About

Introduction

Hi, my name is Oran. I have been living car free in Santa Barbara since moving here from Seattle in 2012. I don’t own a car nor a bicycle. I rely on my two feet and public transit to get around and live every day. Occasionally, I would carpool with friends or rent a car.

I tweet regularly about my experience and thoughts on car free living in Southern California and the Central Coast. Three years in, I felt I needed a place to express myself in more than a few tweets. Putting them on Seattle Transit Blog where I’m a contributor would be off-topic, for the most part. Therefore this website was born.

The Name

Reppin’ your area code is nothing new but some area codes are more well known than others, like 213 or 808. The 805 is now a thing apparently, demonstrated by the spread of “805 beer” beyond its namesake. Transit is also a seven-letter word and (805) Transit sounds kinda cool but I don’t want people dialing it in case it belongs to someone else. Transit can also be a verb so Transit805 it is.

Why Here?

I’ve also been inspired by Transit 509 in my home state of Washington, which covers a part of the state that doesn’t get much attention to transit as Seattle and Western Washington does. I want to bring big city transit enthusiasm to this vast and beautiful coastal region that extends from Ventura County to Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo to Monterey¹ in the best way I can.

There’ll also be a healthy dose of Los Angeles and Bay Area thrown into the mix as I travel around California. I hope there’s something for everyone all along the way. My Seattle and Cascadia-based² transit writing will continue to be at Seattle Transit Blog. You might see some cross-posting and references every now and then. Welcome aboard and I hope you join me for the ride!

— Oran V

Colophon

The pages are written in Markdown and built using Pelican, a static site generator powered by Python, which styles the pages with the Pure Pelican theme. Text is currently displayed in the Lato font.

I took the cover photo of the Nova Bus LFS Artic during driver testing near Goleta Beach and UC Santa Barbara.

The logo is meant to symbolize the Central Coast’s major towns and cities connected by transit. It was drawn in Adobe Illustrator in about an hour.

Disclaimers, Obviously…

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely the author’s. They do not represent the opinion of his employer nor its clients, which include a number of transit agencies that may be the subject of discussion on this blog. This blog is not endorsed by any transit agency.

While the author strives to provide accurate and useful information, it is not possible to keep everything up to date. Therefore, information is subject to change without prior notice and may no longer be accurate after a certain period of time. When in doubt, consult an alternate source, like the operator’s website just to be sure. The author is not liable for any losses from the use of this information and wishes you a pleasant journey.

Speaking of up to date information… even opinions can change over time. Statements made by the author in the past may not reflect the author’s present opinion on a subject.

The author, unless stated otherwise, receives no compensation or sponsorship from anybody for publishing content. This blog is a personal hobby project done in the author’s free time.