MetroRiderLA

Photo by Yours Truly. It can be found in the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool..

Remember how upset transit riders and the transit netsphere were up in arms about Metro‘s installation of fare gates? Here’s a refresher from July of last year, complete with bonus poem.

Now as the fare gates have been installed where they plausibly can work, the Daily News recently confirmed what we all knew along. Metro paid a pretty penny for the turnstiles and they won’t work as designed.

For a contract worth $46 million, Metro can’t lock the turnstiles but can lock itself into an overcomplicated mess. The turnstiles, now about a year in operation, haven’t solved the fare evasion problem and opened up a host of operational and administrative nightmares.

What could that $46 million have bought us? Had that money been thrown in the operations bucket, where it’s urgently needed, we could have held fares to levels before July 1 for at least two years. Or, with Metro’s operating costs for a bus about $120 an hour, that same $46 million would have bought more than 380,000 hours of service.

Instead, we now have good money going after bad to solve a problem based on a faulty premise. Even the money won’t solve the root of the problem, the TAP card.

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Metro has proposed canceling the rush-hour Line 177, seen here in Pasadena. Photo by Fred Camino via the MetroRiderLA Flickr group; used with a Creative Commons License

Metro‘s service sectors begin hearings on the service changes proposed for the December shake-up. Five Rapid lines and seven local services are proposed for elimination. MetroRiderLA has the list of service changes, which were posted in July, with links to the schedules.

The public meetings begin today, but comments will be accepted through Saturday, August 14, 2010. Comments can be sent by e-mail to Metro with Service Changes December 2010 in the subject line, or by mail to
Metro Customer Relations
Attn: December 2010 Service Changes
One Gateway Plaza, 99PL4
Los Angeles, CA 90012-2932

Before I share my thoughts on the service changes, here are the locations for the governance council meetings. The first is tonight for the San Fernando Valley sector.

Tonight, 6:30pm
Marvin Braude Constituent Center
6262 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys
Connections: Metro Orange Line and 902, 233, 237, 164 761; LADOT DASH Van Nuys/Panorama City and Van Nuys/Studio City

Monday, August 9, 6 p.m.
San Gabriel Valley sector office
3449 Santa Anita Ave., third floor, El Monte
Connections: Metro Silver Line, 70, 76, 176, 190, 194, 267, 268, 270, 287, 487, 577, 770; Foothill Transit Silver Streak, 178, 269, 486, 488, 492; El Monte Transit Yellow and Green Lines

Wednesday, August 11, 5 p.m.
La Cienega Tennis Center
325 S. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills
Connections: Metro lines 20, 28, 105, 305, 550, 705, 720 and 728

Thursday, August 12, 5 p.m.
The Gas Company
9240 Firestone Blvd., Downey
Connections: Metro Line 115, 127, 266; DowneyLink Northeast, Southwest and Southeast lines

Friday, August 13, 9:30 a.m.
Carson Community Center
801 Carson St., Carson
Connections: Metro Lines 246/247; Torrance Transit Line 3; all Carson Circuit routes

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Photo by Fred Camino in the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool. Used with a Creative Commons license.

For the anniversary that marks the first generation of modern urban rail in Los Angeles, July 14, 2010, was a day like any other on the Blue Line. No fanfare, no recognition, just people going about their business. The inaugural run of the Blue Line was the talk of the town. The Militant Angeleno was there, and he provided footage. The 10th anniversary was marked with a modern train paying an homage to history.

There’s not much to celebrate this time around. Metro just raised its fares on the 1st, and the deadbeat state is again flaking on funding, and that of course means another round of service cuts. The 20th anniversary also comes full circle to the 1990 opening day. Then and now, the Los Angeles economy was mired in a deep recession — both in the wake of financial crises and real estate bubbles.

While the anniversary itself went by without fanfare, the Blue Line itself has proven to be an important backbone and setting the pace for our still-growing network with ridership well north of 70,000 on weekdays. It has also been a line that has seen the extremes of few major transformative developments and most of the communities remaining as they were in 1990.

July 14 offered a look at what is different and the same with a fully mature light rail line.

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Photo by Yours Truly via Flickr

Sorry for not getting this up sooner. We were out of town last week and unable to express our shock and dismay at the result of the real NBA Finals.

For a while, it looked like our prediction was about to come through. Boston managed to break through and gain a 3-2 lead going into Game 5. The Lakers then caught up in Game 6, and took it to a Game 7 … and won the whole thing.

Yes, an L.A. website could be shocked and dismayed that our home team managed to win back-to-back championships. Shocked and dismayed that our prediction proved inaccurate, but moreso because a small contingent of “fans” take it upon themselves to start a riot just for no other reason than fun.

