The Metro Art Docent Council has been giving free Metro Art Tours of the Metro Rail system on the first Saturday and Sunday morning of each month for over a decade now – introducing over 30,000 people the wide variety of public artworks along Metro’s growing rail system. Starting this week, Metro is adding a Thursday night tour to the monthly schedule.

The Thursday night tour is still free and requires no reservation – just show up at the street level entrance of the Hollywood/Highland Red Line Station at 7:00 p.m. and prepare yourself for a two hour tour of the various art works commissioned through Metro’s art program. Metro’s trained Docent Council volunteers lead the tours and have a wealth of knowledge about the art.

A few more interesting notes about the tours:

• Metro is the transit agency in world with a volunteer art docent program
• For many it’s their first introduction to transit and they then often become ambassadors/transit advocates
• The tours bring new understanding of the individual artists, the variety of ways that they work with the local communities and the process of creating art for public spaces
• The wide variety of works reflects the cultural diversity and depth of Los Angeles

Wondering if the art tours are really all that? I can’t comment because I’ve yet to go on one, but the Saturday/Sunday tours have garnered an overall 5 star rating by online reviewers over at Yelp.

Still want to know more? I’ve posted a YouTube video I found of one of the tours after the jump.