Photo by Waltarrrr, via Flickr creative commons.
When Metro rolled out expanded late-night service on Metro Rail and the Orange Line last month, many of you wondered “what about the Silver Line?” Well wonder no more good readers, late-night weekend service for the Silver Line begins this Friday.
On Friday and Saturday nights, the Silver Line will run past 2 a.m. The last bus from Artesia Transit Center departs at 1:56 a.m. and the last bus from El Monte Bus Station departs at 2 a.m. The schedule of additional trips can be seen here.
Metro added extended service to the Silver Line due to the jump in late-night ridership since Metro Rail and the Orange Line began operating until 2 a.m. Keep these numbers up and we may one day end up with late-night service seven days a week!
Categories: Metro Lifestyle
I still don’t see a revised timeable with the late-night hours for the Silver Line posted on metro.net. Will one be posted soon?
Hi Mike,
The revised timetable will be available next week. In the meantime, a schedule of times is available on the service advisories page here: http://www.metro.net/service/advisories/update/bus/1038/
(Unfortunately you may have to wait a bit to access it as we’re the website is undergoing some maintenance.)
Cheers,
Anna Chen
The Source, Contributor
If they say the line is too long, that means the city is too big, and that is not fair to people that live on either end, and pay taxes as one city. How does the day pass loop hole this 95 cent sur charge but not weekly or monthly pass holders? Again, great potential, but squandered service. For every 20 people that put a dollar in the fare box, metro makes a dollar (no one has 95 cents in their pocket).
@Mike: I have bought this issue SEVERAL times to expand the Silver Line to San Pedro. It would take over the last 2 abandoned stations which include: Carson and PCH transitway station. They have stated that the line would be too long, however the operations manager at division 18 did say they currently looking at this and eliminating line 450x to extend the Silver Line to San Pedro, & possibly provide a faster Silver Line service. I would love to see this line go all the way to San Pedro. Silver streak operates around 38 miles and yet foothill continues to operate the line, so Metro should extend the Silver Line to San Pedro.
@transit Ride: I SECOND HIS COMMENT!!!! Metro please expand the Silver Line to San Pedro!
What’s the basis that there’s a flat fee of $0.95 freeway surcharge whether one uses the Silver Line all the way from El Monte to Artesia Transit Center versus a person who uses it only halfway?
Should the Orange Line then be subject to its own separate “bus transit way fee?” How about a tire maintenance fee for Metro Buses? An electricity fee for Metro Rail? A TAP installation recollection fee using TAP? Fee for breathing Los Angeles air?
Things are getting too out of control.
Another +1 for most of calwatch’s comment, but I’m with Realist Angelino regarding the odd $2.45 fare. If we want to integrate the Silver Line into Metro’s “Go Metro” strategy/map, then it should function similarly as possible to the Orange Line and Metro Rail lines. That means adopting the simple, “One Boarding, One Fifty” fare structure as well as TVMs and all-door boarding. If we can’t go this route, then rebrand the Silver Line to what it really is: a Metro Express bus, for better or worse.
I thought that the $2.45 fare for the Metro Silver Line had something to do with overlap with the Foothill Transit Silver Streak.
Hi Mike,
The fare is $2.45 based on the $1.50 base fare plus the $0.95 freeway surcharge.
Anna Chen
The Source, Contributor
Extending the Silver Line to San Pedro makes perfect sense. The 110/Harbor Busway continues all the way to PCH. It would take the Silver Line around 60 minutes to reach San Pedro. Artesia Transit Center is not a destination. The Harbor and San Pedro deserve better service than forced hit and miss transfers at a Park & Ride.
There really is no basis for the $2.45 fare just for the Silver Line. It’s a deal if you’re going from El Monte all the way down to Artesia Transit Center, but why should I have to pay the same $2.45 fare if I only need it from Harbor Freeway to Union Station?
They need to make transit fares more fairer. There is no justification that people have to have to pay the same price for shorter trips.
