MetroRiderLA

Tonight, Metro’s San Fernando Valley Service Sector holds its monthly meeting, also its hearing for service changes it plans for this June. The meeting is 6:30 tonight at the Marvin Braude Constituent Center, 6262 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys.

Transit access includes Metro Orange Line, Rapid Line 761, Local lines 156, 164, 233 and 237; and LADOT DASH Panorama City-Van Nuys and Van Nuys-Studio City.

Metro will also accept written testimony via e-mail, with “Service Changes June ‘09?” in the subject line. Metro also accepts written comments by mail at:
Metro Customer Relations
Attn: June 2009 Service Changes
One Gateway Plaza, 99-PL-4
Los Angeles, CA 90012-2932

All of the changes affect San Fernando Road and Lankershim Boulevard. San Fernando will look as it did before the introduction of Rapid Line 794. Also, Rapid Line 724 is proposed for cancellation, with service hours reallocated to local Line 224. My thoughts on the service changes follows.

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Another day, another major component of Open Source Transit.

This time, it is suggestions for how the Eastside Gold Line extension can help Montebello Bus Lines — and vice versa.

Some of the most controversial proposals involve a proposed transfer of lines from Metro to Montebello. It is never easy handing a line off to a carrier, but Montebello has proved itself to be capable when it adopted the former Metro lines 104 and 262 — today’s 50 and 30, respectively.

Montebello is included as a carrier that could possibly inherit today’s Metro lines 62 and 265. Those are some of Metro’s less productive lines, admittedly. Well, one of the line proposals calls for Metro to shed one of its busier lines.

See it, and some of the routing change proposals for its other lines, after the jump.

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Open Source Transit rolls out of the division today! This initiative is by transit riders, for transit riders — and it is designed to simulate a transit agency’s public hearing process for route changes.

The following is a list of proposed changes for Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s DASH services to better interface with the Eastside extension of the Metro Gold Line. These are only user-generated proposals and do not reflect any guarantee or the position of LADOT.

These proposals will be submitted to city of Los Angeles and LADOT officials. If you wish for your comments to be included with the report, please leave your real name and e-mail with your comments and they will be forwarded for consideration. You can also submit private comments by e-mail.

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The Eastside Gold Line Transit Service Interface Proposal has been a work in progress for years. As the Eastside Gold Line nears its opening and Metro prepares to solicit input on how to reconfigure service, it’s about time MetroRiderLA pioneers a new venture in dialogue: Open Source Transit.

Keep in mind that the proposals in the next few days are only lines on a map drawn by a transit user. The goal of this Open Source Transit project is to simulate a mock route change proposal that is normally conducted by Metro and other transit agencies. This one attempts to simulate proposals for bus service changes to better interface with the opening of the Eastside Gold Line later this year.

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This Saturday, Pam O’Connor will talk about her year as Chair of the Metro Board, Metro’s future transit plans, and other issues… and take your questions as well, as the Southern California Transit Advocates continue their 2008 Speakers’ Series. Kymberleigh Richards, SO.CA.TA’S Public and Legislative Affairs Director, will be moderating the chat so you’re more likely to get your questions answered than Metro’s Pam chats.

From the link:
Pam O’Connor, member of the Metro Board of Directors, will be the guest speaker at the August 9 meeting.

Ms. O’Connor, who has just completed a one-year term as Chair of the Metro Board, has served on the Santa Monica City Council since 1994 and has served three terms as that city’s mayor.

Southern California Transit Advocates holds general membership meetings at Angelus Plaza, 255 S. Hill St., in the fourth floor meeting room. The meeting begins at 1:00pm and Ms. O’Connor will speak at 2:15pm. The general public is welcome to attend.

The location is transit accessible by about 50 bus lines and the Red/Purple Line, or if you insist on driving, parking is $5.00.

This post is to confirm what you already know, I’m taking a hiatus from blogging.

This wild foray into transit blogging in the car capital of the world has kept me occupied for a little over two years now.  It’s been great fun, and attracted more readers than I ever imagined, and in many ways a real community formed from these silly postings.  The fact that even the most mundane posting of a few news links can garner 60 comment flame wars is a testament to that.

I started this blog two years ago because there weren’t really any sites devoted to promoting, discussing, and informing people about the mass transit system of the second largest city in the United States.  Well, things have changed in the last two years, and I’d like to think that MetroRider helped in some small way spur that change.  Today there’s no shortage of people online talking about Metro, and there are in fact two blogs devoted to Los Angeles specific transportation issues that are run by full-time professional journalists and updated daily.  If Streetsblog LA and (the new and improved) Bottleneck Blog were around two years ago, it’s likely MetroRiderLA never would have been born.

Other essential L.A. transit blogs that have appeared since MetroRiderLA came on to the scene include John von Kerczek’s collection of fantasy maps and insightful commentary on “Ditch the Car, Take the Metro” and the ever critical, vulgar, and often hilarious “Bus Bench“.

So the reason I’ve decided to take a break from MetroRiderLA for an indefinite amount of time is that, for one, I’m really busy with my work that I get money for, and in a sagging economy it’s important that I concentrate on making dat money.  Also, I’ve been finding it hard to compete with the full-time bloggers (and full fledged journalists) over at The Bottleneck Blog and Streetsblog LA.  I simply do not have the luxury of time or the journalistic skillz (to say nothing of the monetary incentive) that those platinum playboys do to offer that kind of in-depth, compelling coverage of “the transit oriented lifestyle”.  Also, for whatever reason, I’m just kind of sick of blogs in general right now.  I used to check the LA blogs and transit blogs daily, but for the last month or so I haven’t felt compelled to read or comment on them.  Blog burnout.

The time for hiatus has come because of all of this, and I can’t be sure how long it will last.  Ideally I’d like to find a way to reorient the blog in a way that will address a niche that the other two major L.A. transit blogs don’t cover.  My vision for MetroRiderLA has always been to focus on the “lifestyle” of being a transit rider in Los Angeles as opposed to the politics of the mess.  But unfortunately, to truly cover the lifestyle in the way that I have imagined would require a lot of time and energy that I don’t currently have.  If you have any ideas for the future of MetroRiderLA, feel free to comment, I’ll take anything and everything into consideration.  Until I return, enjoy the forum and all the other great L.A. transit blogs.

Hopefully this break will lead to a new and improved MetroRiderLA upon my return.  Thanks for the support for these last two years!