Next stop, Culver City: Some good news this week with Expo Line test trains running all the way to the end of phase 1 of the project in Culver City. No opening date to Culver City has yet been announced, but the start of testing is a good sign.
A couple thoughts:
•As readers pointed out, having a giant parking lot next to the Venice/Robertson station may not be the highest ideal when it comes to urban planning. But it’s a very short walk to both downtown Culver City and the Helms Bakery complex and I think it’s overall good for the project to have some parking near Expo stations for those who don’t live near the line. I’d rather have someone drive to transit than not take transit at all.
•The Helms complex is home to Father’s Office, which in my view remains home of the best burger in the Southland. They also have an outstanding beer menu. Good burgers + good beer + good transit = win.
In 2008, the political debate over Measure R largely concerned which transit and road projects would get funding. In 2012, the current proposal seeks to limit that debate. Will it? Stay tuned.
Heads up to extremely cool event: The eighth and final stage of the Amgen Tour of California bike race is Sunday, May 20. The 42.6-mile stage begins in downtown Beverly Hills, travels through Hollywood and ends with five laps of a five-mile circuit in downtown Los Angeles with the finish line at L.A. Live.
In addition, from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. that morning, cyclists are free to ride the downtown L.A. part of the circuit. All abilities are welcome — more details here.
With many street closures for the race, it will be a good day to either ride your bike downtown or take Metro Rail there. Take your pick: the Expo Line, Gold Line, Blue Line, Red/Purple Line subway, Metrolink and Amtrak all serve downtown.
Revising Metro fares: For many moons now, some Source readers have been clamoring for Metro to revise its fares and charge riders based on the distance they travel. Some readers even suggest that by lowering fares for short trips, Metro will pick up many new riders who currently shun riding, resulting in greater revenues for the agency.
Sorry, but I don’t see it happening here in Los Angeles County or any other major metro area. As far as I know, there isn’t a major transit agency in the U.S. that in recent times — which is synonomous with hard economic times — that has dropped its base fare to lure more short haul riders.
Why not? Probably because it doesn’t pencil out very well: Metro would have to gain an awful lot of new riders to offset the loss of revenue that, with a 28 percent fare recovery ratio, it can’t afford to do.
That’s not to say that distance-based fares will never happen. As the rail system expands, it’s likely that Metro staff and the Board will look at the economics of the current system because in a few years it will be possible (under current operating plans) to ride a single train from Santa Monica to East L.A. or the same train from Long Beach to Azusa.
In the meantime, the best solution for Metro riders who make many frequent short trips is to purchase a monthly pass for $75. If you take 20 short single bus or train rides each week, that breaks down to less than a dollar per ride.
The parking at Culver City will be key to attract riders from further west, who could park there and hop on the train to get downtown, avoiding the congestion on the 10. I use several ways to take transit downtown (Big Blue Bus 10, Rapid 720, Expo) but if there was no parking at any of the Expo stations it wouldn’t really be an option. The bus connections just aren’t good enough yet for it to make sense; you’d be better off just taking BBB 10 or Rapid 720.
Will the parking lot at the Culver City Station be permanent, or will it be replaced by “transit-oriented-development” after the line is extended to Santa Monica? That would make a lot more sense as a deelopment opportunity, given the urban nature of the Culver City neighborhood.
What about time-based fares, such as a fare valid for two hours on all buses and trains in the Los Angeles area? This was seriously under discussion some months ago – didn’t someone on the Board (was it Villaraigosa?) request Metro staff to develop such a proposal? A two-hour fare could of course be priced higher than the current base fare, so there’s no reason to assume it would have to result in loss of revenue. And it sure would be an improvement over the present fare zoo.
Test Trains to Culver City
ehh.. Huge parking lots are a major drag on the overall usability of local transit stations. Big parking lots at transit hubs really only make sense for longer haul trains (i.e. Metrolink, Amtrak, CAHSR), not local trains. Overall, it always makes more sense to use that same space for some other use, like housing, markets, street vendors-civic/park space, hospitality, etc. One thing that LA really needs to get a grip on with this transit Renaissance is the need to put something other than just trains and people waiting for trains at/near/around train stations. And also not Transit Adjacent Development with gargantuan parking lots but real transit oriented development.
The parking at CC is temporary. The “paving” is a semi-permeable asphalt that will allow for a few years of parking prior to the development of that parcel.
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2012/02/culver_city_creates_new_expoadjacent_development_in_5_days.php
The story above references a development that will start construction closer to the opening of phase II of the Expo Line.
James
“As far as I know, there isn’t a major transit agency in the U.S. that in recent times — which is synonomous with hard economic times — that has dropped its base fare to lure more short haul riders.”
UTA (Salt Lake City)
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=18615672
MARTA (Atlanta)
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/02/05/marta-may-charge-by-the-mile-or-time-of-day/
Urban Transport Problems – Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue Ph.D. in Transport Geography from the Université de Montréal:
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch6en/conc6en/ch6c4en.html
“Financing and fare structures.
Most public transit systems have abandoned a distance-based fare structure to a simpler flat fare system. This had the unintended consequence of discouraging short trips for which most transit systems are well suited for, and encouraging longer trips that tend to be more costly per user than the fares they generate. Information systems offer the possibility for transit systems to move back to a more equitable distance based fare structure.”
Steve,
“In the meantime, the best solution for Metro riders who make many frequent short trips is to purchase a monthly pass for $75. If you take 20 short single bus or train rides each week, that breaks down to less than a dollar per ride.”
While I like many of your articles, I think this a tough sell Steve. $75 for a monthly pass doesn’t sound attractive when there are cheaper alternatives for shorter distances. And believe me, there are a lot of people in my neighborhood who don’t see Metro as attractive for short trips.
This suggestion, or selling point, is based upon thinking in terms of “rides” as in how many number of buses or trains to take, never minding how short or long it is each ride.
Most people however, think in terms of “how far” as in how many miles it is to get there because in the end, distance traveled doesn’t change. Miles is miles whether it’s taking one bus or transferring to several rides of multiple buses and trains. This is very evident when travel distances are short.
You don’t expect people to buy $75 in monthly passes when the distance from the home to the workplace or their favorite hang out is only 5 miles, right? Most people will opt to bicycle instead and save themselves the $75.
Just come around ask the Metro bus riders in the neighborhood in the Lennox and Westmont areas. Majority of the people that live in this area work in nearby areas. When you start asking around, you’ll likely get the answer “the bus isn’t all that cheap,” so they still stick to driving cars, riding bicycles, and increasing number of people in our neighborhood are taking motorcycle courses at The Forum.
I say every person working for Metro should sign up for the transit geography course taught by Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue!
The whole section about Urban Transit Challenge by Dr. Rodrigue is a very interesting read that applies to the City of LA. I think Metro needs to study this section very closely because a lot of the things he mentions offer good advice:
The farther out we expand, the higher the cost of running the system. This applies to extending the Gold Line all the way to Ontario in the future.
Transit patterns are dynamic so you can’t just serve the needs of travelers just because there’s a need for it today, because that demand may go away in the future.
Very true in LA. Transit riders want one ride to their destination, but it’s an impossible task to do so we have transfers. But not many want to do more than one transfer if possible, let alone if the distance covered overall is short.
There’s also the increasing number of competition that public transit faces besides the automobile. Changes in energy prices has also risen the number of motorcyclists on the roads today, which offer a similar level of convenience as the automobile, but at a much better fuel economy and a lower cost of ownership.
Directly correlates to the discussion of distance based fares.