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Post by jamesinclair on Apr 21, 2012 1:38:49 GMT -8
Your posts are getting more reactionary... ;D You misread something. He's saying that the last trains from 7th/metro apparently deadhead to the USC station when they could be used to carry riders. He's not saying that the sweep trains deadhead. Yup, and I guarantee USC students will want that "last train home" every weekend, especially from downtown. As I said, if the train is making the trip anyway, why not let paying customers on board? Even if folks arent going to USC, if you depend on transit, makes sense to take the train as far as possible before having to transfer to a bus or cab.
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Post by carter on Apr 21, 2012 9:27:11 GMT -8
Note that the time from 7th/Metro to La Cienega didn't change at 26 minutes but the time from La Cienega to 7th/Metro increased by 5 minutes from 25 minutes to 30 minutes. This is because the northbound Expo Line trains wait for the (northbound and southbound) Blue Line trains at the junction. They have stopped testing the Culver City section after Day One, as they started installing emergency lighting on the two bridge ramps there. The work seems to have stopped but there is still no testing. I don't expect an opening there before late June or even July. Gokhan, I'm not sure where you're getting 30 minutes from? I've seen the time-tables and it says 26 minutes from La Cienega to 7th/Metro in both directions. The D11 Summary seems to suggest the same thing.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 21, 2012 9:38:18 GMT -8
Note that the time from 7th/Metro to La Cienega didn't change at 26 minutes but the time from La Cienega to 7th/Metro increased by 5 minutes from 25 minutes to 30 minutes. This is because the northbound Expo Line trains wait for the (northbound and southbound) Blue Line trains at the junction. They have stopped testing the Culver City section after Day One, as they started installing emergency lighting on the two bridge ramps there. The work seems to have stopped but there is still no testing. I don't expect an opening there before late June or even July. Gokhan, I'm not sure where you're getting 30 minutes from? I've seen the time-tables and it says 26 minutes from La Cienega to 7th/Metro in both directions. The D11 Summary seems to suggest the same thing. Ah, you're right. It increased by only 1 minute from 25 minutes to 26 minutes. I was looking at the 7th/Metro Track 2 column instead of the Track 1 column.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 21, 2012 15:03:35 GMT -8
So is the first revenue train the 433am sweep train from USC to 7th/metro or when it returns at 454am from 7th/metro? In other words, is the first sweep train also a revenue train as it is on the blue line?
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Post by Justin Walker on Apr 21, 2012 17:21:16 GMT -8
So is the first revenue train the 433am sweep train from USC to 7th/metro or when it returns at 454am from 7th/metro? In other words, is the first sweep train also a revenue train as it is on the blue line? Based on the employee timetable posted above, it would seem so. Those first sweep runs are not given as options via Google Transit, however.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 21, 2012 18:13:09 GMT -8
Thanks. I was planning to drive to Union Station and ride to 7th/metro for the first revenue run, but I may need to rethink that. It would help if they publish an official timetable sometime this week so that I could know for sure.
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Post by calwatch on Apr 23, 2012 22:23:15 GMT -8
Well the first revenue run comes out of Metro Center, and there will be no shortline trips to and from USC. Since the line is that short I think that is a decent operational strategy.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 28, 2012 6:05:48 GMT -8
Limited edition tap cards available at expo tvm's while supplies last. Pretty cool.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 28, 2012 6:38:31 GMT -8
First Expo train was not the sweep train, but rather the one leaving 7th/Metro. There were plenty of transit nerds (myself included) on hand to document the first public trip.
We were joined briefly by Liberte Chan of KTLA News. She boarded at Crenshaw with her cameraman. When we didn't stop at the next station (Farmdale), she became very anxious and started hitting the button to get the train to stop. Ultimately she got off the train at La Brea, and a few minutes later we picked her up again on the return trip. LOL
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 28, 2012 11:30:07 GMT -8
Blue line extremely light today. I guess they are a little behind because our blue line train turned into a La Cienega train at 7th/metro which was perfect.
Not busy on expo either. I'm in the first car and it's not even half full. East LA gold line was much busier on opening day. Just passed an EB expo train at 23rd that was less than half full.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 28, 2012 12:59:40 GMT -8
Expo has generally been fast but my EB train from USC is crawling. Several minutes waiting at every station.
