The A Line (formerly, from 1990-2019, and colloquially known as Blue Line) is a light rail line running north–south between

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and

Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

, California, passing through Downtown Los Angeles,

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown. It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as a ...

Watts Watts is plural for ''watt'', the unit of power. Watts may also refer to: People *Watts (surname), list of people with the surname Watts Fictional characters *Watts, main character in the film '' Some Kind of Wonderful'' *Watts family, six chara ...

, Willowbrook, Compton, Rancho Dominguez, and Long Beach in Los Angeles County. It is one of seven lines in the Metro Rail system. Opened in 1990, it is the system's oldest and third-busiest line with an estimated 22.38 million boardings per year . It is operated by the

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), commonly branded as Metro, LA Metro, and L.A. Metro, is the state agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the transportation system in Los Angel ...

. The A Line passes near the cities of Vernon,

Huntington Park Huntington Park is a city in the Gateway Cities district of southeastern Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 58,114, of whom 97% are Hispanic/Latino and about half were born outside th ...

, South Gate, Lynwood, and Carson. The famous

Watts Towers The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artis ...

art installation is visible from the train tracks near 103rd Street station. The under-construction Regional Connector will directly link this line to

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

and into the San Gabriel Valley along the current route of the L Line, resulting in a longer A Line and the elimination of the L Line.

Service description

Route description

The A Line runs between Downtown Los Angeles and Downtown Long Beach and has 22 stations. The line's northern terminus is the underground station, after rising to street level, trains run south along Flower Street, sharing tracks with the E Line. Passengers can connect to the bus rapid transit J Line at 7th Street/Metro Center, Pico, and Grand stations. The A and E Lines diverge at Flower Street and Washington Boulevard just south of downtown Los Angeles. Here the A Line turns east on Washington Boulevard before turning south into the former Pacific Electric

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

at Long Beach Avenue. This historic rail corridor has four tracks, with two for Metro Rail trains and two for freight trains. Along the corridor, there are some elevated sections to either eliminate street crossings in more densely populated areas or pass over diverging freight train tracks. Passengers can connect with the C Line at the Willowbrook station. Just south of Willow station, A Line trains exit the rail corridor, and begin street running in the median of Long Beach Boulevard into the city of Long Beach, where trains travel through the

Long Beach Transit Mall Downtown Long Beach station (formerly Transit Mall station) is an at-grade light rail station on the A Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. The station is located in the middle of 1st Street between Pine Avenue and Pacific Avenue in Do ...

while making a loop using 1st Street, Pacific Avenue and 8th Street.

Hours and frequency

Speed

The A Line takes 53 minutes to travel its 22.0 mile (35.4 km) length, at an average speed of . Trips taking an hour or more, however, are not unusual.

Station listing

The following is the complete list of stations, from north to south.

Ridership

History

Much of the current A Line follows the route of the

Pacific Electric Railway The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system ...

's Long Beach interurban line, which ended service in 1961. The old route gave the new light rail trains a private

between

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

and stations allowing them to reach higher speeds between stops. The line initially opened as the Blue Line on Saturday, July 14, 1990, at a cost of US$877 million (equivalent to $ in adjusted for inflation), and ran from to Willow. The street running section to opened in September 1990, followed by the tunnel into in February 1991. The route was a success, and from 1999 to 2001, the Blue Line underwent an US$11 million project to lengthen 19 of its platforms so that they could accommodate three-car trains. Plans were also made to extend the Blue Line north to Pasadena, but the connection across downtown was deferred, and the northern portion opened as the Gold Line in 2003. That original plan for the Blue Line became reality when the Regional Connector was announced in 2009. Ground was broken for the Regional Connector across downtown in 2014, and is expected to be completed in 2022. The Blue Line was renovated in 2019, with the southern half of the line being closed for the first five months, and the northern half closing for the following five months (10 months in total). Metro provided bus shuttle service to compensate for the lack of rail service. Metro officially reopened the line on November 2, 2019, rebranding it as the A Line.

