Gate latching on the Metro Rail system continues this week as the Mariposa, Aviation and Hawthorne stations on the Green Line are schedule to be latched on Wednesday, March 5, 2014 at 6 a.m. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies are providing advance notification and patron assistance at the three stations beginning today through Friday, March 7 between the hours of 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m.
Metro plans to latch the remaining Green Line stations by the end of May. On January 29, the Marine, Douglas and El Segundo Green Line stations were latched. All Metro Red/Purple, Blue and Gold Line stations equipped with gates are now latched. Once all latching is complete, 41 of 80 Metro Rail stations will be latched and turnstiles will not allow entry unless a TAP card with appropriate fare has been tapped at the gate.
TAP is a universal fare media that allows passengers to seamlessly transfer between rail and bus without having to dig into pockets or purses for change. Twelve agencies are currently part of the TAP network including Metro, Metrolink, Los Angeles Department of Transportation (including DASH buses), Access, Antelope Valley, Culver City, Foothill, Gardena, Montebello, Norwalk, Santa Clarita and Torrance. By the end of 2014, a total of 26 agencies will be part of the TAP network including Long Beach Transit and Santa Monica Big Blue Bus.
Categories: Metro Lifestyle, Policy & Funding
Metrolink uses TAP on their tickets to activate gates, but not for anything else. This should have been made more clear. Long Beach, Norwalk, Gardena, etc. have been issuing TAP transfers for some time now for transferring to the Green Line.
Metro should get their own facts straight.
TAP is NOT accepted on Metrolink. Metrolink riders can access Metro using paper tickets that are enabled with TAP, but the same does not hold true the other way around. Metro riders CANNOT use their TAP cards onboard Metrolink.
It just appalls me that the agency running TAP doesn’t even know what it can or cannot do. Well, that’s government for you – just like Obamacare, in theory it works, in reality it’s messed up because the people running things don’t even use it!
The whole TAP system is FUBAR due to lack of planning, confusing passes and transfer rules and between agencies. What they should’ve done is coordinated an unified payments structure first before implementing TAP.
“Twelve agencies are currently part of the TAP network including…Metrolink”
REALLY? So you’re telling me TAP is now capable of TAP-in and TAP-out distance based fares? Because that’s what Metrolink uses; it runs on a distance based system.
If the MTA had any brains, there would have been fare gates installed at the BEGINNING of these light-rail lines, and there would be NO NEED at this point to even CONSIDER raising fares, but the brainless administrators and board members that run the MTA could not think about this LOGICAL FEATURE! Its taken over 20 years of NO FARE GATES on just the Blue Line alone before they were enacted there! And yet, there is STILL a “trickling” of implementing these system-wide!
Paul, No guidance on how bus users who had been until now using paper transfers to continue their journey on the Green Line? Shouldn’t that be a part of this press release? And how come only LASD are “assisting” and then only during rush hour? Subway patrons got “TAP Ambassadors” at all hours of the day. Is this another case of Metro stiffing the people who happen to live in South Los Angeles, again?
Sorry to say, but right now TAP is useless between agencies. A Foothill bus won’t read my Metro TAP. Today I had to spend another $7 to get a Foothill TAP at El Monte, cause me to miss my Silver Streak after I got off the Silver Line.
Really? TAP is not valid on Metrolink trains.
Ron,
It’s government you’re talking about. Take their words for a grain of salt. These are the same people who said the taptogo.net website will be fixed “by the end of 2013.”
Really?! TAP on Long Beach Transit by the end of 2014? There’s been no advertising or any visible preparations yet; I find it hard to believe it can get implemented in 10 months.