Metro Rail Red Line:
The Metro Rail Red Line provides heavy rail subway service between Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal and either Western Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard or North Hollywood. Service is provided in trains consisting of up to six cars. The subway system consists of 16 stations (with eight stations in downtown Los Angeles.) All stations are accessible to individuals using wheelchairs. The Metro Blue Line serving South Central Los Angeles and Long Beach connects at the Julian Dixon Metro Center Station, located on 7th and Flower Streets in the Financial District area of Downtown Los Angeles.
Train service frequency ranges from three to twenty minutes depending on the time of the day. The most frequent service is offered between Wilshire and Vermont Station and Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal.
Los Angeles Union Station will be the connecting point for the Gold Line, scheduled for its grand opening in July of 2003. Los Angeles Union Station services Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains serving San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Orange, and San Diego Counties, and Metrolink Commuter Trains serving San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the Antelope Valley, and various other stations not served by Amtrak trains.
Metro Rail Blue Line:
The Metro Rail Blue Line serves the South Central Area and Long Beach. The Blue Line Service Area consists of twenty-two stations. Five stations are in the Garment District area of Downtown Los Angeles. Most trains consist of three cars, though some two car trains are also operated. Service on most trips runs from Los Angeles to the South Platform at the Long Beach Transit Mall station (although two car trains will use the north platform). Additional service is operated to either Willow Avenue (in northern Long Beach) or Del Amo Boulevard in the city of Carson. Additional assorted trains also terminate at Wardlow Avenue, Rosa Parks, or Washington Boulevard Stations. Schedule headways range from three minutes to twenty minutes depending on the time of day that you travel.
The Green Line connects to the Blue Line at the Rosa Parks @ Imperial/Wilmington station, located approximately in the middle of this train's route. The Del Amo, Firestone, and Slauson Stations are on Super-Elevated Structures, accessible by elevators or escalators. The Rosa Parks transfer station utilizes both elevators and escalators to access the Green Line station, which is in the median of the Century Freeway. All other Blue Line stations except Julian Dixon are classified as grade level stations.
Since High Platforms are used, the platform is accessible by way of a ramp at one or both ends of the station. At Julian Dixon Metro Center, the Red Line connects to take passengers to Union Station, North Hollywood, or the Wilshire District areas.
Metro Rail Green Line:
The Metro Rail Green Line operates between Norwalk, South Central Los Angeles, Hawthorne, Century City, El Segundo, and Redondo Beach. The Green Line Service Area consists of fourteen station stops. Ten of the stations are located in the median of the Century Freeway. Service is provided every three to twenty minutes depending on the time of day traveled. Connections to Los Angeles Metro Bus Rapid Transit are available at the Harbor Freeway and Transit Way Station, meanwhile, connections to Metro Rail's Blue Line are available from the Rosa Parks @ Imperial/Wilmington Station. All of the stations are elevated, accessible by both Elevators and Escalators. Stations from Norwalk through Aviation Boulevard are situated in the median of the Century Freeway.
Shuttle service to the Los Angeles International Airport is available at the Aviation Boulevard Station via Shuttle Route G from the lower level bus plaza.
The four stations in the El Segundo area are not in the median of the freeway, but are elevated.
Bus connections are available from Redondo Beach to Westfield's Shopping Town Del Amo Fashion Plaza and various other assorted Southwestern Los Angeles County locations.
Metro Rail Gold Line:
The Metro Rail Gold Line represents the restoration of passenger train service over the former Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway's Second District Line (known today as the Metrolink Pasadena Subdivision east of Arcadia). This line also will produce the restoration of tracks 1 and 2 at Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal and provide a link from Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains and Metrolink Commuter Trains to Pasadena, CA for the first time since the 1991 rerouting of Amtrak's Southwest Chief.
This route serves Los Angeles, Arroyo Seco, Highland Park, South Pasadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre, adding twelve new stations to the Metro Rail System. Los Angeles Union Station is the gateway for Pasadena Residents to access southern and northwestern Los Angeles County locations via the Metro Rail Red Line and the Metro Rail Blue Line.
This service will be cut in with a grand opening ceremony in July 2003. Watch this web site for updated information both in the news and service profiles sections. The item of noteable significance is that the former Pasadena Amtrak Station (now known as Del Mar Boulevard Station) will once again have rail service to Los Angeles.
