New Metro Motion TV show explores attractions along Expo Line

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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.

Transit notes from Taipei

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The Taipei MRT. Photo by Jennifer, via Flickr creative commons.

A few readers have recently asked for more posts about transit in Asia, the home to some of the planet’s most used and advanced systems.

With that in mind, I wanted to share my experience with the Taipei Metro, also known as the MRT. I was raised in the ‘burbs of Southern California but also spent three years living in Taiwan. I now work at Metro and live in downtown Los Angeles — and still find myself nostalgic at times for certain aspects of Taipei’s MRT.

The Taipei MRT currently has about 65 miles of rail above and below ground and serves metropolitan Taipei, which has a population of about 6.9 million people. In comparison, Metro Rail has over 73 miles of track in L.A. County, which has a population of about 9.8 million. The Taipei MRT has about 1.6 million people taking its rail system on weekdays compared to the 300,000 or so who are estimated to take Metro Rail each day; Taipei is also much more densely populated than sprawling L.A. County.

A few comparisons between the MRT and our Metro:

EasyCard vs. TAP. In a word, the EasyCard is awesome. It’s essentially a travel debit card that you can load up at any station or many convenience stores, such as 7-11. It’s accepted on all MRT lines and all buses within Taipei County, and you can use it to pay for bike rentals and tickets to certain tourist attractions. When I left Taiwan, a few convenience stores were starting to accept EasyCard as a form of payment, and the list has since grown. If you buy an EasyCard, you also get a 20% discount on fares — a great incentive for getting an EasyCard. Hint, hint. Continue reading →

Transportation headlines, Tuesday, Dec. 6

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Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the library’s blog.

As Washington drags its feet, states take the lead on mileage fees (StreetsBlog DC)

Americans are driving less and opting for more fuel-efficient cars and that’s a good thing. But it also means revenues from state gas taxes have been on the decline. With an increase in the federal gas tax probably impossible in an election year and federal funding increasingly uncertain, states are beginning to investigate alternatives such as adopting a mileage-based system that charges drivers for the distance they travel (vehicle miles traveled or VMT) rather than the gasoline they consume. Find out which states are marching toward legislation and how.

Four cities that need congestion pricing (This Big City)

People often come to Los Angeles and shake their heads solemnly at the effect urban sprawl has had on the environment and residents. But we’re not the only ones with issues. This short comparison looks at four cities and recommends congestion pricing as a tool to help alleviate traffic. Oddly, L.A. doesn’t make the list … perhaps in part because our ExpressLanes congestion pricing demonstration project is already in the works.

Wireless internet now aboard California Amtrak trains (KCET)

Wireless internet has been a requested service on many venues for many years and last week — on Cyber Monday, no less — it arrived on three California Amtrak lines. In Southern California it means that the 350-mile Pacific Surfliner, the second busiest route in the nation and one of the most beautiful, now has email to transmit those fabulous images.

Don’t wear those earbuds or earphones around train tracks (Pittsburgh Tribune)

Parents of teens and those who think of themselves as teens: Ditch those earbuds or earphones around train tracks. It’s essential to keep your ears open to sound … particularly when walking near trains but the same is true for driving. Sound is one of the clues that tells the story of what’s occurring in your surroundings. Sadly, according to statistics from the Federal Railroad Administration, 42 people in Pennsylvania alone were killed along railroad tracks in 2010. “It’s such a preventable, preventable tragedy,” an official said.

The art of transit

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photo by Steve Hymon/Metro

I took this photo from the platform of a southbound Gold Line train pulling into the South Pasadena station last week. I shot the photo with my Nikon D5100 and then in Photoshop Elements used the “Fresco” function to make it look like a drawing or painting — Mission Street in South Pas has that Americana kind of feel. The image looks better if you click above to enlarge it.

To submit a photo for the Art of Transit, post it to Metro’s Flickr group, email it to sourcemetro@gmail.com or Tweet it to @metrolosangeles with an #artoftransit hashtag. Many of the photos we’ve featured can be seen in these galleries on Flickr.

New timelines for Wilshire bus lane project

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When we last checked in with the Wilshire rush hour bus lane project, the completion date that we posted was 2013. But Dana Gabbard at L.A. Streetsblog had a post Friday saying that the completion date for the project is now 2015.

The project will put 7.7 miles of rush hour bus lanes on portions of Wilshire Boulevard in the city of Los Angeles, from Brentwood to just west of downtown Los Angeles. The idea — and I think it’s a good one — is to speed up bus service on Wilshire, which is Metro’s busiest bus corridor.

Metro helped plan the project with the city and Los Angeles County. The city of Los Angeles is taking the lead on constructing the project, which includes some selective pavement reconstruction and street widening along Wilshire and updating the transit priority system, among other upgrades. From an Oct. 9 city report:

Extensive roadway improvements on Wilshire Boulevard, including curb lane reconstruction and selective street widening, will be done before the bus lanes are installed. Design and engineering is scheduled to be completed by June 2013, followed by construction of roadway
improvements, traffic mitigation measures, Transit Priority System upgrades, and bus lane striping and signage. The project is expected to be completed and operational by June 2015.

A spokesman for the city’s transportation agency told Streetsblog that the city will try to finish the work earlier than 2015. In more recent discussions with the city, they now believe they may be able to have it completed by the end of 2014. One obvious question this raises: will the bus lanes project be under construction at the same time that construction for the first leg of the Westside Subway Extension is getting underway?

Answer: It remains to be seen. The subway project is on track to have its environmental impact studies approved in early 2012. At that point, we should have a better idea of funding and the construction timeline for the first segment, which is supposed to go to Fairfax.

On an unrelated note, Streetsblog also reported that the new Silver Line station at Union Station – here’s a good rendering — will be completed in 2015. That is incorrect. The ExpressLanes project on the San Bernardino Freeway and El Monte Busway is still scheduled to open in 2013, with the Silver Line station scheduled for a 2014 opening, according to Metro staff.

How do they do that?

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Metro bus wash; photo by David Daniels/Metro.

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 they wash those tall buses?

It’s a good soap-water-and-wax cleaning for Metro buses, which pass through massive bus washers followed by blow dryers like those we use for our cars. But that’s where the similarities end. For one thing, the buses are washed daily. For another, their very size makes hand drying impossible. A typical 45-foot bus is 11 feet high and weighs 19 tons. A 60-foot bus is 11 feet high and 21 tons.

Each of Metro’s 11 bus maintenance facilities has at least one bus washer, maybe two, depending on the number of buses assigned there. Maintenance facilities are sprinkled all over L.A. County to make them more accessible to the 2,000-plus buses in Metro’s fleet as it navigates 1,400 square miles of service area.

Kings center Anze Kopitar gets a facewash, courtesy of a Metro bus wash. Photo by David Daniels/Metro.

The special bus washing machines are constructed on the spot, just for Metro. Most have bristle brushes — so out of fashion for our cars but so good for buses, which are constantly out in sun, wind, weather and traffic. Buses are washed once a day. And every four months or so they go in for a detailed cleaning, sort of like the detailing we get for our cars.

To clean the interiors, service attendants use high-pressure air to blow out the debris. The debris is then sucked into a giant vacuum and deposited into a trash compactor that makes a large paper ball out of what can be a significant amount of refuse … despite the fact that no food or drink is supposed to be consumed inside the buses.

The attendants hand clean the bus interiors with soap and water and towels, with window cleaner for the glass and stainless steel cleaner for the metal surfaces. It takes approximately 20 minutes to fuel, blow and wipe out the interiors, drive through the bus wash and park. And it means an average of 120 Metro employees on any given day are working to keep the buses clean.