UPDATE, 3:15 p.m.: Bus Bridge cancelled. Train service restored but running every 15 minutes. Expect crowds and use all doors. Trains are single-tracking at Lakewood.
UPDATE, 2:40 p.m.: Bus service replaces Green Line service. Expect major delays, seek alternative routes.
The Metro Green Line is experiencing power problems at several locations along the entire alignment. Metro is implementing an emergency bus service for the Green Line passengers from Norwalk Station to Redondo Beach Station. Delays for passenger are from 20 to 30 minutes. For Service Alerts go to www.metro.net or follow us on @MetroLAalerts on Twitter.
Posted with BlogsyCategories: Transportation News
For pity’s sake!
If you weren’t where you planned to be by about 10:30 that morning, then missing the shuttle landing was entirely your own fault.
My return to my car, late that afternoon, was more than a little bit inconvenient, with an unexplained extended stop (and a second EB train passing) at Aviation, but other than that, my day in El Segundo went quite well. If anything, the worst of the difficulties for me was a near-total lack of public restrooms anywhere near the corner of Imperial and California (hello? has anybody ever heard of porta-privies?), but even that was hardly insurmountable: while the Flight Path Museum was closed for a press event, I had no trouble at all getting into their men’s room without a press pass.
What a farce!
Friday was the last time I ever will rely upon Metro to get to and from a major public event like Friday’s space-shuttle landing at LAX that will draw thousands of persons to a small area.
The total and utter failure of Metro’s Green Line for over two hours in the middle of the day (beginning shortly before the actual, much-delayed shuttle landing) stranded hundreds of persons foolish enough to rely upon the Green Line, proving, once again, that even Metro’s relatively new rail lines cannot be relied upon.
Worse, even if one accepts the allegations in your website’s story on the breakdown, it apparently took Metro more than two hours to organize a “bus bridge” to rescue the Metro passengers who were stranded near LAX.
As a Metro passenger experienced in the unreliability of Metro service, I never travel the system without taking along numerous different Metro bus and rail schedules so that I can find alternative ways around the always likely Metro breakdowns. Consequently, I was able to get in line for one of the very infrequent eastbound Metro #120 buses.
Despite the fact that most of the persons stranded at the Aviation station were unaware of alternative bus options to the Green Line, that #120 bus started off from the Aviation Station so completely jammed that dozens of persons were left at the stop, as well as at every stop for the next several miles along the eastbound route along Imperial.
Besides the main question of why the Green Line broke down completely for over nearly three hours in the middle of the day, several other questions arise:
1. Why did it take over two hours (according to your own testimony) for Metro to organize a “bus-bridge” between Green Line stations, or even to add busses to the route of line #120, which was running at intervals of as much as 60 minutes in the middle of the day?
2. Why did the public-address announcements at the Aviation Station about the breakdown fail to provide the scores of stranded passengers with any suggested alternatives whatsover for traveling inland from LAX?
3. Does Metro give any thought at all to providing contingency planning for alternative transit to and from major public gatherings, in case of the seemingly inevitable breakdowns of Metro equipment and organization?
It took me about 2 1/2 hours to retrace my route eastbound, which had taken me less than an hour westbound.
One can only imagine how many other Metro passengers caught in Friday’s Green-Line mess made resolutions to avoid relying upon your “service” in the future whenever possible.