Results tagged “publictransportation”

The Gold Line's Eastside Extension is opening on November 15th, but how does one get to the light rail line? Other than the big connections at Union Station (Red Line, etc), what other bus lines connect to it?

Metro this morning finally announced the long-awaited opening of the Gold Line's Eastside Extension between downtown Los Angeles to East L.A. After the traditional inaugural ride with government officials and media in tow the day before, the six-mile line will be open to the public with free rides on Sunday, November 15th.

In a unanimous vote, the Metro Board approved the Long Range Transportation Plan this afternoon. The document will guide transit planning in Los Angeles County for the next 30 years. One amendment was introduced and ultimately approved as well. Among a number of changes it brought, the most notable is a commitment to try to open the Gold Line Foothill Extension from Pasadena to Azusa before 2017.

Metro is expected to pass the Long Range Transportation Plan at this mornings meeting, which began at 9:30 a.m. As Streetsblogger Damien Newton explains, the plan "will cement the timeline for local funding from Measure R for projects and allow the agency to apply for Federal and State funds." Basically, if voted upon, the document will be the guiding force for the development of transit in L.A. for years to come.

According to a report posted on Metro's website, it appears the Gold Line Eastside Extension could be opening on Saturday, November 14th. It is listed in a powerpoint presentation (.pdf) meant for a board committee meeting this Wednesday.

Are you worn out on public transportation meetings this month? Let's recap before we get to the latest. Current and upcoming meetings soliciting public feedback include the city's draft bicyle plan, the Crenshaw Line to LAX, bus lanes on Wilshire and major improvements to the Rosa Parks Station where the Blue and Green lines cross.

The first of four public meetings about the Crenshaw Corridor project was last night, with 50 to 60 people reportedly showing up. Out of those who attended, "about a dozen spoke their two minutes — with nearly every public speaker in favor of the light rail option," wrote transit blogger LA Wad on MetroRiderLA. That included LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas who paid a surprise visit to the meeting in support of the light rail option.

But don't get too excited as it's just one step in a long process that's almost completed. Although the timetable (.pdf) for the Gold Line now include eastside extension stations, they've been left blank. What a tease!

If you see the Gold Line running through the Eastside and East L.A. on a regular basis next week, don't think you can hop on board at the nearest station. Metro officials announced today that pre-revenue light rail train testing will begin Sunday, lasting at least a month before opening to the public.

October is going to be a busy month for public meetings about transportation. The city of Los Angeles is hosting a set of them on the draft master bicycle plan while Metro will gather input at a series of meetings about the Wilshire bus lanes.

As Metro works on a subway to the Westside, they are also working on peak hour bus lanes down Wilshire Boulevard to the Santa Monica city line and excluding Beverly Hills. The project aims to improve traffic flow along Wilshire Boulevard, encourage the shift from car to public transit, improve bus travel times and reliability on bus service.

The Metro board yesterday directed staff to apply for federal grants in hopes of capturing start-up money for the a subway to UCLA and a the regional connector in downtown.

The Mobility 21 transportation summit (.pdf) is wrapping up for the day, but earlier a list was released, featuring 21 "Critical Transportation Projects 'In My Backyard' to Improve Mobility throughout Southern California." The same-named six-county coalition included sexy public transit projects like subway to Westwood and high speed rail between San Diego and San Francisco, but also other important projects such as Positive Train Control for safety and added freeway lanes.

As exploratory drilling for the possibility of a subway to the Westside continues to take place on city streets, Metro is gearing up for another set of community meetings for updates on the project (meeting info is below). Last Spring, public meetings gathered input on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Report (DEIS/R) process that is currently underway. Next month, they will present a summary of what was heard at those meetings, provide updates to possible route alternatives and discuss the subway construction process if the project goes forward.

A survey conducted on behalf of Metro found that residents still support Measure R, which boosted LA County's sales tax up a half cent in order to raise $30 to $40 billion for transportation projects. However, it also found that people feel projects are moving too slowly to get the region out of gridlock. According to the LA Times, the poll of 605 registered county voters finds (with a plus or minus margin of 4%)...

On July 1st, our taxes in LA County increased a half penny on the dollar to fund a mix of transportation projects, whether they be rail, highway or something else, thanks to Measure R, which was voted in by the public last November. This Thursday morning, Metro will hold a Measure R committee meeting (.pdf) to discuss aspects of that and part of that discussion will be the possibility of moving up the timelines of three projects.

Yesterday was a big day for Los Angeles transportation. Metro, the county's behemoth transit agency, officially announced their partnership with Google. But the county is large and there are various partner agencies throughout. Here's a sampling, with more to come in later days, of where other city transit systems stand with Google Transit:

Earlier this week, word got around that Google Transit was up and working in beta mode. Today, it became the real deal. Over 200 bus lines and five lines with more than 2.5 million data points are now on Google Transit, an option found on Google Maps.

Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited Los Angeles last week and took a tour of the Gold Line Eastside Extension, which is expected to open soon (no date had been announced, though). The line will run between Union Station and East LA. "This whole rail line is way ahead what we are talking about in Washington," exclaimed LaHood. "This is what we mean by livable communities. You build it and they will come."

Starting next week and for four months after, Blue Line train service is going to be impacted as crews integrate the Expo Line, which will run between 7th/Metro station and Culver City, sharing two stations and track. Service will run every 30 minutes instead of the usual 20 on weekdays after 8 p.m. as crews work between the Washington and 7th/Metro stations. Weekend service will not be affected. The 8.5 mile line is expected to open in 2011 with the line extending to Santa Monica in the future.

Today Metro made a big step with an announcement that will give programmers a new tool to make and computer savvy commuters ecstatic. They launched a new beta developer website (and blog!) with two downloadable data sets--GIS and GTFS, or Google Transit Feed Specification, which is used in Google Transit. "This data set is a collection of tabular data describing route, stop, schedule, and fare information for Metro’s system," Metro said in a news release. "The GIS data is a collection of shapefiles for mapmakers who wish to include a layer of Metro Bus and Metro Rail lines and stops into a map."

Streetsblogger Damien Newton is not happy with the most recent Dodgers free parking promotion, which will run during the series against the Oakland A's June 16-18, saving you $15. Newton's problem is that the Dodgers earlier this year refused to fund the public transportation shuttle between the stadium and Union Station, a program that began just last year. Here are his thoughts plus math: "Well, now it's official. The Dodgers don't consider people that don't own cars part of their fan base. For the record, the Dodgers parking lot fits 16,000 cars. At $15 a pop, they are losing more revenue with this three day promotion to 'all their fans' then they would have spent funding the bus service from Union Station to Dodger Stadium for the entire season." But will the A's games fill up the parking lot?

Not owning your own property can be a bitch. And such is life when leasing from the government, one who will now be using some of the land for a transportation corridor. The Orange Line busway extension from the Warner Center up Canoga Avenue to the Chatsworth Train Station is slated to break ground this June. That means the businesses that have been leasing right-of-way property from Metro--some have for 50 years--will be booted or have their lease properties be chopped up into small ones.

The city budget crisis must be really that bad. Today, the LA Department of Transportation announced the elimination of free transfers on all of its DASH Downtown L.A. routes effective April 1. Fares will remain $0.25 per boarding and monthly passes can now be bought for $9 online or at various locations. "It will help a little bit," LADOT Bruce Gilman said of the increased revenue, which is projected to be around $130,000 annually based on an average of 10,000 transfers a week. "And we introduced a new pass that we want people to take advantage of." As for integrating with Metro's TAP fare system, Gilman said the department is "moving in that direction."

Another set of meetings for the Regional Connector, a project that could make a ride from Pasadena to Long Beach, or East LA to Culver City (and eventually Santa Monica) a reality without transferring, has been announced. "By providing continuous through service between these (light rail) lines, the regional connector will improve regional mobility, minimize transfers, reduce station crowding and improve access to both local and regional destinations,'' reads a Metro statement.

The colorful day passes that were released just a few years ago will be a thing of the past starting next month. As of March 15, the $5 fare for day passes will be on the new electronic, reusable and refillable TAP cards that were previously only available for monthly and weekly passes. With these, you can pre-load up to eight days worth of day passes.

Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents parts of downtown, called last Holiday season's pilot program that extended the Metro Red Line to 3 a.m. a great success, saying that the program performed well despite little lead time on marketing and outreach. "[It] illustrates great demand and interest in late night transit for our City," he wrote in a letter (.pdf) to the city's Transportation Committee." He cites the following example:

There are plenty of websites that will be your "what to do" guides in Hollywood, but only one will tell you how to get there and what obstacles you'll face. If know Hollywood Boulevard, you know street closures for movie premieres and other events happen often. And that's NavigateHollywood's strongest point:

   

Today for the first time, a light rail train ran the tracks on the soon-to-open Gold Line eastside extension that goes from Union Station to East LA. It was part of a slow moving clearance test to evaluate how doors measure up to station platforms and to make sure trains pass by equipment and through tunnels safely. The last streetcar ran on First Street just after midnight on March 31, 1963, Metro says. The new extension of the Gold Line should open this Summer, most likely the end of June.

Although not approved by Metro's Board, that staff report with timelines of projects has created quite some talk around town.