LA Streetcar now online (thanks to Eric Banghart!)

For the past year or so, my and Juan's friend Eric Banghart has talked a lot about streetcars. He became our go-to friend for anything about the streetcar after he started an internship with CRA/LA, where he worked closely with community leaders, business people, and politicians on the Bringing Back Broadway initiative. Bringing Back Broadway turned into LA Streetcar Inc., a non-profit org that will lead - get this - the development of a streetcar to connect the vibrant shopping district along Broadway to other parts of downtown Los Angeles.


I'm really excited to introduce you to LA Streetcar Inc.'s new website, which just launched today. Eric helped write a lot of the content on the website. His talent as a writer shows in the website's cogent explanations of what, exactly, LA Streetcar seeks to do and a rundown of Streetcar 101.

I know that Juan and I have talked a lot about a subway and other transportation initiatives, but we think that a streetcar has an important role in LA's transportation network as well. Once upon a time, LA had one of the most extensive streetcar networks in the world. The streetcar was integral to commerce in many parts of LA, including along Broadway in downtown.

With the dissolution of the streetcar network came drastic changes to the LA urban landscape. Many parts of the city that thrived with the streetcar went into economic decline for a long time. And the proliferation of automobiles led to in-fill of one sort - areas that had gone undeveloped in the era of the streetcar were snapped up for housing, which in a way also sealed LA's fate as an auto-dominated metropolis.

Streetcar supporters see the return of the streetcar as a catalyst to revitalize the Broadway corridor, which has 12 historic theaters (and a lot of empty commercial space.) The streetcar will also connect Broadway to other parts of downtown. And people are more likely to ride a form of transit on a fixed right-of-way - it's reliable, you know where it goes and where it stops, and so on.

Anyway, congratulations, Eric, on the launch of LAStreetcar.org!

- Sirinya

Metro is now on Google Transit

ACT Workshop at Caltech

Hi everyone,

This morning, I am leading a workshop with Juan called "Creating your presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn". The workshop is for the southern California chapter of the Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT), the trade association for TDM and rideshare professionals.

You can check out a PDF of the presentation here: http://jmatute.googlepages.com/ACTWorkshop.pdf

The presentation goes through the basics of the three social networking sites and brings up good examples of how people are using these sites to disseminate information to commuters.

Sirinya

Metro Releases Schedule Data in Google Format - Google Transit to Follow!

Last week, Metro quietly published a developer site to publicly release GTFS data (the backbone of Google Transit) at http://developer.metro.net.

Today, they announced it in a press release: L.A. Metro Releases Transit Data to Spur Applications Development and Grow Ridership. In the release, they say the Developer Site "is one of a number of exciting interactive developments that will be announced in the coming weeks."

This can only mean one thing, that Metro will soon be on Google Transit. I know that there are some upcoming schedule changes because of the new Gold Line Extension, so that may complicate the release of schedule data, but I would expect Los Angeles to be able to use Google Transit in the next month or so. Of course, if this doesn't happen we'll tell you what you can do to apply pressure.

Join the Los Angeles Wants Google Transit Facebook Group to keep updated on the push for Google Transit.

Metro Board meeting on Long Range Transportation Plan this Thursday

Thursday is a crucial step in making sure the Wilshire Subway is funded. Measure R provided the funds for additional transit projects like the Subway to UCLA. The Wilshire Subway is currently in second place on a long list of projects to be funded with Measure R funds. On Thursday, the board will finalize which projects make the cut, and how they are prioritized. Having Wilshire Subway supporters will help the politicians make the right decision - to fund the Wilshire Subway, which will have the maximum benefit not only for UCLA and the Westside but all of Los Angeles.

Join Bruins for Traffic Relief on Thursday at 1pm at the Metro Board Meeting adjacent to Union Station. You can take the bus or subway to Union Station. Check Metro's Trip Planner for instructions on how to get there on transit. Just remember that the subway will bring the trip time from Westwood to Union station to around 30 minutes, and enable you to take subway transit to go downtown, Hollywood, and many other places giving you a more holistic experience of Los Angeles and all the things it has to offer.

If you are a UCLA student, staff, faculty, or affiliate, please wear school colors to show your support.

