Lost & Found in Los Angeles and London

For the millions of people who use public transport, leaving something behind on the bus, train, tram or subway is usually a frustrating experience. Not only is there the worry that your iPod is now traveling the around city without you, there’s the fear that you’ll never see it again.

Finding the Lost & Found Office can be a trip in itself, but since the MTA in Los Angeles have recently upgraded their building at the junction of Wilshire and LaBrea, it seemed time to have a look through their shelves and find out what people leave in their wake.

The MTA doesn’t release official figures, and although some of the finds are predictable - cell phones, keys, wallets and eyeglasses – some of the others can be on the wild side. The Lost & Found Office reckons they receive about 10 - 12,000 items per year, and while the loss of a cell phone might be a blessing in disguise for other passengers, that still means a lot of tired commuters can’t get in their front door or even see their house number! And canceling all those credit cards – what a drag!

But that’s not the oddest of it: in addition, they get about 1,500 -1,800 bicycles a year, mostly left on the bus! Keys are understandable – after all, there are special gremlins that hide them in most houses - but your bicycle? Presumably those people were going somewhere or will need to again pretty soon - and then what? Same for the person who left behind their surfboard – a day at the beach ruined. Bummer, man.

It does get more bizarre though: things that have been left on a Metro Bus or Metro Rail and turned in include dentures, prostheses, wheel chairs, oxygen tanks and crutches. You really would think people would notice those were missing, like, immediately.

Public transport comes a poor second to four wheels in Los Angeles though, whereas in London, where the vast majority of commuters, locals and tourists will all use a red bus, the train or the subway (and where there are even lost subway stations), Lost Property is somewhat of a national obsession, and statistics are released every year.