With construction almost complete on the Gold Line Foothill Extension, the independent agency building the project has begun holding dedication ceremonies for each of the six stations. The dedication for Irwindale Station was held on Friday.
The station is located south of the 210 Freeway and east of Irwindale Avenue on the north side of a vast industrial zone in Irwindale. The station is accessed via a new private street at Irwindale Avenue and Adelante Street. Freight trains will continue to run on a separate track that is adjacent to the new Gold Line tracks. There is parking for 350 vehicles also available.
The 11.5-mile extension of the Gold Line will extend tracks from the current Sierra Madre Villa Station in Pasadena to the Azusa/Glendora border. The new stations will be located in downtown Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale, downtown Azusa and a second Azusa station adjacent to the Rosedale development, Citrus College and Azusa Pacific University. The project is funded by Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase approved by Los Angeles County voters in 2008.
The Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority will begin the process of turning over the project to Metro this fall. Metro will then begin pre-revenue testing and employee training with a planned opening in 2016. Before you ask: we don’t have an exact date yet!
The dedication for the Monrovia Station will be held Saturday, Sept. 12, at 10 a.m. and the dedication of the Azusa stations will be held Saturday, Sept. 19, at 10 a.m. at the downtown station. The ceremonies are open to the public: more info here.
Below is the station dedication program:
And here is a video about the artwork at the Irwindale Station:
Categories: Policy & Funding, Projects
Why is it that Metro only tells us about the dedications after they have happened?
Why not have a few postings in the weeks and days leading up to the events? Maybe have a dedicated bus from SMV out to the dedication service.
LA has one of the worst stations designs in the world. Bland, open air designs, slabs of concrete, and politicians take photo shoots.
Metro can learn a thing or two from Korea:
https://youtu.be/IHXjJHHk0lU
Make these stations into places where people can shop and play and eat!! People want stuff to do, not just sit around wait for the train under the hot, heating sun or rain during the winter time!
Um do you have a picture of a suburban korean metro station. I don’t think it’s fair to compare the gold line stations with a city center metro station where the potential for development are much greater.
“I don’t think it’s fair to compare the gold line stations with a city center metro station where the potential for development are much greater.”
Actually, a suburb has more potential to grow into a city on its own because there’s more empty land space available to build into higher density cores and is an excellent place for transit agencies and developers to form a private-public partnership to re-develop the area surrounding the station, or the stations themselves.
Here’s a question of thought: is the “suburb” that you have in mind in the US be the same “suburb” in other countries?
A “suburb” in itself can come it different flavors. For example this is Funabashi Station in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funabashi,_Chiba). BTW, sister city of Funabashi is Hayward, CA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayward,_California#Sister_cities)
This was once “suburb” of Tokyo where just like LA, people spread out to build homes here to commute into Tokyo. Now it has grown itself into it’s own bustling little city of over 600,000, with its own center of commerce, it’s own shopping mall, it’s own commercial and residential buildings, again similar to how many suburbs in LA are transforming themselves into.
However, it’s still a “suburb” of Tokyo. Many people live in Funabashi, Chiba and commute into Tokyo. Sure doesn’t look like a suburb, does it?
https://youtu.be/7csDMb0Y4N4
https://youtu.be/-XSEKrR8xao
But how did Funabashi change from this
http://i.imgur.com/SOh9qai.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/B6viYW6.jpg
To this?
http://i.imgur.com/PIfWKGd.jpg
Transit oriented development.
Wow, what a difference 35 years makes! The only time I’ve been in a Seoul subway must have been while it was under construction. I don’t remember the train but there were numerous shops along what probably was the linear part of the ROW.
The subway owners must collect a lot of rent for their investment in a bigger ‘tunnel’ under the streets. A huge bonus is escape from the brutal Korean winter!
Wow, the stations looks absolutely super, duper, BORING just like the Arcadia station with absolutely nothing of interest nearby.
Couldn’t Metro have reached out to Huy Fong Foods and Miller Co. to build some kind of sriracha sauce factory store or a Miller microbrewery at this station or something?
Wasn’t a directive issued by the Metro Board that all future rail stations will be constructed with gates in mind so it’ll reduce costly upgrades in the future and to weed out freeloaders from cheating the system? Then why was this still station built without gates? Metro bureaucracy where one hand not talking with the other again?
I believe the Board last year approved a motion calling for study of gating on Foothill stations and some other stations — but they didn’t approve going forward.
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source
Are these “freeloaders” like the #MetroSleepers I see regularly on the “hardend” Red/Purple Line Stations that all have turnstiles, but apparently no CCTV or Police presence?
I believe the problem was that by the time the Metro Board gave that directive, the stations on the foothill gold line and expo 2 extensions were already under construction and the dimensions they were built to did not allow for fare gates without major modifications.
Looks Nice Lets Hope Expo Will Have the Same Thing Very Soon
What is the reason that the Irwindale Station was not designed with a center platform?:
Morris 1/2 of the Stations are Side Platforms and 1/2 are Center
Arcadia Station-Center
Monrovia Station-Side
Duarte Station-Center
Irwindale Station-Side
Azusa Downtown Station-Side
Azusa APU/Citrus-Center
The bridge for Irwindale Avenue is directly to the west.
Hi Morris;
Metro is required to keep a 30-foot separation between the Gold Line tracks and the adjacent BNSF freight track. A center platform would have pushed the Metro tracks farther apart, meaning the three tracks would not have fit under the existing Irwindale Avenue bridge supports.
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source