Posts on The Source are often just half the story. Our commenters offer insights, ideas and clever witticisms that make up the other half. This weekly roundup highlights our favorite comments.

Steve’s Five things I’m thinking about transportation post got a lot of people thinking, including reader Scott Mercer who noted that bus connections at existing rail termini could be greatly improved:

Regarding your point on “greatly enhancing” bus service west of the VA Hospital, this is something that should be done RIGHT NOW.

The most obvious location for this would be a “bus bridge” between the Green Line terminus in Norwalk and the Metrolink station two miles to the east. A shuttle type service should be running there, at the same times and frequencies as the Green Line trains, especially during rush hours. Have it stop only at major aterials (I think there are only two). Demand may not be great at certain times of the day, so small buses could be used at those times.

Another obvious service of this type would be connecting the North Hollywood Red Line station to Burbank Airport. Burbank Bus runs a service like this now, but it is very infrequent, and doesn’t run nights at all. This service should run as long as the Red Line is open, and just as frequently, to “extend” the Red Line service to the airport. Another connection would be NoHo Red Line station directly to downtown Burbank and the Metrolink station there. Burbank Bus does not run a line at all like this. This should run whenever Metrolink trains are running, with the last bus half an hour after the last Metrolink train.

David also had a comment on Five things I’m thinking about transportation regarding the flyover ramps being built at the 405 freeway-Wilshire Boulevard interchange:

Steve, I totally agree on the importance of reworking the Wilshire on/off ramps.  When the Santa Monica Blvd. and Wilshire  ramps on the Southbound side were reconfigured a few years back when the Southbound HOV lane was added, the southbound morning back up no longer extended to Santa Monica Blvd.   It moved “back” to Sunset, which was not reworked.  This was not due to the carpool lane, it was a direct result of the ramp redesign.  Having said that, it really makes me shake my head when I see all the work that is going into once again reconfiguring the Wilshire SB ramps.  I presume this is to somehow aid in adding the northbound HOV lane.  Someone could have saved a lot of money if they had done it “right” the first time.

One last comment from Five things I’m thinking about transportation, this one from Irwin about TAP’s long-awaited stored value feature:

So speaking of TAP stored value function… will Metro work with Cubic to make sure the maximum value deducted during a 24-hour period is $6? The same value as a day pass… It seems too easy and too straight forward so that’s why I’m worried Metro will screw this one up.

The technology is there. I recently visited London and the Cubic manufactured Oyster Card features “daily price capping” which ensure that riders never pay more than the cost of a Day Travelcard. TAP staff would be wise to follow suit.

More comments on weekly passes and more. After the jump.

In a recent Why You Don’t Ride post, Alex Rueda lamented on the fact that weekly passes are tied to the calendar week. Commenter ywhynot thinks that ridership is being lost because of this practice:

Does anybody know when Metro is going to deal with this weekly pass issue? Really, why in the world do they make you wait and do it on Sunday only for the week. Regardless of having to print paper tickects or not. Just print something on a piece of paper from a fare machine that says valid until a date and time exactly 7 days from now. Many transit agencies do it without haveing to have the TAP card or whatever.

I’d hate to see Metro lose another rider because of that shortcoming (and from others I have spoken too, Metro has lost quite a few riders because of this issue)

We received many comments regarding Metro’s handling of a Red Line incident that delayed trains on Tuesday, mostly regarding a lack of communication about the incident at the stations. Commenter calwatch takes issue with how the web updates for incidents are handled and wonders if commenting on The Source is an exercise in futility:

It does take time to dispatch buses to do a bus bridge, BUT there needs to be better information on the web site (and not just Twitter, either). Unfortunately with the advent of comments on The Source these are just comments going into a black hole, with no response or followup. I was always against having comments in the first place because there was no evidence that Metro staff would be any more responsive with public comments than without. At least emails gave you a response. How about a feature where we round up comments for the week, and not just post them with no response like the Twitter roundup, but actually respond to some of these questions???

While The Source does post service alerts and we try hard to make this blog the first stop for Metro news, the fact is we are not Customer Relations.  To report a formal complaint and receive the appropriate management follow-up you must go through the established Customer Relations channels. That means either calling Customer Relations at 213.922.6235, emailing them at customerRelations@metro.net or filling out this web form. In the meantime we’ll do our best to answer all questions we’re equipped to answer.