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Post by James Fujita on Nov 8, 2009 15:46:10 GMT -8
I left comments at YouTube, but I'll say it again here: nice job on the videos.
The train does seem a tad slow on the bridge. I wish they could speed that up.
However, three minutes is pretty good when you consider that I have often walked from Union Station down to Little Tokyo. It's not a very fun walk, with the freeway traffic and pollution, not much interesting to look at (except for the rail construction, of course) on Alameda, and little shade from the blazing sun during the summer months (and frequently, when I leave Little Tokyo, I am carrying anime DVDs and other goodies).
So, this is definately a train that I will be making good use of!
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Post by LAofAnaheim on Nov 8, 2009 20:36:39 GMT -8
The train does seem a tad slow on the bridge. I wish they could speed that up. However, three minutes is pretty good when you consider that I have often walked from Union Station down to Little Tokyo. It's not a very fun walk, with the freeway traffic and pollution, not much interesting to look at (except for the rail construction, of course) on Alameda, and little shade from the blazing sun during the summer months (and frequently, when I leave Little Tokyo, I am carrying anime DVDs and other goodies). So, this is definately a train that I will be making good use of! The time it takes to get between Union Station and Little Tokyo station is unbelievable. I hope this gets fixed, otherwise, this is a main segment of a rail line that people won't forget how slow it is (plus..all the drivers on the 101 will see why Metro Rail is not 'fast enough' as driving). I know there's an engineering reason...but something can/should be done, I could hope. Didn't they have a problem with the Gold Line to Pasadena and all of a sudden, after a year or two after opening, the line sped up by 5 minutes? Can the same be done for this?
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Post by James Fujita on Nov 9, 2009 2:09:04 GMT -8
Unfortunately, the Web site currently says that the Tamale Festival will be in December. It's not entirely clear where the festival will be, either.
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Post by masonite on Nov 9, 2009 23:24:42 GMT -8
The train does seem a tad slow on the bridge. I wish they could speed that up. However, three minutes is pretty good when you consider that I have often walked from Union Station down to Little Tokyo. It's not a very fun walk, with the freeway traffic and pollution, not much interesting to look at (except for the rail construction, of course) on Alameda, and little shade from the blazing sun during the summer months (and frequently, when I leave Little Tokyo, I am carrying anime DVDs and other goodies). So, this is definately a train that I will be making good use of! The time it takes to get between Union Station and Little Tokyo station is unbelievable. I hope this gets fixed, otherwise, this is a main segment of a rail line that people won't forget how slow it is (plus..all the drivers on the 101 will see why Metro Rail is not 'fast enough' as driving). I know there's an engineering reason...but something can/should be done, I could hope. Didn't they have a problem with the Gold Line to Pasadena and all of a sudden, after a year or two after opening, the line sped up by 5 minutes? Can the same be done for this? Great video. I almost feel like I don't have to test it out. That was awfully slow coming out of Union Station all the way to the Little Tokyo Station. There are some curves, but I felt like I could jog faster. Also, it seemed to really slow down coming out of the Soto station and out of the tunnel. I would think that could go a lot faster there as well. I thought they were talking about this being a 17-20 minute journey, so hopefully the 22 min. just reflected a more cautious operator as it looked like you caught most of the lights.
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 12, 2009 9:13:36 GMT -8
^ In this case, it seems the issue is the fact that it curves above-grade. I can't imagine a straight bridge would have these restrictions. This is an example where grade-separated doesn't necessarily mean faster.
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 12, 2009 9:18:20 GMT -8
Free Rides, the First Ever Boyle Heights Block Party and Mariachi Festival and Other Community Festivities Planned for Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension Opening Celebration Sunday, Nov. 15
Free rides from one end of the Gold Line to the other, the 19th Annual Mariachi Festival featuring some of the best bands in Southern California, a special visit from Santa and other events will mark the celebration of the Edward R. Roybal Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension when it opens to the public Sunday, Nov. 15.
Community leaders and organizations have responded to the opening of the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension with dozens of events along the alignment, especially at four locations: East LA Civic Center Station, Mariachi Plaza, Little Tokyo/Arts District and Union Station. Sunday festivities will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Opening Day Activities
* East L.A. Civic Center Station Where: Third Street and Civic Center Way (near the East L.A. Public Library) What: Live performances of Chicano rock, a spectacular farmers' market, tasty food booths, healthy cooking classes, children's activities, local artisans and special exhibits from the County Bike Coalition and Metro Bike programs.
