From our friends at the Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority, the agency building the 11.5-mile line between eastern Pasadena and the Azusa/Glendora border:
Click above to see larger version.
Track work for the project will be completed on Saturday at a ceremony open to the public at 10 a.m. in Azusa. Click here for a recent Source post with great video on the track work and information about the event.
Categories: Projects
@Kimberly, thank you for bringing this to everyone’s attention. Another great example of poor interagency planning and politics getting in the way of public service.
At first glance, cancelling this route seems about eighteen months too soon as much of its ridership may use the Expo line extension. Metro gives very short shrift to north-south routes west of LaBrea, so the limited 220 route & schedule is not surprising.
An even bigger problem appears to be prior ‘agreements’ where high capacity Metro and BBB routes end midway between downtown Santa Monica and Los Angeles, thus requiring Yet Another Transfer. This is a severe deterrent to getting time sensitive car commuters onto public transit!
COME ON LAC and Santa Monica bureaucrats and politicos, please agree to SPLIT the schedule and revenue for selected through routes. Look at the map – Santa Monica Blvd, Wilshire Blvd, Pico Blvd, and Venice Blvd need non-stop, 20 hour/day local and 15 hour/day express (Rapid) service from the beach to Union Station, complemented with similar frequency north-south feeder routes.
Why are some of the stations built with one center platform and others with two side platforms? Which configuration is better?
Are you aware Santa Monica Big Blue Bus @ http://www.bigbluebus.com , wants to eliminate the 5 Line which is the Expo Line, Culver City
Station’s primary connecting mass transit bus, heading North, to Los Angeles Westside & Hollywood, via Robertson Blvd.?
Santa Monica contends MTA Line 220, running once per hour on Robertson Blvd. & zero on weekends, is plenty for anyone wanting to reach Beverly Hills, Century City & much of Westside. The Big Blue Bus #5, twice per hour, is jammed with shoppers, high schoolers, Expo Line riders & tons of Seniors.
It’s sad trying to utilize mass transit, when our busses are taken away, leaving us with nothing most of the time.
Santa Monica Big Blue Bus @ http://www.bigbluebus.com hid this outrageous change by burying it in a survey they emailed out that few frequent riders saw.
Thank you,
Kim Walling
10/16/14
I’m just back from the future of LA Union Station community event in the former Harvey House with these thoughts: 1) Hooray! The Mozaic apartments will be demolished. 2) Fortunately the “new” station construction does not appear to impinge on the old station’s classic Spanish design. However, the new section looks more like a cutting-edge shopping mall in Dubai or Hong Kong than a Spanish Revival cathedral of transportation. A more sensitive architect could have blended the old and new better. 3) Was someone joking when a steam locomotive “symbol” was used in the artist’s rendition for Amtrak’s presence in the station, or was it a political statement? I like Thomas the Tank Engine as much as anybody, but was your tenant consulted? 4) Finally, something anyone could agree upon, the event catering by Homegirl Cafe was excellent and it should have a future presence in the station.
Do the Expo Line Phase 2 next! I wanna compare the stats on both extensions.
Wow, that’s a lot of environmental impact. Is that really the best thing to showcase?