Daily News reporter Brent Hopkins garages his Mustang and rides the MTA for work two days a week, writes about it and gets his picture in today's paper (I assume) and on the website (confirmed.) Along the way he discovers, as many do, that taking the bus from point A to point B in Los Angeles is seldom easy.

I've taken the bus to East Los Angeles from West L.A. I've ridden the subway to cover a protest, the train to interview sources in Canyon Country.

I want to believe in public transit, that it'll save me money and time and somehow make me a better person in the process.

But as much as I want it to work out, reality finds an unpleasant way of messing things up.

To make the journey from Palms, where I live near the intersection of the 405 and 10 freeways, to Warner Center, I have a multitude of options, none of them great...

So to save the dollars better spent on things like food and rent, I put in four hours of transit time. I kiss my wife goodbye as she's barely out of bed in the morning, then trudge home close to 8 p.m., hungry and worn out.

Judging from the look of the people all around me on the bus, I've got it pretty easy, but I still can't figure out whether it's worth it.

His seatmate is studying a Japanese guide on how to be a flight attendant. DN reporters Josh Kleinbaum and Aron Miller also took the MTA challenge.

Photo: Daily News/Tina Burch