* Mariachi Plaza Station Where: First Street and Boyle Avenue What: The First Annual Boyle Heights Block Party and Mariachi Festival on First Street, between Boyle Avenue and State Street. Two stages of live Mariachi, Latin and contemporary music -- including Jahnny Wallz, Domingo Siete, UmoVerde, Dirty Hens and Quito Sol. The bands will play a mix of music inspired by the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa. Mariachi performances will include local and internationally recognized musicians: Mariachi Sol del Mexico, Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles, Mariachi Mexicapan, Mariachi Voz de America, Mariachi Santa Cecelia and Mariachi Conservatory. They will play a mix of mariachi music inspired by the different regions and styles of Mexico. There will also be free giveaways, a free kids corner, art exhibits and lots of food.
* Little Tokyo/Arts District Station Where: Alameda and First streets What: Live karaoke on stage, delicious cuisine from dozens of nearby restaurants, special family activities and booths representing businesses and organizations from the area.
* Union Station Where: East Portal, Union Station stop on the Metro Gold Line and Metro Red Line, corner of Cesar Chavez Avenue and Vignes Street What: A special pre-holiday visit from Santa, who will appear with the Caroling Company, 1 to 1:30 p.m., in anticipation of his first holiday appearance in the 2009 Hollywood Santa Parade on Sunday, Nov. 29.Also at Union Station will be a display from Madame Tussauds Hollywood, as well as bands, guitarists and food booths.
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Post by Jason Saunders on Nov 12, 2009 9:48:14 GMT -8
^ In this case, it seems the issue is the fact that it curves above-grade. I can't imagine a straight bridge would have these restrictions. This is an example where grade-separated doesn't necessarily mean faster. Well, you would have the same restrictions if these curves were at grade.
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Post by darrell on Nov 14, 2009 0:59:55 GMT -8
Good LA Times editorial Friday: Editorial
The Eastside's new Gold Line After 22 years and $900 million, light rail comes to L.A.'s Eastside. November 13, 2009
It's hard to build public transit projects in Los Angeles under the best of circumstances, but the Gold Line light-rail spur from Union Station to Atlantic Boulevard in East L.A., which opens Sunday, has a long and bruising history that seems to have left at least one key backer permanently scarred.
County Supervisor Gloria Molina last month called the line "substandard" and worried that it would be unsafe for drivers and pedestrians, despite the fact that it has been vetted and approved by safety experts. "We all struggled so hard to get this into our community," she said. "Now, at the end of the day, I feel like I'm being shortchanged on the issues of integrity, safety and confidence."
On the surface, it was a surprising reaction from Molina, a tireless advocate for her Eastside district who is about to see the opening of a perfectly safe, six-mile light-rail line, a $900-million project that took 22 years from planning to completion. Yet she has never recovered from a process in which what was originally envisioned as a spur of the Red Line subway ended up with only 1.7 miles underground. The subway plans were derailed both because of the enormous price tag and because of public anger over cost overruns and sinkholes during the construction of the Red Line to North Hollywood, which prompted Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to sponsor a successful ballot initiative in 1998 that forbade using county sales tax funds for further subway projects. Molina is still upset that after getting a subway built in his Westside district, Yaroslavsky saw to it that none would be built in hers.
Fortunately, Molina's bitterness doesn't appear to be shared by her constituents, who mostly seem thrilled about Sunday's debut. They should be; the Eastside has a large transit- dependent population, and by the end of its first year, the Gold Line is expected to attract 13,000 daily boardings.
Of course, this doesn't mean the sniping over subways has ended. Not satisfied by a recommendation from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff that an eight-mile project along Crenshaw Boulevard should be a light-rail line rather than a less expensive dedicated busway, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas hopes to drum up hundreds of millions more dollars to make it a subway. Meanwhile, the so-called subway to the sea along Wilshire Boulevard -- one of the only parts of L.A. with the density to justify the expense of subway construction -- is constantly under threat from politicians who want to seize its funding for their own projects.
But those are fights for another day. On Sunday, there will be such a thing as a free ride, with the new Gold Line operating all day with no charge. All aboard.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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Post by bluelineshawn on Nov 14, 2009 7:36:25 GMT -8
Well if speed is one of your standards, then this line is substandard. And the location of the line is for the most part away from the eastside destinations which appear to be more towards Whittier Blvd. And the bizarre distances between stations. If this line is successful it will be despite itself, but I don't see that happening without the connector. I guess that observing the dismal ridership on the parallel bus line has me pessimistic. It will be good for Boyle Heights and Little Tokyo, but I'm not sure beyond that.
