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Post by masonite on Dec 28, 2013 11:50:29 GMT -8
The Eastside Gold Line struggles with ridership due to its slow ride as it is often faster to ride a bus. I'd argue with this line -even the Pasadena Gold Line- its ridership is struggling because of the destination(s) the trains DOESN'T reach and that is Downtown. As an aside the Eastside Gold Line doesn't hit the Whittier Boulevard Shopping Corridor which would make it a huge boon to local ridership despite the speed. However the key element for the Eastside ridership is that for those passengers even if the line is subway speed fast, it wouldn't improve its ridership because professionals and transit dependent alike will need to transfer to a bus to reach their destination Downtown, and if they have to transfer to the slower bus to go directly into downtown, they might as well start and end their trip on the same vehicle... the bus. I hear you and I agree ridership takes a while to grow. However, ridership will grow pretty fast if people feel the service is fast and reliable without too much hassle. Not sure that will ever happen with Expo. If people feel that the time is competitive, ridership will grow fast. Take the Subway to the Sea (or even the current Red Line as an example) - when people see that their neighbors are getting to the office faster and cheaper than they are, ridership grows quickly. No necessarily faster, reliability is more important. I've always believed Phase 2 of Expo is where the ridership sweet spot will occur because directly parallel to it most of the time is the 10 Freeway and it is notoriously congested from Santa Monica to Culver City where it takes upwards of 45 minutes to go from the jobs in Santa Monica to Culver City most afternoon rush hours. A perfect example in hitting the ridership sweet spot is with the Red Line where it reached Hollywood ridership was good for a solid 50K riders a day, it went to the roof when it went over the Cauhenga Pass to reach Universal City and North Hollywood and its kept the ridership up since then because the Red Line provides an alternative to the congested 101 Pass. I think it is a combo. If the line was speedy, then that transfer at Union Station isn't so bad, but yes the Regional Connector will help a lot with Gold Line ridership. When the Gold Line to Pasadena was sped up, ridership did perk up as an example. I don't think Expo being close to the freeway is a good thing. The entire Westside is congested. People just flood the freeway, because that is the fastest way. Their destinations tend to be away from the freeway, like Westwood or Century City. In my area, there are not many destinations around the Bundy Station, yet Bundy is totally congested here, because people are going from the Freeway up to Wilshire where all the offices are at. In this case, it is a negative for Expo to be close to the freeway, because busses and other people can't get to the station because of all the people trying to get on the freeway backing up Bundy to nearly SM Blvd. The same is going to happen for the Purple Line at the VA Station. Almost no one is going to the VA, but the area is traffic clogged because you have 6 lanes if traffic going to three in that section of Wilshire from San Vicente, and you have backup from the freeway on ramps. It makes the area inaccessible, with the only saving grace being the Wilshire Busway opening.
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Post by Gokhan on Jan 21, 2014 16:20:37 GMT -8
It feels like the Expo ridership has got stuck in the same 27k gear forever.
December 2013: 27,360
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Post by jamesinclair on Jan 29, 2014 20:28:33 GMT -8
It feels like the Expo ridership has got stuck in the same 27k gear forever. December 2013: 27,360 Thats what they get for predicting 27k. Should have aimed higher
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Post by Philip on Jan 30, 2014 9:15:28 GMT -8
I'm kind of surprised the ridership has petered out at 27k. When you consider the destinations on the line - Downtown L.A., USC, Natural History Museum, the Coliseum, Culver City, etc. - along with the connections to other rail lines, you would think it would at least surpass the Green Line's ridership.
I hope this changes when Crenshaw opens. I can already hear the people at the Reason Foundation screaming about spending $2 billion for a rail line that doesn't even crack 20k riders.
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Post by masonite on Jan 30, 2014 10:47:35 GMT -8
I'm kind of surprised the ridership has petered out at 27k. When you consider the destinations on the line - Downtown L.A., USC, Natural History Museum, the Coliseum, Culver City, etc. - along with the connections to other rail lines, you would think it would at least surpass the Green Line's ridership. I hope this changes when Crenshaw opens. I can already hear the people at the Reason Foundation screaming about spending $2 billion for a rail line that doesn't even crack 20k riders. You are right about the destinations. However, it is all about speed. The Green Line doesn't connect much of anything, but it goes end to end in 34 minutes. That is 20.0 miles in 34 minutes. Expo goes 8.5 miles in 29 minutes, but it often takes 33-34 minutes. So in the same amount of time, you can cover more than twice the distance on the Green Line. Even so 27k riders for a 8.5 mile line is not bad, but a some people have abandoned the line due to its slowness. Ridership would be much higher if it was faster.