I think before anyone gets all excited about expanding silver line service, we need to get the silver line to actually make the stops it currently promises. I assumed when the silver line was left out of the previous announcement that it was because of the current “late night” reliability issues. If you haven’t experienced this first hand, you can read all about it here:
http://fixmetro.blogspot.com/
I strongly recommend you think long and hard about rolling the dice on the silver line, especially late at night when your backup options will be extremely limited.
Silver needs to specifically advertise in giant letters that it is an additional fee to ride. This line has so much potential, and quite frankly I feel it is being squandered. Late night service is a good idea however. This may be a bit off topic, and the first of its mentioning, but why are there not more stations being installed at particular overpasses(Redondo Beach Blvd comes to mind with Hustler Casino right there)? Also, why doesnt the Silver Line go to San Pedro or the Harbor? Why does the Harbor are hardly have Metro in the first place? Ive noticed this portion of the 110 carpool that seems to just end at jefferson( It looks the same as right turn to no where at Aviation Station)? It appears that the carpool for the 110 may have at one point been envisioned as a rail line. Then, when expo was being planned, I saw how this connection could have been made but unfortunately oil and vehicles won (Just like the El Monte stretch that was also supposed to be rail). I also got a hunch due to the design and what appears to be large investments in bus stations that are really under used (Expo completely passes the Jefferson USC Busway station by about 50 feet. Why would this be planned this way? Well, my only assumption was that the right away stretching from that non connection was meant to reach to Artesia station and maybe even beyond. Ive even googles “110 rail line” to see if this was ever in the planning stages and found nothing. But I know metro does have a vault of scrapped plans? Excuse me for going off topic, but I had to pose the question since I may not be the only one that recgonizes this about the Silver line.
You really don’t even need prepaid boarding machines at transit stops.
Just look at Singapore. They don’t have boarding machines at each bus stop. All you do is just tap in and tap out, and the EZ Link Card automatically deducts the correct bus fare based on distance traveled. The whole thing is not complicated that this can be applied to TAP within a few months with a few simple fixes.
I mean really, it’s just that simple. Why can’t Metro just follow Singapore’s example instead of wasting tax dollars in trying to make something work that no other successful transit agency does?
Perhpas I’m the only one who doesn’t know the answer to this question, but why doesn’t the Silver Line continue to LA Harbor?
I’m guessing that part of the issue of installing TVMs is the fact that the Harbor Transitway and the El Monte Busway is shared by the Silver Line as well as a bunch of other lines, and several carriers. While it’s easy to just say “Only Metro passengers can use the TVM”, when you have a bunch of different carriers going to some of the same destinations, you’re going to get people riding who are just going to want to get on the first bus to their destination. If you buy a Metro ticket, you’re stuck on a Metro bus. Unless, of course, you want to force other carriers (looking at you, Torrance Transit) to get on the TAP bandwagon, which I’m in favor of.
I agree with calwatch. Its good news to see the Silver Line FINALLY run later early AM service, but what about the BRT amenities. Where are the ticket vending machines? Is it taking Metro 5 years to “analyze” the benefits of having ticket vending machines at the stations served by the Silver Line? What is the big problem with installing them? It does not take a long time to do so. The Metro Express Lanes Project originally included a idea for prepaid boarding machines, but the idea was later scraped because of the lack of funds.
I second Calwatch’s comment entirely!
And here’s my usual comment to expand the Silver Line to run just like a rail line, with ticket vending machines (you can keep the silly $2.45 fare if you insist, but at least we can deal without passengers digging up 95 cents and blocking the farebox to pay upcharges), proof of payment and rear door boarding, station information displays like the Orange Line, and frequencies on nights and weekends like the Orange Line. With the toll money soon to be rolling in, let’s try to get the Silver Line to not fall below 20 minute headways, like the Orange Line.
The westside really needs to expand past culver city.I know eventually it will but its a long time coming plus to connect to different places you have to go out of the way sometimes to connect like going downtown La then back west :/ thanks hope this message speeds things up LOL