Anyone know what time trains will start running tomorrow? Some of the press releases mention free rides 9-5, but others say opening to close of service. My impression is that service might run normally but the "festivities" are from 9-5. That would mean the first run south would be at 3:40am.
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Post by rubbertoe on Nov 14, 2009 12:05:53 GMT -8
And a follow-up question would be, do they still plan on making you get off at Union Station, then get in line to get back on for a trip East? I think I heard that here, just want to confirm.
RT
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Post by bluelineshawn on Nov 14, 2009 12:54:19 GMT -8
Yes, everyone will have to reboard at Union Station for tomorrow only. Partly because they are running more east la trains than pasadena trains.
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Post by jeisenbe on Nov 14, 2009 16:05:11 GMT -8
The Transit Politic wrote about the Eastside Extension this week. The author, Yonah Freemark, is also disappointed by the slow speeds and other compromises, but overall it is a positive article: www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/11/13/gold-line-extension-ready-for-service-in-east-los-angeles/Gold Line Extension Ready for Service in East Los Angeles November 13, 2009 East LA Civic Center Station » Though originally planned as an extension of the heavy rail Red Line, light rail will be good for East L.A. when it begins operations Sunday. In most cities, the construction of a $900 million light rail line between downtown and a heavily transit-dependent neighborhood would be seen as a great step forward in the process of expanding the region’s transportation options. For East Los Angeles, however, the Gold Line East Side Extension’s opening is bittersweet. While it is true that this new six-mile line, an extension of the Gold Line from Pasadena to downtown with eight beautiful stations, will be a boon for people who live in one of the city’s poorest and least-connected neighborhoods, an alternative originally planned more than twenty years ago would have been even more beneficial to the community. In 1987, Los Angeles transit planners mapped out the city’s future transit system, highlighting a line running east-west from Westwood to East L.A. as the central spine. This heavy rail project, whose first phase opened as the Red Line between MacArthur Park and Union Station in 1994, lost its appeal as costs rose exponentially and after an explosion raised fears about the system’s safety. Los Angeles County Supervisor Zeb Yaroslavsky campaigned to kill more spending on subways in the city, eventually winning a referendum to do just that, despite the fact that the federal government had already committed hundreds of millions of dollars to an East L.A. extension from Union Station. Congressman Henry Waxman put a stake in the project’s heart when he successfully convinced Congress to eliminate future funding for underground trains in the city to please his wealthy Westside constituents who did not want a line under Wilshire Boulevard. So the plans for an east side subway died, replaced by Metro with a partially federal-sponsored light rail project that runs just 1.7 miles under Boyle Heights, with the rest along the street; construction began in 2004. Now that the city’s citizenry has approved a new funding source and Mr. Waxman has removed his block on subway funding, it looks like the Westside will get its subway after all — but not East L.A. This comes to the major detriment of transit users in the affected neighborhoods. While the Gold Line light rail trains will require 22 minutes to traverse the six-mile route between Atlantic Boulevard and Union Station (from where it will continue on the existing Gold Line route to Pasadena), Purple Line heavy rail trains can travel from Union Station to Wilshire and Western — about five miles — in just thirteen minutes. It seems reasonable to suggest that heavy rail, operating entirely in a subway, would have saved thousands of commuters ten or more minutes a day over what they’re getting with light rail. This may seem inconsequential, but if the Westside subway and extensions of the East L.A. line to El Monte or Whittier are ever built, those ten minutes could have meant significantly shorter daily work trips for hundreds of thousands of people. For the moment, planners expect only 13,000 daily users on the line in 2010 — a number that would have been likely higher had the travel time been shorter. Ridership is also limited by the lack of a direct connection between the light rail Blue Line and Union Station, a deficiency that will be solved with the eventual construction of the Regional Connector downtown. That project will also allow through-running from West L.A.’s Expo corridor, all the way to the East L.A. Atlantic Station terminus. If light rail is not ideal, however, the huge cost savings of running the route principally overground may have been worth it, especially since East L.A., though dense, is certainly no high-rise neighborhood. A heavy rail line through the community may not have ever attracted a sufficient number of users to make it a good idea. On the other hand, experience in cities like Washington, D.C. suggests that heavy rail stations even in less dense areas can attract significant surrounding development and very high ridership. One wonders if it’s fair that the rich Westside gets the best standards of transit, while East L.A. gets something significantly less performing. The Gold Line will be a successful element of the Los Angeles cityscape, but the project probably could have made a far more serious dent in the region’s car culture had it been designed differently. Yet Los Angeles will be able to build more projects overall because of the savings here. And Metro has a cornucopia of proposals on its plate. And the Gold Line Eastside Extension, named after America’s first Mexican-American congressman, Edward R. Roybal, is a handsome addition to this neighborhood. Each of the stations was designed by an artist and is distinctive, making each a jewel in a somewhat blighted neighborhood that was partially demolished to make way for the construction of the Pomona and Santa Ana freeways. Those roads remain huge obstacles whose close adjacency to the light rail line’s route may actually reduce ridership, but there’s not much to be done on that account. In addition, current County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who was a major supporter of the project, is upset about the fact that the line is above ground — she fears that trains will run over pedestrians — but her concerns are overstated considering the success of similar projects in other countries and even in Los Angeles itself. There’s nothing to fear from the Gold Line, but it could have been better.