• More info on the Long Range Transportation Plan
• LRTP Board Meeting Agenda

Using Metro on the Smartphone

For the past few weeks I've been playing around with Rapid on the Cell and the cell phone version of Metro's Trip Planner as part of my ongoing look at how new mobile technologies can help people better interact with public transit. A lack of information is a big barrier to transit use for choice riders. The internet has revolutionized the availability of transit information - no longer do people have to have paper copies of time tables and route maps to figure out how to get around.

However, as the internet becomes more mobile with laptops, cells, and smart phones, it seems Metro has not kept up. Metro currently has two mobile offerings, TripPlanner and RapidBus.net.

A screenshot taken by Sirinya of the Rapid on the Cell site while she was tracking the whereabouts of the next 720 from her home computer for Juan

Rapidbus.net allows visitors to read the same next bus displays at Metro Rapid (7-series) stops, but from their web-enabled cell or computer. As frequent transit users know, the information provided by these screens is not the most accurate.

One downfall of the line I frequently use, the 720, is that there is no option to see when the next bus is arriving at stops in Santa Monica. I assume this is because there are no inductive loops for signal priority in Santa Monica, which I believe drives the Next Bus times. One additional downside of using the inductive loops in the asphalt rather than GPS positioning is that the first stop for which next bus information is available often reads "Unavailable" until a bus is only a few minutes away.

All in all, Rapidbus.net is a useful tool that can help users minimize wait time at bus stops. I used it to get home from downtown late Saturday night, and was able to arrive at my stop only 3 minutes before the bus arrived. At the time, the 720 was operating with 15 minute headways. One downside of Rapidbus.net is that, at least on my cellphone (a Blackberry 8820), it does not enable deep linking. Deep linking would be useful if a user wanted to save a bookmark of nextbus information for a stop they frequented (work or home) and didn't want to spend the minute or so it takes to navigate the Rapidbus site to find the next bus information.

On the cell, a user must click links for "MTA" (the first one, not the 2nd of the two MTA's available), then the line they wish to travel on, the direction they wish to travel, then the stop they wish to view information for. The computer version is more user friendly.

One additional errata is the presence of a Sepulveda stop on the 720. The stop is actually at Bonsall, 400 yards away.

Using Trip Planner on the cell is a bit more difficult. Trip Planner online is notorious for errors. Luckily, TripPlanner on the cell can provide useful information for users who have figured out how to use the site. The trick is knowing Metro's convention for cross streets, which is a "/" rather than a "&". If you use a & which is the convention on Google Maps, you'll never find what you're looking for.

Once you get past that part, you have to verify that TripPlanner understood your intersections correctly. Then it gives you some options of what bus to take. If you're not familiar with different routes, this can be difficult, especially if you're not familiar with the difference between two or more bus numbers which use the same route (920/720/20). Eventually, it's possible to figure out what time the next bus is scheduled to arrive. This is useful information.

One huge drawback to TripPlanner on the computer by phone is that it doesn't include owl service. I found this out when using TripPlanner on my cell to come back home from a night out at Karaoke in Korea Town. It was around 1 in the morning, but TripPlanner showed the next trip at 4:38 in the morning. Because PDFs don't load well on my cell, I couldn't access the time tables. I had to call a friend to find out when the next 20 bus might be coming.

At the time, I wasn't aware of NextTrip, which is accessible by clicking "Riding Metro" and then "Metro Bus" on the mobile site. This would only have been a viable option since I knew which line I wanted to take and which stops I wanted to use.

Both of Rapidbus and TripPlanner on the cell have shortcomings, but are useful to a patient user who has some degree of bus riding experience. I'm looking forward to the one day, very soon, when Google Transit rolls out in the Los Angeles area. After that, many other good things will happen.

Using Google Transit on Google Maps for Mobile

Lack of information is a barrier to using transit. To go somewhere, you have to know how to get there. In a car, you have maps and potentially a GPS device. For transit in LA, you have Trip Planner, time tables, and a stylish, but not geographically representative, map of routes and lines. These resources are hard for a visitor or first time transit rider to find, nonetheless figure out in a little over an hour.

Luckily, in San Francisco , BART and Muni are on Google Transit. While I was up there last weekend, I documented an hour of using my Blackberry 8820 with GPS, and Google Transit on Google Maps for Mobile to navigate the city.

