MetroRiderLA

Heard about those plans to run a streetcar along the streets of downtown Los Angeles, possibly Broadway?

If not, you can hear about them today. Los Angeles Streetcar Inc., the group leading the streetcar charge, holds an open house starting at 4 this afternoon. The group has invited Los Angeles council members Jan Perry and Jose Huizar to speak at around 6 p.m.

It is at the Bradbury Building, one of downtown’s finest architectural gems, at 304 S. Broadway, on the 5th floor. It is near the Pershing Square Red and Purple Line station, and let me just save the time and say that there are dozens of Metro and municipal buses running through downtown near there and not have to link to every schedule.

These are some things L.A. won’t have to worry about in the near future.
Photos by Yours Truly. They can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

First, a little back-slappery.

This posts marks the 1,001st on MetroRiderLA! Well, that’s what the WordPress admin log says. Transit nerds tend to be a pedantic bunch, and there is likely some of you that may actually bother to count all the posts. If there are some missing, a few of the other posters and I created scratch posts that were never intended for publishing and deleted, so don’t bust MRLA’s hump if the number is not 1,001.

So, hurray us!

Two other items transit riders should rejoice about, as the can of stupidity kicked down a few months can be chalked up as good things, too. According to Streetsblog L.A.:

1. Metro has voted to delay the installation of fare gates! While some see fare gates as a sign that L.A. is becoming a “real” system, many others, including here, have misgivings about the system. In Streetsblog’s report of Thursday’s Metro board meeting:
   

   “Leahy has directed staff to research how the turnstiles will effect mobility within the stations and how TAP implementation issues effect turnstile rollout.  The staff report is due in December.  Despite their near unanimous support, in the face of near unanimous opposition from the public for the turnstiles in the Spring of 2008, no Board Member had any questions or objections for Leahy’s delay.”

2. In the same item, the worm turns again for the maligned AnsaldoBreda deal. The Italian train maker, which has built Metro’s subway cars and the new 700-series light rail cars running in limited revenue service on the Gold Line, is coming under fire for not only late delivery of cars, but poor workmanship. AB’s effort to keep its Metro contract now hinges on an “offer” not only to open a manufacturing plant in L.A., but also to move its U.S. headquarters here.
   Again, the Metro board punted on extending the Breda deal. Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times reported that Metro CEO Art Leahy was against AB before he was for it … or at least for another 60 days before recommending another course of action. Yet, as this post in the Transport Politic shows, AnsaldoBreda has been a nightmare for transit agencies in the U.S. and Europe.

Wilshire/Normandie station’s mezzanine, still fare gate-free, temporarily.

One of the gates has already been installed, though it is far from being functional yet.

Five more of its friends will be joining it shortly.

The Bus Bench tipped the blogosphere off early Wednesday that crews had begun installing fare gates at the Purple Line’s Wilshire/Normandie station in Koreatown. Yours Truly went later Wednesday afternoon to see the progress; one of the gates had been installed and five more were next. The photos are available on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

Before today’s harangue, enjoy a classic poem that inspired the headline.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

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And you may ask yourself, what is that beautiful art deco concert venue? And you may ask yourself, where do those buses go? And you may ask yourself, am I right? Am I wrong?
Hat tip to Justin Walker on the Transit Coalition message board

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The Militant Angeleno has discovered that Metro and Google have finally brought Google Transit trip planning to Los Angeles Metro riders.  I can confirm, along with the Militant, that it really works.  Planning a trip on Metro no longer means going through the antiquated and cumbersome Metro Advanced Trip Planner, which served its purpose but was never really elegant, friendly, or necessarily accurate.  Now you can simply point your browser, or Google Maps enabled smart phone (I can confirm it works on the iPhone), to Google Transit or Google Maps, enter your start and end address (or something less specific, like “Arclight Theater”, it works!), choose the “By Public Transit Option”, adjust the time you want to leave or arrive by, and hit “Get Directions”.  Google maps out your route and gives you a few different suggested routes and turn by turn directions.  It’s the Google Maps functionality we’ve grown accustomed to for years now, tailored to our preferred mode of transportation, and it’s brilliant.

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That sign at the top may become a hot seller on eBay come Monday.
Photo by Yours Truly via Flickr. See more photos like it, or contribute yours to the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool

Just as quickly as Metro Line 632 came into existence, much of it is already going away … and it has only been in service for a week.

Metro is cutting back 632 to within Los Angeles city limits effective Monday. The line will only travel from Union Station to Indiana Station. Passengers wishing to go between Indiana and Atlantic/Pomona stations must transfer to Montebello Bus Line 40.