MetroRiderLA

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

August brings bad news for bus riders, particularly for passengers of LADOT and Pasadena’s ARTS.

LADOT’s DASH services cost a dime more, up from 25 cents to 35 cents. This has marked the first fare increase for DASH buses. It was a quarter when it began as a downtown L.A. lunchtime short-hop in the 1980s. Speaking of downtown, Route C to South Park, the weekend Downtown Discovery and the Central City East routes are canceled. Cancellations for the Commuter Express bus services are 413 to Van Nuys, 430 to Pacific Palisades and 575 between Simi Valley and Warner Center.

Also eliminated are the Hollywood/West Hollywood, as pictured in the bus stop sign above, Warner Center and Hyde Park routes. Routes including Crenshaw, Highland Park/Eagle Rock, Hollywood, Lincoln Heights/Chinatown and Midtown, will have Sunday and holiday service eliminated.

Also ending Sunday service is Pasadena’s ARTS bus system. Both LADOT and Pasadena cite a fall-off in sales taxes and the deadbeat state of California shirking contributions as reasons for the cuts. More will likely come.

Photo by Yours Truly, from the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool

Copyrighted image by So Cal Metro; used with permission from the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool. All rights reserved.

So Cal Metro, one of the most prolific contributors on the Flickr pool, has this gorgeously composed geometric assembly and crisp, sharp colors with his picture of a Breda train waiting at the Sierra Madre Villa Gold Line station.

The grids of the pedestrian bridge lead to the stair handrails, which in turn direct the eye to the elevator shaft and the three vertical scrims to the train itself. The arrowhead-like shape of the nose points the way the train will travel. It’s a very appealing way of directing the eye on a train journey.

The color spectrum contrasts the brilliant teals and blues and shiny metallic silver on the train with the softer grays of the freeway concrete and the almost transparent sky.

Some may not like freeway stations, particularly this hard-to-access terminal that connects a loud platform with a mammoth parking garage by a caged-in pedestrian bridge. Yet a photo like this helps to show artistry and elegance where it’s not apparent.

Happy Fifth of July, MetroReaders. Just a reminder: Metro’s buses and trains will run on a second consecutive Sunday schedule today. It’s safe to assume other transit agencies will have a similar policy.

Being on a Sunday schedule means another dip into the Metro Library‘s Flickr trove. July also marks the opening of the Gold Line between Union Station and Pasadena. This is the first entry of the Gold Line in the monthly Summer of Rail theme.

The blur combined with the stark contrasts of darkness and light makes this an eye-catching photo of a new AnsaldoBreda train passing through one of the more eye-catching stations, Del Mar. The Gold Line, which has struggled in its early years to develop a ridership base, had been making headway (no pun intended) in attracting development around the stations. Del Mar Station, shown here, has a brightly colored Archstone apartment building wrapped around the platforms as well as the units above it forming a small tunnel.

Del Mar Station was a former Santa Fe train depot. Now it’s La Grande Orange Cafe, home of the commuter breakfast and some reasonably priced lunch and dinner specials. It’s next to the west platform, and it just might be a future TOD: Transit Oriented Dining candidate.

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• Pam chat aftermath: O’Connor wants to end the free ride for low-emission vehicles.
• Metrolink is a bit overzealous when it comes to protecting its “brand”.
• The L.A. Underground as seen from the BBC.
• Pleasure in pain, high gas prices put smiles on the faces of environmentalists

• Commentary on density, growth, and the media in Los Angeles.
• A look at L.A.’s lost “cycleway”.
• Climate change brings planning changes.
• Pasadena residents walk in order to make one of the most walkable communities in L.A. even more walkable.
• Downtown gets a new DASH line, loses the City Hall Shuttle.