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Post by tonyw79sfv on Nov 14, 2009 16:36:35 GMT -8
Yes, everyone will have to reboard at Union Station for tomorrow only. Partly because they are running more east la trains than pasadena trains. I don't see it mentioned anywhere else, but I'm betting that the only free ride is from Union Station to Atlantic/Pomona and not the Sierra Madre Villa to Union Station segment. On another note, who is riding the first run tomorrow at 3:40am? No other connecting rail service will make it in time for it; so other than the 24 hours buses like the 70/71, you'd have to drive to Union Station.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Nov 14, 2009 17:52:32 GMT -8
No, the Metro press release says that rides are free on the entire line.
All aboard! Join us as we celebrate the opening of the Edward R. Roybal Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension. There’ll be music, entertainment and family fun at four stations, plus free rides on the entire line from Pasadena to East LA.
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Post by rubbertoe on Nov 14, 2009 18:19:05 GMT -8
I just love it when someone has their act together, unlike the MTA web site. So check it out, I'm wondering if Google will have the new Gold Line extension on their maps application when the line opens up. So I run a quick query to see how I get from my place to Sushi-Gen tonight. For those of you not familiar with Google maps, you can select a "transit" option for getting from point A to point B... So the Gold Line gets me to Union Station, then I need to hop a bus to get close. Then I go back and change the date for making the trip to this Monday. And lo and behold, Google knows that the fastest way there will be taking the train to Little Tokyo! And, it even knows that the destination station has changed from Union Station to Atlantic... And I checked tomorrow, opening day, and it said I could ride straight through to Little Tokyo. Guess they didn't know about requiring a transfer at US. So their grade drops from a A++ to a mere A+
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Post by bluelineshawn on Nov 14, 2009 18:54:43 GMT -8
Pretty cool! But google gets their information from the transit agencies so they are both kind of on the ball.
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Post by masonite on Nov 14, 2009 20:00:59 GMT -8
Google Maps (Transit) is the way to go. It took the MTA a little longer than a lot of other agencies around the country to get up on it, but it is a big asset. Other agencies need to get on it for it to be really useful for LA County though. In my neck of the woods, Big Blue Bus is still not on it, so when you put in your request it may miss some quicker alternatives. What I like is it even gives you the directions based on the train schedules (probably more accurate for the subway and Green Line than Blue or Gold).
Now we just need a seamless well running TAP Card across the entire county to get caught up with other agencies in these regards.
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Post by ieko on Nov 14, 2009 23:41:39 GMT -8
Just thought I'd mention that Big Blue Bus and Torrance Transit are working on adding themselves to Google Transit. Also I think it'd be good to mention that most smartphones, like the Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, and the iPhone offer Google Transit in their Google Maps applications which also take advantage of the GPS chips inside the phone to give your current location as a starting point.
Also, Metro doesn't put their fare information in the Google Transit feed, but other agencies who are on it do.
By the way I always get the Harbor Transitway as an option, but that's probably because I'm coming from the South Bay and so it's always quicker to use the Harbor Transitway when going north.
List of agencies in the region that're on Google Transit: Long Beach Transit OCTA Irvine Shuttle Metrolink Amtrak RTA Omnitrans Foothill Transit Burbank Bus MTS and so on...
