(L.A.) to begin service to Santa Monica on May 20

[crabby_appleton1950]

Metro Expo Line to begin service to Santa Monica on May 20

After a six-decade hiatus, passenger rail service will return to the traffic-choked Westside in May.

The $1.5-billion, 6.6-mile extension of the Expo Line will begin running to Santa Monica on May 20, marking the first time that passenger trains have traveled between downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean since the demise of Los Angeles County’s extensive streetcar network in the 1950s.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority sees the Expo Line, which will run through some of the Southland’s most congested areas, as key to its goal to draw Angelenos out of their cars and onto public transportation. The light-rail line will connect the Pacific Ocean and the employment centers west of the 405 Freeway to L.A.’s steadily expanding mass transit network.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-expo-line-santa-monica-opening-date-20160224-story.html

 

[caravanman]

Although the bus from Los Angeles Union Station to the Santa Monica H.I. hostel worked well, it will be great to take a train instead.

Ed.

 

[afigg]

Will be interesting to see what the effect of the Expo line extension to Santa Monica and the Gold Line Foothill extension opening in just a few days on March 5 will be on transit ridership in LA. Or will the real growth have to wait until the Crenshaw line, the Regional transit connector in downtown LA, and Phase 1 of the Purple Line projects are complete to get to enough of a proper transit network that many people will use it routinely to get around the city?

Likely to be no way to tell from the ridership numbers, but the opening of these 2 extensions, especially the Expo line extension to Santa Monica could boost Surfliner ridership as a secondary effect as it provides more places visitors by train can get to from LAUS.