Mike Cannell, Metro‘s general manager of Metro Rail, will answer these questions tonight at the Transit Coalition‘s monthly meeting. It begins at 6:30 p.m. at Philippe, 1001 N. Alameda St., in downtown Los Angeles. It is one block north of Union Station. It’s accessible by the subway, Gold Line, Metrolink, Amtrak and several Metro and municipal bus lines (search our archives for links to schedules).

Reservations are requested for tonight’s meeting. Send an e-mail with “Dinner reservations” in the subject line or call (818) 367-1661. The Transit Coalition meeting is free to attend.

Photo by Alan Weeks and uploaded by Metro Library and Archive on Flickr; used with a Creative Commons license

You, at least more than two-thirds of you, voted for a tax to expand public transit. Most of them come at the last 15 years of the Measure R period. What’s the first 15 years? Attending meetings and seeing maps, diagrams and harangues on what could be.

It also means MetroRiderLA will post yet another meeting post, though longtime MetroReaders know we are much more.

Here’s something to do tonight. The Expo Line Construction Authority conducts a community meeting tonight in West Adams for an update on Phase 1, which may or may not open next year — and likely to Crenshaw Boulevard first and then to Culver City. Find out more by going at 6:30 tonight to Holman United Methodist Church, 3320 W. Adams Blvd. Transit access: Metro lines 37, 38, 209, 210 and 710; and LADOT DASH Midtown.

Thursday, the sparks are sure to fly and Las Vegas bookies have placed odds at 3 to 1 that something may get accomplished at Metro’s monthly meeting, where the board must vote on the long-range transportation plan. How long range? A vote Thursday affects spending for the next 40 years. Curbed LA lists some of the major items, including the subway extension, the regional connector, and the Foothill Gold Line extension. Of course, the reason for odds is that Metro may decide to punt again. That, or Metro may spend hours arguing over what color the Expo Line ought to be. The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. It’s at Union Station. By now we trust MetroReaders to know what buses and trains to take here.

And both tonight and tomorrow, Metro is also asking what ought to be done with the Harbor Subdivision. All options are considered: bus rapid transit, light rail, Metrolink service, or an express train between Union Station and LAX. Tonight’s meeting at 6 is at the Jackie Robinson Academy Auditorium, 2750 Pine Ave., Long Beach. Thursday’s meeting, also at 6 p.m., is at the Miriam Matthews Branch Library, 2205 Florence Ave., Hyde Park.

Transit access to the Long Beach meeting: Metro Blue Line and Long Beach Transit lines 51-52, 101-103 and 181-182
Transit access to the Hyde Park meeting: Metro lines 111, 207, 209, 210, 710, 711 and 757

You’re only going to have one week to see this bathroom tilework, and some movies too, at one of downtown L.A.’s least known landmarks.
Photo by jojomelons via Flickr; used with a Creative Commons license

In one more step of downtown becoming a place for people again, LA Live is about to get its latest addition to being a full-on Universal CityWalk clone. Regal will open a 14-screen movie palace among the restaurants, bowling alley, Grammy Museum and in-your-face advertising next Tuesday, October 27. Fittingly, it will open with advanced screenings of the Michael Jackson encomium “This is It.” For more Michael Jackson related goodness, LA Live hopes to set a world record for the most people doing a mass “Thriller” dance anywhere. Get in on the fun 5:30 p.m. Saturday — but you have to register and actually know how to do the “Thriller” dance.

This celebration does not come without some collateral damage. As Blogdowntown‘s Ed Fuentes reported, “As Downtown gets sets to welcome one theater, another is already waving the white flag of surrender. Citing impending competition, the Laemmle Grande 4-Plex will close its doors on October 25.”

Some of you reading this are probably discovering that downtown L.A. had such a movie theater for the first time, and now it’s closing before you had a chance to see it. Or, as we at MetroRiderLA like to see, Laemmle decided to “pull a Megabus” on us. Though in fairness to Laemmle, it didn’t make the most token of efforts to set up a business and pull out as soon as it could like the pantywaists running the $1.50 bus. Laemmle was truly charitable in keeping such a facility running for as long as it did, even though it sold about as many seats as Megabus. Well, considering the Grande 4-Plex’s tenure, it’s more persistent. So it would be more apt to call it the San Jose light rail of cinemas.

