http://la.streetsblog.org/2013/08/21/as-union-station-makes-changes-will-they-consider-the-people-who-use-it/
By Erik Griswold, August 21, 2013
On rather short notice, approximately one week ago, Los Angeles Metro
announced major changes to the way Union Station will be allowed to be
used during the overnight hours of 1am to 4am.
This is one of the many changes public transportation users have begun to see in the wake of
Metro’s February 2011 purchase of the station (or “
Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal” to
railroading purists) from
TPG Capital. TGP Capital
had just acquired the property itself through a spinoff deal with
ProLogis, which had
merged with a development company called
Catellus, the descendant company of the
Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroads’ property holding interests.
While the addition of the newer food and retail options — including
the upgrading of the main waiting hall’s newsstand to one operated by
the French multinational Relay, as well as the addition of Famima!,
Subway, Starbucks, etc. —
were begun under the Catellus/ProLogis ownership, further improvements that
Metro has proposed will fundamentally alter the interior and exterior of a station that, up until the early 1990’s, had
more pigeons than people.
One of the first visible changes made
under Metro ownership was the posting early this spring of some
directly-quoted portions of the Metro Code of Conduct on signs around
the station, including my favorite, the prohibition on
“Unavoidable Grossly Repulsive Odor” (6.05.160). This set of regulations, which was adopted in a
somewhat off-the-radar method,
was originally intended to be applied to the much smaller (and
potentially “sealed”) single-purpose rail and bus transit facilities,
and vehicles, that were exclusively Metro’s domain.
Before:
Now, apparently, the code is also being applied to all of Union
Station, which is a multi-faceted and open facility with all kinds of
users and uses that are not taken into consideration on other Metro
property. In other words, it appeared that some portions of the code
were about to impose Metro’s rules on the customers of other
transportation providers and tenants at Union Station even if those
carriers and tenants themselves did not also have the same restrictions
on their vehicles or at their own stations or in their establishments.
One example was the posting of Metro’s restriction against
persons under 14 not being allowed to ride Metro with a bicycle without being accompanied by an adult (6.05.040).
This is not the policy of other transportation providers which use
Union Station, but by posting it, Metro was essentially banning all
persons under 14 with a bicycle who were without an adult from even
passing through the station property, even if all they wished to do was
buy an ice-cream at
Downtown L.A.’s only Ben & Jerry’s.
Fortunately, thanks especially to the work of the Los Angeles County
Bicycle Coalition and others, Metro has apparently accounted for some of
those conflicts, and
has now reposted these restrictions on Union Stations users apparently with the broader context
of a modern transportation hub in mind. However, Metro’s code itself is
unchanged and it is unclear what portions of it apply to Union Station
or if the
multiple law enforcement entities that patrol Union Station will be enforcing it
.
After:
When the new Code of Conduct signs were installed, another new sign
(see image at top of this post) was installed on the reverse side
advising that effective Monday, August 19
th at 1 am (i.e. earlier this week), the station would be “changing its hours of operation” and:
Between 1:00am and 4:00am, ticketed passengers and
those persons with lawful transportation purposes will be directed to a
designated seating/lounge area. Those persons
without authorization or permission to remain in Union Station or on the
facility property will be required to leave the premises.
This sign also contains a map showing where “ticketed passengers and
those persons with lawful transportation purposes” are supposed to wait.
Roughly, it is the area where one finds the iconic Los Angeles Union
Station seats bounded by the Relay Newsstand, the Wetzels Pretzels, the
Amtrak information booth and the See’s candy kiosk.
This policy will be enforced by the newly-red-jacketed “Ambassadors
in the employ of Universal Protection Service” who are a contractor for
Metro specifically assigned to Union Station, in partnership with the
Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Transit Service Bureau.
To the non-transit-using observer or those who do not work outside of
the Monday-Friday 9-5 shift, Union Station might be considered to be
“done for the day” once the last Metrolink and Amtrak trains leave and
arrive just before Midnight. Certainly it was not all that long ago that
the Metro Red Line Subway, which was the only Metro Rail line serving
the station, would shut down at about that time.
But Downtown Los Angeles and its transportation hub is slowly turning into a 24/7 activity center.
With the arrival of the Metro Gold Line,
and it’s Roybal extension to East L.A. (which converted the “terminal” into a “station”), rail transit at Union Station is
a nearly 21-hour operation even on a weekday, due to the logistics of operating a 20-mile (32km)-long light rail line which has
only one car-barn. Add in the recently extended Metro service on “Friday and Saturday Nights” and this window grows further.
From my study of the various providers’ current timetables (See combined schedule of operations
here)
during the traditional work week (Mondays through Fridays) between
12:50am and 4:10am, forty-three arrivals and departures take place at
Union Station. On weekends (Saturday and Sundays) that number climbs to
seventy-six!
