Last time, I gave you an overview of how Los Angeles has built a new rail transit system from the ground up in the last quarter century.
Over the last couple of years we have been doing more than our fair share of riding on the Gold Line. Before he retired from work earlier this year as an IT Specialist, my dad would ride it to and from his office in downtown Los Angeles. Besides that, we have ridden on the Gold Line on many occasions to some of the other cities that it goes through such as Pasadena, Arcadia and Azusa. Of those stations, our favorite one to go to would probably be the one in downtown Azusa.
In each of those cities there are stations along the line that are located in some very nice downtown or industrial areas. In Pasadena there are the Memorial Park and Fillmore stations that we like to go to quite often. The Memorial Park station is located in the Old Town neighborhood of Pasadena and the Fillmore station is located close to the Huntington Memorial hospital. At the Fillmore station there is also a really good pizza place that we like to eat at called Pitfire Pizza.
The Arcadia station is located in a mostly industrial area in the city of Arcadia. Other than a few businesses that are within walking distance from the station, there is not much to see when you are there. The two biggest attractions or places of interest that are near there are the Mt. Lowe brewery and a 24 Hour Fitness gym.
Between those two places, the one that my family and I go to the most often is the Mt. Lowe brewery. In addition to having a very good selection of beer to taste, the Mt. Lowe brewery also plays host to a wide variety of food trucks that stop by there and serve many different food items throughout a given week.
The best station on the new Foothill Extension section of the Gold Line however is probably the one that is in downtown Azusa. This particular station is very close to many of the restaurants and shops in downtown Azusa such as Max's Mexican restaurant, Congregation Ale House and a Target store that greets the riders when they first get off of the train.
For us, when we have taken the train to the downtown Azusa station, one of our favorite things to do is to go over to Max's and have a meal and a round or two of some very good Cadillac margaritas.
There have also been times in which my family and I along with some of our other family members and friends have taken the Gold Line all the way to the East Los Angeles area for the start of an all day pub crawl. When we have done these pub crawls in the past, after we start the day somewhere in East L.A. for breakfast, we will then usually make our way at a very leisurely pace all the way to the other end of the line in downtown Azusa at either Max's or Congregation Ale House for dinner.
Moving on from that brief discussion of some of the fun things that you can do when riding the Gold Line, the next thing that I would like to talk about are some of the basic fundamental things that you may need to know when riding the Gold Line or any of the other light rail or subway lines on the Los Angeles Metro Rail system.
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The first thing to know is that when you arrive at a station to board a train is that there are ticket fare scanners which are located at the station entrances where you have to scan your ticket or fare card before going on the train. One of the most common forms of ride fair on the entire public transportation system in the Los Angeles is known as the Transit Access Pass or TAP card for short.
If you are someone who is disabled and or uses a wheelchair like me to get around, then you can use your ID card that you get from Access Services paratransit for your ride fare if you have one and are an eligible member of Access Services paratransit. If you do have an Access Services ID card then you and one Personal Care Attendant or PCA can ride for free anywhere on the public transportation system in Los Angeles.
Once you get to the scanners at the entrances to the stations, you will then have to place your TAP card or any other acceptable form of ride fare in front the scanner screen until it makes a beeping sound and displays the word "GO" in big bold letters before proceeding to the station boarding platforms.
When you get to the boarding platforms, the waiting time for the train can range from 6 to 12 minutes during the rush hour periods in the morning and early evening to as much as 20 minutes when routine track maintenance is being performed on certain portions of the railroad tracks.
For disabled people and or wheelchair users, depending on which direction you are going, after the train arrives at the station, the train car doors will then usually open up by themselves and you can go inside the train. Once you are inside there are usually a couple of designated areas of space for people with disabilities or who are in wheelchairs that are marked by a blue colored sign on the walls of the train with either a stick figure person who is sitting in a wheelchair or is using a walking cane. The seats in each of these disabled person seating areas are able to be folded up or down in order to make access a lot easier for people who are disabled. Sometimes there will be passengers who are already on the train who may already be using those seats in the area where you need to sit at that you will have to ask them very politely to move to another seat in the train so that you can sit there and they usually are very nice about moving and giving up their seat.
If you use a wheelchair when you are on the train, the proper way to park your chair once you are in the designated seating areas is to put in the vacated area of space that should be available after you fold up the seats next to the windows of the train car facing forward. Sometimes there have even been instances when I've been on a Gold Line train in which even though I have parked my wheelchair in the forward facing position to begin with, it will feel like I am riding on the train in a backwards direction depending on which way the train is going toward either downtown Los Angeles and East L.A. or Azusa. The first few times that this happened it did take some time to get used to riding it like that but the more frequently it occurred it was not too bad.
Another thing that I had to learn about and get used to after a while whenever I have been riding the train was to successfully be able to drive my wheelchair in to and out of the space where I parked while the train either starts to move or is still moving and getting close to the station where I am planning on getting off the train is. During this portion of the train riding experience, it is usually a little easier for me to park my chair in the designated seating area when I am getting on the train than when I am getting off. That's because when I am getting off the train, I almost always have to start driving my chair very carefully towards the nearest exit with the automatic sliding doors before they open and close and the train leaves for the next station. If for some reason I am not quick enough when preparing to drive my wheelchair off of the train, then I run the risk of possibly missing the station stop that I want to get off at. Luckily my wheelchair driving skills up to this point have been good enough that I have not had too many problems or close calls when departing the train so far. I have also been fortunate to have either one of my parents to help me by giving me instructions and giving me regarding the proper way to park whenever we have ridden the train as well as helping me to navigate through any obstacles that I may have while boarding and leaving the train.
One last thing that I want to point out about the disabled access seating areas on the Gold Line trains is that on the newer model of train cars that the line currently uses is that the signs for these seating areas are a little bit more specific in comparison to the older model of trains with regards to the instructions of how those areas are to be used. From what I have seen in the newer train cars, people who use a wheelchair like me are supposed to sit in the seating area with the blue sign that says it is reserved for people who used "mobility devices" such as a wheelchair. All other people who have a disability or can walk with a cane are supposed to sit in the seating area with a sign that says that this seating area is reserved for "seniors and other persons with a disability."
(Update: based on the last few times that my family and I have ridden on the Gold Line, I can now confirm that both of the older and newer model train cars actually have the same exact signs for the disabled access seating areas.)
It is also worth mentioning that based on the numerous riding experiences that I have had so far on the Gold Line that the aisle ways which are inside the newer model of cars are a little bit wider and more spacious than those in the older model of cars. This added room of extra space makes it a little bit easier to maneuver a wheelchair like mine into one of the designated disabled persons' access seating areas.
So there you have it. That's just about everything that you need to know about the ins and outs of riding on the Los Angeles County Metro Rail system from a very knowledgeable and well traveled rider of the metro rail system here in the Los Angeles area. This is particularly the case with the Gold Line where I don't even need to look at the route map of station stops to know where it goes because my family and I have been on it so many times from one end to the other throughout the years.
Tim Musick
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