The Most Important Transit Project for LA? | Regional Connector
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- čas přidán 12. 06. 2023
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Los Angeles is about to opening a long-awaited new downtown rail tunnel, but is it all it's cracked up to be? Find out in the latest edition of RMTransit!
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
Basically what Los Angeles has been doing is recreating a modern version of the Pacific Electric, something that should never have been abandoned in the first place. For those of you unfamiliar with the Pacific Electric there are numerous books on it. The Pacific Electric had two four track main lines, while the new Pacific Electric doesn't have any. The Pacific Electric had its faults, but it would have been far easier to have kept it and rebuilt it than starting from scratch all over again.
Yea, it’s been disappointing to realize that many of the routes which I’m excited for USED to exist but we tore them up.
On the other hand, I’m not gonna let our past mistakes ruin the excitement of finally getting the transit infrastructure that I need!
When the Pacific electric rail line or torn down, the buses that replaced them were better in every way. They used less equipment and were more flexible for routing and could make more frequent stops. LA Metro is building fully grade separated subways under Wilshire and Sepulveda, WAY BETTER than any of the old streetcar lines!
@@PASH3227 one of the greater American transit delusions is that the century old stuff was good and if we just held on cities would have great transit. When in reality they are dated and sucked. The affect is that cities try to revive the old stuff instead of innovating leading to bad transit.
@@PASH3227 Buses get stuck in traffic. LA traffic. It also forced LA to spend more money to rebuild their old network when they could have just upgraded the PE. NYC had an age-old subway that they kept around and now it’s one of the best in the world.
@@guppy719this is just false. Just like how busses get imrpoved, the streetcars would have been imrpoved too. See Toronto streetcars and how they carry more people than like 5 busses.
Let me just say, as a Los Angeles Metro user, this is an amazing expansion. I'm very critical of LA metro and how they operate their services. Things like frequency, cleanliness, fare enforcement, delays and much more need to be improved for ridership to increase. That said, this expansion is extremely important. As you mentioned, I am relatively disappointed that the E line does not extend to union station. I take Metrolink to Union Station where I would usually need to transfer via the B or D line to the E line. This project makes that transfer somewhat smoother by instead just taking the parallel running A line but it still takes longer than I'd like.
Overall, this is a win for LA metro and every expansion of their service map brings joy to my heart. I am moving away from LA this month but I look forward to seeing metro improve their services. Maybe when I return later in life there will be a much more user friendly system in place!
Yeah as someone who keeps up with the news and is aware of the how bad Metro is managed (really? the board isn't directly elected and Metro also wants freeway expansion?!) progress, no matter how small, is progress. That said, there are no laurels to rest on; we need world class transit and we need it now.
Once you move, you won’t come back.
Thanks for not being afraid to mention fare enforcement, even though America admittedly has really bad fare collection systems on a lot of systems anyway.
I think there are two big reasons why LA is making their transit expansions pretty basic for now.
1. Because LA has been so terminally car centric, I think their approach may be to simply give as many neighborhoods as possible connectivity as quickly as possible, then upgrade them later. Yes, the projects aren't as great as they could be, but at least an alternative to driving now exists for many people, and as more people use them, they'll induce more demand and political will for expansions later down the road. I know that simply building transit isn't enough, but giving more people at least one or two good lines that they can use will make them hungry for more. I think this is why transit projects are more common in the Northeast Corridor than anywhere else in North America. Because even if the services aren't as great as they should be, just their presence alone already induces more demand for them.
2. The 2028 Olympics are only 5 years away, so they need to build as much transit as humanly possible right now because there's going to be a lot of foreigners who don't drive that will be visiting LA for the Games.
True but the fact the regional connector isn’t being built for 5 car trains will probably lead to serious overcrowding problems for the Olympics that could have been mitigated for longer trains.
Worth noting that LA hosted the Summer Olympics in 1984 without a single mile of rail. They created a temporary bus network that shuttled spectators around the county to their venues and was a wild success. That along with very effective messaging from local leaders about reducing car usage culminated in one of the easiest Olympics ever with a mind boggling $240 million surplus for the city. I am confident they can reapeat this again but much more easily this time. There's technology that wasn't around back in 1984, there's an expanding rail system and with all the work from home jobs, keeping local angelinos off the roads should be very easy. Still, I agree they need to still tie the whole transit system together. If they can't make longer trains, make them double decked.
2028 Olympics? Try the 2026 world cup which is going to be far more massive.
@@ichigo2012hollowmask yeah but 2026 WC is spread over about 15 cities. LA 2028 will host all of the events in the LA area alone.
@@ichigo2012hollowmask No, it won't be. Not by a long shot. The World Cup is spread out across the country with only one stadium per host city, while the Olympics will be held entirely within LA County, thus required more regional connectivity than what the World Cup will need.
It is a big improvement, and yeah, it could have been better, but it has been taking so long i will take what I can get. Once the Purple Line goes to UCLA, it would make it easier for students to go to the Rose Bowl, and the Olympics being soon should get Metro to speed up their other pressing projects. Of all the ones that are talked about, the Vermont Line is most needed as it is the densest part of LA and there needs to be more N/S lines. Personally, that from Sunset to San Pedro would be the ideal and be much appreciated.
There is a shuttle bus that goes from Westwood to the Rose Bowl. It comes hours before games start so students can tailgate and the first bus returns to Westwood after halftime. Faster and more direct than taking 2 rail lines and a shuttle. The Purple Line will make it easier for students to get to Koreatown and Downtown however!
I think the issue is that LA being as big as it is, really needs to be getting each project right because they have hugh impacts!
@@RMTransitGetting it right doesn't mean much when put into real world context like real world funding schemes for transit projects on Metro. These projects are not designed or built in a vacuum.
@@PASH3227 the shuttle costs money and is still very slow on gamedays. Theoretically, the D line and A line could be faster. Probably not faster on the way back from evening games, but faster than the way there.
@RMTransit
But do count the fact that NIMBYs tried to litigate the Metro extensions by weaponizing California’s environmental review law so it can get paused, hence taking it longer to built. I think it’s a win.
This is a great development for Los Angeles. We have a lot of work to do to get back to pre-pandemic ridership, but people who say "no one uses Metro" are being ridiculous. We are up 16% YoY through May, and nearly 1 million people ride Metro on an average weekday. Hundreds of millions of people every year rely on Metro and the service it provides. Here's hoping it just gets better.
Well said. The LA Metro system has improved a lot in the last two months on many levels. The opening of the Regional Connector is a very important one.
The next logical next step would be to start upgrading their LRT lines, increase service on the Metrolink commuter lines, and connect all the lines to Union Station. This can be done in phases and look for ways to save on construction costs. It would be interesting to see LA transform from a car centric region to one that is known for it's good transit system.
The Green Line being cut short by like a mile in Norwalk is such a gigantic slap in the face to the region. I'd love for the WASB to open before the Olympics too but we'll see how that goes.
LA is way too sprawled out to focus only on Union Station. It'd be good to keep it as the Hub and add more reasons to go there, but they really need more radial tracks that connect the lines without having to go all the way to Union. Extending the tracks from Torrance to Long Beach would help the Green Line, and adding more BRTs is a good middle ground solution.
Westwoood and LAX will eventually be hubs too. Westwood will be the intersection of 2 subway lines while LAX will have a people mover that connects to a subway line and 2 light rail lines.