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Post by darrell on Nov 15, 2009 16:26:21 GMT -8
Here are four photos of my experience riding the Eastside Gold Line today. My father and I arrived at Union Station before 11 a.m. There was no line and the cars had a couple of empty seats, partly courtesy of three-car trains running frequently. At the end of the line at Atlantic here's the train we're about to board and another nearing the station. Trains were getting full with standees now. It was great seeing the parents and kids there. Lots of people were getting off and on the trains at the Mariachi Plaza subway station, where 1st Street was closed above for a street festival. Back at Union Station before 1 p.m., the line now stretched the length of the tunnel.
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Post by Gokhan on Nov 15, 2009 17:34:53 GMT -8
My congratulations go to everyone who will frequent this line and, of course, all of us rail advocates. Looking at these pictures, I can't help but imagine this is the Expo Line. Well, only twelve months are left for that opening! You can count on me to dare the crowds for that one. And, please, keep more opening-day pictures coming...
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Post by bluelineshawn on Nov 15, 2009 17:39:51 GMT -8
Anyone know what time trains will start running tomorrow? Some of the press releases mention free rides 9-5, but others say opening to close of service. My impression is that service might run normally but the "festivities" are from 9-5. That would mean the first run south would be at 3:40am. FTR the trains were long running when I arrived at 0800. I suspect that they started on a normal schedule. Crowds were very sparse at 0800, but really got crowded by about 1100. It was getting hard to squeeze on trains at intermediate stations by 1230.
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Post by Justin Walker on Nov 15, 2009 17:52:53 GMT -8
FTR the trains were long running when I arrived at 0800. I suspect that they started on a normal schedule. Crowds were very sparse at 0800, but really got crowded by about 1100. It was getting hard to squeeze on trains at intermediate stations by 1230. Correct. I was among about 15 people that rode the first train out of Union Station at 3:40am. It also carried it's first bike passenger at that time. I don't imagine there were many riders on the line for the next several hours, though...
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Post by bluelineshawn on Nov 15, 2009 18:25:48 GMT -8
FTR the trains were long running when I arrived at 0800. I suspect that they started on a normal schedule. Crowds were very sparse at 0800, but really got crowded by about 1100. It was getting hard to squeeze on trains at intermediate stations by 1230. Correct. I was among about 15 people that rode the first train out of Union Station at 3:40am. It also carried it's first bike passenger at that time. I don't imagine there were many riders on the line for the next several hours, though... Very cool!! No way that I was making that trip without knowing for sure, but I don't know that I would have made it up there that early even if I had known. Did you get any pics? I'll post mine later.
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Post by jeisenbe on Nov 16, 2009 7:38:20 GMT -8
Another story on the Gold Line from an International transit blog, Human Transit. The author is Public transit planning consultant Jarrett Walker, who grew up in Portland but lives in Sydney, Australia. I love the snarky take on the LA Times article. Bashing the Times is almost too easy. www.humantransit.org/2009/11/east-los-angeles-the-gold-line-opens.htmllos angeles: gold line opens; "planners" blamed
Congratulations to Los Angeles on today's opening of the Gold Line light rail extension, which runs from Union Station through several historically neglected suburbs to East Los Angeles, and will probably someday go further.
More precisely, congratulations to every Angeleno except Ari B.Bloomekatz of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote this www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gold-line13-2009nov13,0,3095130.story:
Why is the Gold Line not a subway?
From the beginning, residents and politicians on the Eastside pushed for the Gold Line extension to be built completely underground. In the end, transportation planners decided to make a roughly 1.7-mile portion of the Gold Line a subway -- the part that runs underneath Boyle Heights. The majority of the route runs above ground. Ah, those nasty cruel "transportation planners"! Sorry, but the answer to "why" is not "the planners decided ..." unless your main goal as a journalist is to instill feelings of ignorant helplessness in your readers. Planners and political leaders made these decisions for a reason, and that reason is the real answer to the question. Mr. Bloomekatz missed an opportunity to educate his readers about the real choices that transit planning requires. We all need citizens to be smarter about those choices.
Yes, there was once a plan to extend the Red Line heavy-rail subway east from Union Station to cover a similar area, all underground. There is no way this would have cost less than $2 billion at today's prices, probably much more. The Gold Line extension came in just under $0.9 billon, and that's high largely because of the one underground section they still had to build, to get through a segment of Boyle Heights where there was no good surface option.
Los Angeles has the worst deficit in transit infrastructure of any city in North America. No other city on the continent grew so large with so little rapid transit. Today, most of the region's leaders understand this was a mistake, and are trying to build rapid transit as fast as they can. But underground construction is massively more expensive, so if you insist on undergrounding everywhere, you'll get a much smaller network.
