First time riding metro and Metrolink
Well today I did it, finally for the first time rode Metrolink via the San Bernardino line to get to LA Union station and then ride the A line to get to LA convention center for anime expo.
Gotta say, the actual ride was very good, very smooth, got there within a reasonable time and found it to be a fairly stress free and affordable experience, did have some thoughts on the matter though, for one: SB 79 can NOT come soon enough, one thing I noticed while riding Metrolink was that for a lot of these stations they’re either in the middle of an area of town people don’t typically go to or even live near, OR, it was mostly a big park and ride station. There was only a few stations where it felt as though the station was located in a logical area where it could be of use, one super bizarre location that stood out to me was the Redlands esri station, it’s quite literally just a isolated island station that makes no sense for it to be located there, where every other station has some logical basis for the most part. High density housing for sure needs to be built around these stations along with even some commercial areas that would attract people to visit. I think downtown Redlands has a lot of potential in this regard
Second: I REALLY loved the actual LA metro, holy crap, it’s a great ride and is very simple to use, it felt daunting going into it as someone who’s never ridden public transit until now where it’s actually a fairly easy breezy process. It also seemed really busy, both metro and Metrolink, which is great and makes it feel more alive.
Third: Is the tap card sometimes useless? To preface, I was under the assumption my Metrolink ticket would be enough to get free transfers onto the LA metro, but when I tried scanning it it didn’t work, ok, that’s fine, I’ll get the tap card since I’m still saving money either way compared to if I drove and bought parking. My girlfriend and I both tried getting tap cards but it seemed like such a bizarre process, it gave you the option of loading up the cards with specific amounts, we both chose the 3.50 option since that would be enough for a two way trip from little Tokyo to the convention center then back, then for whatever reason the kiosk said this wasn’t enough money to put in, what? Why even provide that as an option then? Ok well whatever, we bump it up to about 5, we get our cards and go to scan in, both of our cards say error and don’t even work, I do it twice more and it randomly finally accepts and lets me go, for her, all it said was “already scanned” and doesn’t allow her to go in, she has to go load it up again, then comes back, it does literally the same thing again, at that point I told her to just come under the turnstile since she basically paid twice. Had no clue what we did wrong, I eventually decided maybe if I just added the tap card to my wallet on iPhone it would work better and sure enough it had no issues once we left the convention center. Well that sucks, wasted a few more dollars unnecessarily just because the cards refused to work, kind of soured the overall experience in that regard. Wasn’t any security or workers in the area to maybe help so we just had to wing it. I’m new to all this evidently so if people want to provide some insight in the comments for future use please let me know what I did wrong or any other advice.
Fourth and finally: I REALLY wish service for Metrolink went later, because I would LOVE to use it if I went to LA for laker games or dodger games. I hate the hassle of finding parking and paying exorbitant prices for said parking when there’s a perfectly good metro system available in the city to use. As it stands, it’s only really feasible for me if I specifically have a day trip in mind like today, latest train from LA to Redlands was at 7:38 which was fine in this case since I was there since 10:30 and we both were tuckered out, say I wanted to catch the dodger game tonight? Well, tough luck buddy.
Regardless, I enjoyed my time on the rails quite a lot, and would recommend it to anyone I know if they wanted to head to LA for one thing or another. Maybe next time I’ll use it for a trip to the beach or something