Tag Archives: Blue Line

Work on phase 5 of Blue Line’s Artesia Station Road repaving project begins this Friday

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Work on the Artesia Blue Line Station’s road repaving project enters phase 5 this Friday, April 19. The project is approximately 2/3 completed, and some of the upcoming phases of the project have been modified to help reduce impacts to customers.

The station has remained open to the public throughout the duration of construction. However, work has involved relocating the main crosswalk, using a different area to drop off customers, and temporarily moving bus stops as different portions of the roadway were repaved during the various phases of the project. The work now planned for the remaining phases of the construction project is described below, after the jump.

A task force for this project has been meeting regularly to manage the project. This task force is comprised of representatives from all of the bus operators utilizing the station, and various Metro department representatives, including service planning, safety, security, operations, facilities, marketing, community relations, division managers, and others.

Customers have been advised about impacts associated with each phase of the project through rider alerts on buses, signage at the station, and additional staffing to assist customers during the construction process.

Listed below are details about the remaining phases of the project.

Phase 5 – Work originally planned for phase 7 has been moved up to follow the completion of phase 4. This work will begin on Friday, April 19, and is anticipated to be completed by around April 30. The roadway will be repaved between the temporary crosswalk and the kiss and ride area, on the parking lot side of the roadway. All customers will be let off their buses just in front of the temporary crosswalk, and will board all buses in the rear bus stops (bays 1-4), (furthest away from the station entrance).

Phases 6 and 7 – Beginning on or around May 3, construction will take place in the area currently reserved for bus layover parking. The temporary crosswalk will be removed and the existing crosswalk will be reopened. The impact to customer’s boarding and discharge locations is being evaluated, and will be communicated to customers via rider alerts and signage prior to May 3. These are the final phases of the project, and should be completed around May 15.

Customers using the Artesia Station should be aware that there will be increased traffic congestion during this construction project that may result in traffic delays which may impact bus schedules. If customers are interested in seeking alternative stations to the Artesia Metro Blue Line Station, they might consider the following stations: 103rd St/Watts Towers (63 spaces), Willowbrook (335 spaces), Del Amo (357 spaces), Wardlow (115 spaces) or Willow (899 spaces).

Sheriff’s patrols target customer safety and other issues on the Blue Line

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The Blue Line's Willowbrook/Rosa Parks station. Photo by Sean_Marshall via Flickr creative commons.

The Blue Line’s Willowbrook/Rosa Parks station. Photo by Sean_Marshall via Flickr creative commons.

Earlier this month, from April 8 to 10, the Transit Bureau Service of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department began a new operational concept to improve safety on the Blue Line.

The concept is called TRUST (Transit Rail Urban Saturation Team) and it consists of deputies saturating parts of the Blue Line and conducting conducting zero tolerance patrols on the trains and station platforms. It’s a combination of fare enforcement, train patrols, fixed posts for police and mobile, random foot patrols — and the LASD is saying more of these type of operations will be done in the future.

During the three days that the operation took place: 895 citations were issued as well as 142 misdemeanor arrests and 11 felony arrests, according to the LASD. This initial iteration focused on the part of the line between the Firestone and Rosa Parks stations. 

“Our goal is to reduce the conditions that breed crime, disorder and insecurity. Operation TRUST is the first in a series of targeted enforcement efforts to improve security and enhance the riding experience for transit patrons and transit employees,” wrote the Sheriff’s Department in a news release.

The Blue Line had an average of 88,023 weekday boardings in February, the latest ridership statistics available. Also from the Sheriff’s news release:

Each day 350,000 passengers ride the Metro Rail system in Los Angeles and 1.2 million passengers ride Metro Buses. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) is responsible for securing the Metro system and is committed to ensuring a low level of crime and disorder.

Partner to prevent or report crime by contacting your local sheriff’s station or police department. Or, if you wish to remain anonymous, call “LA Crime Stoppers” by dialing 800-222-TIPS (8477), texting the letters TIPLA plus your tip to CRIMES (274637), or using the website http://lacrimestoppers.org

Please remember, if you SEE SOMETHING that you believe is suspicious or doesn’t look right to you, SAY SOMETHING by calling: (888) 950-SAFE (7233), or your local police department.

