Category Archives: Inside Metro

Good afternoon, Los Angeles

Posted by

photo by Steve Hymon/Metro

Good afternoon, Source Readers. I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend.

We’ll be posting very lightly this week while I catch up on some other work and prepare for the new year.

As for the above photo, it shows a fairly wide swath of Los Angeles County, the area served by Metro. I shot it at sunset on Christmas Day from an overlook on the Angeles Crest Highway, a few miles up the road from La Canada-Flintridge. That’s downtown L.A. in the foreground, then the Palos Verdes Peninsula and then Catalina Island. That’s a view of more than 50 miles — not bad for Southern California.

Art for the Orange Line: Strati by Anne Marie Karlsen

Posted by

Digital rendering of Nordhoff Station, featuring 27-foot long mosaic ellipses embedded in the concrete platforms and 20-foot porcelain enamel art panels.

The Orange Line Extension to Chatsworth is fast approaching and so is new art!

Here’s a peek at the work of Anne Marie Karlsen, who designed two mosaic paving designs and two art panels for Nordhoff Station. The photographs below focus on the mosaic element.

Anne Marie was inspired by the surrounding residential and natural landscape, including the landmark Stoney Point in Chatsworth. She approached the station platform as an outdoor living room, creating wallpaper-like porcelain enamel steel art panels alongside the platform seating areas, and glass and stone mosaic paving patterns designed to read like cozy ellipse-shaped area rugs. The title, Strati, refers to the geologic stratification and formation of the rocks in the northwest San Fernando Valley. (Here’s a link to more information about Anne Marie.)

Detail of strati.

Continue reading →

Art for the Orange Line: Owensmouth/Canoga Park by Margaret Lazzari

Posted by

Teams of SICIS artisans piece together mosaic artwork paving designs for Sherman Way Station.

Margaret Lazzari’s designs for Sherman Way Station on the Orange Line Extension includes two, 27-foot long maps that will be embedded into concrete platforms.

A mosaic map and a porcelain mosaic art panel will be displayed alongside station seating.

The west platform will house a map of 1910 era Owensmouth, with a free-flowing Los Angeles River and an undeveloped natural landscape. An adjacent art panel will depict a collection of native plants that once grew alongside the river.

The east platform will include a map of the same section of river 40 years later, in the city re-named Canoga Park. The river has been channelized and is integrated into a growing geometry of housing tracts. Agricultural production has become a powerful industry. Fruit trees replace native plants in the art panel imagery.

Each piece of glass and stone mosaic is hand-placed.

Lazzari hopes riders will make a connection between the physicality of their foot travel and the area’s deeply embedded topographical and ecological history.

The completed mosaic maps are ready to be crated and transported to the job site.

More Art for the Orange Line: Artists discuss station designs

San Fernando Valley's big anniversary: Passenger rail service from LA to Van Nuys began 100 years ago

Posted by

Image via Los Angeles Public Library

Transit users in the San Fernando Valley probably didn’t notice anything different last Friday when the second century of public transportation in the area got underway.

December 16, 1911, was the first day of rail service from Los Angeles to Van Nuys, a development which quickly transformed the Valley from outlying area to commutable suburb, arguably altering the face of Los Angeles as a whole.

What did Van Nuys and the opening day celebrations look like a century ago?  Metro Library’s Primary Resources blog has some amazing photos to share with you.

Shadow retires: Service planner's Guide Dog was also systems tester, poster girl, hospitality greeter, tour guide for Metro

Posted by

Photos courtesy of Access Services, Inc.

  • I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs. – James Thurber, humorist and cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine and a great lover of dogs.

Here at Metro, that would be Shadow, the 10-year-old black Labrador who recently retired as a Guide Dog to Agustin Moreno, a systems analyst in service planning who’s been totally blind since the age of 16.

Shadow

Shadow wears her Metro employee badge for the last time.

A constant and unerring companion, Shadow seemed always at Moreno’s side since taking up the post in 2004.

At first, Shadow’s job description was strictly within the scope for a Guide Dog.

Whether it was on the elevator, in the cafeteria, on trips to bus or rail divisions, taking transit home to Highland Park or napping in Moreno’s cubicle on the 7th floor of Metro’s HQ, Shadow’s presence was calming, giving all of us a reassuring pause that grace and ease will get us to where we’re going.

It didn’t take long before Shadow’s attention to detail and expert assistance to Moreno caught the attention of managers looking for an eager upstart who could handle whatever they threw at her.

Continue reading →

Urban Land Institute advisory panel shares vision for Union Station area

Posted by

A crack team of urban design and development experts from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) descended on Los Angeles last week to help Metro and the city of L.A. develop its vision for the area surrounding Union Station. After several packed days of interviews and site visits, the panel presented its findings this morning to a crowd of community members, local elected officials and planners who gathered at the Tateuchi Democracy Forum in Little Tokyo.

Attentive readers will recall that Metro bought Union Station earlier this year, along with the rights to build roughly six million square feet of development around Southern California’s largest transit hub. Since then, Metro has begun soliciting concepts from a number of design firms for a master plan for the Union Station property itself.

The ULI panel’s job, then, was to help Metro envision how a present and future Union Station can better integrate with the surrounding areas of Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Olvera Street, the Arts District, the Civic Center and the Los Angeles River.

Each of the panelists presented different components of the vision, so rather than summarize what each said, here’s a distillation of some of the key points, and hopefully we can post the PowerPoint presentation later on:
Continue reading →

New Metro Motion TV show explores attractions along Expo Line

Posted by

With finishing touches being applied to the Exposition light-rail line, the just released winter edition of Metro Motion takes a trip to Exposition Park — one of the first stops on Expo south of downtown L.A. There it discovers a variety of world class museums and attractions. And just in time for Metro Motion, Space Shuttle Endeavour Commander Mark Kelly dropped by to celebrate the arrival next year of Endeavour to the California Science Center, where the shuttle will make its home.