@@finned958 What I'd argue is there is nothing wrong with going to Union Station, so long as you actually put stuff at Union Station. Sure, maybe a Metrolink terminus at say LAX could be useful to decentralize Metrolink, but at the end of the day the best policy LA could adapt is to turn Union from a station that only exists to make connections, to a station that is surrounded by important venues and destinations people would want to visit.
You would want to have a lot of circumferential lines as well though
@@finned958 You absolutely do not need HSR in order to make Union Station a hub. Union today has enough connections and lines funneling towards it to make it justified to be densed up and become a hub. Connection wise it has the same number of lines/services serving it as Toronto Union Station, and you can look at that and see the amazing job Toronto did in the last 10-15 years making Union Station itself a destination.
As someone who’s used metro now for years, for me my biggest problem is how unsafe it feels to ride. I’ve seen countless fights, drugs, people screaming on the train, its just not a pleasant environment. The lack of security is honestly astonishing.
I think Reece needs to address this. Everyone I talk to about LA transit these days warns me that it's dangerous. Although I'm a car driver, I happily use transit when it makes sense, like when I lived around Boston before the MBTA fell apart. My favorite vacation city, Melbourne, largely appeals to me because I can so easily get everywhere without a car, and I don't feel endangered getting onto a train, tram or bus there. We in LA are on an ambitious building program. The only way it will bear fruit is if riders feel safe enough to stick with the system. For now, that's not nearly a given, with the vast homelessness problem, shortsighted leadership and no obvious solutions for when a society loses it's sense of civility. A transit system is an expression of trust among people in a commuity. If you don't have that trust, you can pour money all day into infrastructure and not have useful results.
Unfortunately this is probably unavoidable unless deeper societal issues in L.A and many parts of the US are addressed, namely a lack of socioeconomic mobility, the prevalence of homelessness and the opioid epidemic. You can put as much security as you like on the trains but that's probably just going to cause more conflict and disruption. Providing good quality and affordable public transport is one great step towards better quality of life and social mobility for impoverished people, but much more needs to be done beyond that.
yea LA
do better
enter yourself naked at my 🚪 and do ya thang !!!!!
Isn't that like a citywide or even statewide problem? We hear all the time about how California is unsafe in general, no wonder such a public premise like transit stations are also unsafe
@@cardenasr.2898 I've never felt unsafe on BART, Caltrain or Muni, though I haven't tried them lately.
I was born and raised in LA and started recently taking public transportation about 8 months ago. I would say one of the biggest needs is to clean up the system. The homeless issue is pretty large and the urine smells etc are a deterrent. I have taken public transportation all around the world and in other cities etc and LA metro is one of the lease comfortable when it comes to cleanliness and smell amongst other things. I am a single man, but I would totally understand if single women did not feel safe on some of the lines.
I hear you, but homelessness is not a DOT problem. It is societal problem. It will only be solved by addressing our economic system that is producing it.
@@mathieufaltys there are things they can do. Put portable bathrooms at stations. Enforce entry to the system. Have more enforcement checks. Clean the cars more often. Etc
@@kvirzi Good points, though they should be permanent public bathrooms available.
@@mathieufaltys the majority of homeless people are those who have fallen into drugs and alcohol. Most Homeless is a result of personal bad decisions, not really a societal issue.
@@2seep Not true, lmao. Poverty is.
Glad to see more LA videos. We may be the laughingstock of giant cities with weak transit in a lot of ways but we've been making as good progress as we can with all the NIMBYs and car addiction culture of America.
Besides the sprawl of the region and how hard it is to connect everything since LA is more of a region than a city, the speed of the trains since most of it is at-grade is the biggest hurdle IMO (along with 10 minute peak times). I'd love a video of how feasible it'd be to create signal priority for all the trains and some good examples of that being done after-the-fact. If we could give buses their own lane even during just peak times and give buses and trains signal priority that'd immensely help with seemingly little effort comparatively.
Signal Priority is not a panacea but yes, I should do that video
It could be worse though, you could be here in Phoenix
I get your point about Union Station, but Angelenos don't wanna take a detour to transfer at Union. Metro Center is better for transfers. This expansion will do wonders for the system and will be convenient for many. Metro may get a bad rap, but honestly, I'm glad they're building/built all of this in the first place. Is it perfect? Of course not! But Los Angeles is realizing they have a Summer Olympics/Paralympics to prepare for. Like how the Olympics have improved the transit systems of other cities like Vancouver and Salt Lake City, Los Angeles is using the 2028 Summer Olympics/Paralympics as an excuse to make the city more transit-friendly for all the tourists that are gonna be in town (and for ordinary Angelenos as part of the legacy).
This isn't the first time Los Angeles hosted of course, as they've hosted in 1932 and 1984, but this is a different era from 1984. This is an era where more people taking transit because we're either environmentally conscious, that it's silly to have to take a car to go small distances, cannot afford a car, or we're not physically or mentally capable of driving one. Considering that LA officials have been minimizing costs, they're building as much as they could to get ready.
If Metro Center is better for transfers, why build the regional connector at all?
Thev2028 Olympics is an incentive to get projects done quicker, but all these transit projects have been planned and approved way before LA was awarded the Olympics. However, they reworked what transit projects they wanted to fast track if possible. That is when they came up with the 28 by '28 initiative.
"The Twenty-eight by '28 initiative is an effort set forth by former Mayor Eric Garcetti that the City of Los Angeles complete 28 transportation infrastructure projects before the start of the 2028 Summer Olympics on July 14, 2028 and the 2028 Summer Paralympics the following month."
@@gruweldaadHuh? The Regional Connector goes through the 7th Metro Center station too.
I see your comments everywhere...
Hey, thanks for making a video about LA Metro! I'm actually one of those commuters who goes from Long Beach to Downtown LA via non-car transit - it generally takes me two hours each way. In the morning, for example, I do bus > Blue Line > Red Line, or I do two buses > Norwalk Metrolink if I want to "treat myself" to a nice comfortable train.
The Regional Connector is going to be an absolute *game-changer* for me. I've recently just gotten a bike to multimodal my commute (cutting out buses from the equation), and with it + the Regional Connector, I will hopefully cut off at least 30 minutes each way. I'm really excited to have a one-seat ride to Downtown LA and not having to worry about dragging my bike through a transfer.
Transit infrastructure in LA could be way better for sure. Other commenters have mentioned the Green Line not connecting to the Norwalk Metrolink; I also tried the "BRT" Silver Line here and felt like it could be way better. But this is a definite win for my commute! 🎉
Why don't we turn Silver line BRT into LRT?
For capacity, it does not need longer trains but more frequent services.
They could also order new train sets that are permanently coupled with open gangways.
So cool to hear you cover LA as someone who lives here!
Thanks for watching!
But LA Metro needs to fix is the Safety and security because there has been alot on the news of people being harrassed, injured and more. I hope LA Metro fixes that and hire more security. Espically the B/D lines with new Metrorail cars.
Also your idea of the tunnel thru Pico station is great because I remember using the Metro and the At grade right of way is constrained with the Railway crossings and at grade junctions. But it seems to be a project in the far future than the near future. I do hope that with the 2028 Olympics, LA Metro can make alot of its projects be built at the current time.
It’s sad that I thought “every 10 minutes?! That’s amazing” because I’ve been stuck waiting 30 min for a bus before and the buses out here … yikes
I used to take the LA Metro for granted, then I moved to Orange County and I miss it so much.
Opinion on the new OC Streetcar about to open?