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Post by TransportationZ on Jan 30, 2014 11:03:43 GMT -8
I'm kind of surprised the ridership has petered out at 27k. When you consider the destinations on the line - Downtown L.A., USC, Natural History Museum, the Coliseum, Culver City, etc. - along with the connections to other rail lines, you would think it would at least surpass the Green Line's ridership. I hope this changes when Crenshaw opens. I can already hear the people at the Reason Foundation screaming about spending $2 billion for a rail line that doesn't even crack 20k riders. You are right about the destinations. However, it is all about speed. The Green Line doesn't connect much of anything, but it goes end to end in 34 minutes. That is 20.0 miles in 34 minutes. Expo goes 8.5 miles in 29 minutes, but it often takes 33-34 minutes. So in the same amount of time, you can cover more than twice the distance on the Green Line. Even so 27k riders for a 8.5 mile line is not bad, but a some people have abandoned the line due to its slowness. Ridership would be much higher if it was faster. Agreed. The green line gets it's 40,000 riders from it practically being a mini Shinkansen(in comparison to lines like the Eastside Gold Line) between the mid west to mid east LA County, despite it being in the middle of a freeway and not hitting any real destinations. As I already stated earlier on this forum, Expo is so slow it's not worth going out of your way to take the train if a DASH bus works just fine. Thats the draw of rail. Even though it may be fixed alignment, its so fast its worth going out of your way to take it. We are already trying to compete with cars to draw people to transit, yet we can't even compete with the travel time of a DASH bus. More people from USC will ride when the regional connector opens. Right now, there is no point in any student going to USC coming from the North or East by Expo if there is a free straight-shot shuttle from Union.
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Post by culvercitylocke on Jan 30, 2014 11:22:53 GMT -8
Yeah, the pathetic slowness of the line from USC to Downtown is a massive deterrant to us using it to go Downtown. It's much easier and faster to just drive downtown and pay $10 for parking, which is only $4 more than taking expo.
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Post by bzcat on Jan 30, 2014 18:10:35 GMT -8
I'm kind of surprised the ridership has petered out at 27k. When you consider the destinations on the line - Downtown L.A., USC, Natural History Museum, the Coliseum, Culver City, etc. - along with the connections to other rail lines, you would think it would at least surpass the Green Line's ridership. I hope this changes when Crenshaw opens. I can already hear the people at the Reason Foundation screaming about spending $2 billion for a rail line that doesn't even crack 20k riders. You are right about the destinations. However, it is all about speed. The Green Line doesn't connect much of anything, but it goes end to end in 34 minutes. That is 20.0 miles in 34 minutes. Expo goes 8.5 miles in 29 minutes, but it often takes 33-34 minutes. So in the same amount of time, you can cover more than twice the distance on the Green Line. Even so 27k riders for a 8.5 mile line is not bad, but a some people have abandoned the line due to its slowness. Ridership would be much higher if it was faster. It's important to point out that even though we like to joke that Green line goes from nowhere to nowhere, it actually serves some pretty highly transit dependent communities in south LA County. The speed of Green line is an asset for sure but let's not forget that the 40k people riding it are actually goes places and not just riding it from Norwalk to Redondo for the speed shrills... The end to end transit time is only relevant to a tiny handful of people. When you are riding it for 2 or 3 stations to transfer to a bus, 7 minutes vs. 10 minutes is not a big deal. Expo line might be a tad slow from Downtown LA to Culver City (mainly because lack of traffic light preemption on Flower St) but when the line is fully built out, the majority of riders are not going to ride it from end to end. This is true of almost every urban rail line... people get on and get off on intermediate stops.
