CRA Wants WIFI on the Gold Line

As someone who has taken the Gold Line into Downtown everyday for years now, I can assure you that the 3-car trains that now run every 8-10 minutes, along with the express additions, are far from empty.

In fact the idea of every Pasadena commuter pulling out their laptops to fool around on Wi-Fi when it's increasingly hard to find standing room at rush hour is less than attractive. The money would be better spent adding another train car or more storage space to accommodate bicyclists.

Wow ! My dream has finally come true. Now people can have something else to do, besides groaning and complaining, when the train is stopped on a bridge somewhere.

I can't believe ridership is still at 17,000. During rush hour the trains are packed. And off peak hours have crowds reminiscent of the Green Line to LAX. The only difference is they run less trains than Green Line. They need to run trains consistently every 10 minutes or less all day every day.

I have an idea to fix the Gold Line... Move it to new tracks that run along Ventura from Universal City to Calabasas. I have a feeling people might actually ride it - WiFi or not.

Gold Line actually is doing well considering its length and certain restrictions that constrain it.

http://www.thetransitcoalition.us/newspdf/psn20061211a.pdf

I live downtown and work in Pasadena next to a gold line stop. I would appear to be a perfect candidate for taking the gold line. However, it takes 1 hour to get to the Lake Ave stop by train and a little over 20 minutes to get there by car. Car wins. Also, the recently added express trains actually hurt my commute since Lake is not on the express list.

Let's try a monorail instead!

it's unfortunate that they're not taking that money and putting it toward gates across the 5X streets down marmion way. it truly is dreadful - i started getting on and off at SW museum instead, even though i'm closer to the highland park station.

"When looking at the Gold Line's low ridership..."

Hold the phone there for a second, now.

The latest ridership numbers (September 2006) from the MTA indicate that the Gold Line and the Orange Line now have almost identical weekday boarding numbers: about 20,000.

The Orange Line is (almost universally) considered a success, while the Gold Line is considered a failure and this same old meme about the "low ridership" "slow" Gold Line continues apace.

Putting the skip-stop express service aside, the MTA recently made some changes to the signalling system, shaving 5 minutes off the total trip, not including the Express.

I'd like to get some actual numbers together from other rail lines in other cities, to make a valid (non-subjective) comparison, but I don't think, in my heart of hearts, that the Gold Line is that much slower than other light rail lines. I'll get back to you on this after doing some research.

Plus, I should probably also mention that once the Eastside Gold Line extension opens in about 2 years and 9 months, the ridership on the line will explode, as it will once again when the Foothill extension opens (especially if they get it to Ontario Airport).

In about 10 years, the Gold Line will be the longest light rail line in the United States, with probably the highest ridership, and the "low ridership" complaints will be just a strange memory from those wacky Oughties.

"once the Eastside Gold Line extension opens in about 2 years and 9 months, the ridership on the line will explode"

Yes. Because residents in East L.A. are already clamoring for a ride to Old Town to visit the Apple Genius Bar.

We all want to believe in and champion our favorite transit route, be it the Gold Line, Red Line, or whatever. For me, it will always be a rail line that doesn't, and probably never will exist. But I think the idea of adding WiFi to get more people to ride the train WHO DON'T ALREADY RIDE IT is nonsense.

Spend the money on something more useful to the MAJORITY of riders. Maybe better LED screens at the stations that show the next train's arrival.

No, Jason, once the extension comes on line, East L.A. residents will mostly use the Gold Line to go downtown, or connect at Union Station with the Red Line or then, the Blue Line. They won't ride the entire Gold Line, and they shouldn't have to.

But, yes, I bet some of them will even go to Pasadena on it, possibly for work. I'll bet some of them will even go to Old Town to shop on occasion. Sorry that doesn't fit in your tiny world view.

I think you're missing the big picture here, Scott. Yes, it will be swell for East L.A. to finally have the golden opportunity to transfer-transfer-transfer. No one is trying to deny them this much-needed extension.

But if the Gold Line is the colossal success that you claim, then why is the CRA pushing WiFi to boost ridership? What if that doesn't work either? Free snowcones? Free Wii?

The point here is that it's a complete waste of money, as has been illustrated by other comments on this board and elsewhere. Instead of worrying about a few commuters being able to check their MySpace on the Gold Line, let's work on funding the laundry list of other urgent transit projects and fix the entire mess.

Not so sure if I want everyone to see me downloading porn on the train.

When they announced free Wifi in Pershing Square it turned out it was really for the surveilance cameras to communicate with HQ. I bet there is a similar explanation for this.

