Los Angeles puts lipstick on a pig.

Image by Metro - Los Angeles via Flickr

With great fanfare, Los Angeles Metro will be introduced its new Silver Line service on Sunday. So is the newest light rail line to open in Los Angeles or part of the subway to the sea? No, actually it is combining service on two of the LA basin’s two busways into a single service and increasing the number of transfers.

The first busway was opened 35 years ago extending from just east of downtown Los Angeles to the city of El Monte and traveled along the Interstate 10 freeway. There is a rail line between the busway that once carried the interurbans of the legendary Pacific Electric and is now home to the Metrolink Commuter Rail service to San Bernardino. The busway was later extended a mile to Union Station in the late 1980’s.

When the busway first started a large number of buses would travel the busway to El Monte then fan out throughout the San Gabriel valley. After many cuts to bus service most of the San Gabriel valley routes were taken over by Foothill Transit in the late 1980’s leaving RTD with only a few routes on the busway.

The second busway is the infamous Harbor Freeway Transit way that extends from Artesia to a few miles south of downtown and parallels the Long Beach light rail line that sits a few miles to the east. While the Blue line carries upwards of 78000 passengers per day the Harbor Freeway Transitway pulls in roughly 5000 per day.

Now Metro will run a direct line from the Artesia station through downtown Los Angeles out to the El Monte station calling it the Silver line. This will give the first direct service between the two lines but will also mean that people traveling from the routes that currently use the busway will have to transfer to the new service as those routes will be truncated at El Monte and Artesia respectively.

In addition the new Silver line will compete with Foothill Transit’s Silver Streak service that started a couple of years ago and operates from Pomona to downtown Los Angeles via the El Monte busway. Like Metro is doing with its lines, Foothill Transit also truncated most of its bus routes at El Monte when Silver Streak service was started.

Isn’t it interesting that when most road warriors say that buses should be used instead of rail, they say that buses are more flexible and thus better than the rail option? Of course we all know the tired BS about BRT (Badly Repackaged Transit) being just like light rail but on rubber tires. In this case they are operating a bus route like a rail line but cutting the so called flexibility of the bus.

What is interesting is that Metro’s predecessor the RTD tried to run truncate routes in El Monte and run a separate El Monte to downtown LA route back in the late 70’s. Route 495 provided frequent service from El Monte to downtown but was killed only a few months later.

But let’s also look deeper into the two busways themselves.

As stated before the El Monte bus way is celebrated its 35th year in 2009. While it is hard to quantify any development results being the fact that there is only three stations on the line with the two mid line stations being a University and a hospital, the end of the line station has seen no development in the area since its opening. In other words the place looks the same as it did in 1974 although plans are finally progressing to turn the station into a transit oriented development.

Compare that to TRAX where development is starting to take place in several areas along the line. While progress has been slowed by the credit crunch, new homes have been built near several stations and when things heat back up in the real estate market you will several more projects come on line.

The Harbor Freeway Transit way points to not only that busways are not an alternative to light rail but also the failure of Freeway Transit in general.

While it is hard to judge the Harbor Transitway head to head against the Blue line despite their close proximity to each other, it is clear that the Transitway does not attract riders like the Blue Line.

Meanwhile the Harbor Transitway also shows that Freeway transit is not an attractive option for riders. Whether it is a light rail station or busway station, freeway stops are noisy and inconvenient for riders. For those that have tried to access a station that sits in or along a highway know that they can be impossible to access due to the freeway and then noise levels are extremely high.

Instead of spending $500 million on the transitway that carries few passengers, the agencies that built it would have been much farther ahead by pumping money into the overburdened Blue Line. Money could have been used to grade separate the line and then build a branch down to San Pedro (which would restore another ex-Pacific Electric line) build a branch to Torrance or southeast toward Orange County. Either of these options would have garnered more ridership that the pathetic transitway.

The two busways also show the true reason why road warriors support busways over rail lines. When the El Monte busway first opened it was used exclusively for buses but then it seemed like good highway lanes for the taking so car pools were eventually allowed to use the busway. Every time I have gone down the busway in the last few years it has been more crowded that the main lanes on the freeway.