TAP validators being moved at 7th/Metro station

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Early construction work involved removing a section of floor to install wires for the validators. Photo: Metro.

Early construction work involved removing a section of floor to accommodate the validators and their electronics. The photo shows the current location of the validators; the new ones will be in a line across the floor. Photo: Metro.

This is something that has been discussed before on this blog and the comments board and now the work is underway: Metro is relocating stand-alone validators at 7th/Metro Station in order to make it easier for customers to TAP when transferring between the Red/Purple Line subway and the Blue Line and Expo Line.

Work began earlier this week; the idea is to move the existing validators and add some news ones to form an array of validators that will serve a lot of customers at once. Customers will be able to walk by the validators and tap without having to go out of their way and queue up at inconveniently placed equipment.

Metro tested the validator placements in a variety of arrays and found that this particular array encouraged the best crowd flow and most frequent tapping by customers. The arrays were vetted by Fire-Live-Safety personnel as well as ADA staff.

Metro asks that everyone be courteous and careful while the work takes place.

Transportation headlines, Monday, March 18; With Expo Line coming soon, plan to transform Bergamot Station area takes step forward

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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 Headlines blog, which you can also access via email subscription or RSS feed.

Council moves Bergamot area plan forward (Santa Monica Patch)

Great news, me thinks. The plan will guide development on 140 acres around the future Expo Line station at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, with the Council voting last week to begin the formal environmental review process. As one city official puts it, the plan will help create a “city within a city” with new apartments, public plazas, 10 new streets and 15 new bike and pedestrian corridors. Critics fear traffic and the cars that will come from new residents but let’s face it — Santa Monica needs the housing to go with its many jobs and the area is being designed in such a way it should cut down on car trips by new and existing residents alike.

Here’s a slide from a city of Santa Monica power point released last year on the goals of the Bergamot area plan (on the map, left is north, top is east, etc.):

Designing the Districts PPT

One-way car flow on Colorado is better for traffic (Santa Monica Patch) 

Speaking of Santa Monica, city studies found that making Colorado a one-way street between Ocean Avenue and Fourth Street would not make traffic any worse. The Expo Line’s final Santa Monica station will be at Fourth and Colorado and the city is converting the street between the station and the Santa Monica Pier into an esplanade that will greatly curtail car traffic — and widen sidewalks to 55 feet on one side of the street. Gasp! Good news: so far the Earth has not ended because of such talk.

The bigger point about this item and the one above: the city of Santa Monica seems intent not just on having a new rail line, but using it to transform some public spaces badly in need of a change in direction.

Glendale infrastructure upgrades to benefit bike riders (Glendale News-Press)

City officials say they will increase the number of in-street traffic signal sensors that can detect cyclists in addition to vehicles. The city also says it’s planning miles of new bike lanes and a bike sharing program. You know what would be great? If officials from Glendale, Pasadena, Burbank and Los Angeles County got together and figured out some good bike routes between those cities. By “good” I mean “good” — not passable, not piecemeal, not bike lanes that are poorly maintained, unsafe or used for parking.

One other media note: who really knows what will happen with the proposed football stadium at L.A. Live — I don’t get any clear sense from the abundant media coverage of AEG’s announcement last week that it is no longer for sale. On the plus side, a football stadium would be near the Blue and Expo lines’ Pico station — which would get an additional platform under the stadium proposal. As for my personal opinion, I have no beef with a football stadium but I’d be more excited to hear about a baseball stadium in downtown proper — something that seems to work in many other cities around the world.

Work on junction of Blue and Expo lines completed; regular service restored

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Photos by Stephen Tu/Metro.

Photos by Stephen Tu/Metro.

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Work was completed Sunday on rebuilding a key part of the junction of the Blue and Expo lines at Washington and Flower in downtown Los Angeles. Regular service on both lines between downtown L.A. and Long Beach and Culver City, respectively, has resumed.

In the bottom photo, a worker on Sunday afternoon performs ultrasonic testing of welding to ensure there are no imperfections in the rails. Test trains rolled across the junction Sunday afternoon and evening with good results.

Thank you for your patience this weekend with the bus shuttles between 7th/Metro and Grand (Blue Line) and 23rd Street (Expo Line). For more about the work that wasperformed, here’s a Source post from Friday.