Well, MetroReaders, you have less than a week to support the meager selections of movies available at the downtown movie house. You also have a chance to see how the little movie theater that wasn’t supposed to cut it … well, didn’t. But marvel at how it persisted.

First off, the Grande 4-Plex is more of an afterthought using a nook of a hotel space. The Grande 4-Plex is in the basement of the Marriott hotel at Fourth and Figueroa streets. There’s a marquee in front of a set of stairs that looks like it leads to an emergency exit for the hotel. That’s the theater. The box office has been closed for some time, so go inside and buy your tickets from the food counter.

Then, take your seat. Heck, take the whole theater room, as chances are you’ll be the only one in there. It’s like a home theater outside of the home. The decor is weatherbeaten, but the theater is generally clean all around. Well, except for the men’s room. The stalls have full doors, not just a swiveling sheet of metal with a large gap at the top and bottom — and this had led to a lot of graffiti. It’s a shame, because there is that neat tilework.

Once you are done watching a film, walk a few blocks south on Figueroa to get away from the eerie lifelessness at points north of the Bonaventure Hotel.

That, MetroReaders, is in large part why the Grande ambled around as long as it did like a zombie. Location, location, location. And you couldn’t pick a worse place than a basement in a hotel with the movement patterns of an airport off-ramp.

Marriott is not near an airport, but it is sandwiched between a 110 Freeway offramp and the bewildering maze of ramps that disconnect Figueroa from the streets of Bunker Hill. So despite having access to a freeway, Laemmle was never able to become a regional attraction that people were willing to drive to. And they didn’t have to. The movie theaters went on a building spree several years earlier than the housing binge that became the bubble that swallowed our economy. So with this overbuilding, people really didn’t have to drive far away to their homes. Plus these are people who hate downtown, anyway.

So Laemmle could have had support from the downtown community and built a viewer base on pedestrian activity and transit usage. Except, it really couldn’t. That part of Figueroa is really a no-person’s-land. It was too far from Metro Rail stations and and pedestrian activity comes to all but a halt north of Fifth Street. The most convenient bus stop is the first stop for lines leaving the layover zone on Beaudry Avenue.

Plus, all the human-centered activity has been occurring in the Historic Core and South Park, while the theater languished in the shadow of the Financial District towers.

Yet this is not meant to be a Nelson Muntz-like “Ha ha!” at Laemmle. I’ve appreciated this hidden gem for all the years it has been operating, as tickets were cheap, seats were plentiful, and it stayed true to downtown long before downtown L.A. became cool.

I don’t blame Laemmle for rolling over and letting Regal become the alpha theater. Like it or hate it, Regal has better access for cars, buses and trains (it is about two blocks from either the 7th Street Metro Center or Pico stations). It also is in an area with tremendous pedestrian activity, albeit in one that imposes yet another amusement park setting that might detract from downtown’s urban fabric.

So, thank you, Laemmle and best of luck to Regal.

Transit access: Both the Laemmle Grande 4-Plex and Regal LA Live Stadium 14 are very close to dozens of bus lines operated by Metro, LADOT, Montebello and Santa Monica. Links to each line would have been too time-consuming. If you need routing help, just post a message here and your request will be answered promptly.

Another day, another announcement about a Metro planning adventure. If you’ve enjoyed the meetings about the Crenshaw Corridor, the Wilshire Boulevard bus lanes, and the upcoming Regional Connector series, you’re sure to love the magnum opus of the next 30 years of public transit planning: the extension of the subway.

This time, Metro has changed the formats of the meeting. Now, instead of a general overview of the project, each meeting will focus on a minimal operating segment specific to the community. You’ll see what we mean, and as a refresher, the Census profiles for each segment will be included as something to keep in mind before heading to these hearings.

If you support the extension and are into the social networking thing, be a friend to the Metro Westside Subway Extension on Facebook.

All meetings are from 6 to 8 p.m.