Oc is ok I got around by bus. I didn't do much though
@@TheRandCrews that only goes to Santa Ana
OCTA is the worst!
@@tim1724 it's ok for some areas
FYI, the Broad Museum is pronounced "Brode" with a long o.
Would love to see more LA videos!
More are coming
Los Angeles is a city that definitely needs express rail corridors in order to make transit ridership more efficient that driving. Sure LA’s traffic is notorious but when there’s no traffic it takes me 20 minutes to get from Santa Monica to DTLA compared to the soon to be (or now) gold E line which takes about 50 minutes. With so much sprawl, express service makes sense to move people across the city but they don’t do that and thats the future-proofing LA is done getting goofed on. Sure one can take the train from Azusa (and in the future, Pomona) to Long Beach but that’s a 2 hour long ride compared to driving on the freeway on a good day (even with traffic it might be close to or less than 2 hours). Express tracks would make the journey much much faster.
I agree with need for the express lines but there are still advantages to a 2 hour ride from Azusa to LB. The main one is one less car on the road and you're less likely to be stressed or get into an accident. I find rail to be much better than driving, even if it's a bit slower.
Absolutely agree this could help tremendously. I'm slightly hesitant that people could see it as confusing or get on the wrong train. I can hear my father telling me that I'm overcomplicating it and to just drive there.
Getting places should be efficient and simple to navigate, and express trains would be a tradeoff, but given how slow the LRT is over longer distances compared to cars, it's definitely something to look into. The only issue is really that the L/A line corridor is only double tracked. I'm not sure how passing would work.
Yep, however its achieved more speed is needed for LA's transit to be competitive
I don't see many people riding the entire Azusa to Long Beach route on a general basis. Making express lines would cost a fortune to triple or quad track areas where there is no easy way to do so. Heck, there is even a small single track portion of the route.
@@renaes2807 uhhhh the tradeoff isn't worth it and that's the issue
Ah, Los Angeles transit, my belothed.
Seriously, being in this city can make you both militaristically supportive of transit with how car-centric everything is here and violently opposed to it with the city's utter lack of focus, funding, and sense when it comes to projects. These connections will be a great thing but are *long* overdue and will no doubt be a source of contention if the system sees any greater use with their lack of foresight.
militaristicatistically ... wow that's a word. I do agree tho lol
@@mohammedsarker5756 Lol, I thought it seemed too long!
San Diego definitely needs to have grade separation in downtown but at we had rail going through downtown from the start.
For sure it does, its a pretty significant system already
The San Diego transit authority has long-range plans for the grade separation of the trolley lines.
The Little Tokyo station junction is indeed underground
It’s so exciting to know that Long Beach will have a line that takes us to the heart of LA!!
The Blue Line has been in existence for 33 years. Where have you been?
THat happened decades ago
@@manilowmaniakThat's only partially true. It only used to go to 7th/Metro station. Now it goes into the heart which is near the Civic center and music center areas of DTLA
@@JohnWSmartNowOnly to 7th/Metro station. Now it goes to the music center and the Civic center areas of DTLA which is the heart of LA.
I hope the Dodgers and the Metro line partner up to build a stop at the stadium. The 110 freeway is a Nightmare on game day.
They're doing the gondolas. The stadium is on a hill. Building a Metro station there would be too expensive. It would probably have to be totally underground.
my thoughts for improving LRT lines; equip ALL lines with boom quad gates at all crossings for absolute transit priority and fence in the tracks that run along the streets.
That is where the light rail lines run down street medians.
Also B D Lines need to run MUCH more frequently. Right now they only run every 15 minutes off peak (for a combined downtime headway of 7 minutes). Ideally they should run at least every eight to ten minutes off peak.
What sucks is that train intersections are at the mercy of the local city; some more conservative than others (looking at you, Culver City). So LA Metro can’t unilaterally install priority signals or gates at intersections.
Hmm maybe Los Angeles should have a Megacity of its own (Toronto joke alert).
I concur
@@sayrith isn't most of the Culver City stretch of the E line elevated?
I get what you're saying about being visionary and future-proofing. However, if doing so raises the cost, timelines, and construction impacts of the project, it also raises the risk of the project never getting built. And, at the end of the day, a cheaper line that actually opens is better for transit riders than a visionary line which gets postponed and litigated to death and never exists outside of computer simulations.
Exactly. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
They need to invest into keeping the stations cleaner and safer. I'm glad they're moving away from being entirely car-centric, but they really need to keep their system nice if they want people to keep riding.
They're doing that now that Covid pandemic is over
It could be better, but it's still a big leap forward. LA actually has the potential to be a great transit city. The K line and D line extensions will make the system more like a complete network, and Metrolink is investing in a lot of upgrades too. I hope they'll end up choosing electrification.
That you have to say you “hope” they’ll choose electrification concerns me
Honestly the fact that metrolink is trying to achieve 30 minute headways on most it's lines would be a huge improvement from today.
@@RMTransit The Hydrogen/Battery kool-aid is currently a powerful drug at the planning level in Cali.
@@Absolute_Zero7 I just don't understand why they're so fixated on hydrogen. It's unproven tech at mass scale.
@@JHZech Its easy for politicians and bureaucrats to hope on hydrogen and batteries. Its hard to spend money on electrification. So the policy is to pray for new gadgets and technology to fix climate change problems tomorrow.
The LA Metro system has the potential to be a great system, to show that solid transit can be possible in a very car-centric place like Southern California. But they definitely need to improve safety and overall cleanliness. Our Pyongyang Metro is one of the safest systems on the planet, if not THE safest! Heck, we built ours so deep so they could be shelters in case of warfare. And we keep our stations beautiful! By improving both appearance and safety, they'd be owning their opponents and people who oppose transit from all over the US because the one thing these people love to bring up about transit is "muh violence". This is what makes people turn away to driving, which leads to more drivers within Los Angeles's infamous traffic.
And while most of the time it's exaggerated, it's definitely an issue in LA and adds on to the housing crisis there. Transit can lead to transit-oriented development, and thus it serves a solution to the crisis. Those on the Metro would be able to move somewhere if there was affordable transit-oriented housing.
Not that simple. And things only got really bad on Metro during Covid. The main reason for that was because LA Metro decided not to enforce fares. That resulted in more homeless using Metro for almost 3 years. That policy ended earlier this year. They've started new safety and security programs in May too so things are already noticeably better.
Paris is so far ahead of the rest of the 2 it's seriously making me want to move there...
Just to address a few points:
1) I don't think train lengths in LA can get much larger than 3 cars because of regulations either in LA or one or two of the surrounding cities. IIRC the rule is so that they adhere to block lengths and minimize the amount of intersection closures to near zero. There will be no longer trains unless that part of SoCal zoning is changed, which given our track record has a better chance of hell freezing over than our zoning laws changing.
2) The appearance of the line being able to have both branches reach LAUPT is a bit misleading. AFAIK there was never an option for both branches to reach Union Station after the Eastside Extension of the Red Line was permanently shelved following LA's transit revolt in the late 90's. In that original plan, the A line would have been just gone through to LAUPT where it may have branched off to Glendale/Burbank, while the B line would continue east. Given the limited amount of transit dollars Metro had, I recall the view was that it would be better spent better connecting DTLA than duplicating the B/D Lines. Thus we got a line that connects Little Tokyo/the Arts District with Bunker Hill/Music Center, a routing which did not exist under the old system.
