Streetsblog Los Angeles

Members of the East Side Riders and Los Ryderz bike clubs put a ghost bike up at the site where a cyclist was hit by the Blue Line train last month (photo courtesy of John Jones III)

Two new ghost bikes went up in South L.A. and Compton yesterday. One was to commemorate the death last month of Sylvester Henderson, 26, who was hit by the train while crossing the Blue Line tracks at the intersection of Grandee and Century Blvd.

Not much is known about Henderson’s death, unfortunately. Much to the consternation of Ted Rogers of bikinginla, the only official news of it seemed to be that of an L.A. Times photo in the print edition showing a bike with a taco-ed wheel said to belong to the as-yet unidentified victim laying on the tracks.

Metro couldn’t give me much information, either. A representative was unable to explain how or why Henderson ignored the flashing lights and lowered arms of the railroad signals.

Judging by the location of the bike in the photo (below) and the fact that Henderson was traveling eastbound against traffic, it is likely he either didn’t notice or didn’t pay attention to the gate arms and flashing lights because they weren’t directly in front of him. The Blue Line has few of the pedestrian safety gates that the Expo Line has, despite the fact that you are actually crossing four sets of tracks (two for the Blue Line and two for freight rail) in most locations. So, while gate arms may effectively block vehicular traffic, pedestrians and cyclists can (and often do) move uninhibited through that and the crossing at 103rd, thinking they can beat the train. Or, they are unaware of whether or not they should be crossing. When you get off the train at 103rd and are looking to cross Grandee, for example, the pedestrian walk signal is conveniently blocked by a telephone pole. Read more…

The Willowbrook Station, looking South. (photo: sahra)

Whenever I travel in and out of LAX, I do my best to Metro my way there.

It requires a forty-minute walk, three trains, and an airport shuttle ride for me to go one way. But, it’s cheap and, remarkably, it all goes down in less than two hours. And, it is never dull.

For one, I get to watch new arrivals stumble their way through the TAP machine at Aviation.

This time, it was a lawyer from Toronto who hung back from the crowd that lunged for the single TAP machine near the elevator, where we were dropped off.

I hadn’t actually taken a look at this ticket-vending machine (TVM) before because I always reach the platform via the stairs at the east end of the station, where the shuttles usually stop. This TVM had none of the semi-helpful maps and informational posters (if you are an English speaker) present by the base of the stairs.

The lawyer hoped that watching other people go through the motions, he’d figure it out.

He didn’t.

He reassured me later that he would have gotten the hang of it with a little more time. He rides public transit a lot, he said.

Having watched him try to navigate the system, I wasn’t so sure.

He was going to have to take three trains (Green, Blue, Purple) and maybe a bus in order to get himself close to LACMA, and didn’t realize that meant that he would need to pay several separate fares. That part wasn’t in the directions his friend had sent him.

He stared at the screen and looked back at the directions on his phone. Buy a card or add a fare? He looked at me.

It dawned on me that while Metro has made it somewhat easier for frequent riders to navigate the system with recent changes to the menus, those shortcuts may make it more challenging for newbies.

As found during a recent Metro-run focus group, people don’t look at the information on or around the machine itself, they focus on the screen and the menus, assuming those will provide answers at some point. It would therefore make sense if the first screen greeting users also had a static list of fun, helpful tips such as “Each Train Requires a Separate Fare!” “ALWAYS Touch Your Card to the Blue TAP Circles at the Turnstiles or Validators Before Boarding!” or “Seniors Get Discounts!” It would also help if the “help” option was, instead, an interactive “information” option that took you to a list of things you could get more specific information about, such as transfers, fares, maps, passes, basic how-to stuff, timetables, and so forth (instead of the achingly slow and not particularly helpful scrolling screen it is now).

Things got fun at the Rosa Parks station, where we descended into the bottleneck that is the stairs to the Blue Line Platform to find a couple of Sheriffs waiting for us. They checked everyone that came through, making people anxious because the delay meant they were going to miss the train or buses they could see waiting below. At least they didn’t have the canines with them. Read more…

The City Council endorsed the submission of a grant funding application to Metro in the "Call for Projects." To read the full application, click here.

It is the wrong way to be advertising the use of public transportation–and to experience this egregious advert, one simply has to take the Blue Line through Long Beach. And if you’re lucky, you’ll only hit one or two lights as you watch individual commuters putt-putt past you while the entire Metro trains halts.

The gripe of Blue Line commuters coming in and out of Long Beach wrests on the fact that it’s the only stretch which doesn’t have a signal preemption system–that is, controllers for the movement of traffic that gives preference to Metro trains rather than street traffic (and not to be confused with signal priority technology used for buses).

When the line was first implemented, it had been foreseen that the train would be given priority signalization–in other words: a guaranteed green light. The system however failed countywide, eventually prompting the City of Los Angeles to score a grant in which it developed its own traffic signal priority system.

