Angelenos! Find an excuse to ride/support Metro rail...

[imouttahere]

Good news on the mass transit front in L.A.


Exposition Light Rail Community Forums

http://www.mta.net/press/2005/10_October/metro_146.htm


The Orange Line Opens! Free rides!

http://www.mta.net/press/2005/10_October/metro_149.htm

[Terran]

1. Still amazes me...

I grew up in LA in the Sixties and have not lived there since I went away to college in 1977. But I never thought LA would have public transit like this. I think it's great.

[imouttahere]

2. cool huh?.....

this new Orange line runs from North Hollywood to Woodland Hills, with stops at Laurel Canyon, Valley College, Woodman, Van Nuys, Sepulveda, Woodley, Balboa, Reseda, Tampa, Pierce College, De Soto and Warner Center.

There's also construction to extend the Gold Line in a Southeastern direction towards El Monte. And the new mayor wants to see an extension of the Wilshire section of the red line out to the beach, and I attended a light rail discussion recently where a line from downtown to Echo Park, with a spur to Dodger Stadium, is also proposed.

[enid602]

3. expo

Also, good news/discussion on friend4expo.org.

[getmeouttahere]

6. Thanks for this, enid602

I'll check that out

[trackfan]

4. We ride the Gold and Red lines all the time.

I don't mind taking a few extra minutes to get somewhere if it gives me the convenience of not having to drive/park. I wish they would make it 24 hours though - even if they only ran 2 trains an hour in the middle of the night. I hate the feeling of having to worry about catching the last train.

[getmeouttahere]

5. I know what you mean....

how late do they run? I'm thinking about taking the train to Staples for hockey

[trackfan]

7. I'm not sure - I know they cut an hour off of the Gold Line Schedule

The Red Line's last pass thru Hollywood is about 12:30AM.

[kestrel91316]

13. Check out the Metro website for their schedules

You can plan a trip with dates and times and destination and it plots out a route for you

[shanti]

11. that's the way it is here too

light rail stops at about 11:30 pm and starts up again about 5 or 6 am. what about nightowls or partiers? that would cut down on DUI's too!

are they planning to extend to orange county soon?

[trackfan]

12. I think the next planned extensions are:

1. An East LA spur of the Gold Line

2. Continue the Gold Line from Pasadena all the way to La Verne/Pomona

3. Westward extension of the Red Line subway

Amtrak or Metrolink go to Orange County, but that starts to get pretty expensive.

[imouttahere]

17. And according to www.friends4expo.org website

their are light rail plans for Orange County, not much is said about it, though. You have to look at a map that shows what cities have introduced light rail in the last several years.

[jayctravis]

8. When we get some more forward thinking policies in place...

I am looking forward to this:

<http://www.acprt.org/index.cfm >|Woohoo!

[imouttahere]

22. This sounds cool....

but I wonder, and I didn't gleen this from the site, but do the individuals actually operate their own PRT, or do they punch in a destination? Also, I could see where people wouldn't want elevated guideways all over town.

[jayctravis]

24. From what I read, you buy your destination at an atm-like machine.

Then when you scan your farecard it takes you to that place, so you're not programming the car.

They say that this type of system has a tiny footprint, and can be attached to the sides of buildings - the stations don't have to be at ground level, and require what wouldn't seem to be more difficult construction than standard roadwork.

Apparently they can also go *inside* of buildings, so these could be in malls...a company could easily finance and incorporate their own private station to service their workplace or apartment building.

Imagine instead of giving someone directions to somewhere, you just exchange a card with them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. People in Minneapolis don't believe me when I tell them that we have

worse public transit than Los Angeles.

We just got our FIRST rail line last year.

[imouttahere]

15. Don't feel too bad....

we are so much larger geographically here in L.A. that it will take a lot more expansion to really make the kind of impact you want.

[shanti]

10. we just opened the folsom line here in sacramento!

love our light rail! i ride it to work every single day, and it's packed.

[imouttahere]

14. That's great news!

I hope we here that they are expanding Sacto's light rail very soon.

[bleedingheart]

16. I am so jealous....I only wish I had an opportunity to use commuter rail

I have to take three buses if I wanted to get to my office from where I live and it would take me 2 hours instead of my 1 hour commute....

[imouttahere]

18. Where do you live, bleedingheart?

cool user name, btw!

[bleedingheart]

19. I live in Pittsburgh

where rail is only built as a tourist attraction or to only one segment of the city.

Also...we have a great number of racists that do not like the idea of commuter trains because they want to keep "those people" out of the suburbs...so all of us poor schmucks commuting every day have to sit in traffic for hours because people are bigots.

[imouttahere]

20. Wow, that is so messed up!...

and I'll assume you are referring to the Incline?

You should start a campaign for more light rail. Maybe you'd find that more people would be interested than you originally thought.

[bleedingheart]

21. no the incline has been there for almost 100 years if not more

those were used initially to take the steel workers from the houses on the hills to the steel mills in the city.

There is a subway...from the South Hills to Pittsburgh (the only suburb to city route) and that piece includes the track that runs from Station Square (touristy area) to the city...

Now they want to extend it...to the brand new tax payer funded stadiums...Oh goody!...but no plans to run the subway East, North or West...into the heavily populated suburban areas.

[imouttahere]

23. Seems to me the smart thing would be....

to run it from the suburbs AT LEAST to the stadiums - aren't most of the fans from the suburbs anyway? Of course, for the Steelers that might not be a big deal for many, because they tailgate. But for the others, and Pirates games, you'd think that would be a great thing to have a subway/light rail stop at the stadiums.