Winter 2011-12 Metro Motion also explores the changing habits of 20 somethings who may be the first generation in recent years to turn away from cars and toward mass transit to help the world’s atmosphere heal itself while they invest in pursuits they see as more interesting than driving.

There’s an interview with artist Sonia Romero, whose beautiful porcelain mosaic mural installation at the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station has been named one of the best public art projects in the United States. Romero talks about her work and explains what inspired her.

Also in the show, Caltrans District 7 Director Mike Miles has plenty to say on the essential unified focus of highway and transit planners and the importance of coordinating the two for the good of regional mobility.

Metro Motion runs quarterly on cable stations throughout Los Angeles County. Check local listings for dates and times in your area.

Happy trails: Metro poster recalls iconic Chatsworth

Posted by
Artist Danny Heller signs iconic "Chatsworth" poster commissioned by Metro in the "Through the Eyes of Artists" series.
Artist Danny Heller signs iconic “Chatsworth” poster commissioned by Metro in the “Through the Eyes of Artists” series.

In the bright neon glow of Northridge Cruise Night’s convergence of muscle cars and classics, artist Danny Heller was autographing Metro posters for lines of Chatsworth fans lining up at the West SFV Bob’s Big Boy restaurant this past Friday night.

In the poster, Heller paints an iconic Chatsworth scene in photographic detail: a two-toned 1955 Chevy Bel Air cruises past a trio of grazing horses alongside the landmark Stoney Point.

And, there, among the car buffs and local historians and residents laying claim to birthrights, was Joe DiFatta, a Chatsworth resident and owner of the very same 1955 two-toned Chevy Bel Air featured in Heller’s artwork.

Artist Danny Heller, right, greets Joe DiFatta in his '55 Chevy Bel Air featured in Metro's 'Chatsworth' poster pictured here.

Artist Danny Heller, right, greets Joe DiFatta in his '55 Chevy Bel Air featured in Metro's 'Chatsworth' poster pictured here.

The Chatsworth poster is part of the “Through the Eyes of Artists” series commissioned by Metro Creative Services. The posters depicting various neighborhoods served by Metro are displayed on Metro trains and buses.

Missed the signing?  You can pick up a free print of the Chatsworth poster at the Metro Library, on the 15th floor of the Metro headquarters building next to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. There’s also a few remaining copies of the Whittier, Compton and Azusa posters, but supplies are limited until the next round of commissioned posters go up in 2012.

Here’s a fun photo gallery post  of the event from the Chatsworth Patch.

Metro’s poetry bus card commemorates centennial of Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz

Posted by
Consul General of Poland in Los Angeles Joanna Kozińska – Frybes, at left, unveils commemorative "Poetry in Motion/LA" poster honoring poet Czeslaw Milosz. At right, Malgorzata Cup, Consul for Culture. Photo by Gary Leonard

Consul General of Poland in Los Angeles Joanna Kozińska – Frybes, at left, unveils commemorative "Poetry in Motion/LA" poster honoring poet Czeslaw Milosz. At right, Malgorzata Cup, Consul for Culture. Photo by Gary Leonard

Poetry can soothe the soul of many a traveler. The poetry cards on Metro Buses – you’ll find them scattered about in that indented ledge above the windows – have become a welcome respite from a busy day and a pause for reflection, which is not a bad thing when it comes to rush hour.

Launched in partnership between Metro Art with the Poetry Society of America in 1998, “Poetry in Motion/LA” places poetry posters on board Metro buses for the enjoyment of more than one million Metro Bus riders daily.

Czeslaw Milosz

Poet Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)

The latest poetry bus card is a gift, literally, from the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, commemorating the centennial of the birth of the great contemporary poet Czeslaw Milosz, a Nobel laureate (literature, 1980) and California resident whose professorship at UC Berkeley spanned 20 years.

It is in Berkeley where he was inspired to write “Gift,” the poem selected for the poetry card..

Consul General of Poland in Los Angeles Joanna Kozińska-Frybes, in recognition of Poland’s Presidency of the EU Council and in celebration of the 2011 Milosz Year,  unveiled a poster of the bus card inscribed with the poem at a public reception held Nov. 8 at the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles.

“Thanks to L.A. Metro and the Poetry Society of America, we have been able to achieve a great success and to bring Milosz closer to people in Los Angeles, all that in such wonderful ambiance of common undertaking,” the Consul General noted in her remarks at the reception.

Produced by Metro Creative Services, the poster is being installed this week in Metro buses for a two-month run. The poet’s centenary has inspired a global reflection and literary festival in more than 30 countries.

Here is Milosz, in his own words:

“Gift” by Czeslaw Milosz

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

Click here for the news release.

How do they do that?

Posted by

A Metro Rapid bus. Photo by Waltrrrr, via Flickr creative commons.

How do they do that? is a new series for The Source that explores the technology that helps keep Metro running and passengers and other commuters moving. Some of it applies directly to the trains, buses and freeways and some of it runs in the background — invisible to nearly everyone but essential to mobility in our region.

How do the street signal lights know to stay green a little longer or turn from red to green a little sooner when Metro Rapid and Metro Orange Line buses are approaching?

The process — called transit priority technology — causes traffic signals to hold green lights longer or shorten red lights to reduce the amount of time buses have to wait at intersections. Buses do still need to stop at red lights, just fewer of them or for shorter time periods.

All Rapid and Orange Line buses are equipped with special transponders that emit signals to a series of wired loops embedded in streets in the city of Los Angeles. As a bus passes from one loop to the next, the data is sent to a centralized computer in downtown L.A. This data is then used to determine the bus speed and location.

Continue reading →