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Post by bzcat on Apr 28, 2012 18:14:46 GMT -8
I rode the train from La Cienega to Metro Center at 11:42 this morning with a stop watch. It took exactly 16 minutes for the Expo line to reach Expo Park/USC, which was really good time. But it took 24 minutes for the train to go from Expo Park/USC to Metro Center. TWENTY FOUR MINUTES!!!! Total transit time was 40 minutes and 22 seconds. The traffic signal along Exposition looked to be synchronized as the train sailed through all the intersections without stopping (except Farmdale of course... ). But the traffic signal along Flower is not synchronized. The train stopped at every single red light on Flower for cars to turn left. Plus it looks like the Blue Line junction is still giving Metro lots of trouble as the train stopped at Jefferson for 6 minutes and 23rd street for 5 minutes, which all contributed to the slow ride. On my return trip I went from Metro Center to Expo Park/USC and it took 14 minutes. The train never exceeded crawl speed from Pico station until it got to Jefferson station. Not sure why... I got off at USC and after a few hours, got back on and went back to La Cienega. The USC to La Cienega trip was fast - took 15 minutes and 35 seconds. Only traffic stop was Farmdale again. That station is going to be really problematic... edit: I don't want to sound like a sour pus... the train was slow on Flower but was also magnificent on Exposition! Especially when it was flying pass cars at 50 mph. I'm sure Metro will work out all the kinks eventually
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Post by pithecanthropus on Apr 29, 2012 21:58:25 GMT -8
Once again, the current running times are 29 and 28 minutes westbound to and eastbound from Culver City, respectively. 29 minutes to Culver City is pretty slow. Unfortunately, I don't know how much they will be able to speed up the line if the GLEE is any indication as it has only gone from 25 minutes to 24 minutes in its several years of operations. As a comparison, the Purple Line if built to Santa Monica would be well past Bundy and into Santa Monica from 7th/Metro in 29 minutes.[/quote] 29 minutes to Culver City isn't that bad, actually, but if you're commuting from downtown to Culver City, you could presumably beat that driving your car. But I doubt that you could do better going from Culver City in the morning and back to CC in the evening. Despite the common wisdom of L.A. commuting patterns being multi-centric or even decentralized, there are still a preponderant number of commuters heading downtown in the morning and back out at night. And then there's downtown parking prices, too. Leisure travelers to downtown can benefit enormously, since they are more likely to drive a few miles out of their way to a park-and-ride station, where parking is free, than to drive downtown where weekday parking can run as high as $50. I rode the route yesterday and found it took well over 29 minutes each way, but I assume this was due to longer-than-usual trains on the Blue Line being used this weekend.
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Post by LAofAnaheim on Apr 30, 2012 6:52:18 GMT -8
Keep in mind, thinking about the time length of the trip. The Expo Line is not a straight shot between Culver City to downtown LA. The Expo Line takes a southern dip 2 - 3 miles south of downtown to USC. Most downtowners do not consider USC to be downtown as our geographic boundary is generally defined as the 10 freeway. So the Expo Line travels south of downtown and then has to go 2 - 3 miles back north on Flower. If USC was missed, then I'm sure the speed would be no more than 20 minues between Culver City to downtown LA. You have to think of the diversion it took, but a well worthwhile diversion to connect Exposition Park and USC into our Metro rail network!
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Post by davebowman on Apr 30, 2012 9:00:38 GMT -8
USC Transportation has announced they are discontinuing the free shuttle to LA Live since students can now take the Expo Line. Spring semester classes are over and finals start this week, so it will be interesting to see how ridership is affected when the fall semester begins in late August.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 30, 2012 9:40:37 GMT -8
Northbound Expo trains wait for the northbound and southbound Blue trains before they proceed through the junction. Southbound Expo trains don't interfere with the Blue trains and they don't wait as a result.
The wait is usually about a couple of minutes.
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Post by rajacobs on Apr 30, 2012 10:20:44 GMT -8
At 7:43PM we found ourselves in the 7th Metro Station, embarrassed that we had been oblivious to the 7PM Expo service cutoff. Nonetheless, Expo "ambassadors" were on hand to guid us to an awaiting bus that took us down Flower and then west to the La Cienega Station. However, I couldn't help but notice numerous people waiting for an Expo Line train around 8PM at various stations. There was no one there to tell then service was finished. ...And at La Cienega, as we climbed the parking lot stairs to our car, there were at least 15 people waiting on the platform. I yelled, "No train!" from the parking garage, apparently to no avail. Ironically Metro employees were at street level to guide incoming train-replacement buses, but the would-be train passengers remained...