Thursday, October 22
Santa Monica Public Library Multipurpose Room
601 Santa Monica Bl., Santa Monica
Transit access: Big Blue Bus lines 1, 2, 3/Rapid 3, 4, 5, 7/Rapid 7, 8, 9 and 10; and Metro lines 4, 20, 704,  720 and 920
Relevant stations: Wilshire/Bundy, Wilshire/26th, Wilshire/16th and Wilshire/4th
Study guide: Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-5 stations

Monday, October 26
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Terrace Room, fifth floor
5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Transit access: LADOT DASH Fairfax; and Metro lines 20, 28, 217, 720, 728, 780 and 920
Relevant stations: Wilshire/Crenshaw, Wilshire/La Brea and Wilshire/Fairfax
Study guides: Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-1 stations and the one that started it all: MetroRiderLA’s unimpeachable research that conclusively shows the merit of making the optional Crenshaw station a must-add. You can also see the representative buildings on Flickr.

Tuesday, November 3
Pacific Design Center
8687 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood
Transit access: LADOT DASH Hollywood/West Hollywood; Metro lines 4, 10, 14, 105, 220, 305, 550, 704, 705 and 714;  and West Hollywood City Lines 1 and 2
Relevant stations: Hollywood/Highland II, Santa Monica/La Brea, Santa Monica/Fairfax, Santa Monica/San Vicente and Beverly Center
Study guides: Census profiles for Pink Line MOS-4 stations

Wednesday, November 4
Beverly Hills City Hall
455 N. Rexford Dr., Beverly Hills
Transit access: Metro lines 14, 16/316, 20, 714, 720 and 920
Relevant stations: Wilshire/La Cienega and Wilshire/Beverly (MOS-2)
Study guides: Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-2 stations

Thursday, November 5
Wadsworth Theatre
11301 Wilshire Blvd., West Los Angeles
Transit access: Big Blue Bus lines 2 and 3; and Metro lines 20 and 720
Relevant stations: Century City, Westwood, VA Hospital and Wilshire/Barrington
Study guides: Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-3 stations

No MetroRiderized post for this, but Metro has a series of Regional Connector (the second subway through downtown L.A.) meetings in November. Three of them are in downtown L.A. One of them is in Pasadena.

One of the challenges to bus lanes on Wilshire: How to handle scenarios like this.
Photo by Yours Truly via Flickr. Find this and other photos in the MetroRiderLA Flickr Pool.

If you like shaping the future of transit in Los Angeles County, Metro is going to keep your plate full this fall.

If you’re just trying to digest all of the information from the Crenshaw Corridor, now comes a meeting about the bus lanes on Wilshire Bouelvard within Los Angeles city limits.

Four meetings are scheduled. All are from 6 to 8 p.m. weekday evenings.

Monday, October 5
Felicia Mahood Senior Center, 11338 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles
Transit access: Metro Lines 4 and 704; Big Blue Bus lines 1 and 4; and Culver CityBus Line 6

Wednesday, October 7
Wilshire United Methodist Church, 4350 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Transit access: Metro lines 20, 210, 710 and 720

Thursday, October 8
Westwood Presbyterian Church, 10822 Wilshire Blvd., West Los Angeles
Transit access: Big Blue Bus lines 1, 2, 3, 8 and 12; Culver CityBus Line 6; and Metro lines 20, 720 and 920

Tuesday, October 13
Good Samaritan Medical Center, Moseley-Salvatori Conference Center, 637 Lucas Ave., Los Angeles
Transit access: Metro lines 18, 20, 26/51/52/352, 487 and 720; and LADOT DASH Pico Union/Echo Park

Photo by concrete cornfields (who uses the old M logo as an avatar) via Flickr; used with a Creative Commons license

Metro is holding a series of open houses and workshops for the Crenshaw Corridor project. Metro is considering investing in bus rapid transit (an upgraded Line 710) or light rail between the Green Line, Inglewood and either the Expo Line or all the way to Wilshire Boulevard (bus only).

Each two-hour meeting features 45 minutes of an introduction period, a 15 minute project demonstration and an hour for comment.

The upcoming four sessions are going to be in Windsor Village, the Crenshaw and Leimert Park areas and Inglewood. All meetings except the Saturday session at Inglewood High School are from 6 to 8 p.m. Details follow.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Wilshire United Methodist Church, 4350 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Transit access: Metro lines 20, 210, 710 and 720

Thursday, October 1, 2009
West Angeles Church of God in Christ, 3045 Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles
Transit access: Metro lines 38, 210 and 710; and LADOT DASH Midtown

Saturday, October 3, 2009, 10 am – noon
Inglewood High School Cafeteria, 231 S. Grevillea Ave., Inglewood
Transit access: Metro lines 40, 111, 115, 212 and 740

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Transfiguration Church, 2515 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Los Angeles
Transit access: Metro lines 40, 42, 207, 209 and 757; and LADOT DASH Leimert/Slauson

Photo by Metro

The Transit Coalition has invited Arthur Leahy, Metro’s chief executive officer, to its meeting at 6:45 tonight at Philippe, 1001 N. Alameda St., across from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. This is a chance for both transit supporters and haterz to meet L.A.’s transit chief face-to-face.

