Question of my own:

Friend and fellow FlyerTalker (who is asleep right now, hence why I'm posting this for her) is doing a mileage run which involves flying into LGB at about 6pm tonight and departing out of LAX the next morning around 10am.

This is a mileage run, and every additional dollar makes it that much closer to not being worth doing at all, so she's trying to get from LGB to the LAX area (she's staying near LAX) that night as cheaply as possible...while also being safe. Cheap means public transportation (no shuttles--that would make it not worth doing the MR), and safe means safe at that time of the evening (leaving LGB by 7 or 8pm).

It looks like there are a few options.

The one that looks most preferable to me is this one:

Long Beach Transit bus 112 goes from LGB to downtown Long Beach. There, it connects to MTA bus 232, which goes up the PCH to LAX. I'm not nearly as familiar with the South Bay as I am the Valley, but I would expect this route to be perfectly safe.

A similarly safe option would be bus 112 to downtown Long Beach, then switching to the Blue Line and then Green Line.

Some other options I see on Google Transit that I'd like comment on, though:

• Long Beach Transit bus 112, connecting to MTA bus 266 in Lakewood, connecting to the Green Line at Lakewood station
• Long Beach Transit bus 101 or 102, connecting to the Blue Line at Willow station (then Green Line to LAX, which I know is fine)

I'm not as familiar with what parts of Long Beach are safe (is the Willow stop in an OK area?) and whether the area around Lakewood and Candlewood in Lakewood is OK to get off of one bus and get on another. (I'd guess so, though, given that Lakewood seems to be an OK area and the bus stop is right at the corner of the Lakewood Center mall (Target, Macy's, etc.).

Oh, there's also one other option that would be the most convenient but I probably wouldn't recommend: LBT 112 (or 101/102, if that's safe) to the Blue Line to 103rd/Graham (Watts), connecting to MTA bus 117, which drops her off right in front of where she's staying near the Hollywood Park. But given that the connection is in Watts at 10:30pm...I'd advise against that.

Open to any other ideas that aren't more than maybe $10...