When you're trying to build as much of a network as you can, as fast as you can, there are just three technically compelling reasons to bear the huge cost of going underground:
- to get past a specific surface obstacle that can't be bridged over more cheaply, such as the Hollywood Hills, or San Francisco Bay, or more commonly a segment where there's no credible surface alignment, such as through Boyle Heights on the Gold Line. (This is, admittedly, a grey area, as the credibility of a surface alignment often turns on the politics of how much you can impact current traffic and parking on the street.)
- to get to a crucial station site -- usually a connection point with other lines -- where there's no surface or elevated option.
- to serve a very dense corridor where highrise development is or will be the norm, and which can therefore generate the very high ridership to justify a subway. (e.g. Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, Second Avenue in New York). Even here, we're talking about streets that are already so built out that elevated structure would be unacceptable. If you're just talking about future highrise corridors, elevated may still be the answer, as it was in Vancouver.
(BART in San Francisco used to have a good reason: The original network offered to go underground for any city that wanted to pay the difference in cost itself. Only Berkeley accepted this offer, which is why BART is underground within its city limits. This elegant approach had the virtue of insisting on local funding to manage a local impact, where this impact was broadly viewed as acceptable by most of the other cities involved.)
Remember, too, that even if your current heavy rail subway is underground, it's extensions don't have to be. Most "subways" are heavy rail which take power from a third rail. Unlike light rail, these lines can't intersect streets, but they can be elevated and often are, sometimes with not-bad visual impacts.
So congratulations to all but one of the people of Los Angeles. This is a good start for a long-neglected part of the city.
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 16, 2009 9:07:01 GMT -8
Union Station was absolutely packed by 1:30 PM yesterday, with thousands of people waiting to ride the train. The line stretched from the Gold Line platform eastward the entire length of the pedestrian tunnel, then through the East Portal area, and then into the parking garage, where it wrapped around some more.
I did not imagine turnout would be so high. Obviously, not everybody that turned out yesterday will become regular Gold Line riders. But if yesterday's huge turnout gives any indication at all, I think the Eastside Gold Line is going to be very successful.
Inside the train, packed as it was, I could've been riding any of Metro's other LRT lines. The real interest for me was in the stations and station areas. I thought Mariachi Station in particular looked really great.
It's easy to see the missed possibilities: the fact that it misses Chavez and Whittier Blvds, that it is street-running over most of its route, etc. However, even with these limitations, I also think that this line is very well integrated into the neighborhoods and will provide a way for thousands of locals to get into the city reliably and inexpensively.
This line (and the other Metro lines, present and future) will have a huge influence on the shape and character of the city over the next 50+ years.
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Post by kenalpern on Nov 16, 2009 12:28:43 GMT -8
Inasmuch as I don't think the Eastside Gold Line will pack the political punch that a Green Line to LAX, a Wilshire Subway, or a Foothill Gold Line, I do think this is enormously popular for:
1) Local Eastsiders and their families who want access to that region 2) Non-Eastsiders who avoid this megadense area like the plague, but who will want to take more field trips to Little Tokyo or some of the most awesome Latino food on the planet
It's a good start...but only a start. I've written on this aplenty, and I'm hoping that the more visionary Eastsiders start planning for BOTH an Eastside LRT extension and a future Eastside HRT to serve the southeast portion of Downtown right NOW.
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snuffy
Junior Member
Posts: 62
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Post by snuffy on Nov 16, 2009 16:21:23 GMT -8
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Post by darrell on Nov 16, 2009 17:34:15 GMT -8
Someone mentioned, Metro did some free passes giveaway to the riders, do you have any idea what was it? Yes, I got one while waiting at Atlantic. It says, "This voucher entitles the bearer to one (1) free one-way ride on the Metro Gold Line. ... expires November 22, 2009." Nice little souvenir.
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 16, 2009 18:22:47 GMT -8
I got my souvenir ticket at Pico-Aliso station, after enjoying my slice of pizza from Purgatory Pizza.
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snuffy
Junior Member
Posts: 62
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Post by snuffy on Nov 16, 2009 18:48:07 GMT -8
Someone mentioned, Metro did some free passes giveaway to the riders, do you have any idea what was it? Yes, I got one while waiting at Atlantic. It says, "This voucher entitles the bearer to one (1) free one-way ride on the Metro Gold Line. ... expires November 22, 2009." Nice little souvenir. Oh I see, that's what it was. I guess I was too early to be there! thanks for the info, Snuffy
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