3) While everyone in LA agree's that the Flower St corridor at least needs to be grade separated, that was not even a glimmer in the eye of transit planners until very late in the game. On one hand, LADOT will not allow more frequent service on the A/E Lines past every 6 min due to their outdated desire to keep road blockage to a minimum (which also inspires their resolve to not give signal priority to trains). On the other hand, when the Regional Connector started, there were not that many delays on the A Line or the recently opened E Line to Culver City. It was not until after the E Line extension to Santa Monica opened and was increased in frequency that it became a real issue. By then it was too late to redo the EIR without a massive budget overrun and years added to the project timeline (probably more years than the project is already late).
Also thank you for bringing up the dire need to upgrade Metrolink. There are few down here that advocate for that, with the majority focusing more on incredibly expensive subways and LRT projects.
In fact, I believe two key missing links in Southern California's rail transit are commuter rail lines. The first would connect be a Metrolink line connecting Irvine to at least Santa Monica via the coastal cities of Orange and Los Angeles County, which among other things, would link LAX and John Wayne Airports, as well as provide potential service to Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, connect to the LA Metro line somewhere in Long Beach and Redondo Beach, as well as the two major airports, with LA Metro connections in some of those locales.
The second would connect Escondido in San Diego County (which allows for a Sprinter connection to Oceanside) to the southern end of the 91/Perris Metrolink line in Riverside County, with stops in Lake Elsinore, Murrieta, and Temecula. That missing link is even more significant now, given the problems in San Clemente that have, on three occasions over the past 10 months, shut down the only rail line connecting San Diego and Los Angeles, California's two biggest cities. (And there likely needs to be a line built connecting Escondido and San Diego, which could be commuter rail or light rail, but I wouldn't count on CAHSR for that any time soon, if ever.)
@@cjs83172one of the big problems with better regional train service is the lack of interest from Orange and San Diego Counties. If both of those counties had similar transit funding schemes to LA (sales tax increases), then they could jointly develop projects and qualify to get matching federal funding. It comes down to political will and funding.
@@mrxman581 That's particularly true of Orange County and Riverside County. In fact, neither Orange County or the Inland Empire have a light rail system to connect their cities like Los Angeles or San Diego counties do. In fact, the L.A. Regional Connector is the second major light rail project to get completed in Southern California in under two years, with the other one being the extension of the San Diego Blue Line Trolley to UCSD and UTC, which opened in late-2021, and there are even plans for another light rail line in San Diego County, the Purple Line, to go northward from the border using the I-805 and I-15 corridors, though whether that will get the green light is yet to be determined. Then there's the Sprinter, which travels along the CA-76 and CA-78 corridors in the northern part of the county to connect Oceanside and Escondido.
@@cjs83172 ARROW in San Bernardino and Redlands is kinda sorta light rail.
@@cjs83172 Don't forget the opening of the LA Metro K line last year.
You don't really understand Southern California. No one is riding a light rail line from beginning to end, there are many employment and residential focal points along each line. The region isn't and never will be downtown-centric. This megalopolis is a uniquely frustrating yet interesting problem for transit planners.
With the regional connector opening, would *love* to see an express line along both the North-South and West-East portions. The situation is ripe for separating high-speed regional connection (that skips smaller stops) from the slower, more local trips. It's going to be an hour-long journey from Union Station to the western terminus in Santa Monica, spanning 19 stops!
I would love to see this also, especially with an upcoming commute to Pasadena later this year. Infrastructure wise. it'll take a bit to get there. You will need passing tracks at most stations and along longer stretches of track so the express trains can pass the local ones.
@@renaes2807 yessssss that sounds fantastic 😍
They tried skip stop express trains on the Gold Line before and it failed.
Express tracks should have built when the line was constructed. Actually they couldn't have been built at all in places like Highland Park because there's not enough room. Stop hoping for express trains.
The infrastructure built doesnt seem to support express trains.
Not many people on the E line have a need to go to Union Station … they can already transfer to A, B, and D lines (and J line BRT) at 7th St/Metro Center, which is the real Metro Rail hub. The only reason to go to Union Station for rail transfer would be for a Metrolink or Amtrak train (or the high speed rail several decades from now). I suppose they might need to go there to transfer to a bus, but most of those buses could be routed to cross an E line station.
Improving the A/E lines southwest of the regional connector would be great, but it would have been disruptive and expensive. They originally had some other plans for what to do at the Little Tokyo end of the tunnel, but political realities forced the current design. I do wish they'd made provisions for longer platforms in the future, but realistically there's no chance of either of those lines getting longer trains. Particulary the A line, the longest light rail line in the world, which has far too many platforms for them to realistically upgrade it anytime soon. Not when there are much more pressing projects competing for funds. (Just look at how many projects LA County is trying to get built before the Olympics in 2028!)
In the long run LA County needs more heavy rail. More subway lines (some north/south lines west of downtown would make sense) and someday probably an RER-like network.
Oh, and your "reasons a tunnel makes sense" section could have mentioned the fact that downtown LA is built on a hill. The tunnel avoids some steep slopes by going under it.
You make a good point, Union Station is pretty much avoidable to me now as a mainly E Line rider, and I love it so much! 95% of the time I'd end up there because I need to take the A Line northeast. The amount of extra time it would take to get off the E Line at 7th Street/Metro Center and wait there for a B/D Line train to Union Station, to then walk halfway across it _finally_ arriving at the A Line's station, when now all I need do is a single platform transfer at Pico station downtown! It's much easier to transfer there than at 7th Street/Metro Center.
The platform size is a non issue for the light rail lines in LA. The current 3 car length is future proof. It would be different if all the lines were completely grade separated, but they are not. So having longer stations and cars would only further complicate intersection crossings.
BTW, LA Metro is increasing the size of the C line platforms which are mostly designed for two cars. They are increasing them to three like the rest of the light rail lines.
Where large platforms matter is on the subway and we have the larger platforms and cars on the lines.
You're correct about everything in this except the need for the E line to go to Union station. It doesn't.
It needs to go from Santa Monica to USC/ Staples/Coliseum / LAFC stadium and downtown which it does... and Culver City where Apple TV , Amazon Studios, Sony , HBO, and some massive game company are expanding rapidly.. to downtown... which it does. In theory East side users could need commuter trains from Union station and have to switch to the A line for a stop but those numbers will be small. It is just not worth it now. That little jog north would have been billions and taken another decade
Indeed. And if this dude had done any worthwhile research he would have known that the original track layout did just what he was lamenting. A one seat ride from East LA to Union Station. LA Metro obviously had the data from all those years and decided it wasn't worth to keep that configuration. As a resident of East LA I have absolutely no problem with doing a single transfer to get to Union Station especially since the transfer takes place in the same platform you get off. You simply get off the E line train walk 20-30 feet and hop on the A line train. You don't have to even use your tap card again to make the transfer.
Again, this dude is very ignorant about LA transit.
Again I think the problem involves the nature of local politics. Although L.A. is the U.S.'s second largest city with a population of about 4 million, transet projects such as these are funded on a county level, and L.A. city population is a minority in a county of about 10 million. That means in order to pass transit funding initiatives, they have to be structured to appeal to far flung areas of the county and all points in between. That means far-flung lines to all corners of the county take precedence over the logic of investing more money into creating a dense core of service that would expand transit use exponentially, and means relatively bare-bones financing for each line which could, indeed, be built with greater practicality for potential future growth.