Now Metro is planning to turn the busways into HOT lanes just line the car pool lanes here in Utah and reason behind the creation of the Silver Line. One has to wonder how long it will take before our state legislature passes laws stating that the BRT lanes along 3500 South and subsequent ones have to be open to automobile traffic of some form.

The Silver line is doing nothing but putting lipstick on a pig. While it will make it easier to travel through downtown Los Angeles from the Harbor Transitway to the El Monte Busway, overall it does little to increase the travel opportunities in the region. It will be interesting to see what happens over the year or so.

Miami Day 2...

For those of you that have been waiting anxiously since I did day 1, here is my experience on Day 2 in Miami.

I actually slept in late (8:30am Eastern Time which of course is 6:30am Mountain Time which is still late for me) but was ready for the day. My goal today was to ride the entire MetroRail line and the South Dade Busway.

First I walked over and up to the Metromover Station. I first rode to the final station on the Omni loop which is School District. What a difference two blocks from my stop. This area is filled with vacant lots and abandoned buildings. One interesting note is that this station has a car washer for the Metromover which seems like a strange location.

I then took Metromover to First Street and walked down to Flanger in order to get my visitor pass for the transit system (Metromover is free). However, when I got to the address I wrote down from the Metro Dade website I couldn't find were to go so I walked west trying to find it. Just a few blocks away was the Government Center so I figured I would check there on where I could buy my Visitors Pass. The brochure for the visitor's pass I saw online does not show this Metro-Dade location selling the visitors pass but when I got to the window they said they could sell them. I thought they would ask for ID to prove I was from out of state like Metro does in Seattle but they just took my money and gave me the pass.

Next I took MetroRail to the northeast end of the line at Palmetto. This station was added a few years after the original system opened and is the last new station to open until the extensions they have planned open in a few years. It appears that they plan never to extend the line beyond the station since way this station was designed which is short sighted but typical transit system mentality.

I briefly got off the train to take this picture:

Next I rode the train all the way to the other end of the line at South Dade. This is the connecting point for the South Dade Busway. Here is a picture of a couple of trains at South Dade. You can see some graffiti in both of these pictures. Despite security personnel being at every station, the system is covered with graffiti. It may not be the New York subway in the 70's but it's pretty close.

As you can see from this picture there is TOD being built at this station which is the only sign of it I saw anywhere on the system.

Here is a couple of picture I took of the area were you catch a bus including the ones using the busway. Buses that are arriving at the station arrived on the opposite side to the right of the photos. There are signs with route maps but they only include frequency of the buses not actually times.

I originally planned to ride the entire busway but was getting kind of hungry. Two 34 expresses left with Standing Room only before a busway local 31 came in and I took it. Wouldn't you know that the bus I grabbed was wrapped on the left side !! Just my luck. While I was really craving Chinese Food especially a buffet, after a few stations I saw a Taco Bell and decided just to stop and eat before it got any later. Here is my bus letting me off. I would end up with the same bus coming back.
I walked across US Highway 1 to the Taco Bell and ate. After words I came back caught that same 31 and then transferred to the MetroRail. I rode it back to the Government Center were I decided to ride MetroMover over to the Brickell Area. Here you can see another MetroMover car coming off the Brickell Loop.
Here is a photo from the front of our MetroMover car. As you can see that ride has some characteristics of a roller coaster.
At the end of the line at Brickell I decided to get off, walk to the water then walk back toward downtown. Here is a Metromover train passing over the Miami River on the section of track I had just been on.
Just like Charlotte when I lived there a brief shower came in and dumped for about ten minutes and a half hour later it was clear again.
Miami Dade has a bunch of the new Opus Optima buses like UTA however, they have the "BRT" front end that is supposed to make them look more sleek and magically make riders think it's light rail.
I looked for a convenience store but the only thing I found was a Walgreens. I purchased a couple of things, and then continued walking. Since by this time I was soaking wet from sweat due to the humidity and heat I decided to walk over to the MetroMover's Bayfront Park Station and head back to the hotel thus ending day 2 in Miami.