Sick of Laguna's Parking Problems? Take the Bus

Recently, a friend and I spent a Saturday afternoon in Laguna Beach, strolling the uncrowded beach, buying a few books and grabbing an espresso at Zinc Cafe & Market. I often do this on Saturdays, as many obviously do, since it’s difficult to find a place to park downtown.

Over on Glenneyre, we pumped the meter with $2, the maximum two hours worth of quarters, and went about our business. Except I ran into someone I knew at Zinc Cafe and sure enough, the two hours slipped by unnoticed. I am not exaggerating when I say that we sprinted to the car, knowing that even a minute’s tardiness would be shown no mercy by the meter maids. Sure enough, not only did we get a ticket, but the dreaded boot. (I hereby take back everything nice I ever said about parking enforcement officers.) After handing over $85 to pay past fines and get the damn boot unbuckled, I was furious, since I’m convinced that I, Moira, single-handedly support the City of Laguna Beach with my parking fines. I said some nasty things and I said them loudly. I kicked my car. And then a wise someone strolling by gave me some advice. “Take the bus," he said.
    
Raised in a big city, you’d think this concept would not be foreign to me. As a matter of fact, having spent most of my life traveling on buses, subways and in taxicabs, I’m still not used to the idea of driving. But around here, people who can afford to own a car, drive them everywhere, ever around the corner. Still, I decided to look into this and I’m proud to say that after trying the OCTA, I will never drive from Corona del Mar to Laguna Beach during the day again.
    
If you live in Newport Beach or Corona del Mar, the Route 1 and Route 89 buses run every half hour from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. and will drop you off in the middle of downtown Laguna Beach in 10 minutes. The 89 continues through the canyon to the Laguna Hills Mall. The 1 goes on to San Clemente along the coast. What’s really incredible is that while this bus line is packed from 6-9 a.m. and 5-7 p.m. with domestic workers and hotel employees, it’s a free for all between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Just you and the bus driver and the open road.
    
The bus driver who picked me up in front of Five Crowns the other day was only filling in on the Coast Highway route. Usually, he’s driving the Irvine line, which is almost always crowded with UCI students and faculty. “This line,” he says, “no one uses it. I don’t know why.”

Neither do I. When you’re behind the driver’s seat, you can only glance at the coast between Newport and Laguna. But on the bus, you can plaster your face against the glass and gape at the ocean and the cliffs and the rocks and the houses. And it’s fun -- the way the bus rises and falls on the hills like a mellow ride at Disneyland. It stops all over the place, at the entrance to Crystal Cove and in north Laguna every few blocks until reaching downtown Laguna. Then it flies through the canyon or continues to San Clemente.

At the Laguna Beach Bus Station, I met a nice woman from Leisure World who was also taking the bus for the first time. It was not because she was sick of parking tickets but because she was afraid to drive by herself to visit her husband in the hospital.

“You know, no one takes this bus,” I told her.

“Well, dear, I count for 10 people,” she said.

So off we went, the 10 of her and I, past Main Beach, Irvine Cove, Emerald Bay, Crystal Cove, Newport Coast, oohing and aahing as the sun sparkled off the Pacific.