I had some time to kill, so I decided to get some Dim Sum in Chinatown. I'm unfamiliar with San Francisco, so I used Yelp, an online review site, to find a good place to go. I went to their mobile site and searched for "dim sum" in Chinatown, San Francisco, CA. In the first page of results, I found a place with 4 stars called Delicious Dim Sum, which was what I was looking for.

I then searched for "Delicious Dim Sum" on Google Maps for Mobile and found out how to get there using transit. There was a bus departing from two blocks away in just a few minutes.

Google Transit showed me how to walk there:

What the bus stop looked like:

And what time the bus was leaving:

I hopped on the 9X to go to Chinatown.

While I was in transit, my Cousin sent me a text telling me that he and his brother would be grabbing beers before the Giants game near AT&T Park. I told them I'd be there around 6.

I hopped off the bus in Chinatown and walked about a block to Delicious Dim Sum.

And it was delicious:

While eating the pork bun, I searched for the 21st Amendment Brewery on Google Maps for Mobile and found transit directions to get there. I had to walk a few blocks down Jackson Street to get to the stop.

When I got to the stop, Muni's next bus sign not only let me know how long I would be waiting

but also that Muni was subject to state cuts to transit operating funds and what I could do to learn more.

I got on the bus, and had about 20 minutes in transit, so I used my blackbery to update my facebook status

and check the news back home.

I was also able to follow my progress along the route:

(I'm at the blue dot, the route is the blue line, green diamond is beginning, red diamond is destination, orange diamonds are embarkation and disembarkation)

When I got off the bus I had a short walk:

and then I grabbed a beer with my cousins:

.

I did all of this in about an hour and 15 minutes. I was unfamiliar with the system (I event tried to use my declining balance BART ticket on Muni), but Google Transit made it easy to figure out.

Want experiences like this in LA? Join the effort to get Metro and the munis on Google Transit by joinining the Los Angeles Wants Google Transit Facebook group.

More than intent needed to ride Gold Line extension

I applaud the Gold Line Construction Authority and Citrus's College student efforts to raise the attention of public transportation investments in the Foothill corridor. However, their "I will ride" campaign should be an "I would ride" campaign. Students support the proposed line as, it would serve the Citrus College campus. These students probably easily envision walking, biking, or driving to a gold line station, taking the line to Citrus Ave, then walking the 1/3 to 1/2 mile to their destination on campus. However, most of these students will be gone in two years. If the these students and the Gold Line's supporters really want to ride the line, they should lobby their local city councils for land use policies which support light rail use, so that they will have ample reason and opportunity to ride when the Gold Line extension is built.

People travel because they want to get from here to there. There would be no sense in riding the Gold Line extension if it does not go where the supporters want to go. No one with a car at their disposal wants to upwards of walk a mile and a half to and from a station to get to their final destination. Thus, it is critical to concentrate housing, jobs, and places people want to go near the future stations, so that someone can get on the train in Glendora and go grab dinner and watch a movie in Claremont. If the “heres” and “theres” in the future Foothill Corridor are not near proposed Gold Line stations, then fixed-route light rail would be difficult to use for such a trip.

For light rail to have enough “heres” and “theres” around stations to be viable (still subsidized by local sales and property taxes, but high enough ridership to offer frequent service), the area around the stations should have roughly twenty housing units per acre. This type of land use allows people to buy or rent near a station so that they easily take advantage of all benefits the line has to offer. With fewer people living near stations, generally a line would require such a high subsidy to operate (at least 4 to and as much as 10 times the price of a ticket), that during times of budget cuts the line’s operator would not be able to offer frequent enough service to get people on the train. No one wants to wait 30 minutes to take a train. Those who did want to near stations would have to pay higher prices for rent and houses because of the low supply of housing in the area.

A previous generation of Citrus College students missed a great opportunity to promote the land uses necessary to give residents access to the light rail line. The Rosedale master-planned community is a new 518-acre neighborhood currently under construction right across the street from Citrus College and adjacent to the proposed Gold Line station at Citrus Ave. When completed, the neighborhood will have about 2.5 houses per acre – far below what will be needed to, in the future, house even a fraction of the 28,000 students currently attending colleges within 1/2 a mile of a proposed station.