 

Photos from Saturday night construction work on the Blue Line-Expo Line junction

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Here are a pair of photos of work on the Blue Line-Expo Line junction on Saturday night. In the first photo, crews cutting a section of the rail to realign and in the second photo crews are working to secure newly aligned rails with heat activated epoxy. Work is going well — test trains are expected to run over the junction late this afternoon.

The work is the reason that the Blue Line is not running this weekend between 7th/Metro Center and the Grand station and the Expo Line is not running between 7th/Metro Center and the 23rd Street station. Bus shuttles are replacing trains on both lines.

For more about the work being performed, here’s a Source post from Friday. The service alert for the Blue and Expo lines is after the jump.

Continue reading →

Photos of track work underway this weekend at junction of Blue and Expo lines

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Photos by Stephen Tu/Metro.

Photos by Stephen Tu/Metro.

The photos above, taken early Saturday afternoon, show the replaced diamond frog at the junction of the Blue Line and Expo Line tracks at Washington and Flower in downtown L.A. Metro officials said Saturday that work is proceeding according to schedule.

The work is the reason that the Blue Line is not running this weekend between 7th/Metro Center and the Grand station and the Expo Line is not running between 7th/Metro Center and the 23rd Street station. Bus shuttles are replacing trains on both lines.

For more about the work being performed, here’s a Source post from Friday. The service alert for the Blue and Expo lines is after the jump.

Continue reading →

Work crews to perform track work at rail junction at Washington/Flower in downtown L.A. this weekend

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Work crews on Friday night are set to begin making repairs to the rail junction at Washington and Flower in downtown Los Angeles. The work will require all trains to be replaced with shuttle buses for Expo Line and Blue Line riders traveling between 7th/Metro Center, Pico, 23rd Street and Grand Stations over the entire weekend (the service alert is posted after the jump). Normal train service on both lines in this area is scheduled to resume at the opening of service on Monday morning, Feb. 18.

Exposition Construction Authority crews will be adjusting the track gauge to improve the movement of Blue Line trains turning from Flower to Washington. When completed, the work is expected to correct excessive wear on some train parts and improve the overall maintainability of the track components at this location.

Up to this point, the condition has required frequent monitoring and inspections until a permanent solution could be designed and implemented. At no time has safety been compromised. Likewise, after the work this weekend, monitoring will continue and trains will continue to travel through the junction at  reduced speeds until Metro, the California Public Utilities Commission and the Expo Line Construction Authority are certain the track adjustments have corrected the problem.

Continue reading →

Blue Line and Expo Line service to be impacted Feb. 15-17 due to track work; bus shuttle to replace trains between 7th/Metro and Grand (Blue) and 23rd (Expo)

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Due to railway track work in Downtown Los Angeles, Metro Blue Line and Expo Line train service will be impacted the weekend of February 15-17, 2013.

Track repair work will begin Friday night, Feb. 15 at 8:30 p.m. and last until close of business Sunday, Feb. 17.  Metro Blue and Expo Lines will cease to operate at the following locations only:

Metro Blue Line:  No train service between 7th/Metro Center and Grand Station.

Metro Expo Line: No train service between 7th/Metro Center and 23rd Street Station.

Patrons will be provided with replacement shuttle bus service during this time.  Shuttle buses will travel to and from all impacted stations: 7th/Metro Center, Pico, Grand and 23rd Street Stations.

Metro will provide signage directing transit riders to nearby on-street shuttle bus locations.  Metro personnel will also be available at stations to assist patrons.  Service alert information is now on display on station electronic message boards.

Metro apologizes for any inconvenience this service impact has to its transit customers.

Delays on Blue Line expected throughout this evening

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Expect 20 to 30 minute delays along the Metro Blue Line this evening, particularly between Washington and Firestone stations. The delay is due to power outages caused by probable lightning strike to Southern California Edison equipment earlier today, which has knocked out the train signals.

Blue Line commuters have the option of riding the Silver Line at $1.50. The highway surcharge will be eliminated from the Silver Line for the evening commute.

For the most up-to-date info, check Metro’s homepage or follow @metroLAalerts on Twitter.