"The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) has finished installing twin tracks for the six-mile Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension from downtown Los Angeles to East Los Angeles. [...]
"The Metro Gold Line currently links downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena. Service will connect Union Station and East Los Angeles via Little Tokyo, the Arts District and Boyle Heights. It will feature eight new stations including two underground: Little Tokyo/Arts District, Pico Aliso, Mariachi Plaza, Soto, Indiana, Maravilla, ELA Civic Center and Atlantic.
"The Indiana and Atlantic station will have each a park & ride lot with 250 and 43 parking spaces respectively. The ridership projections for the first year are 13,800 average weekday boardings and for the year 2025 Metro projects an average of 22,983 boardings on weekdays."
I for one am thrilled for the extension of the East LA portion of Metro Gold Line. It's been a big hit from Union Station to Sierra Madre, and all the stops in between. While I've yet to stop at each individual station towards Pasadena, it's been an experience in itself to make way across Los Angeles with relative ease. I can only imagine that with the extension being so central to the more dense areas of town, care will be taken to infuse color and culture via art at the stations (a la North Hollywood, Hollywood/Vine, and Hollywood/Western stations, by way of the Metro Red Line; much like Del Mar station, also via Metro Gold Line) so as to preserve the newness of the service, and the importance it holds to all Angelenos - especially in our current economic state. Unfortunately, I believe we've all been brought down a peg due to recent times, but thank goodness for reason, and proper use of taxes. It's been long overdue. Los Angeles is making all the right steps towards catching up when it comes to getting people around.
Click here for more information on the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension (opening scheduled for June 2009).
Photo via Metro.net
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