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Post by masonite on Jan 30, 2014 18:38:49 GMT -8
You are right about the destinations. However, it is all about speed. The Green Line doesn't connect much of anything, but it goes end to end in 34 minutes. That is 20.0 miles in 34 minutes. Expo goes 8.5 miles in 29 minutes, but it often takes 33-34 minutes. So in the same amount of time, you can cover more than twice the distance on the Green Line. Even so 27k riders for a 8.5 mile line is not bad, but a some people have abandoned the line due to its slowness. Ridership would be much higher if it was faster. It's important to point out that even though we like to joke that Green line goes from nowhere to nowhere, it actually serves some pretty highly transit dependent communities in south LA County. The speed of Green line is an asset for sure but let's not forget that the 40k people riding it are actually goes places and not just riding it from Norwalk to Redondo for the speed shrills... The end to end transit time is only relevant to a tiny handful of people. When you are riding it for 2 or 3 stations to transfer to a bus, 7 minutes vs. 10 minutes is not a big deal. Expo line might be a tad slow from Downtown LA to Culver City (mainly because lack of traffic light preemption on Flower St) but when the line is fully built out, the majority of riders are not going to ride it from end to end. This is true of almost every urban rail line... people get on and get off on intermediate stops. True. I am just saying the Green Line doesn't it any major centers (although El Segundo is sorta one). Expo is a bit of a mixed bag. It doesn't hit too many centers itself, although USC is def. a destination. Culver City Station is a ways from Downtown Culver City. It is not like people are getting off at La Cienaga and walking to their jobs or even homes in any real numbers as this is an industrial area. Other stops are fairly inhospitable to pedestrians or don't have a whole lot of density of anything. Downtown LA remains the origin and/or destination of many Expo riders. Downtown SM will def. be one for Phase II though. Expo is not just slow because of signal pre-emption in Downtown LA. It is a pretty slow line from La Brea to USC as well with the awkward Farmdale stop and all the traffic lights you have to wait for in this section too. Right now for Phase I the only station pair where Expo goes at a fast clip is between La Cienaga and La Brea, although that will change with Culver City not being a terminus in a few years.
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f ron
Full Member
Posts: 222
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Post by f ron on Jan 30, 2014 18:43:03 GMT -8
Expo line might be a tad slow from Downtown LA to Culver City (mainly because lack of traffic light preemption on Flower St) but when the line is fully built out, the majority of riders are not going to ride it from end to end. This is true of almost every urban rail line... people get on and get off on intermediate stops. I agree. The Expo line strikes me designed and executed to lighten the load locally not to address the needs of the cross town commuter.
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Post by Gokhan on Feb 4, 2014 11:09:38 GMT -8
Ridership got a jump since late January. We might approach 30k soon. Also, the Culver City Station parking lot is now filling up before 9 am.
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Post by thanks4goingmetro on Feb 5, 2014 10:56:14 GMT -8
Ridership got a jump since late January. We might approach 30k soon. Also, the Culver City Station parking lot is now filling up before 9 am. In your opinion, do you think the supply/demand issue with the free parking at Culver City warrants building more parking, charging a fee, or a combination of both? Or doing nothing at all...
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Post by bzcat on Feb 5, 2014 11:33:52 GMT -8
All those parking will go away soon (temporarily) when they start construction on that site.
When the underground parking returns post construction, it will almost certainly be a fee to park there.
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Post by Gokhan on Feb 5, 2014 13:44:08 GMT -8
Ridership got a jump since late January. We might approach 30k soon. Also, the Culver City Station parking lot is now filling up before 9 am. In your opinion, do you think the supply/demand issue with the free parking at Culver City warrants building more parking, charging a fee, or a combination of both? Or doing nothing at all... It's more of a question of politics. Most people ride public transit to save money, at the cost of longer commute time. If you charge for parking, it will discourage many from park-and-ride. It could certainly be done and perhaps it's better politics. This morning a dozen cars were desperately circling the full lot at 8:55 am.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Feb 9, 2014 22:05:48 GMT -8
I wouldn't worry too much about stagnant ridership in the winter months. That's pretty typical of all of the lines. People aren't out an about as much. Ridership should spike through the summer.
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Post by Gokhan on Feb 12, 2014 13:23:56 GMT -8
Expo Line January 2014 ridership: 27,155
In order to improve the ridership, they need to fix the USC segment (lights at Watt Way and Bill Robertson Place), the Flower St segment, and Farmdale Ave segment and improve the bus connections, especially the currently useless Big Blue Bus connections.
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Post by masonite on Feb 13, 2014 11:46:19 GMT -8
Expo Line January 2014 ridership: 27,155 In order to improve the ridership, they need to fix the USC segment (lights at Watt Way and Bill Robertson Place), the Flower St segment, and Farmdale Ave segment and improve the bus connections, especially the currently useless Big Blue Bus connections. You would think the USC segment would be easy. Flower Street would seem possible for some improvements, but there doesn't seem to be any progress. Farmdale seems hopeless as this involves legally working a new agreement with LAUSD, where they have no incentive to rework. I am pretty sure they were able to speed up the Pasadena Gold Line a few years after it opened by a few minutes. It would be nice to hear from the Metro Operations Leader at one of the TTC meetings as they were pretty informative last time. The Line has been opened nearly 2 years, so I was hoping they would be able to be a little more consistent and work out the timing a little better by now. We are probably 2 years away from Phase II opening, so lets see if they can make any progress in that time.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 12, 2014 9:53:28 GMT -8
Thanks to low gas prices, rail ridership has gone down, except for the new Expo Line that is still adding new passengers, which registered its first increase in a long time, and the Red/Purple Lines, which saw a slight increase.
