atlantic station parking lot

[jejozwik]

The Metro Board of Directors today approved spending an additional $8.7 million for a three-story parking garage that will serve the Atlantic terminus station on the Metro Gold Line to East Los Angeles.

The new three-story garage will have 286 parking spaces. It is scheduled to be completed six months after the new light rail line opens next summer. It was initially planned to have 127 surface parking spaces at the Atlantic Boulevard and Pomona Street location.

Looking ahead to the future, Metro anticipates the light rail line will steadily attract new riders. A dozen bus lines will serve the six-mile Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension now being built from Union Station to East Los Angeles via Little Tokyo/Arts District and Boyle Heights. The Metro Gold Line also is within walking distance of thousands of residents.

Altogether, Metro has budgeted $13 million for the parking garage. Construction on the rail line is still within budget and the project is ahead of schedule with construction more than 90 percent complete.

The light rail Eastside extension will have eight new stations; Little Tokyo/Arts District, Pico Aliso, Mariachi Plaza, Soto, Indiana, Maravilla, ELA Civic Center and Atlantic, two of them are underground.

metro.net

only 286? that seems painfully low. i could not image any open spaces when this is constructed after 7.3o am

[whitmanlam]

Plus I don't like what the parking spaces would be mainly used for. Car commuters coming in from Riverside using the Eastside Goldline as a shortcut to Downtown, to avoid Downtown parking fees.

We've already seen it at the Sierra Madre Villa station parking. It does nothing for the surrounding community and doesn't add to pedestrian activity.

Riverside commuters are better off taking Metrolink.

[crzwdjk]

Riverside commuters are better off taking Metrolink.

Riverside commuters would probably beg to differ, given that the Riverside Line is relatively infrequent and runs during peak hours only, aside from a single midday train. The Gold Line runs every 7.5 minutes, the extension may run even more frequently, and it runs all day, and late into the evening.

[kenalpern]

If Riverside and San Bernardino commuters really like the Gold Line that much, shouldn't we encourage them to utilize the line if that has the best service to enhance overall ridership?

[bobdavis]

There's a "coterie" of railfans who post on TrainOrders.com that I call the "Anti-Gold-Line Club". They maintain that the LA to Pasadena Gold Line was a mistake that can be attributed to politics rather than sound engineering, and some of the more radical members advocate tearing it out and rebuilding the line for Metrolink, which they think should have been built on the old Santa Fe line rather than electric light rail. As a lifelong "juicefan" I rejoiced when trolley power returned to the San Gabriel Valley, and think the AGL Club should find something else to comment about. Some of them have conceded that the Foothill Extension is "locked in" to be electric light rail as far as the Azusa-Glendora city limits, but think the rest of the ex-Santa Fe line should be a Metrolink-operated shuttle between Glendora and Claremont. We'll see how that plays out.