A big thanks to one of our eagle-eyed readers and riders, Eric, for bringing this to my attention: new timetables went into effect on Feb. 14 for the Blue Line and Expo Line.
The changes aren’t dramatic but may impact those who are on very tight travel schedules with departure times of trains earlier or later by a few minutes, depending on which line you’re using.
Categories: Go Metro
This is a significant change – explains why my arrival times at Expo/Western have been wrong. Every twelve minutes is very different from every ten minutes.
I would like to see the Source keep passengers updated before changes take place. Like the Saturday when they had the Olympic trials in Downtown LA. Streets were closed, buses were detoured, temporary bus stops were set up. However, there was no advanced notification about this even though I am sure that Metro knew in advance this was going to happen. Perhaps the Metro Public Relations Office needs to do a better job of keeping passengers advised about changes.
Well, it’s a 17% cut in night service (going from every 10 minutes on the Blue/Expo to every 12), which is pretty significant, although well overdue, since it was always odd why more trains were being run at night than during the midday and many times service would run every 20 or worse for nighttime maintenance anyway.
http://thesource.metro.net/2011/11/07/metro-announces-more-frequent-subway-trains-blue-line-service-at-night/
http://thesource.metro.net/2013/06/21/metro-announces-more-frequent-late-night-service-on-the-gold-expo-and-orange-lines/
Two things:
(1) I think the 12-minute intervals for the Expo Line is similar to the identical time between Gold Line trains when the Foothill Extension opens on March 5 due to the late delivery of new railcars from Kinkishayro. I’m sure as more railcars become available, the intervals will decrease.
(2) As far as the opening day of the Expo Line Phase 2 to Santa Monica, Streetsblog LA tweeted on Thursday (Feb. 18) that a member of the Metro Executive Committee said that the rail line extension would open on May 20, but then backtracked to say, “We hope it opens on May 20.” A post on Streetsblog LA the next day said that at a Metro meeting this Thursday (Feb. 25) the official announcement for the opening of the Expo Line extension to Santa Monica. Hope the story is true (although for selfish reasons I wish the line could begins exactly a week earlier because I’ll be in Los Angeles from May 10-14).
I’ve been wondering this past week why my 8.10 Expo train was 4-5 mins late consistently. Seriously Metro, you could have gotten the word out before the new schedules went into effect. A 4 min difference may not mean much to you, but for some, if not most of us plan our mornings down to the minute to catch our trains.
Would have been nice if Metro had advertised this and/or informed their passengers. I happened to find out as the train departed “late” two days in a row. I figured once was an engineering issue, the second was a time-table change. I then checked the schedule and voila, found out that the train departs nearly five minutes later. Not an issue for me, thankfully, but others who have connected buses or trains to catch, it could be a major issue. Massive “Fail’ by Metro, in my opinion.