Note that in these totals I have chosen to include the arrivals ten
minutes before 1:00am and departures ten minutes after 4:00am as the
users of these trips will likely be impacted by the new security policy
as they reposition themselves into, out of, or through the Union Station
property during the 1:00am to 4:00am time period.
That’s more arrivals and departures on a weekday, than the
station saw in an
entire day in
1990.
However, it should be remembered that a traveler using Union Station
in 1990 would have found themselves using either Amtrak’s trains
departing from the railroad tracks or Amtrak’s “Thruway” buses which
depart from the
Amtrak Bus Bays just west of the Amtrak baggage carousel (located behind the Subway Sandwich Stand).
There was no grand East Portal to the then-gloomy pedestrian tunnel
under the train platforms or Patsaouras Transit Plaza beyond. Entry to
the tunnel under the
strict control of Amtrak personnel and passengers were only permitted access when walking to or from trains.
Passengers
were boarded through “gates” along a wall
which stretched all the way from the current Amtrak ticket widows to
the Amtrak baggage carousel room. You can still see the only remnants of
this wall (and passenger-control doctrine) today when you line up,
as Amtrak would like you to at most of its stations, for Surfliner departures at the
still-intact gates E and F.
Today the station is a vibrant place, and while not
nearly as lively as most of its overseas contemporaries (which benefit from their nations’
larger per captia investments in public transportation and special
exemptions from local laws on store opening times),
Union Station, long the location of a reliably-“stocked” taxi stand,
now has retail open 24 hours a day, and has since 1990 added:
- The Subway platform
- The Light Rail platform (in the place of tracks 1 and 2)
- Patsaouras Transit Plaza which hosts transit buses, Megabus and LAX FlyAway Services
- The always-open Gateway Center Garage
- The “Bus Rapid Transit station” where the El Monte Busway meets Alameda Street.
This last facility is currently outside the newly restricted area and it has been there since the
El Monte Busway opened in 1974,
but it will be replaced in 2015 with a busway platform
more adjacent to the Patsaouras Plaza and will then be connected to the
rest of Union Station. It is therefore likely to fall under this new
control policy when completed, so I have included the departures from it
in my survey of timetables, especially since Zev Yaroslavsky would have
you accept that the Metro Silver Line (
Metro Bus Route 910), which uses it as its Union Station stop, is “
like a rail line on rubber tires” and is shown on the
Metro Rail Map.
Foothill Transit’s Silver Streak bus to West Covina, Pomona and Montclair stops at this facility, shares the
same pricing system (fare, media accepted) with the Metro Silver Line as far as El Monte and runs 24 hours per day.
With all of these varying points of egress to and from Union Station
property, and with the move via technology from the majority of
ticketing being issued on at a staffed window to it now being done
through vending machines (scattered around the station property), SMS
codes, smartcards, barcodes on smartphones and the coming future of
near-field communication (NFC)-enabled devices, the definition of a “ticketed passenger” has changed dramatically in the past two decades.
As I, and many others, have had more than a few Kafkaesque encounters
with Metro staff and contractors in the past (how, for example, can one
be “ticketed” in advance for a transit bus that uses a farebox?). I
turned to Paul Gonzales Metro’s Senior Media Relations Officer for some
answers to questions:
Question: If the person is not “ticketed” but wishes to
purchase one, are they allowed to stay, and what is the process by which
they are permitted access to the various places that tickets are sold
with in Union Station? Is merely stating that they will travel
considered “transportation business”?
Answer: The desire to purchase a ticket is transportation business,
but the person must purchase a ticket. If a person says he/she is
waiting for the next conveyance, that qualifies as transportation
business. But the person must take that conveyance or they will be
required to leave.
Question: At what point before departure will the person be allowed
to leave the waiting area to go to their desired transportation
departure? Must they wait for an escort as is the case with Amtrak
departures today?
Answer: When the conveyance arrives the person should go to the
boarding location. Regular Amtrak procedures apply for boarding. [Except
Amtrak does not have any trains leaving during this time period-Ed]
Question: What provisions are there for persons wishing to leave the
station to, for example, smoke tobacco (take a cigarette break)?
Answer: A person with valid transportation business is allowed in the
designated waiting area. A ticket allows the person to enter even if
they leave to smoke.
It is understandable that Metro does not want Union Station to become
a place that people are either uncomfortable with or afraid to enter,
as has been the (thankfully
) temporary fate of other large transportation facilities
all over the world in living memory. However, it is also incumbent upon
the decision-makers at Metro to recognize that there are already many
legitimate uses of Union Station in the “wee hours,” and these will
only increase in the future.
Just because someone is working the third-shift or needs to get
somewhere early in the morning does not justify their being hindered in
making connections, especially by Metro staff or security contractors
who themselves may have never ever
traveled by any mode of transport other than a car. There is
already a disproportionate amount of scrutiny and
intimidation aimed at users of
alternative modes of transportation in Southern California than is
tolerated by those who use automobiles as it is.
Please let Streetsblog LA know what your experiences are with this new policy as it is implemented.