Student Life
Getting to Beauty School in South Gate Without a Car
By Maiquela’s Cosmetology Academy6 min read
Maiquela’s Cosmetology Academy sits at 8511 Long Beach Blvd in South Gate, on a major bus corridor two stations from the Metro A Line at Firestone and Florence. Students from Lynwood, Compton, Watts, Huntington Park and North Long Beach regularly commute here without a car.
Nobody puts this in a brochure, but it decides whether people finish. A cosmetology program is 1,000 hours — several hundred separate trips to a building. If the journey is fragile, the enrolment is fragile.
So here is the practical transport picture for our campus, written for someone who does not drive or who cannot rely on having a car every day.
The street itself does most of the work
Long Beach Blvd is a major north–south arterial that runs from downtown Long Beach up through Compton, Lynwood and South Gate toward Florence Avenue and the city of Los Angeles. Our address sits directly on it.
That means a large share of students have a single-bus commute with no transfer at all. From Lynwood it is a straight run north. From Compton it is the same road, further down. From North Long Beach, the boulevard goes all the way.
The Metro A Line connection
The A Line runs roughly parallel to Long Beach Blvd through this part of the county, with stations at Firestone and Florence within a short bus connection of the campus, and further south at Slauson, Florence-Graham, Willowbrook, Compton and into Long Beach.
For students from Willowbrook — where Rosa Parks station connects the A Line, the C Line and a large number of bus routes — this is one of the better-connected commutes in the county. From Watts, the 103rd Street station is one stop from Firestone.
The east–west corridors
- Firestone Boulevard runs east from South Gate through Downey to Norwalk, and west across Alameda into Watts. It is the main east–west route to our door.
- Florence Avenue runs from Huntington Park and Walnut Park in the west across to Bell Gardens and Downey in the east, crossing Long Beach Blvd just north of us.
- Tweedy Boulevard and Imperial Highway provide additional crossings for students coming from the south and east.
Between the boulevard running north–south and those three running east–west, most of the Gateway Cities reach us with one bus or one transfer.
Rough commute picture by city
- Lynwood — straight north on Long Beach Blvd, no transfer. The easiest commute we have.
- Huntington Park and Walnut Park — Florence Avenue east, then a Long Beach Blvd connection.
- Compton — north on Long Beach Blvd, or the A Line to Firestone plus a short bus.
- Watts — Firestone Boulevard east across Alameda, or one A Line stop plus a connection.
- Willowbrook — A Line north from Rosa Parks to Firestone, then a bus connection.
- Bell, Cudahy and Maywood — Atlantic Avenue south to Firestone, then east.
- North Long Beach — straight up Long Beach Blvd, or the A Line north.
- Downey and Norwalk — Firestone Boulevard west, a single long route.
Practical advice from students who do it
- Do a dry run before your first class. Travel the route at the time you would actually travel it, on a weekday. Peak-hour reality is not the same as an off-peak map estimate.
- Know your backup route. One alternative, worked out in advance. Buses get cancelled and lines get disrupted, and the day it happens is the wrong day to work out plan B.
- Get a TAP card and load it monthly. Cheaper than daily fares over a program of this length, and it removes a small daily decision that otherwise wears you down.
- Choose fewer, longer days if you can. Six long days beats ten short ones when every day carries an hour of travel each way. Ask what schedule patterns exist.
- Factor the commute into your kit. You are carrying tools. A rolling case is worth the money if you are on a bus twice a day.
Parking, if you do drive
Long Beach Blvd is a busy commercial corridor with the parking constraints that come with it. If you plan to drive, arrive with a few minutes in hand rather than exactly on time, particularly for a morning class. Call (323) 587-1750 and ask about parking before your first day rather than discovering it on the day.
Why this is worth planning properly
Every hour of a beauty program has to be earned in the building. There is no remote option and no way to catch up from home. A commute that works on paper but not in practice is the most common reason a motivated student stops attending — and it is entirely preventable with an hour of planning before you enrol.