The Blue Line has not only faced signal pre-emption issues in Long Beach, nor have the other lines been exempt. Through the previously mentioned grant, LADOT finally provided signal priority on Washington Street in 2011 after a multitude of complaints and three years of studies. Much to the chiding to this day of public transit commuters that preemption was not implemented since signal priority attempts to either hold a green light longer or give a green early rather than providing a guaranteed green for trains.

However, Long Beach’s home stretch is often times absurd, adding 20 minutes to a Downtown LA commute if you happen to hit reds at a multitude of the 32 signals paralleling the Blue Line. So why, precisely, not just adopt the Los Angeles system? Well, of course, that would be too easy and the Universe loves to mock: we use an entirely different traffic signal system than L.A. and the software provider for L.B.’s system was unable to make the transition work–effectively abandoning the project.

But there is (not a traffic) light at the end of the tunnel. Read more…

The Willowbrook Station, looking South. (photo: sahra)

Sunday evening, at approximately 7:20 p.m., a 20-something year old man was stabbed by two women — one in her early 20s and the other in her early 50s — while traveling southbound on the Metro Blue Line.

Passengers that witnessed the altercation called security and requested a Sheriff meet the train at the Firestone station.

The women were arrested and taken into custody and a knife was recovered on the scene at that time.

As of this morning, there is still no information available regarding what sparked the altercation between the parties. All the Watch Commander could tell me was that the women were not related to the victim.

The victim, whose name is not being released at this time, was taken to St. Francis Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.

The stabbing is unusual, not least because two women were the perpetrators. Research suggests that when women are the perpetrators of physical violence, it is most often in cases of domestic violence (for which they are three times more likely to be arrested than men — off topic, true, but interesting nonetheless). Although there was a case in New York where 6 allegedly drunk girls were involved in the stabbing of an older gentleman on the train, public stabbings of strangers by women are infrequent, at best.

The case is also unusual because stabbings on Metro trains are relatively isolated incidents and perpetrators are generally caught, due to the number of witnesses, video surveillance, and the challenge of escaping a train or station once an act has been perpetrated. Of note, the fatal stabbing of 59-year old Jesse Garay on the Red Line last August. He was stabbed by Gene Sim, 33, who claimed he was defending himself when Garay began swinging a chain wildly. The fatal stabbing was the first of its kind since the opening of the Red Line in 1993. The family of Garay filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the MTA, charging that there was not enough security on the train. Meanwhile, it is unclear if Sim was charged in the death. Read more…

A middle-schooler shows a Japanese tourist at the Aviation/LAX station how to use the Metro system. (photo: sahra)

“Do you need any help?” I asked the tall Russian guy.

He was making a valiant effort to look nonchalant as he shifted his gaze back and forth between the Metro rail map at the Aviation/LAX stop of the Green Line and the directions printed out in his hand.

He needed to get to Hollywood and Western, he said. The Google Map directions got him onto the Green Line and headed east easily enough. But then, they directed him to pick up the Silver Line at the Harbor Freeway stop and do some other things that didn’t make much sense on his way to the 7^th St. Metro Center.

I told him to come with me, as I was headed to the Sunset/Vermont stop, and walked him through the purchase of a TAP card.

Next to us, at the second ticket vending machine (TVM), a pair of French siblings was having trouble.

They had been staring at the machine for some time, unable to figure out why it was asking them for nearly $100.

I couldn’t figure it out either.

“You just need to put $3 on the card – you’re only taking two trains,” I said, pulling the girl over to the map to show her the route to take.

We walked back to the machine and began the transaction all over again. Read more…

According to the Los Angeles Fire Department, 32 people went to the hospital this morning after Metro bus 51 collided with the Blue Line. Of the approximately 650 people on both the bus and train when the incident occurred, most of those sustaining injuries had been on the bus. And, most of those injuries were minor.

The collision occurred around 7 a.m. this morning at the intersection of Washington Blvd. and San Pedro St. Metro Communications Manager Rick Jager told Blog Downtown that the train clipped the back end of the bus, sending the bus into a light pole.

Continues Blog Downtown:

Monday’s collision is only the most recent for the Blue Line train, which has had more than 20 accidents so far this year — six of which involved fatalities. Three of these deaths have been confirmed as suicides and one other is currently being investigated as such, Jager told OnCentral last month.

The Source noted that the bus and one rail car sustained significant damage, and that the cause of the accident is still under investigation.

Bus shuttles were put in place until the Blue Line was able to resume service around 9 a.m.

Photo:ledtronis.com

“The deadliest light rail line in the country.”

Metro’s Blue Line, which runs from Metro Center through South L.A. and Watts into Long Beach, has been involved in more than its share of crashes, both minor and fatal, since it opened twenty-two years ago. Regardless of who is deemed “at fault” in the crash, it’s doubtless that the Blue Line’s at-grade routing is a major factor in the crashes. The grade-separated Gold Line and Green Line have been involved in zero fatal crashes in their histories.

In the midst of what might be the Blue Line’s bloodiest year to-date, L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky wants answers. Yaroslavsky authored a motion directing staff to convene a Metro Blue Line Task Force to examine safety procedures and strategies for the Blue Line operation. The motion was amended by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to improve communication to the community and media when there is a crash.

