This week’s thoughts:
photo by Bradley Tollison, via Twitter
•The more big events in downtown L.A., the better for Metro Rail. Downtown is the hub of the rail system, of course, and events such as the NHL and NBA playoffs I suspect give people a chance to ride a transit system they may otherwise not use.
And every indication is that they are using it.
The victory parade for the L.A. Kings on Thursday at noon is yet another chance to use the system. The parade route on Figueroa between 5th Street and L.A. Live, is easily accessed by the Red/Purple Line subway, Blue Line and Expo Line. The Silver Line also offers easy transfers to Metro Rail in downtown L.A.
On a related note, I went for a nice, long hike across the Dodger Stadium parking lot before a recent game. That’s just a silly amount of pavement, people. Downtown transit-adjacent ballpark, please!
•May ridership estimates are in and show the Expo Line carried 11,347 average weekday boardings, 9,000 on Saturdays and 7,000 for Sundays. In total, there were an estimated 320,627 boardings in May, the Expo Line’s first full month of service. That’s not bad considering that two stations — Farmdale and Culver City — don’t open until June 20.
Again, I’d like to ask for everyone’s feedback who uses the line — use the comment board please. The one issue that keeps coming up is speed, particularly in the stretch along Flower Street.
•The question over whether to ask voters to extend the Measure R sales tax increase finally comes to the Board of Directors this month. The Board’s Executive Management Committee is scheduled to discuss the extension at their meeting on June 21 with the full Board taking up the matter on June 28.
I’m working on a fairly extensive post that should be ready soon about the extension, which is recommended by Metro staff as the best way to accelerate transit and highway projects, among other things.
•Media has overlooked that the lawsuit filed by the city of Beverly Hills against Metro over the Westside Subway Extension alleges that impacts of constructing the Wilshire/La Cienega station were not properly studied (it’s on page 6 of the lawsuit).
The La Cienega station is within Beverly Hills city boundaries and is part first phase of the project between Western Avenue and La Cienega that is currently scheduled for completion in 2020. Up to now, the controversy in Beverly Hills has involved the route of the subway tunnel from the Wilshire/Rodeo station to Century City in the second phase of the project, currently scheduled for completion in 2026.
1. Trains need to be washed and cleaned more frequently. Exteriors are dirty and food waste is on the floors (despite being no food/no drink environment).
2. How about color coding the sides of the trains to match the color of the route for all metro trains?
3. Better signage is needed at 7th and Fig to indicate whether the train is Long Beach or Culver City bound. The original design should have had a center platform and not two side platforms. Too late for that. The result though is you are never sure whether to stay on the platform on the east side of the station or to cross over to the west side.
4. I agree with the comments about slow speeds at Farmdale. I am hopeful that they are a result of it being a construction site and not because of the school. If so, that problem should resolve itself next week.
5. Also agree with comments about Flower. Too slow.
11,347 average weekday boardings? That’s less than every single May ridership prediction. Not encouraging. Please improve the signal prioritization.
I wonder why we couldn’t have just grade separated these choke points to avoid even rail and car traffic to cross at street surface levels to begin with.
Were there some vocal opponents in the area when it was built that grade separation wasn’t considered?
Frank M., See if the private sector will build you a train (without government funds). They won’t. Or even run a bus for you (without government funds). They won’t. Or create any other mode of transport without government funds. They won’t. You’re peddling pure ideology, pal, and it adds nothing to the discussion.
Of course they won’t because it’s ILLEGAL to do so to begin with.
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/17/opinion/op-mta17
Legalize private mass transit to start competing with poor government run public transit. Then we can see how the privately run transportation agencies from Asia come into LA and start making real change.
Why do you think Metro wants to keep private competition out with such laws? Because they love the taxpayer monopoly.
The problem with encouraging private mass transit is that the market is so distorted to begin with. Wanderer challenges Frank M to see if the private sector will build a train for him. Of course, Wanderer fails to realize the distortions caused by subsidizing private automobile transport the way we do. This includes a gas tax that is too low, parking minimums that discourage dense development, lack of tolling and an overall entitlement of drivers to the road network.
So I think the first thing you must correct is that situation, and then look at some of the distortions in the market for transit. I don’t think it’s necessarily about privatization, but competition. There was some competition between Foothill Transit and Metro for the I-10 corridor, and now fares have been lowered on Foothill Transit’s Silver Streak so they can better compete with Metro. They will also accept each other’s passes, a rare display of cooperation among two bureaucracies. The market is still distorted, of course, but competition did result in a better deal for the consumer. But how do you encourage competition on a widespread basis?
I think that, overall, people undervalue transportation in general, and this sentiment has been caused by government intervention in transportation.
Private transit: A car, bike, motorcycle, taxi, etc. Public transit is what it is, and is improving, with planning through the roof. We can idealize how China builds its Subways, and how Japan operates theirs, but lets deal within reality; It is called reality because it is what is actually happening right in front of us. Non figmental.
Problems with the Expo Line:
1. Slow on Flower. Close down the smaller side streets and install gates on the others.
2. Slow thru Farmdale. Can’t they just bypass the stop when kids aren’t around? The people who fought for this mitigation singlehandedly ruined the Expo Line. Thanks.
3. Confusion about which side to board on at Metro Center
4. Paying for a transfer from Expo to the Red/Purple Line is ridiculous. Why can’t they allow free transfers? This discourages ridership.
5. This is nitpicking, but trains are way too old. It is hard to get excited about a new train line when you are riding 30 year old trains.
The planets converged, the stars aligned, I coaxed and five transit sceptics gingerly boarded the eastbound Expo Line with me to see how much LA light rail could improve their lives. They enjoyed the views from the aerial stations, marveled at the smooth ride through South Central and then sat and sat and sat and sat and sat while waiting to cross the dreaded “Y” at Flower and Washington. By the time we limped into Metro/7th I heard “Never again,” and “Never again,” and “Never again,” and “Never again,” and “Never again.”
“Private transit: A car, bike, motorcycle, taxi, etc. Public transit is what it is, and is improving, with planning through the roof.”
And within private transit, there’s also competition. A car can be divided to competition between GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan, etc. A motorcycle can be divided to competition between Harley Davidson, Triumph, Ducati, Yamaha, Kawasaki, etc.
Then why not let there be competition between mass transit as well? There’s no reason why LACMTA should enjoy the tax monopoly because there’s no real competition from others that threatens their poor service and financial troubles. Since there’s no real competition, they know they can keep coming back to taxpayers.
If within the car, there’s competition between GM and Toyota, why is it illegal to have competition between LACMTA and some foreign transit company? Or why is it illegal for even domestic companies like Greyhound to go head-to-head against LACMTA?
The US has always been about competition and that is the biggest driver of our economy for many years. The railcars were killed off by GM due to competition. Then GM struggled against competition from Toyota and Nissan. Zenith and RCA once competed against each other, they both then went the way of the dodo from Sony and Panasonic, and now Sony and Panasonic are struggling to keep up with Apple and Samsung. And look how much competition has achieved in advancing things in fifty years.
If Metro sucks, then let’s start bringing in the contenders who think they can do better. And if the contender has an idea to do it cheaply, efficiently, and without tax payer support, all the better.
Hey, that’s how Apple began; he thought he can make computers better than others when everyone said there’s no money to be made in computers and people laughed at Steve Jobs. Now the iPad and iPhone has become part of American lifestyle and is now the company is richer than ExxonMobil.