Yes and no. There is both funding for both city only and county. The densest part of the city has the most transit access. That area is DTLA. It has two subway lines and two light rail lines.
The purple line extension currently under construction is also being built underneath one of the busiest corridors in the country which is Wilshire Blvd.
LA Metro is doing a great job addressing the various transit needs of the city. The two areas where they fall short is building more BRT lines and protected bike lanes.
It's remarkable how this one small patch connecting three lines together is such a major improvement. When the K line finally opens at LAX and the B line reaches UCLA I predict a sharp increase in ridership.
They've already seen a noticeable increase since the regional connector opened
Maybe, but BART didn't go up that much in the Bay Area when the Daly City line became SFO, and Washington Metro is still shrinking despite the Dulles line.
@@Warriorcats64 I'm not as familiar with those other situations, but one of the reasons I believe it will be different in LA is because the new Regional Connector now allows riders to travel a comparable route to the 10 fwy across LA. One of the most traveled freeways in the city without needing to transfer. A one seat ride across all of LA.
I've lived in LA for over 20 years and in April 2023 I visited Tokyo staying in Ginza. I quickly realized that LA is decades behind the world when it comes to public transit.
Indeed. LA started their metro in 1990. Also, the cities in many countries get much more funding from their national governments. Not so much in the USA. It's all about funding.
Dude, it took 9 years to just get this. It would have tripled the cost to get what you’re asking for. We have so many other lines to build and don’t have unlimited funds.
2:01 turn the bloody bell down!" It doesn’t need to be so loud. You almost got me, fired!
Let’s remember that the Los Angeles LRT cars are similar in size, albeit articulated, to the Paris Metro and CTA Elevated cars.
4:00 Ouch, that's... bad. Frankfurt, the city I'm often referencing for a premetro, and thus a good comparison to LA Metro, only has flat functions on the outside sections which is justified by using old tram infrastructure while all the junctions in the tunnels are properly grade separated. This is largely true for most other premetros, let alone proper metros.
This isn't to say flat junctions in grade separated tunnels (however rare) do exist in Germany, though: Cologne (also premetro) has the infamous Appelhofplatz junction which IIRC is grade separated east to west but has a flat junction on the southern end. Karlsruhe also has one at Markpyramide x Kaiserstraße but that one is more of an underground tramway than a tramway in convertion to a metro, really.
As an aside, I think part of the reason for the longer distances is because Metrolink serves more of to the east and the southernmost service goes towards Santa Ana, also fairly east. The A line is a pretty good example of a line which should have been Metrolink, lest because it also follows the right of way of existing tracks and all what's missing is the service (of course, the non-metro tracks are owned by freight operators but still worth noting), preferably with an underground tunnel from Union Station à la S-Bahn / RER.
twitter.com/RM_Transit/status/1668703729258835969?s=20 for how I feel about this!
I’ve also been saying LA Metro is Regional rail not just light rail. It doesn’t make sense for longer trips which Metrolink the actual public regional rail provider is underutilized and should be investing in providing service to Long Beach or Santa Monica
The chances of Metrolink duplicating existing Metro service is zero.
In fact, the chances of any new Metrolink lines anywhere in the core area of greater Los Angeles is zero. The only likely expansions are more frequent service, electrification, an infill station or two, and possibly service to Palm Springs eventually.
perhaps I misunderstood, but the eastern junction between the A and E line is not at-grade, it's below grade in the tunnel. I think you have some valid points on the future-proofing of the line however. Longer platforms and solving the western junction of the two lines so that they are no longer at grade should be figured out as soon as possible.
The external grade crossings (i.e. with the outside world) may not a thing but it still contains internal grade crossing i.e. it's a flat instead of a flying junction.
What he means is that its a flat junction, rather than a flying junction. This means that trains (namely the inbound E train, and the outbound A train) have to crossover each other's tracks when going over the junction. This is in Contrast to a flying junction, like the one near Bridgeport Station in Vancouver where the tracks connecting to the Airport branch are completely separate to the tracks leading to the Richmond branch.
@@Absolute_Zero7 thanks for explaining!
@@MarioFanGamer659 thanks for explaining!
The Ports of Long Beach and LA need so much rail that there's no way we're going to get heavy commuter rail here.
Build more?
Build dedicated track. There are other port cities that manage.
Both ports are investing heavily in increasing real capacity to reduce freight truck congestion on the freeways!! They could make the Alameda Corridor 5 tracks and still flood the freeways with trucks!
LA have to think beyond cars. It's always a decades long hassle to get any real piece of rail infra built. The Regional Connector was already envisioned in 1984! Purple line might get to Santa Monica this century. If LA is not so incapable of doing anything, it should not be that crazy to upgrade the blue line to be entirely grade separated and run 100 mph trains on express services. Sepulveda corridor will also need fast high-capacity train and should really extend down to LAX.
Commuter rails are heavy and slow in the US because they have to share tracks with freight and thus have stringent safety requirements.
"Commuter Rail" was not a good model 10 years ago and post pandemic will be even worse. Even just something like BART (but, 20% faster like new systems in Asia) would provide a faster and higher capacity backbone to the region
the form of light rail in LA is really unique. With better optimization of operations, the light rail lines could be comparable to some heavy rail systems. Specifically I'm thinking of the Chicago L (which I personally believe is a light rail system disguised as a metro)
The CTA is clearly a heavy rail metro with high-floor trains. Please don’t look down on its small train car length. 😢 It’s 48 foot cars are certainly shorter than the standard 60 to 75 ft of most systems. I do wish at least the Red Line could lengthened to run 10 car trains.
@@rapjul Just like the CTA, The LA Metro also uses entirely high Floor trains. However, CTA’s high floor heavy rail trains are designed for a system that was built using repurposed streetcar technology and the original rolling stock were essentially heavily modified PCC streetcars. Because of this the Chicago L is a rapid transit system with streetcar characteristics such as sharp turns, lower top speeds, and smaller vehicles. A 6 car CTA train has nearly the same capacity as a 3 car LA Metro light rail train and the LA Metro’s LRT has a higher top speed than the CTA. The LA Metro’s LRT lines could easily become “heavy rail” just by using different rolling stock.
@@zacharylegaspi7594 LA could, but the bigger issue would be reconfiguring all the stations, especially those that are at grade. Chicago newer train cars will raise/lower themselves to the platform height; I’m not sure if that be done for the bigger gap between low- and high-floors.
The CTA has mostly lost its connection to its historical streetcar past. I do wish the system could upgraded to remove sharp curves.
@@rapjul LA doesn’t need to do anything to the stations since all of them have completely level boarding and full ADA accessibility. Platform expansions could be needed in the future but currently the best thing LA should do is increase the operational efficiency by giving the trains full signal priority on the street running sections and improve signaling to increase frequency.
On the point of light rail in disguise: This reminds me of Germany those metros (U-Bahn) are legally tramways / streetcars (BOStrab) which technically would make them light rail in some way or another (it helps that Berlin and Hamburg's U-Bahn trains never surpass the legal max width of street running trams i.e. 2.65m when they could be wider) and only the S-Bahn is heavy rail by running under the same rules as freight and intercity trains (i.e. running under EBO).
The Chicago L is a good comparison for another reason: There are grade crossings at the northern ends of the yellow, brown and purple line as well as the western end of the pink line.
This wasn't too unique to the Chicago L as comparable systems (NYC's in particular) used to have long grade crossings on their system as well but they have removed them long ago.
