MetroRiderLA

Crews install a bank of fare gates at the Los Angeles City College portal of the Vermont/Santa Monica Red Line station.
Photo by Yours Truly. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

Pro-turnstile news: Metro is continuing on its plan to install fare gates at all subway and sealed light rail stations. The latest installations are at the Vermont/Santa Monica Station. Crews quickly mounted this bank of turnstiles Tuesday afternoon. For riders who have not seen turnstiles yet, they will spin freely for another year.

Anti-turnstile news: Metro is making good on its threat to install fare gates at all subway and sealed light rail stations. The latest installations of this $100 million fiasco-in-the-making are at the Vermont/Santa Monica Station. Crews quickly mounted this bank of easily cheatable turnstiles Tuesday afternoon. For riders who have yet to be bewildered by any of the existing crop of gates, they will spin freely for another year.

Note to MetroReaders: My computer is out of commission for the next 1-2 weeks. In the meantime, I have to work from another machine on which I can do very little with WordPress.

For the time being, my posts will run in the “cone zone.” Since I have to hand code everything, posts will be kept brief and contain very few links. I anticipate completing “On the i10erary,” but the census data series for the Purple Line will be put on hold. Also, I don’t have the ability to post photos.

Thank you for your patience.

These short posts are not conducive to a ride report, but then again, it was Santa Clarita Transit Line 757 so there isn’t that much to see.

Line 757, which began service at the beginning of August, is the agency’s effort to keep Santa Clarita connected with the L.A. basin. It replaced a pair of commuter services to Van Nuys, which were underused, and a local line to the Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink station that was more popular but had no more funding to keep it running. Instead, Line 757 operates between Santa Clarita and the North Hollywood Red and Orange lines station.

On a Friday afternoon trip between Newhall and North Hollywood, 16 passengers boarded on the MCI commuter coach — about 1/3 capacity. This was also during a month of fare-free operation. (MetroRiderLA previously reported that it was free for the first two weeks; Santa Clarita extended the gratis trips through today. Beginning Tuesday, Santa Clarita Transit will charge $2.50 for the service.

North Hollywood is a very good terminal, as riders have a variety of connecting services throughout the Valley and destinations along the Red Line. But, since it runs through Sylmar along I-5, it should make a deviation to serve the Metrolink station to help riders inconvenienced by the cancellation of Line 8.

Another good reason for the Sylmar transfer: It won’t leave riders stranded. The 757 driver said the commuter coaches, especially the newer models, are prone to overheating after traversing I-5. At least by offering riders exit points with less freeway running, they can continue their trips without waiting for the next bus (there aren’t even clock headways for 757).

Santa Clarita should also change the service into three line numbers, as there are three variations for service. During rush hours, the bus serves College of the Canyons and California Institute for the Arts. On midday trips, 757 bypasses the schools and gets on I-5. For weekend trips, the bus makes only two stops: North Hollywood and the McBean Transit Center — a simple sawtooth bus transfer area located across the street from Westfield Valencia Town Center like an afterthought.

While all trips serve McBean, on weekdays the bus serves the commuter stop outside of the bus center in front of the gas station. On weekends, they go inside McBean.

Split the lines into 3: 757 for the peak-hour route, 758 for the midday route and 759 for the weekend route.

And if you want your last chance for a free ride, swing through Santa Clarita today. A loop would take about 90 minutes.

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. ; )

Images are by Yours Truly, shot for the anniversary. They can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

It was today — July 13, 1996 — when the subway had been extended to Wilshire/Vermont, Wilshire/Normandie and Wilshire/Western stations. Back then, it had been known as the Red Line. Today, it is the same service but known as the Purple Line.

Koreatown has now had subway service for 13 years now. The definitive subway birthday story is my MetroRiderLA piece from 2006, its 10th birthday.

As the subway grew, so has the city. The Solair complex has finished construction atop the Wilshire/Western station, and the Wilshire/Vermont complex has a bustling retail hub around the subway station. The Summit on Sixth, a converted office building, is also open. The Wilshire/Normandie station remains mostly the same, though pretty much all trace of the Ambassador Hotel is now gone.

The best news, though, was from last November, with the passage of Measure R. It would reduce the importance of Koreatown as merely a branch of the busier Red Line, and raise it to the Wilshire trunk line it was meant to be.

Mid-July is also the birthday for the Green Line, which would now be 14, and the oldest of the siblings, the Blue Line, is 19 years young.

Metro only ran two-car trains to Wilshire/Western during the midday on July 13.

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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Well over a year ago we featured the now infamous picture of a group of anti-rail B.R.U. members posing and smiling in a Red Line Station.  Today, courtesy of a MetroRider with a quick wit and a quicker shutter, we present to you a new picture of B.R.U. members riding that which they hate the most.  This time it looks like work instead of fun if the clipboards are any indication, but what could the yellow shirts be telling all these affluent white people on this Red Line train?  Best caption wins mad propz from your peers.  Let ‘em rip.