How We Roll, Sept. 14ish: It’s Wednesday we need a shot in the arm

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Art of Transit: 

Work is underway on demolishing one residential building and two commercial properties to make way for two construction staging yards near the future Wilshire/La Cienega Station for the Purple Line Extension. Photo: Metro.

Work is underway on demolishing one residential building and two commercial properties to make way for two construction staging yards near the future Wilshire/La Cienega Station for the Purple Line Extension. Photo: Metro.

Things on Twitter: 

Agree that a lot of people would have used the DSE tonight. But it’s ultimately up to promoters to allow bus service to stadium events.

Kinkisharyo is in the early stages of manufacturing 235 new light rail vehicles for Metro. The cars are manufactured in Japan and assembled in a facility in Palmdale. It will be easier to say “goodbye traffic” when more of the new LRVs arrive 🙂

Metro says Expo Line converted solo drivers to transit users (KPCC)

A look at the survey Metro released this week that found that half of the new riders on the Expo extension used to drive alone to their destination.

Eyes on the street: Santa Monica gets creative with its crosswalks (Streetsblog LA)

Not every crosswalk in the city, mind you — but some in DTSM. They’re awesome. Every city should be copycatting these. Pro tip: hey cities, find some student artists to create your own colorful crosswalk.

How did G.M. create Tesla’s dream car first? (NYT)

Credit: Chevrolet.

Credit: Chevrolet.

Tech writer Farhad Manjoo loves the Chevy Bolt, an electric car that will sell for about $30K after a federal rebate and will get about 238 miles on a single charge. The Bolt goes on sale later this year.

Question: and how does one get to any Eastern Sierra destinations beyond Lone Pine in an electric car?

ev_charging_stations_ca

Winnipeg revises the transit token (Wired)

Not for everyone. But for students and social service recipients, Winnipeg transit officials found that it was cheaper to go with tokens than use plastic fare cards.

And finally, some music to get you past the Day of the Hump — and looking forward to seeing these guys tonight at the Ace Hotel: 

Categories: Transportation Headlines

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8 replies ›

  1. It’s not that promoters have to “allow” Metro to serve the event but they have to PAY for the service. The Dodger shuttle is not funded with regular fare revenue but from the MSRC under their grant program. The Rose Bowl shuttle for Gold Line riders is an incidental part of the intended purpose of the service, which is to take people from the Parsons parking lot to the game. It should be a condition of approving any event over a certain size (I would use 20,000 as a good starting point) that the operator must provide some sort of transportation service from high frequency transit for ticket holders. They don’t have to use Metro – many ex-Metro buses are operated by charter companies for things like the Hollywood Bowl Express and for movie props – but they need to provide something.

    • Agree with this. It’s not fair that they make the money and the surrounding community puts up with the traffic burden. Charge the promoters regardless of whether they want a shuttle or not.

  2. Regarding the demo shown in the Art of Transit pic. Does Metro require the contractor to use best practices in the tearing down of buildings? Deconstruction can save a tremendous amount of landfill disposal costs. It saves greenhouse gas emissions. And it saves the use of new resources. Many items can be salvage and used by Habitat for Humanity, etc. Except rebar, most of the metal can be pulled out before demoing the walls.

  3. I’ve got a question about the new trains–I love the new ones on the Expo line and am always disappointed to see one of the old ones pull up to the station. Why? They are so darn chatty! The new trains are quiet and relaxing, there isn’t a recorded voice on the loudspeaker talking the ENTIRE TRIP. The sound is so loud it somehow worms its way past my headphones too. Any idea if at some point Metro is going to change this? Or are the old cars going to be taken out of service to be refurbished to be like the new ones?

    • I like the newness of the new trains but the seats hit me just under the clavicle – extremely uncomfortable for the hour long ride (48 minutes, my sore back). I’m not very tall, so it seems the seats were made for little people.

      Would also ask the announcements to be softer, and fewer – along with the door bells that shriek when closing.

      & why don’t the trains get traffic priority? When you have to sit between Pico and 23rd street for ten minutes, constantly, it’s frustrating.