Expo Line February 2014 ridership: 28,152
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Post by masonite on Jun 13, 2014 14:25:05 GMT -8
Looks like we finally hit the 30k mark for Phase 1 in May at 30.4k. All other lines are down as is bus ridership. With the economy and traffic picking up a little year over year, I think that is a little bit of a mystery. Anyway, 30k is pretty impressive for this line.
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Post by Gokhan on Jun 25, 2014 9:38:09 GMT -8
Looks like we finally hit the 30k mark for Phase 1 in May at 30.4k. All other lines are down as is bus ridership. With the economy and traffic picking up a little year over year, I think that is a little bit of a mystery. Anyway, 30k is pretty impressive for this line. 30,404. Not bad indeed. It's already more than the Pasadena Gold Line (excluding the East LA section), currently below 28,000.
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Post by davebowman on Jun 26, 2014 8:07:29 GMT -8
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Post by Gokhan on Jun 26, 2014 12:03:21 GMT -8
Good news for US light-rail. Minneapolis line should reach 40k in a couple of years.
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Post by Gokhan on Aug 15, 2014 11:56:08 GMT -8
Expo ridership has been on the rise:
May 2014: 30,404 June 2014: 31,031 July 2014: 31,710
In sharp contrast, all other lines, including the overall bus ridership, have been on a decline.
It looks like Expo ridership will hit 100k a few years after Phase 2 opens, around 2020. It's on its way to become LA's busiest light-rail line.
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Post by masonite on Aug 15, 2014 14:05:12 GMT -8
Expo ridership has been on the rise: May 2014: 30,404 June 2014: 31,031 July 2014: 31,710 In sharp contrast, all other lines, including the overall bus ridership, have been on a decline. It looks like Expo ridership will hit 100k a few years after Phase 2 opens, around 2020. It's on its way to become LA's busiest light-rail line. I think that is entirely possible after Crenshaw and the Regional Connector open. Of course, at that point, there really won't be an Expo Line - it will be an Expo-Eastside Line. I wonder how they will show the ridership at that point.
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Post by macross287 on Aug 15, 2014 19:13:54 GMT -8
Looks like Expo is rapidly catching up to the blue line in terms of riders per mile. It is now only 291 boardings per mile from becoming the most productive metro light rail line. Average Boardings per mile Blue: 3,978 Expo: 3,687
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Post by bzcat on Aug 18, 2014 9:31:41 GMT -8
That's quite impressive. Ridership per mile is going to soar once Phase 2 opens.
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Post by Gokhan on Aug 24, 2014 17:16:21 GMT -8
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Post by Gokhan on Aug 24, 2014 21:17:06 GMT -8
Here are two more tables -- probably the most important ones. They are the westbound and eastbound ridership by destination, in other words westbound and eastbound trip generation from a station. Culver City is the most popular westbound trip-generation destination. Interestingly Crenshaw is the second most popular westbound trip-generation destination. This means that Crenshaw Line will be very successful.
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Post by fissure on Aug 25, 2014 23:39:21 GMT -8
I guess it's good that Farmdale isn't the worst in all of the categories, even though it never breaks third from last (really second from last, since it's impossible for 7th or Culver City to not be last in some of these).
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Post by bzcat on Aug 26, 2014 10:44:52 GMT -8
I guess it's good that Farmdale isn't the worst in all of the categories, even though it never breaks third from last (really second from last, since it's impossible for 7th or Culver City to not be last in some of these). Well, you have to take distance into consideration. For example, 23rd street generates 1078 west bound trips but only from 2 stations (Metro Center, Pico). Farmdale generates 1097 west bound trips but from 8 stations (Metro Center, Pico, 23rd St, Jefferson USC, Expo Park USC, Vermont, Western, Crenshaw). So it is by far the worst performing station without a doubt. Jefferson USC station is also not living up to its promise either from the looks of it. I think the location by the freeway is really not helping.
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