Where do you draw the line?
The A Line, on the Los Angeles Metro rail system, is now the longest light-rail line in the world, running for 58 miles, with 44 stops.
I rode the whole line on the opening weekend for the A Line’s $1.5 billion extension. These new 9.1 miles and four stations take trains to Pomona in eastern Los Angeles County.
I may be the ideal customer for the A Line, because it touches so much of my Southern California life.
I live blocks from its South Pasadena Station. I grew up two blocks from its Fillmore Station, which is next to my pharmacy and our pediatrician. The A Line has stops in Old Town Pasadena (where I hung out as a teenager), in Highland Park (where I hang out now), and in East Pasadena (two blocks from my car mechanic).
On the south end of the line is Long Beach, my father’s home town. The A Line stops downtown just steps from the old L.A. Times building where I once worked, and from the Bradbury Building, the home of the think tank where I’m a fellow. As it rolls east through the San Gabriel Valley, the line stops near fields in Duarte, Arcadia, and Azusa where I’ve coached youth baseball.
So, I want desperately to love the A Line.
But, as a passenger, I kind of hate it.
I love that it can get me to so many places, including 19 colleges and L.A. County’s Fairplex, across the street from the new La Verne station. But I hate how slow the A Line goes. It takes 2 hours and 27 minutes to get from Pomona to Long Beach (an hour’s drive).
I also hate how the A Line goes close to, but still too far from, big events. It has six stops in Pasadena but none at the Rose Bowl (you can take a shuttle bus from Memorial Park). It stops in Chinatown and at Union Station, but not at Dodger Stadium. I’m also frustrated that, because of San Bernardino County’s decision to block a planned extension of the line, the A will never reach Ontario airport.
The A Line’s purpose is to get us out of our cars. But many stations are bordered or surrounded by large, empty parking lots, occupying too much space which would be better used for new, transit-friendly development.
This is true of the new stations in Glendora and La Verne (the latter doesn’t need a parking lot, with the Fairplex lot next door) and of older stations in Pasadena. Multi-story Metro parking garages at Fillmore Station and Sierra Madre Villa Station sit empty of cars.
The A Line takes you to the sweetest-smelling places in SoCal — you’ll encounter bougainvillea in Long Beach and the roses of my Pasadena hometown.
But inside the train, the cars reek, often of urine and excrement. Floors and seats are covered in dried liquids of unknown provenance.
I love how cheap the A Line is, just $1.75 per ride, however long.
I hate that you get what you pay for.
When Metro opened its new LAX airport station in June, I excitedly hurried over to check it out. Upon arrival, I couldn’t hear myself think. Not because of crowds (the place was pretty empty) but because of a malfunctioning alarm system, announcing an evacuation that had not been ordered. Metro staffers couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. Soon I had a headache. The pain was not helped by my two-hour-plus ride home — a journey that takes just 50 minutes by car.
Let’s give credit where credit is due. Metro has become almost as big and sprawling as its metropolis. The A Line, with that world-record length, is emblematic of the system.
Unfortunately, like the rest of L.A., it doesn’t quite work.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Mathews: This California light rail is the world’s longest
Reporting by Joe Mathews / Ventura County Star
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