Passenger Trains > MTA Green Line derided

http://www.latimes.com/news/yahoo/la-me-greenline10jul10,1,1770756.story?coll=la-newsaol-headlines

Los Angeles Times
July 10, 2004
MTA's Green Line Is Ridden and Derided
Boardings are up on what critics say is 'the train that goes from nowhere to nowhere.'
By Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writer

Like many commuters, Aileen Chaj takes the Green Line out of necessity rather than convenience.

Her trip on the light-rail line — which runs down the middle of the Century Freeway — takes only about 20 minutes each way. But that is only one leg of a grinding 1 1/2-hour commute each way that involves catching a bus near her home in South Los Angeles that takes her to the Green Line station. After getting off the train, the 22-year-old waits at a bus stop for up to half an hour before catching another bus to get to her job as a cashier in Manhattan Beach.

"You have to be very patient," Chaj said.

That has become the mantra for Green Line riders. But the perseverance appears to be paying off.

Long derided as the white elephant of the MTA's light-rail system — "the train that goes from nowhere to nowhere" — the Green Line is showing signs of life as it enters its 10th year of operation.

The line is now boarded an average of 28,000 times each weekday, double the ridership when it opened in 1995.

Ridership is still below original expectations and is dwarfed by the more popular Red and Blue lines. But the Green Line is now outperforming the recently opened Gold Line, which connects Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles and has 14,000 boardings a day.

The Green Line remains an oddity, connecting two outlying communities and missing downtown by miles. Some transit experts still question its long-term prospects. But MTA officials express optimism that the line is slowly coming into its own.

The line was conceived in the 1980s as a way to connect the then-booming aerospace industry around Los Angeles International Airport with the bedroom communities southeast of Los Angeles, where many of the 100,000 commuting workers lived. It was also supposed to provide a passenger link to the airport.

But because of budget problems and objections from the FAA, the link to LAX was never built and the Green Line ends a few miles south of the airport in Redondo Beach. By the time the rail line opened, the aerospace industry was in serious decline.

It didn't help that the Green Line sits in the middle of a busy freeway, separated from street commerce and awkward for pedestrians to reach.

"The Green Line is not terribly well located if you're trying to attract demand," said Jim Moore, chairman of the industrial engineering department at USC. "A transit system should be configured around the way we live."

Despite the obstacles, however, the Green Line has found an unexpected niche. Though few riders can complete an entire trip solely on the line, it has become a crucial leg for commutes.

The Imperial/Wilmington station is the busiest Green Line station, enabling thousands of people to transfer to and from the Blue Line, which runs from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles.

Many commuters also drive to the Norwalk station from Orange County, filling up the parking lot there regularly.

Many people who live in central Los Angeles hop aboard the Green Line to get to the beach cities where they work as airplane food preparers and store clerks, officials say.

One regular rider is George Wu, 44, manager of printer software development at Xerox in El Segundo.

Three times a week, he lines up with a mix of professional men carrying leather portfolios, students wearing headphones and backpacks and people on their way to jobs at LAX.

"Traveling down the 105 [Freeway] is always very bad," Wu said. Instead, he drives about 30 minutes from his home in Hacienda Heights to the Norwalk Green Line station.

He then boards the Green Line, reading to pass the time on the 35-minute trip to Nash and El Segundo. From there, he walks the two blocks to his office.Wu said he doesn't save any time by riding the train, but he prefers breaking up his trip because he sometimes feels drowsy after work.

On the Green Line, he said, "If I'm tired, I can take a nap."

"We've seen ridership double in the last few years and we expect it to grow," Jim de la Loza, the MTA's executive officer for regional planning, said of the Green Line.

With its 28,000 weekday boardings, the Green Line ranks third among the MTA's rail lines in ridership. In May, the Blue Line averaged 69,000 weekday boardings. The Red Line subway between downtown Los Angeles and North Hollywood averaged 107,000.

Despite the gains, critics say the Green Line is still a failure of planning. Moore, the USC professor, called the latest ridership figures "really anemic."

