluctantly agrees - he feels bad accepting help - and we start walking. He tells me about his hunt for a job and how hard it is to get someone to take a chance on him. He's only 18 and he is overwhelmed and feeling unsure of himself.

If you knew what I been through, ma'am, you wouldn't believe it, he says. I been through a lot.

Then he tells me where he's from and says, But I'm not tryin to put that out there, you know...

...But it's hard to leave that behind, I say.

It's hard, he nods and sighs.

As we wait to cross the street, the LAPD passes by. If I were alone or with someone else, I might have been able to flag them down and ask if they'd seen the bus come through or for help getting to a stop/station where I/they might be able to catch transit.

That's not a possibility with this kid. As he watches them roll away, he says he wants nothing to do with them. He tries to be magnanimous and tells me he knows there are some good people that wear the uniform, but says that he can't take his chances.

At the Broadway bus stop, we learn that the 28 is due in about 8 minutes. He is ecstatic and asks if he can give me back the money I had given him.

Which would leave him with only a dollar - not enough for bus fare. He tells me it's OK - that bus drivers tend to be pretty kind to him and let him ride even when he doesn't have enough...something that I think happens more often than Metro imagines.

He finally accepts enough for bus fare and I take my leave, hoping the sign is right and that the bus is on its way. There should have been at least two other buses that passed by during the time he was waiting, according to Metro's timetables.

I string all this together b/c I don't think there is enough understanding of how vital timely and frequent transit is to people who think about transit (by which I mean people who did not grow up in disenfranchised communities w/ gang issues).

Standing out in the open at one spot for an extended period of time can be a dangerous prospect for folks - especially youth.

Another youth I talked to last night told me he risked driving the three blocks to work after school every day because the block was just too hot. He had lost four friends to gang violence this past month.

Four.

He's seventeen.

By "risked" I mean driving w/out a license. He's still learning to drive. But he'd rather get in trouble for that than risk being shot.

Even Nipsey Hussle rapped about the challenge of taking transit for youth from the community. He wasn't celebrating it, as both the LAT & Metro have claimed. He was talking about how being confronted on transit while moving through someone else's territory could end badly.

^ That's from the LAT's head-scratching breakdown of his lyrics which I wholeheartedly recommend you do not read.

Anyways. The larger point being, it's been incredibly difficult to get transit folks to contemplate the intersection of transit with the realities of what disinvestment and disenfranchisement have wrought in the communities their core riders live in. Which is troubling.

But particularly as Metro wonders why ridership is falling, even among its core ridership, it's kind of stunning that this never comes up - that there never is consideration of how unsafe folks feel and how much more safety a car can offer.

Thanks for reading.