Metro and Zócalo Public Square Join Forces to Create Innovative Program to Examine Our Commutes and Our Lives

Jan. 12, 2015
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and Zócalo Public Square have joined forces to launch an innovative program to examine our commutes, our lives and our region today.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and Zócalo Public Square have joined forces to launch an innovative program to examine our commutes, our lives and our region today.

It’s a multi-faceted project that will include interviews and profiles of Metro riders (#myLA commute); bus tours into the history of Los Angeles; live, open-to-the-public events on issues connected with regional mobility and development and a series of syndicated stories about topics of national interest, including how mass transit connects communities.

Metro and Zócalo will seek to humanize an experience shared by millions of Angelenos every day: our commutes. We sit next to one another on mass transit; we pass by thousands of people each morning as we walk, drive or ride to work. Yet beyond complaining about traffic, we seldom talk with one another or think broadly about how our commutes affect our lives, change the way we see L.A. and provoke our curiosity and frustration, our sense of humor and of wonder.

The Metro/Zócalo partnership includes a pioneering fellowship program that directs college students and recent graduates to explore Southern California and seek out stories of how people live in and move around the region today.

Metro/Zócalo fellows will ride Metro bus and rail lines—and car and vanpools—collecting written, spoken and visual stories from fellow passengers to be published by Zócalo at http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/mylacommute/, on The Source on Metro’s website  metro.net and on KCRW.com. Zócalo, Metro and KCRW will be sharing stories and photographs widely on social media with #myLAcommute.

The Metro/Zócalo project is part of Zócalo’s broader mission to help Angelenos tell their stories, and to create a deeper sense of place and attachment for all Southern Californians. It also represents Metro efforts to put a human face on the transit experience in hopes of fostering greater public awareness of the expanding transit system as well as vanpool, carpool and other alternatives to driving solo in the congested Los Angeles metropolitan area.

The project headquarters will be in a new Zócalo satellite office on Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights, across from the Metro Gold Line Station.