Welcome to Twitter Tuesday, our roundup of the latest Metro related tweets. To get our attention, add the #MetroLosAngeles tag to your tweets and subscribe to our feed if you haven’t already. For specific complaints and customer service, please use the Customer Comment Form on metro.net.
If having problems viewing this post on your browser, please see part one and part two on the Storify website.
Many more tweets posted after the jump!
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.
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.
ART OF TRANSIT: The Gold Line crosses the 1st Street Bridge; click to see larger. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.
Metro’s free ride may soon be over (L.A. Times)
Jon Healey looks forward to gates being latched on the subway this summer, saying it’s about time people had to pay to ride trains in Los Angeles.
Packed audience cheers and questions MyFigueroa! project (L.A. Streetsblog)
A community meeting was held earlier this week to review plans to put Figueroa on a road diet and add bike lanes and pedestrian improvements for the stretch between Staples Center and USC. Among the predictable concerns: would losing a lane of general car traffic lead to more congestion in downtown? My three cents: is the status quo — basically having a mini-freeway cleave through downtown and South Park — really that great?
Ideas for downtown L.A.: minor tweaks to 110 overpasses will boost pedestrian activity (DTLA Rising)
Blogger Brigham Yen takes a closer look at the long, loud overpasses that carry 7th Street and Wilshire over the 110 freeway, neither of which could accurately be called pedestrian friendly. Brigham has a few suggestions, including planters and raising the railings. A lot of development has taken place on the west side of the 110 and connecting that area to downtown proper seems like a smart and humane move.
Three quick notes from the Metro Board of Director committee meetings on Thursday morning:
•The Dodger Stadium Express will be back this season, once again offering free bus service between Los Angeles Union Station and the ballpark for those holding tickets to the game. And there's a wrinkle: in cooperation with the city of Los Angeles, there is expected to be a dedicated bus lane near the stadium this year to speed up the bus trips.
•TAP-enabled paper tickets for Metrolink are expected to show up in Metrolink ticket machines this spring. Gate latching tests with the tickets have gone very well.
•Metro will be moving TAP validators at some rail stations so they're more convenient for customers and easier to find. The first change will be the validators at the busy 7th/Metro Center station used by the Red/Purple Line subway and the Blue Line and Expo Line.
I happened upon the testing during the afternoon rush hour on Wednesday and everything appeared to go smoothly. With Metro preparing to latch gates at Red and Purple Line stations this summer, Metro and Metrolink are testing paper TAP-enabled tickets that will allow Metrolink passengers to get through the gates.
From Metro’s TAP staff:
On Wednesday, March 6, 2013, Metro and Metrolink collaborated on a successful test-latching of Metro’s fare gates in Union Station.
At approximately 9:00 a.m., two of the largest groups of Metrolink riders successfully transferred to Metro through latched gate arrays at the Alameda entrance to the station. For the first time ever, Metrolink customers were tapped through the gates by Metrolink staff using Metrolink TAP tickets. The successful testing continued through 5:30 p.m.
In addition, the new gate help phone installed near the gate array was tested. The gate help phones are designed to be accessible to those who may have trouble with their TAP cards, including customers with physical disabilities. Customers do not have to dial a number or push a button for assistance. An operator automatically responds when the customer comes into close proximity to the phone and can assist him or her by remotely opening the ADA accessible gate.
Standard operating procedures went smoothly and testing is expected to continue in future weeks. Metro and Metrolink are pleased that our collaboration has been successful so far and expect gate latching of Red and Purple Line stations to begin in June.
Here is some interesting data gathered from recent testing of gate latching at the Normandie, North Hollywood and Western stations on the Red/Purple Line subway.
The takeaways: 1) one-way fares, stored value and pass sales significantly increased when the gates were latched; 2) Free entries — i.e. mainly those not paying fares — dropped significantly when gates were latched.
Metro staff continue to work toward starting to latch the gates in the Red and Purple Line subway this summer. As part of that effort, paper TAP tickets are being tested for Metrolink passengers who transfer to and from the Metro system.
UPDATE: the issue has been fixed.
Looks like problems began yesterday — and the taptogo.net website is still experiencing problems. Until fixed, passes can still be purchased at https://secure.taptogo.net.
What do you think? Are we on the right track with these new screen designs?
A focus group on Tuesday — the third focus group so far — indicated that ticket vending machine redesigns by Metro’s Creative Services Staff are headed in the right direction.
All of the participants were impressed with the new designs and provided helpful feedback to further refine the screens. They assured Metro that the new screens were a vast improvement over the existing screens and were “very clear and self-explanatory.” Another participant noted, “I don’t have to concentrate and look for the options. They are very clearly organized.”
One new addition is a more prominent selection screen with 10 different languages, which will make purchases easier for limited-English customers and tourists from abroad. Other improvements include more understandable terminology and less jargon, simpler screens with fewer options and more intuitive selections and more explanations of options — which hopefully will mean less pushing of the ‘help’ button for customers.
The new screens will help all riders purchase and reload TAP cards more quickly and easily, a big help to both rail and bus riders. Bus riders are now using TAP cards more than ever before. Preliminary results from the most recent bus survey conducted by Metro Research show that about seven in 10 bus riders are now using TAP cards to pay for their fares. This is up from about five in 10 in the previous quarter.
What do you think? If you’re leaving a comment, please be as specific as possible about what you like or don’t like or any suggestions that you may have.
UPDATE: I’m having some problems with Storify this morning and getting the scroll bar to show up in posts.
SECOND UPDATE: After spending the last 30 minutes screaming at my computer screen, I still can’t figure out why the scroll bar disappears when posts from Storify are embedded into our blogging software (WordPress). I’ve asked our tech folks to take a look — and if any readers have any bright ideas, let me know. Until then, it’s probably best to read Twitter Tuesday on Storify — see the links below.
Welcome to Twitter Tuesday, our roundup of the latest Metro related tweets. To get our attention, add the #MetroLosAngeles tag to your tweets and subscribe to our feed if you haven’t already. For specific complaints and customer service, please use the Customer Comment Form on metro.net.
If having problems viewing this post on your browser, please see part one and part two on the Storify website.
Many more tweets posted after the jump!