So, I live in the Netherlands, and I am very aware that our cities are much smaller than in the US. Hell, LA alone is almost the size of damn North and South Holland combined if I'm not mistaken. But I am wondering why companies, government, and people just say "they're different" and stick their head in the sand again. Ofc it's different, but surely there's stuff US transit could learn from the Netherlands, or any country that has better transit systems for that matter no? Rather than have 1 bigger station on each end of the city (North, South, East, and West) with smaller ones along the way towards the central station, couldn't there be more big stations in a city like LA? Perhaps rather than just having 1 central station, you could have 2 central ones on either end of the Downtown region with a train going between them? Gotta be honest, I have never visited LA so idk how big big is, but just saying "it's too big" shouldn't be an excuse to just not do anything
Los Angeles ALREADY has two main centers with a train connecting them: 7th Street/Metro Center and Union Station with the Red/Purple Lines connecting them.
LA County is monstrously big but most of the population is at least 10km away from Downtown where all the skyscrapers are and where 7th Street/Metro Center is. There are so many mini-centers (Hollywood, Boyle Heights, South Central, Gateway Cities, etc.) that light rail has to be built out over massive distances to reach those communities. Unlike New York where people are somewhat clumped together in boroughs, Los Angeles has groups of people in every direction that 4 lines could never fully reach.
Some of what you term “cross-platform transfers” will be, more properly, same-platform transfers, in that you just step off and wait for the next train on the same track without having to “cross” to the other track/platform.
I was glad to see the Regional Connector finally done, especially the Little Tokyo stop, which I was waiting for to be finished. Also, I felt there was a lack of subway stops around downtown L.A., but the new stops opening up now do help to get to certain areas easier.
In defense of people coming from the east side of the new E line to union station: once you get to Little Tokyo, the A line train towards Union Station is scheduled to arrive one minute later in that beautiful cross platform transfer. A small price to pay for east siders to get to the heart of DTLA in half the time
Cross platform term is misused in this case. A cross platform connection is more like the one at 7th/metro going from subway on one level to a different platform on another level. So you're crossing platforms.
The one on the regional connector is the same platform. So it's a single platform transfer
I miss living in Los Angeles. I had the privilege of riding the Expo Line on its opening day.
Quick note: the Broad Museum's name rhymes with road or toad. It's the guy's name. He's kind of a choa... d'oh! I better not type that.
I thought something felt wrong
The criticisms in this video are fair. How the Regional Connector was designed is a glass half full. That said, happy to see it open - 🎉 - and kudos to Metro for doing it, as it is going to make quite a few riders happy. Now, if Metro could get a grip on the homeless rider and security problems (separate but connected issues) that would do a lot to make more people comfortable in using the system.
His criticisms are badly researched,c superficial and nowhere near realistic so ultimately irrelevant.
I was in Los Angeles during the opening of this project and it was very exciting. I even had the chance to ask an imployee about platform screen doors and why LA doesn't have them yet.
What reason was given?
As an LA resident I’m really excited about this! I will, in all honesty, keep driving everywhere because transit is too slow but hey this is still something.
Hey, kudos for honesty.
That’s the main problem with LA county transit. Too slow in conjunction with everything being spread out.
Yep, its a real significant improvement
Happy to see a video on this!! I’m really excited to use the connector!
I was in LA last month end took the recently connected A-Line from Long Beach to Arcadia to visit my 99-year-old grandmother. It was a pretty smooth 90 minute ride. Yeah, a little long for a light rail, but I didn't have to change trains.
From the point of view of transit planners, the benefit of longer trains is that it would allow frequency to be reduced. It is best that train lengths be restricted.
Hey RMTransit! I'm a fan of your videos, and especially this one. It's a project that I have have the fortune of working on. I think like all things, we shoot for the visionary projects but costs and competing stakeholders often shape the restrictions we see. That being said, it's something of a miracle that this project started - let alone has just about finished (for riders anyhow, much more loose ends to tie up). As a regular rider myself, I hope this starts a proper rail renaissance for the LA area!
They only build light rail, no heavy rail without express service.
True. Although it’s difficult to do more when heavy rail has had so little support from NIMBYs that they actually successfully banned heavy rail construction a couple of decades back and when light rail has been as comparatively successful as it has been
LA actually is doing a pretty massive heavy rail expansion, with 7 new stations set to open on the D Line between next year and 2027, a new terminus station for the B and D lines, and (hopefully) 7-8 new Heavy Rail stations on a new line in the early 2030s.
Express service is however definitely an issue.
Wilshire and Sepulveda heavy rail: Am I a joke to you?
In some ways, LA is building a transit system more appropriate for a city like Nashville or Austin.
@@DoctorBoffin Is the Arts District station happening?
1:09 It feels so unreal to see the stations I travel to every day in a video about LA
The problem with this project is the city it’s being built and the system it belongs to.
The Karlsruhe underground tram tunnel shown as the other example is great. Because with a very similar length of tunnel it connects 9 lines of a quite successful tram/ LRT system in a city with 300k inhabitants, resulting in a train every ~2min. It replaced the slow crawl through the pedestrian area and a couple of traffic lights, speeding up cross city trips noticeably, creating more space for pedestrians and pedestrians restoring the market plaza as a pedestrian zone for the first time in over 100 years. The tram provides an about 3 min headway between downtown and the main train station and in about 20mins you reach every corner of the city. It’s going to be enough for the city for a long time and they even added an at grade parallel route, because the tunnel alone couldn’t handle all of the lines.
The regional connector in contrast has two lines for a combined 5min headway, no redundancy if anything goes wrong, in a city with millions of inhabitants, a 10min frequency to the train station and insane travel times if you need to go anywhere near a terminus. It’s the absolutely wrong system for the city now and if it ever gets useful doesn’t have the capacity to handle it. It’s not even built to be converted to a metro later on, something much smaller cities like Stuttgart planned 60 years ago.
Metro is planning a "redundant" service, it's the WSAB line that is planned to run on the eastern side of downtown between the A line Washington station and Union Station.
The K line northern extension will also provide cross town service on the western side of the the central city area.
I think the Lack of speed is a major problem for a light rail system in a metro area as big LA. A crossrail style express Metro would have made a lot more sense in the first place. But i don't want to imagine how much that would cost in LA 🤭
Cost is a huge issue, building anything scaled to LA costs 5x what it should. In places like Spain high capacity metro could be built for prices paid for just light rail in LA
Because Madrid's soil is better suited and consistent for tunnelling. Barcelona has had delays and cost overruns for their automated metro tunnel for a long time@@RMTransit
Ideally LA should really start building their system to accommodate 4 car LRT trains because that is probably the longest they can run and still maintain a good number of their street running stations.
The ones that can't will need to be either closed or grade separated.
He talks about how they can’t extend platforms but Metro had thought about this especially in the box tunnels they build at the end of the platforms before heading to the normal tunnels.
Los Angeles finally (but slowly) understand that it’s a city that needs transit especially with the narrow urban areas. The regional connector is game changer and will make people interested to take the metro rather than well drive. Hopefully the demand increases more as the Metro ambassadors will actually give a damn for more and safety.
The little Tokyo station and the wye are underground, not at grade. There are also plans to underground the line on flower up to and including the wye at Washington and Flower. As a side note there are also plans for run through tracks at Union Station.
In terms of more people living downtown it’s the fastest growing community in Southern California.
Well said. More people live in DTLA today than in the past 75-100 years.
