Buses are their route to a brighter future

It is 5:35 a.m.

"Let's go," Carmen says to Andy, 14, and Nicole,11, as they head up the street toward their Florence Avenue bus stop, all of them wearing backpacks.

On weekdays, Carmen Mendoza does not see the sun in her Bell Gardens neighborhood. She's out the door with her two kids before dawn, and the evening darkness always beats her home.

One reason for the 15-hour days is that like thousands of people in a region built for the automobile, Carmen Mendoza doesn't own a car. So she and the kids commute to work and school by bus, with lots of transfers along the way. On a typical day, the bus that takes them back home is their eighth or ninth of the day.

I joined them for the journey recently, meeting Mendoza and her kids as they emerged from their home to go catch the first bus of the day.

Nicole is still tired, and Andy seems to be sleep-walking, but to look at their mother, you wouldn't know the hour was so indecent. She has bounce in her step, and there is something expectant in her eyes.

About 1.1 million times a day, someone boards a Metro bus in greater Los Angeles. Metro officials say 79% of their riders list themselves as "transit dependent," 90% are minorities, and the average household income is $25,540.

At 5:50 a.m., the Mendozas' bus arrives and we board silently. Route 311 runs from Norwalk through Downey, Cudahy and Huntington Park, collecting its cargo of nannies, housekeepers, produce workers and students, shuttling them westward under cover of darkness.

"There are problems here, like drugs and gangs," Mendoza says, explaining why she doesn't send her kids to more convenient neighborhood schools. Mendoza and her husband, a delivery man for a health supply company, did not finish school in Mexico. It will be different for their children.

Carmen Mendoza visited nine schools before deciding on an Atwater Village charter called the Environmental Science and Technology High School for Andy. Nicole attends Para Los Niños Middle School Charter downtown.

The daily drill is to take Andy to the downtown L.A. stop where he catches his next bus, then backtrack to get Nicole to her school. Mendoza then races through the produce district to get to her job as a seamstress by 7 a.m.

In the evening, she repeats the trek, adding an extra leg. Nicole goes to dance class after school, while Andy plays for his high school soccer team. It makes for a long, grueling day, but Mendoza says they're used to it.

"I want them to have not just a good education, but other opportunities," Mendoza says.

It is still dark when we get off our first bus in Huntington Park.

"Hurry!" Mendoza implores her kids.

We turn the corner and hustle up Pacific Avenue as Bus No. 2, the 760, lumbers past us toward the stop a half block away.

We all make it and head north toward Vernon, where the bus lurches west before turning due north once again. It is still dark outside, the downtown skyline in lights. Riders who can't find seats grip railings and poles for balance, swaying in unison on turns. The bus plows ahead urgently, as if the life of the slumbering city — its waking breath — depends on the safe delivery of these calloused hands and strong backs.

We arrive at 7th and Broadway at 6:40 a.m. and walk to Hill Street, where Andy and his mother say goodbye. Then we catch the 51 to go back in the direction we just came from, toward Nicole's school.

Through the windows of the bus, dawn seems a revelation as the walls of skyscrapers begin to absorb light and the city is re-created. We bounce off the 51 at 9th and San Pedro, and Mendoza looks for the 66, but it's not coming, so we hoof it to Nicole's school at 8th and Sanford.

Mendoza has worked a deal to leave Nicole with the principal, Janet Alvarez, every morning just before 7 a.m. Nicole will rest, read and study for the hour before school begins. Mendoza races off to her job a few blocks away, hustling through the vast outdoor 7th Street Market, dodging forklifts and vehicles.

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