This year, six people have died after being struck by a Blue Line train. Four of those deaths were suicides. Despite the difficulty in preventing a suicide at an at-grade light rail, this number was particularly concerning to Yaroslavsky who pressured staff to create some solutions to the “suicide problem.”  The previous “record” for Blue Line fatalities was in 1999, when 10 people died after crashes with Blue Line trains.

Many residents of South L.A., including some at the Board Meeting yesterday openly wonder if the location of the Blue Line, which runs through many lower income and African American communities, has something to do with the lack of progress impeding deaths.

“Can you imagine this level of carnage being permitted in South Pasadena instead of South Los Angeles,” Damien Goodmon asked rhetorically when he spoke to Streetsblog and Intersections about the opening of the Expo Line.

This is hardly the first time that Metro has studied what causes so many Blue Line crashes. In fact, officials were perplexed by the deadly year in 1999 when it happened. Following a particularly nasty year in 1998, officials put in new procedures and infrastructure to make the line safer.

The Los Angeles Times reports on the changes put in place (in 1999):

* A public outreach campaign.

* The assignment of eight county sheriff’s deputies to watch for motorists and pedestrians trying to pass lowered crossing gates. Fines were increased last year to $271.

* The installation of 10 cameras at 17 locations to photograph motorists who try to get around lowered gates. Authorities can use photographs of the license plates to issue citations. This year, the MTA plans to add six more cameras.

* State approval for new crossing gates that are more difficult for motorists to bypass. The gates–which use four arms instead of two–were tested at 124th Street in Willowbrook. The MTA plans to install the gates on 10 other rail crossings over the next five years.

This year, the total number of deaths is increased by the number of suicides, and 1999 also had a statistical quirk.  Six of the ten reported deaths were caused in one crash, where an unlicensed driver tried to outrun a train and failed. In 1999, six of the ten deaths were caused by one unsafe driver. This year, four of the six deaths have been ruled suicides.

But blaming the fatality rate on the mistakes of the people killed is a non-starter. In 1999, the MTA expressed confusion over why so many people were making illegal left turns and driving into the path of the train.

“Why they are doing that, who knows?” said MTA spokesman Ed Scannell. The agency is launching a billboard campaign to warn motorists about the dangers of illegal left turns.

Transferring to the Blue Line from the Green Line at Imperial-Wilmington. photo: sahra

AS A FEMALE WHO tends to move unaccompanied through the city by bike or on foot, I get harassed.

A lot.

Several times a day.

Every day.

As in, I often can’t make a move in public without someone reminding me I have lady parts and/or offering to service them.

The intrusions range from hilarious declarations of love and proposals of marriage to bizarre flashes of drive-by penis from masturbating motorists to more frightening threats of rape and associated mayhem from those whose advances I spurn. Sometimes the intrusions are physical — a smack on the behind while I’m riding from a passing motorist or an opportunistic grope in a crowd — and sometimes I am offered cash for services I do not provide.

The less obvious but more frequent kind of harassment often comes in the form of that guy.

That guy on the street that decides to walk with me while I’m trying to do unobtrusive street photography. That guy that thinks he’s the only one that has ever asked me whether the bike I am riding is actually mine, how far I go on a daily basis, where I am coming from, where I am going, and can he ride with me. Or, as happened yesterday, that guy on the train that loudly decided to make me his new best friend and involve the whole train car in the process.

I heard him as soon as I stepped onto the Blue Line at Imperial-Wilmington. He was loudly talking at a woman sitting across from him about things that seemed to make no sense.

Catching her eye, I gave her a questioning look, silently asking whether she needed some help. In that moment, he spotted me standing at the front of the car and it was all over. Read more…

The Watts Village Theater Company rehearses "Meet me at the Ghetto" in front of the Watts Towers. credit: Joleen Deatherage

YOU CAN SEE GOATS from the Blue Line, Guillermo Avilés-Rodríguez, Artistic Director of the Watts Village Theater Company (WVTC), told me excitedly.

He knows this because “goats” were one of the items that participants had to spot for Metro Bingo, a game played as part of the immersive theater experience that is Meet Me @ Metro (MM@M).

Now in its third year, MM@M is a theatrical journey on Los Angeles’ Metro Rail featuring unique, site-specific performances from local theater companies and performers, curated by the WVTC. Patrons board the Metro at one location and are enveloped in colorful and inspiring theater, music, dance, puppetry, spectacle, and even food, that help them explore the historical, cultural, and artistic significance of the communities along the route.

The Blue Line served as host for the first two years, giving theater-goers a new perspective on the communities of South L.A. This August, they will be “Uncovering Los Angeles’ Hidden Treasures,” embarking at Union Station and heading out to East L.A. on the Gold Line.

Eventually, Avilés-Rodríguez hopes, there will be performances running on multiple lines at once, giving patrons the option of exploring several communities in one day. The creation of that kind of only-in-L.A. experience had been the original concept, he said, but “as is typical when you do something for the first time, Metro was very concerned about, well…everything.” Read more…