Leahy took over as Metro’s CEO earlier this year, succeeding Roger Snoble. Leahy’s transportation career began here in Los Angeles, as an RTD bus driver almost four decades ago. He later moved into operations management, and his major claim to fame came in 1984 when he helped coordinate bus service during the Olympic Games. His executive-level experience has been previously as CEO of the Orange County Transportation Authority, and before that, general manager of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Council transit system.

Stop by tonight and share your thoughts. I’d be spending about a half day putting up links for every transit service that runs near the Union Station area, but the easiest way to get there is on the subway or Gold Line. There are about two dozen bus lines within walking distance, too.

RSVP the Transit Coalition’s Bart Reed by e-mail or by calling (818) 367-1661 to confirm.

Image courtesy of Steven Vance via Flickr.  Remixed under Creative Commons.

Rain!

Heavy grocery bags!

Nighttime!

Like a late-night infomercial extolling the horrible alternatives to life without the pitchman’s product, an article published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) presents these as just a few of the unexpected hardships one might encounter while getting around without a car. The article brings these issues to light just before World Carfree Day, an informal worldwide “celebration of cities and public life, free from the noise, stress and pollution of cars” that takes place on September 22nd.  The free-market think tank admits the event is likely “harmless” but fears that an uninformed populace may be fooled by the disingenuous images that sugar-coat car-free living and may eventually influence policy-makers “to use taxes, fees, zoning restrictions and other regulations to make owning one’s own car more difficult and expensive”.

In a classic reality-check, CEI asks those who may be considering a car-free lifestyle to try living without a car under the following conditions before buying a bike and a TAP card (picture these in black and white with actors struggling way too hard):

• When it’s raining
• When you’re carrying several bags of groceries
• When you’re carrying a baby, with a toddler alongside you
• On crutches
• After midnight
• Without using a car or cab to get to the train or bus station
• Any combination of the above

With so many compelling reasons, how can I not ACT NOW! and order a car in the next 15 minutes?  Check out CEI’s Anti-”World Carfree Day” video from last year for more infomercial caliber nonsense. In the spirit of the free-market, I wonder if there are any solutions to these problems that are low-cost, offer freedom of choice, and let citizens avoid costly tax-payer funded infrastructure projects like our nations autoroads?

An umbrella comes to mind for the rain problem.  Any others we can send to CEI?

Related:

• MetroRiderLA 04/03/2008 – Exposing Socialist Libertarians

Here are two quick screen grabs of street closures for this weekend’s Sunset Junction. I’ve tried to find some information about where and how the busses along Sunset and Santa Monica (2, 4, 704, 302) will be re-routed by couldn’t do so. The Metro site itself, not surprisingly, has failed to be of much help. However, I could simply be looking in the wrong direction.

Which brings up another point in general. How is it that no where on the Metro site is there any mentioning of the festival. I know it’s no longer the non-profit ideal that it used to be but it’s so insanely close to the Sunset/Santa Monica Red Line station as well as some of Metro’s busiest bus lines (2, 4, 704) that not promoting the use of public transit to the festival seems outlandish. This is only a microcosm of Metro in general not promoting itself better for the thousands of festivals that occur in Los Angeles yearly. And with that, their failure to make sure, if such a festival does occur near a train station, an ample amount of Metro employees are there to help with the purchasing of tickets. After all, nothing diverts a first time user of public transit from a repeat effort like exhausting lines at ticket machines as you hear train upon train coming and going.

In Chicago, during Cubs games, CTA employees open up all gates at Addison so any and all can get through faster with cash and card rather than all waiting at endless ticket lines. Such should be the case in Los Angeles for equally opportune events–think Halloween at Hwood/Highland among many others.

If anyone has any info about bus re-routes this weekend please post below. I have a weekend series of Cubs/Doyers to attend and I don’t want to show up in the 3rd inning like everyone else. ; )