Moore and others believe the county's employment and residential geography is too dispersed and too volatile to lay down permanent rail tracks.

"The Green Line connects the location where nobody lives to the location where nobody works," he said.

Indeed, the MTA's own brochure on "destinations" shows that the other light-rail lines have far more attractions. The brochure lists 61 destinations located near Red Line stops, 37 near the Gold Line and 16 near the Blue Line. The Green Line has but two.

"The Green Line shows you what can go wrong with rail," said Manuel Criollo of the Bus Riders Union, which lobbies for improved bus service. "It's a very inflexible mode of transportation."

MTA officials say they are still trying to improve use of the Green Line. In the next three years, they plan to feed more MTA Rapid buses to Green Line stations. They also support an LAX modernization plan that would bring a people-mover to a Green Line station. The people-mover would take passengers to a central check-in area and then on to the terminals.

Some groups are pushing for extension of the Green Line. The South Bay Cities Council of Governments wants the line to reach the South Bay Galleria in Redondo Beach, where several bus lines cluster.

But there is uncertainty about how to extend the line with its current configuration.

Cities on the route are hoping that developers will seize on property in close proximity to Green Line stations, the way they have along the Gold and Red lines.

In El Segundo, many of the properties that were vacant when the MTA was building the Green Line have remained empty in the decade since, said Jim Hansen, the city's director of community, economic and development services. "When I'm out and about, there are not huge numbers of people getting on or getting off the Green Line in El Segundo," he said.

Part of the problem, Hansen said, is getting around the city once people leave the train. City Hall employees still have to travel a mile to work from the closest station at Mariposa Avenue.

Those who want to eat at the popular strip of restaurants on Rosecrans Avenue near Sepulveda Boulevard have to walk about a third of a mile from the Douglas station.

"It's asking a lot," Hansen said.

Aileen Chaj faces another 1 1/2-hour bus and train ride to get home at the end of her cashier's shift at Target in Manhattan Beach. The commute wears her out.

She stands all day at her register, stands some more at the bus and rail stops, and often has to stand once again when she boards.

"When I get home, I just want to sit down," Chaj said. "I don't go out no more."

the train does go from nowhere to nowhere...

wait til LAAFB and the satellite manufacturing all moves to Denver.

The people responsible for the endpoints should have all been shot. The lack of connection to LAX was sheer idiocy, and the end of the line in Norwalk vs continuing over to connect to the Surfline was almost as stupid. Had they made those 2 connections, the line would probably be standing room only.

Agree with the Norwalk fiasco, the other end made sense whaen aerospace was booming, and it also didn't make sense to try to integrate travelers with luggage on a commute line. Where are you going to put the luggage, how long do you want to sit at stations for people hauling luggage, etc

pismobum Wrote:
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> The people responsible for the endpoints should
> have all been shot. The lack of connection to LAX
> was sheer idiocy, and the end of the line in
> Norwalk vs continuing over to connect to the
> Surfline was almost as stupid. Had they made
> those 2 connections, the line would probably be
> standing room only.


Unfortunatly, you do not know the whole story. The green line was supposed to go to Norwalk, but politics and NIMBYs stopped it. So, get your story staight and place blame where it belongs, on the voters and polititions.

If fact, the 105 freeway itself was originally designed to go all the way to Chino.

I just can't help pointing out that the Red Line, now the busiest MTA line, was derided 10 years ago as the "subway to nowhere".

Seems it found someplace to go. Same might happen to the Green Line.

And the L.A. Times (IIRC) just wrote complaining about the Gold Line, etc. It would be interesting, though, to search out their editorial positions on mass transit, etc. No one could seriously argue that transportation planning for the entire SoCal area hasn't been shoddy, incomplete or short sighted and this has been a problem in place and evident for many years.

The line to the airport could easily have been an "express" with a limited number of stops, and space to deal with luggage could have been accounted for (however, riding on the monorail from Haneda into Tokyo with luggage does show (lack of) that kind of advance planning can be overcome with expedience and inconvenience.