WiFi on the Gold Line? How about cell phone service on the Red Line? Are we the only city in the world that doesn't have cellular coverage on the subway?

Like the writer, I have used my cell phone to connect my laptop to the internet on the Gold Line. Sure, it is tough to work on the laptop at rush hour, but its no different than trying to work on a laptop on a crowded southwest flight. I saw a recent survey that the Gold Line has the highest percentage of riders who own a car and have higher incomes of all the LA transit routes, so ammenities like WiFi make sense. I would assume the CRA money is grant funding that couldn't be applied to other transit routes. Plus, the WiFi fees could add revenue to Metro to pay for future improvements. And WiFi at all the stations can make wait time more productive.

To the reader who complains of the 1 hour commute time from downtown to Lake, your point is heard. It is about 25 minutes from Union Station to Lake (faster on the express). It is the connections to other routes that suffers. My door-to-door commute, with a 10 minute walk to the Lake Street station and a connection to the red line, gets me from Lake to 7th/Fig in 45 to 50 minutes. Sure, driving is faster, but I can't read a book while driving or catch up on work emails and reports. And then add in the cost for parking? Most companies will pay for a monthly Metro pass. let's say you are getting a deal on parking and only paying $5 a day, you'd save about $1,300.00 a year if your comapny bought your rail pass and you took the Metro. Consider that.

The Gold Line is a "complete waste of money, based on comments on this board and elsewhere"?

Last time I checked, comments on a web site aren't indicative of anything, except for the opinions of those people leaving them.

I quoted ridership numbers, which show for a fact that the Gold Line is not a failure. Ridership figures are lower that I would like, and lower than the MTA would like, but, not so low that you, or anyone else could consider them a failure (in my opinion). Anyway, I do back up my opinion with facts.

Yes, one of the goals of the Wi-Fi service is to increase ridership, with new riders coming on, but another goal is to prevent loss of current riders by giving them new services.

And, if you think the Gold Line is a failure because its ridership is too low, why do you criticize these efforts? If you think the ridership nubmers are too low, why are any efforts to up the totals wasteful and doomed to failure, in your view? I don't get it. Wouldn't any increase in ridship, even a minimal one, help? Don't we need whatever we can get?

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Regarding the "failure" of the Gold Line: in the past two months, I have seen the Gold Line trains packed going in both directions.

If someone wanted to increase ridership, they would do well to improve the three stations inbetween Chinatown and Highland Park. These three stations suck - and connect poorly to business districts.

The automobile needs to be de-emphasized on city streets in North East L.A. - once car lanes are slowed, and streets are made more liveable, ridership on the trains will increase.

To anyone at the MTA: please move the Heritage Square station to the corner of Marmion and Figueroa! There are two parks and stops for every major bus line running through the area at that intersection.

The gold line is a 'failure' not b/c it has no wifi capability, it's b/c of connections. Extensions to the line need to be built (i.e. downtown connector, Asuza extension) to get people where they really want to go. Once the Gold Line eastside opens in '09, I'm sure we won't be debating ridership figures any longer.

The problem with light rail in LA is that the MTA has taken the George Bush approach: hasty planning and spending without considering the near- or far-field dynamics of traffic and residents along the right-of-ways or the communities through which the lines traverse. By limiting themselves to the right-of-ways, such as through South Pasadena, they have built a system based on "what was there", rather than building lines along high-density corridors and neighborhoods. Yes, in the end it is all about cost and money, but don't be surprised when the ridership is low. For those who like to compare the Gold to the Orange line in terms of success as a result of their similar ridership, please remember that the Orange line had much lower expectations and cost much, much less. A proper comparison should include some normalization, such as riders/dollars spent. By comparing the Orange to the Gold, one conclusion to draw is that a bus line is more popular than a light rail line!

^ "A proper comparison should include some normalization, such as riders/dollars spent."

The MTA is doing some long-range planning right now, where they are considering future transit projects. This planning actually specifically includes riders/dollar comparisons between a couple dozen major candidate projects.

And surprise, surprise. The most cost-effective project in terms of riders/dollar: the Downtown Connector.

I use GOLD line almost everyday and I do use my laptop on the train. Free Wifi will be awesome ;-). In the long run, wifi connectivity on trains will be a necessity as few people would want to waste an hour that could have been used productively.

I've asked Metro about this. Representatives always tell me WiFi on trains is very costly. You need to have signal transmitters all along the rail line, like every 100 ft. to provide a continuous coverage.