All The Trains I Rode In Los Angeles
Defector
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This is not, really, a https://defector.com/all-the-trains-i-rode-in-china">blog about https://defector.com/all-the-trains-i-rode-in-france">trains.
A blog about trains in Los Angeles, and my experience with them across 10 days, would ultimately be very short: Despite its notorious gaps in coverage, L.A. Metro was perfectly functional.
If there were any calendar window during which it would be easy, relatively speaking, to visit Los Angeles without a car, it would be during the World Cup, with swarms of European tourists purportedly accustomed to better things.
Some of the World Cup's influence was directly in L.A. Metro's hands: Subways still bore advertisements for the D Line Extension which opened on May 8, connecting the Miracle Mile and a large stretch of museums to the rest of the network.
Getting to Inglewood had https://defector.com/a-shockingly-positive-review-of-world-cup-public-transit-in-los-angeles" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">never been easier.
A noticeable population of Metro workers wearing high-visibility vests answered questions at stations, particularly on World Cup match days.
An equally noticeable population of Metro police gathered in packs ranging from two to six.
Other impacts were more abstract, but no less important: There were simply more people riding the subway.
There are very few ways that combining 10-minute frequencies with a $1.75 fare can go wrong.
Ten minutes is just fine enough to never have to check schedules or run for a train or even fret overly much about delays or cancellations.
Pair that with two lines running along the same stretch, particularly through the more trafficked areas of Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA)—most importantly, for me, to and from Union Station—and that wait time effectively halves. $1.75 a ride is, as a friend of mine declared, "basically free," though she is from Munich, which is comfortably the most expensive transit city I've ever visited.
Factor in free transfers within two hours, a $5.00 daily cap and an $18.00 weekly cap, and taking the Metro is really, truly, basically free.