However, they obviated the need for an airport connection by avoiding a convenient connection to the downtown infrastructure at the other end. One could struggle/shuttle to the Green line, ride it to the Blue Line, ride that to the Red Line and the Red Line then connects to other rail based transit systems, or is semi-convenient to downtown, etc.

Quoting Will Walters (yes, again) "it's not about transportation, it's about politics".
The d**kheads in charge do not ride the system they "designed" and do not care wether or not it serves any real purpose.
It's like understanding amtrak management or maintenance ....


TCS - if you aks me, and nobody duz, it'll never werk

pismobum Wrote:
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> The people responsible for the endpoints should
> have all been shot. The lack of connection to LAX
> was sheer idiocy,
I had heard there was such a uproar from Taxi and Shuttle bus companies that the Green line run into the terminal would kill their business so that is one major reason it does not go into the terminal




> Norwalk vs continuing over to connect to the
> Surfline was almost as stupid.
I had heard rumors that it was to turn north along the San Gabirel River and terminate??

I,m still waiting for Metrolink service over the Harbor sub to LAX
Better odds on getting a train to Las Vegas

re: didn't make sense to try to integrate travelers with luggage on a commute line.

The Washington, DC METRO line down to Reagan/National airport has had good ridership the times I been on it. You just have to schelep your rollcase down from the train to the terminal. It's certainly a lot easier than fighting traffic over the bridges and down the river.

Rail connections to airports are NOT built just for passengers. A prime consideration should be the airport workers. I suspect about 50,000 people work at LAX. Many of them drive. If these workers could be enticed to use transit, many parking spaces would be available for those who have to drive at no additional cost.

Check the afternoon rush of LAX employees (ramp rats, bag throwers, etc...) all of whom have to take a shuttle to get to the Aviation station to get home on the Green.
IF I were trying to use the train to get to LAX for a flight it would require a Metrolink out of Fullertoon, a bus to the Green line station, greenie to Aviation sta. another shuttle bus into the terminal OR Surfliner/Metrolink to LAUPT, red line to the blue line to the green line to the shuttle bus.
Hell with that, I can drive it in 45 minutes.


TCS - common cents

karldotcom Wrote:
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> the train does go from nowhere to nowhere...
>
> wait til LAAFB and the satellite manufacturing all
> moves to Denver.

Meanwhile, are those 14,000 round trips a day all transit fans or sightseers?

Besides travelers, there are also a lot of employees that could use better transit to LAX.

lhs2130 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> re: didn't make sense to try to integrate
> travelers with luggage on a commute line.
>
> The Washington, DC METRO line down to
> Reagan/National airport has had good ridership the
> times I been on it. You just have to schelep your
> rollcase down from the train to the terminal. It's
> certainly a lot easier than fighting traffic over
> the bridges and down the river.

How many times have you seen a traveler with just one roller bag? It's more like laarge roller bag, second bag or computer or brief case, and cell phone, and pocket planner, etc.

Try Getting from Pasadena to LAX Get to Gold line to Red Line to Blue Line to Green Line, try that with two or more bags on cars that aren't designed for luggage. Like I said, the cars, stations, transfer points, station dwell times, etc. aren't designed for luggage juggling. You'll find very few if any lines that have really successfully integrated airport traffic on a commuter line. Now on an Airport dedicated line maybe, but then they aren't jockeying with much commuter flow.

I made some comments in a similar vein on the "Metra to LAX" thread nearby on this page. Chicago seems to do airport rail connection well, although BART to SFO shouldn't be too bad--recent reports would imply plenty of room for baggage because of so few passengers. I haven't tried the Philadelphia service--they use suburban electric rather than light rail or rapid transit cars, and may have some baggage areas. The old Reading electric fleet included some combines, which mostly carried newspapers to outlying suburbs, but I think those cars were retired before the airport connection was finished. One problem with transit service to a Southern Calif. airport is that the people who are most likely to fly somewhere are less likely to be familiar with the local transit system.