For your actions in disgracing this city, the championship Lakers, the sport of basketball, and while we’re at it, the entire human race, those who trashed the area around Staples Center need to be declared enemy combatants and extraordinarily rendered. If that fails, let these specimens of crotch rot resurface at today’s parade and be pounded on by Ron Artest.

Anyway, in case you don’t know, the Lakers will hold their victory parade today at 11 a.m. along Figueroa Street from the Staples Center to Jefferson Boulevard. This is going to snarl bus routes downtown, so your best bet will be to take the Blue Line to Pico or Grand stations.

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Imagine if you could get a house for $20. What an amazing deal, right? Imagine all of the money saved that you could now spend on other things. If all of our houses were $20, everyone would be a lot richer. Well, not really. Because while it is a good deal for you, it is also a good deal for everyone else who wants a house. Furthermore, you could probably buy that house for $20 and then sell it for a tremendous profit. And this is the main point: the scarcity of houses is what makes it so expensive, and because a lot of people are willing to pay a lot more than $20 for a house, then it’s a safe bet that most houses are going to cost a lot more than $20.

But what does this have to do with parking? Well, the concept is the same. There is only so much parking to go around. Look at downtown Los Angeles. If you had a job interview, how much would you pay for a spot right next to the building? How about a spot 3 blocks away? I’m willing to bet that you’re going to want to spend more on the close spot than the spot further away. But this is the problem with free parking or flat-rate parking. Even though the demand is different in the spots, the price is the same. It will be first come first served. And what are the negative effects of that?

Well first of all, we’re not realizing the cost of that parking space. Right now, there is a monopoly on those spots – they are reserved for parking. However, those spots have some property value. The person who owns that small piece of land would have to decide which use was most profitable. So the cost of the parking would be similar to the potential profits gained from that most profitable use, otherwise it would be converted. What am I getting at? Land is scarce! And cars take up a lot of land. Maybe street parking isn’t the best use of that land downtown. In the suburbs, maybe it is, but I doubt it is downtown. However, there is no way to know unless we allow those spots to be priced. In downtowns, parking garages are probably a good investment (to an extent). Either way, right now we are paying an artificially low price. People are willing to pay more for parking and the land is more valuable than the price we currently pay.

Well, so what? It’s simple really. When you subsidize something, you get more of it. Right now, in this city, we have an artifically high amount of driving because of subsidized parking. This gets us tremendous congestion and very unwalkable streets. It’s no surprise that people do not want to open street shops downtown – who wants to walk near there? It’s just not a nice area to walk around. If we had market-priced parking, then we would also see more transit use, more biking, more walking, etc. These options all become more appealing when we pay the real cost of our driving. Subsidized parking should be a thing of the past.

Of course, this will not work unless people can live closer to these destinations, so that will require a change in zoning laws, which will be a future post.

Attention all working class heroes: Metro wants your business.  The latest installment of the billboard ad campaign running in Hollywood features a world-weary cubicle slave proclaiming to the masses that he “M’s to the daily grind.”  The one before that was of a young woman letting us know about the joys of not having to shell out money at the pump.  The theme of these ads focuses on the low cost of Metro and how it will let you keep more of your paycheck than a car.

This is a bit of an odd commercial campaign, because the tone of it really does not pitch the product in glowing terms to the consumer.  It goes more in the direction of the reassuringly cheap option instead of presenting itself as ride that is just as comfortable, if not more so, than taking a car.  Young professionals can be attracted to Metro for more than just saving a buck.  The morning commute offers a good opportunity to get work done and organize for the day plus desk jockeys can get a fleeting amount of exercise when walking from to/from the bus stop.

Let’s further examine who Metro is  trying to attract with these advertisements.  The series is aimed at people in the same age group as the disgruntled employee in the empty office and the sweater lady.  Young working people who have never taken public transport before the economy tanked.  Now there is a big influx of people who are now using metro for economic reasons and a concerted effort should be made to attract and hold onto as many of them as possible.  The message conveyed to potential riders in these ads seems to be that Metro is all right, but more importantly,  much cheaper than owning some wheels.  Money issues may keep people on Metro now when times are bad, but what will happen if/when the economy improves?  Long-term passenger retention of these 20-30 somethings will not just rely on low costs, but a comfortable traveling experience as well.  If services are set at a high standard, these people could become regular passengers for the rest of their lives.

A perfect example of this new breed of metro rider is a young lady who is writing in a blog I recently came across call Snob on a Bus, which details the life of a girl in here in LA who takes Metro because she could not afford to keep her car.  Taking into account that economics dictate nearly all of our actions, will people like this blogger abandon Metro in a year if they suddenly can afford to make that car payment every month?  This will depend on a few factors.  Will attitudes towards taking the bus change to the point where people than can afford a car decide to refrain from having one and opt for mass transit instead?  Also, will the expansion of service offer a comparable amount of convenience as taking a car for these newbies?  The price is right for new Metro riders, now the big factor is the customer experience.