I've noticed this guy does very superficial research as evidence by your informative comment.
He's referring to internal crossings i.e. the outbound trains of one branch cross with the inbound trains of the other, not that it's outside at street level.
It's sad thst we have removed so many of the BRT routes.
Opens on Friday
It's better than nothing.
Los Angeles used to be a big streetcar city (LA Railways (yellow cars) and Pacific Electric interurbans (red cars), but they got enthralled by cars (not all but many of the freeways were built over a abandoned streetcar right of way.) I mean Jay Leno (who keeps a massive car collection near Burbank Airport) had a good point, the warm dry weather in LA meant a lot less maintenance on a car: there’s no road salt to eat the undercarriage, no worries about ice damage, and the limited rain meant less chance of water seeping under the body panels, or into the interior, causing rust and mold problems.
Plus Los Angels is massively sprawled out (depending on traffic it might take the better part of the day to get from Griffith Park to Santa Monica Pier.)
The best thing we have for now. All we need is the D Line to the sea and the Sepulvada Line, but I would love to see all PE lines revived.
Many of the old ROWs have been used and will be used in the future. The A line runs along an old ROW so does the E line, K line and proposed WSAB.
He has a really creeper vibe, but I can’t stop watching 🚊
Hahaha
I ride the LA metro basically every day and the Bunker Hill station is across from my job. But most people wont be transiting from end to end. Montclair (future terminus of the L train or whatever its going to be on Friday) is honestly no where near the rest of LA. I dont think most people are going to transit 45 miles on it but they totally do on the metrolink which isn't too far from where I think the L train is gonna end (I live in Boyle Heights lmao. idk anything about the SGV) BUt even within the city proper, lightrail is still gonna take a while just b/c the city is phyically quite large. From the Valley to where I live is an hour commute on a good day
But I do agree with your points tho.
The plans for the future is extending the K Line through West Hollywood and a Sepulveda Line along 405. Right now they're thinking of either a light metro (Bechtel) and a monorail (Build Your Dreams) for the Sepulveda.
Pretty sure the stupid monorail is not going to happen. A real metro rail is what is needed that'll have a stop directly at UCLA.
Yep, really concerning that a monorail is something being considered
Yes, as a WEHO resident, I can’t wait. The city of West Hollywood is also moving the k line extension up with a real estate tax so it will be happening sooner than expected. Also as a result, we get our preferred route with (I believe) 3 stations in Weho as opposed to 1.
Super video.
jesus Christ every 10 minutes in the middle of the country's second largest city
@1:55 This observation cannot be overstated: it has been shown that forcing riders to change between modes is not just "inconvenient", but hugely detrimental to the wider acceptance of public transit. Every single changeover between lines or modes of transport reduces potential ridership by up to 30%, even in cities that have good transit!
Here in Vienna/Austria we had a great example for this: when the former inner-city ring tram and four radial lines terminating at the ring were changed into two through-lines (going into the city radially, around it on the ring, and out the other side) ridership on the lines almost doubled. All that changed was the removal of two forced changeovers. And that's in a city that already has a 30+% share for public transit in its modal split.
That's also the reason why trams and light rail are oftentimes superior to metros and subways within cities: having on-street public transit makes creating an actual _network_, where more direct connections can be implemented, much easier (and cheaper).
1:38 As someone who used to rely on the blue and gold lines to get to school everyday during high school, i can't stress enough how annoying it was having to get off one train just to take another train to get to the other side of dtla, and THEN take one more train still. Years later and I'm seeing now the blue and gold line connection being built, and I can't help but be upset that it took this long for this connection to be built at all, when for years there were many people like me who needed that connection way sooner for school or work. Seriously this connection would've saved me and others at least 30 minutes in the morning by not making us unboard one train then wait to travel just a few stops in the red/purple line to reach another metro rail on the other side of dtla.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to know whether I make any sense here or if the project will work or not, I just know that teenage me would've appreciated this A LOT.
I have/had this issue with the future WSAB and it's (hopeful) connection to Metrolink. I lived near one of the stations the WSAB would eventually pass through, and worked in Irvine near one of the stations along the Metrolink. In some alternate life I could have taken that train and been 10x less stressful than needing to sit in the awful 405 traffic, or the 5 traffic.
Ah LA... moving in the right direction but damn do they piece meal so much stuff instead of doing it like it should from the start. This better but not really what it should be I feel is a reoccurring theme for here in LA. And my god is progress slow sometimes. I feel like the purple line extension has been going on for an eternity.
🤔 Well, considering that it is an American city, they're doing SOMETHING when it comes to mass transit, and that's huge if you measure them against European, Asian, and even Canadian cities...
A thoughtful presentation. Thank you. A couple of linked projects (pun only slightly intended) are moving forward - Link US raises Union Stations platforms and converts its 'stub-end' track operations to through-running, and SCORE, though further away, makes the electrification project for the entire corridor possible. Sadly Orange County is still refusing to extend the new Paramount light rail line along the old Pacific Red Line network (past Cypress College and into central OC), but for the rest of LA all eyes are on getting Union Station linked and raised in time for the '28 Olympics - and HSR in '31. Great video. Thanks again
regional rail can be a real suckfest in the LA area. I have a friend in Sylmar and he has the option of taking the commuter rail to Union Station (or Atwater) but there's only a handful of trains each day, with the last train out of Union Station at a ridiculously early time.
I'm in South Pasadena and I'm hoping these improvements will make taking the train more feasible. I've taken the train out to Santa Monica on multiple occasions and it can take up to 90mins, but a good chunk of that was from the 2 transfers I had to make at Union Station and 9th St, with the frequency of trains being so horrible. Not having to make a transfer could cut that down by almost 20 minutes, and make it much more comparable to how long it would take to drive out there at rush hour. Hopefully that part around Flower will be less of a mess too, because I remember sitting forever in trains just waiting for an incoming train to pass by.
Others have asked this too, but I wonder how much can be done about traffic lights to prioritize these lines. Constantly stopping at red lights still kills the commute, even if it's just for relatively short stretches
In order to even use metro I'd have to bike 30 min to my nearest station then an 11 min ride to school then if I only take 2 classes I have time to catch a 3 hour ride to work in order to arrive on time then get stranded because it's closed when I get out of work. I would love to take the metro if it wasn't so god damn inconvenient. Then there's the price lol just looked it up it'd be like $500 a month that's more than I paid for my car each month
Another issue that I noticed reading some of the comments is how the LA network is funded and planned. done at the county level (equivalent to city councils in Australia). Where as in Australia public transport and its infrastructure is planned and funded at the state government level.
A California state government funded regional transport organisation would need to be set up and it would take over the operation, planning and construction of public transport services in California.
The state would be divided into a few transport regions eg San Francisco, LA and San Diego. Every country in California would be required to contribute a fixed percentage of money to a state government fund for public transport and it would be based on population. The spending of the funds would be determined by both local county contributions and overall network connectivity.
This essentially would be similar to Translink in Queensland or PTV in Victoria. Statewide public transport organisations. Local councils have very limited role in public transport planning or politics around it. That is left for state governments to deal with. The main benefit of this is it allows for region wide public transport planning and universal fare structures. It is also makes public transport far more visible and consistent state wide.
If California and LA could implement something similar to PTV or Trainlink etc it will go along way to improving public transport in LA.
Political fragmentation is one problem among many that make building quality transit hard in the US.