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 30, 2012 10:29:33 GMT -8
This is subjective, but to me Expo doesn't feel slow like the gold line did, unless you get delayed between USC and 7th/metro. It feels fast. And as we've said in the past, perception is reality so I'm not worried about the total run time. Flower needs to be better for sure though.
Also the blue line didn't run longer trains. They were 3 cars like normal.
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Post by matthewb on Apr 30, 2012 10:47:50 GMT -8
This is subjective, but to me Expo doesn't feel slow like the gold line did, unless you get delayed between USC and 7th/metro. It feels fast. And as we've said in the past, perception is reality so I'm not worried about the total run time. Flower needs to be better for sure though. Also the blue line didn't run longer trains. They were 3 cars like normal. Of course this is all anecdotal, but I certainly calculate how long the train takes on my daily commute. I have a pretty good idea of the range of times from if I get super lucky, to worst case scenario. I also try to figure out how to optimize this in terms of bus connections vs. walking to know how I can sleep the longest but still make my first morning meeting. Maybe perception is what's important for casual usage, but that's not necessarily the bulk of ridership. As the network grows, casual ridership will grow along with it, but I think that the daily commute will always be the main driver of ridership.
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Post by spokker on Apr 30, 2012 16:03:07 GMT -8
This is subjective, but to me Expo doesn't feel slow like the gold line did, unless you get delayed between USC and 7th/metro. It feels fast. And as we've said in the past, perception is reality so I'm not worried about the total run time. Flower needs to be better for sure though. Which part of the Gold Line? Expo Line is slightly faster on average than the Gold Line to East LA. The Gold Line to Pasadena is much faster than the Expo Line, on the other hand, on average.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 30, 2012 17:12:42 GMT -8
This is subjective, but to me Expo doesn't feel slow like the gold line did, unless you get delayed between USC and 7th/metro. It feels fast. And as we've said in the past, perception is reality so I'm not worried about the total run time. Flower needs to be better for sure though. Which part of the Gold Line? Expo Line is slightly faster on average than the Gold Line to East LA. The Gold Line to Pasadena is much faster than the Expo Line, on the other hand, on average. Expo Line is not slightly faster than the Eastside Extension. It's a lot faster than the Eastside Extension -- 18 MPH vs. 14 MPH. That's 29% faster. Also, Expo Phase 2 should be much faster than Expo Phase 1. The average station spacing along the Expo Line is 0.79 miles. It is 0.71 miles along the Purple Line. Therefore, it's roughly the same for both lines. Purple Line has several sections of curved track. Perhaps that's what's slowing it down. It's also true that when the station spacing is about 1 mile or less -- standard light-rail or subway station spacing -- the maximum speed of the trains doesn't make too much difference after a certain point. In subway systems like New York's, there are so many trains that there is train-traffic congestion, which slows the system considerably. Again, hopefully the Expo Line will get faster and there won't be any issues. Currently the Expo Line speed is looking fairly good, which is around 21 MPH average, and hopefully it will get better and match the Purple Line's 23 MPH average or perhaps do even better. Note that the Gold Line Eastside Extension only averages 5.77 miles / 24 minutes * 60 min/hr = 14 MPH.Despite the perception, Pasadena Gold Line averages a super-fast 28 MPH (13.6 miles, 29 minutes) and makes the Purple Line look like a turtle.Finally, the Red Line from North Hollywood averages 29 MPH (14.7 miles, 30 minutes), only a tad-bit faster than the Pasadena Gold Line.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 30, 2012 17:20:49 GMT -8
This is subjective, but to me Expo doesn't feel slow like the gold line did, unless you get delayed between USC and 7th/metro. It feels fast. And as we've said in the past, perception is reality so I'm not worried about the total run time. Flower needs to be better for sure though. Which part of the Gold Line? Expo Line is slightly faster on average than the Gold Line to East LA. The Gold Line to Pasadena is much faster than the Expo Line, on the other hand, on average. I meant Pasadena, but both really. And of course Pasadena is faster than Expo. One-third of it is grade separated in the middle of a freeway. That part never felt slow to anyone as far as I'm aware. The fact is the gold line was never slow, but because of Marmion Way and a couple other leisurely bits, it felt slow. But it's better now. The East LA bits that felt slow were on 3rd and between LAUS and Little Tokyo. Both are at least somewhat better.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 30, 2012 18:11:42 GMT -8
... and, of course, Expo has many more stations per mile than the Pasadena Gold Line... When we are saying Pasadena Gold is super fast in comparison to Expo, we are comparing apples vs. oranges for this reason.
Expo Phase 2 should be as fast as a subway because it has signal preemption (provided by crossing gates) everywhere, except in its last mile (Colorado Ave), which will be pretty slow.
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Post by bluelineshawn on May 1, 2012 17:01:08 GMT -8
Interesting that on the connections page of the metro website that 23rd is listed as a blue line transfer station. I had wondered how reasonable that would be, but thought that it might be too far for most. Also interesting is that the printed schedule and the online schedules not only don't mention 23rd as a blue line transfer, they don't list Pico as a transfer station either. Obviously an oversight. And another oversight is that on the Metro front page clicking the "Timetables" link leads to a page that doesn't include Expo while the "Maps" link just left of that leads to a similar page that does include Expo.
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Post by bluelineshawn on May 5, 2012 14:15:29 GMT -8
In Expo now and there are more people on the train now than I have ever seen on the gold line east la on a non-opening day weekend. Ridership isn't terrible.
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Post by masonite on May 5, 2012 15:08:55 GMT -8
In Expo now and there are more people on the train now than I have ever seen on the gold line east la on a non-opening day weekend. Ridership isn't terrible. I think ridership on this line will be spread pretty even with Expo Park, USC, and LA Live/Staples with a lot of weekend and late night travel not just rush hour workers. In fact this ridership is not as sensitive to slow times as the weekday downtown workers. There is still tremendous demand for transit on this line and it will pick up a lot more eastbound travelers once Culver City opens with the better bus connections.
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Post by bluelineshawn on May 5, 2012 16:45:14 GMT -8
Headed downtown and the expo train is about 80-90% full. Wrong railing at 23rd, not sure why.
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Post by bluelineshawn on May 5, 2012 18:08:46 GMT -8
I think ridership on this line will be spread pretty even with Expo Park, USC, and LA Live/Staples with a lot of weekend and late night travel not just rush hour workers. In fact this ridership is not as sensitive to slow times as the weekday downtown workers. There is still tremendous demand for transit on this line and it will pick up a lot more eastbound travelers once Culver City opens with the better bus connections. Agreed. I also noticed many riders visiting Exposition Park, which is what we did. But the bad thing about the slow times is if you're riding from USC to downtown - as plenty of people were - the entire trip is slow. You don't even get the fast part from La Cienega to USC. Also when we had to switch platforms at 23rd to catch the train that was wrong railing, one young lady mentioned that this was only her second time riding the train and the first time everyone had to exit to board another train. Needless to say that her opinion of Metro is pretty low right now. Still even though not perfect, I'm very glad that the line is open. With all of the speed issues I'm grateful that the line opened at the end of the USC school year so that there won't be too much negative word of mouth. Whatever word of mouth there is. One USC student that I spoke with last week mentioned that very few people at USC that he's spoken with are even aware of Expo. Anyway hopefully things are running much better in a few months when school starts back.
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Post by wad on May 6, 2012 4:07:23 GMT -8
One USC student that I spoke with last week mentioned that very few people at USC that he's spoken with are even aware of Expo. And they their parents are paying how much for tuition?
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Post by metrocenter on May 14, 2012 12:41:21 GMT -8
My family (wife, kid and I) took Expo yesterday from Western to downtown, and back again. There were plenty of people taking the train, maybe 40 passengers. Not bad for a Sunday.
The trip was very uneventful, no problems. Speed was fine, no delays (even at the junction) turnaround was fine.
I was surprised that at 7th/Metro Center, Track 1 is being used for all arrivals (Blue and Expo) and Track 2 is being used for all departures (Blue and Expo). When the service began, they were using Track 1 for Blue Line (arrivals and departures), and Track 2 for Expo Line (arrivals and departures). I wonder which of these configurations makes the most sense from a user viewpoint. Better signage could help remove confusion, especially for less-frequent riders.
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