What you describe is what LA has done at the county level. That is why LA Metro is responsible for the city and county public rail transit.
Any kind of statewide tax would have to pass 3/4 of the state government and approved by the voters. It would be very difficult to do especially if it dealt with increasing property tax.
So LA did it by voters passing increases to city and county sales taxes.
What cities need is more federal funding to support cities who are willing to fund local projects. A dollar for dollar match from the federal government would go a long way.
BTW, California did do something similar to what you describe to fund the California high speed rail project under construction.
I live in the San Fernando Valley which is over the hill from the L A Basin but still part of the City of Los Angeles and containing a large part of the population. The Valley has largely been ignored with only two rail stations in the entire Valley. Service along the Valley's main street Ventura Blvd. is poor with no plans for an upgrade. The powers at City Hall only care about the L A Basin.
Having only one 'slow bus' line along Ventura nowadays is absurd. Before the pandemic, there was a Rapid and two choices of slow bus.
This is due mainly to local Valley NIMBYs, past and present. Los Angeles is so large and there are so many possible projects, the moment there is significant local pushback the MTA finds something else to build elsewhere where the local population and politicians are more supportive.
Not a fair assessment of the situation. The NIMBY attitude has forced delay in building a new air terminal at Burbank Airport and allowing for the construction of new housing. But Valley residents have generally supported getting better transit service in our part of town and connecting service to the other side of the hill. The Sherman Oaks Home Owners Association has been particularly active in this regard.
@@stuartrubin5730 One major project for the Valley that is happening (despite some NIMBYs) is the Sepulveda Pass project, which will probably be a heavy rail subway.
Isn't the SFV getting a couple of different light rail lines that were approved or proposed recently?
id love to see more transit explained videos for us cities like LA, Boston, etc
Not perfect, but I'm still really looking forward to the improved functionality now. There are a lot of places I like to go in LA that require a transfer from the L line to the B and D lines. Now, I'll pretty much be able to eliminate that transfer and save 20+ minutes!
As a LA resident, I've been waiting for this project to open for a long time to avoid a solid 2-3 minute walk down to the B/D Line platforms then wait nearly 9 minutes just to get between DTLA to either Pasadena or West LA. Did I mention how crappy the ride on B/D Line is?
Also worth pointing out is the inflexibility of Metro and turning back trains to add frequency. LACMTA could easily squeeze a good 30TPH headway inside Downtown if they just add shorter length services during rush hour.
And THANK YOU for mentioning the need to turn Pico station into an underground one, though I would take it one step further to eliminate the Flower St. and Washington Bl. at-grade sections as well. That section is the new major bottleneck of the system.
The problem with Pico isn't that the station itself isn't underground-the problem is that the tracks after it are in the middle of the street. Burying Pico alone would solve nothing.
People I know pronounce the Broad Museum as "Browed." (Like road with a B)
what's with all the squeaky bird-like sounds that are playing in the background? 1:43 in so far.
Any estimate how much the ridership of the metro will decrease between Union and metro Center?
Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games!
Could it be better, sure, but don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And, new topic, fyi, the Broad Museum is pronounced like road.
And, for what it’s worth, there’s a lot more than just Disney Hall and the Broad in that area. 😉
That's valid criticism. But with a budget so spread thin with several projects in the works, plus the decentralization of LA, I would rather have the regional connector open now, and redirect work towards (imo) crucial rail where none exists: namely finishing the K line and northern extension plus fast-tracking the sepulveda line
I agree with most of this, especially the lack of flyovers, but I just do not agree with the E line needing to go to Union Station.
The E line is intended as a primarily east-west corridor, and Union Station is simply not a significant destination, so forcing everybody to make a time-consuming detour in order to save time for a relatively small amount of people is not worth it. Especially since the transfer as it stands now is just so painless (you referred to it as a cross-platform transfer in the vid, but it's actually even simpler than than -- It's a same platform transfer!).
Also I appreciate your mention of investing in regional rail. Not only should we be investing in upgrading the current routes, but we should be expanding new ones. Currently, nearly all of the Metro lines extend south and west of Union Station, where none of the Metrolink lines are, making regional trips slow and time-consuming for a huge part of the region. Even just one line to the southwest would be huge in changing mobility patterns. Ideally, a line would go to LAX, but a significant portion of the ROW is now taken up by the K line, a much less valuable project.
The reason the new stations are only long enough for three-car trains is because all other stations are also only long enough for three-car trains.
I discussed why this isn’t a good reason in the video
@@RMTransit Yep. LA Metro could easily expand to 4-car formations. Just because current stations don't support 4-car doesn't mean it can't. (Except for the extensive rework needed at the new Regional Connector stations.
@@user-wx6mi5xh7w And most other stations
@@flyingfan18 No? Most of the overground stations don't have switches and have space away to extend away from crossing street.
I think Metro (correctly) decided that the chances of ever being able to lengthen the platforms at all 44 stations (soon to be 48) on the A line were extremely remote. Not when so much of the rest of the county is still waiting for any rail at all and the political reality of depending on county sales tax ballot measures to fund expansion means that they need to spread projects around the county in order to get the necessary 2/3 support from voters county-wide to raise money. (Remember, LA Metro is _not_ run by the city but by the county!)
Plus they'd be better off building additional east/west lines in the future rather than funneling everyone through downtown, given most people's routes. (Most people in LA County never go to downtown Los Angeles. I think I was 20 years old before I ever did!) Sure, in 50 years once other parts of the LA rail network are built out and they come back to improve this downtown route they'll be kicking themselves for not making the platforms longer, but the reality is that this project would never have gotten off the ground in the first place if the whole train-building budget had gone into this one project. They needed to spend much of the money elsewhere in the county in order to get the needed 2/3 support for the county-wide ballot measure that funded the project. (Yes, we need a 2/3 vote to raise taxes in California. And the county has to self fund most of these things because the Federal government is more interested in building yet more transit in NYC than spending much in LA and the state legislature puts all of its money into more freeways.)
Hopefully we will see a push for improving the San Bernardino Line with the beginning of Brightline West service.
That will be when they electrify it. Caltrain now has that, and it is past time for Metrolink San Bernardino to get electrified too. Having it electrified will allow Brightline West / California HSR trains to come down to LA.
I agree that Los Angeles needs more transit,light rail especially.
With the recent news that the brand new K line only gets a couple thousand riders a day it really makes you question how viable transit is in LA
Not sure, maybe Angelenos just don't care for transit?
@@1978dkelly
Yeah! They do care.
How else do you explain the mass support of the Option 4 and/or Option 5 of the Sepulveda Corridor Mass Transit plan. And building opposition against the use of monorails.
They were also successful for convincing Metro to do Option 2 for the K Line Fall 2024 scheduled which is a true North-South pathways for Redondo Beach.
To be fair, the issue with the K line is its an incomplete line. The whole goal with the K line was to connect the metro rail network to the Airport, as well as many venues for the LA Olympics, and both the segment to LAX and the Inglewood people mover haven't been completed yet. So, you're judging the viability of a whole network, based on the performance of an incomplete stub.
The K line isn’t really finished yet. They may have opened the built segment, but the real set up is to connect it to LAX, and also the C line south.
the K line was opened without its "crown jewel" (the LAX station) so of course it's not very popular ATM
What's the maximum frequency LAMetro could run on the regional connector? Each line every 6 minutes?
I believe it's each line 5 minutes. That's the maximum allowable headway metro would consider for lines that have street running service.