Future developments

Regional Connector Transit Project

Metro is currently testing the Regional Connector, a light rail subway tunnel in Downtown Los Angeles that will connect the A and E Lines to the L Line and allow a seamless "one-seat ride" on the A Line to

. When this project is completed, service will be simplified into the following configuration: * A Line ** The northeastern segment of the L Line (north of Little Tokyo/Arts District) will serve as an extension to current A Line ** The Gold Line Foothill Extension will also be absorbed into the A Line, extending it further to Pomona–North station upon completion * E Line ** The southern portion of the current L Line to East L.A. will be combined with current E Line, which will keep the E Line name but use the gold color on maps The groundbreaking for the construction of the Regional Connector Transit Corridor took place on September 30, 2014, and it is expected to be in public service in early 2023.

Current issues

Capacity limits

The line often operates at capacity, and various options to increase capacity have been considered, such as four-car trains or more frequent trains. Both have problems: it would be difficult or impossible to lengthen some of the station platforms, and the number of trains already causes delays for other vehicles at

level crossings A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term als ...

. Thus it may not be possible to increase A Line ridership without an extremely expensive grade-separation project, either by

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...

, by an entrenchment method similar to that used by the nearby Alameda Corridor freight rail "expressway", or by building another parallel transit corridor to relieve capacity strains from the A Line. When the Regional Connector project linking A and E Line tracks with the L Line tracks in Little Tokyo is completed, this may result in even more capacity problems, with ridership expected to grow even more once the connector is open for service.

Safety at level crossings

Over 120 motorists and pedestrians have been killed at A Line

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...

s since 1990 and there have been more than 800 collisions, making the line easily the country's deadliest and most collision-prone rail line. Metro Rail Blue Line

In 1998, the MTA commissioned Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. to evaluate the cause of Blue Line collisions and recommend affordable solutions. The study reported the high ridership (over 70,000 per day) was a contributor: Other contributing factors identified were the high population density leading to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic around the tracks, diverse varied socio-economic community around the line that creates literacy and language difficulties for public education campaigns, driver frustration due to the slow traffic speeds around the line that leads to more risk taking behavior, and the shared right-of-way with freight traffic in the fastest running section from

station to Willow station, where trains operate at a maximum of between stations. The collision rate has declined somewhat following the installation of

four-quadrant gate A four-quadrant gate or full-barrier equipment is a type of boom barrier gate protecting a grade crossing. It has a gate mechanism on both sides of the tracks for both directions of automotive traffic. The exit gates blocking the road leading aw ...

s at some crossings where the A Line shares the right-of-way with freight rail between Willowbrook station and Artesia station. The gates prevent drivers from going around lowered gates. In addition, cameras along some problem intersections issue traffic tickets when drivers go around gates.

Operations

On Metro Rail Operations' internal timetables, the A Line is called line 801.

Maintenance facilities

The A Line is operated out of the Division 11 Yard (208th Street Yard) located at 4350 East 208th Street. This yard stores the fleet used on the A Line. It is also where heavy maintenance is done on the fleet. The Yard is located between and stations. Trains get to this yard via a wye junction on the southbound tracks. Northbound trains can enter and exit the yard via the cross tracks on the north and south side of the junction.

Rolling stock

The A Line uses 2 different types of rolling stock from Siemens and

Kinki Sharyo is a Japanese manufacturer of railroad vehicles based in Osaka. It is an affiliate company of Kintetsu Corporation. In business since 1920 (as Tanaka Rolling Stock Works) and renamed The Kinki Sharyo Co., Ltd in 1945. They have produced light r ...

. When the Blue Line first opened in 1990, the line had 54 Nippon Sharyo P865 light rail vehicles, numbered 100–153. These cars wore a unique livery consisting of several blue stripes and a single red stripe, reflecting the Blue Line's color designation and its Pacific Electric Red Car heritage. In 2000, Metro transferred all 15 Nippon Sharyo P2020 (Numbered 154-168) light rail vehicles from the Green Line to the Blue Line fleet. These light rail vehicles were nearly identical to the older P865 model, but were about five years newer and originally had an automated control panel for automatic train operation in each cab. In 2012, Metro transferred some Siemens P2000 light rail vehicles from the Gold Line to the Blue Line fleet. In 2017, the Blue Line received 78 Kinki Sharyo P3010 light rail vehicles, the first new fleet of vehicles for the line since it opened in 1990. As the P3010 fleet was introduced, Metro gradually retired all of the remaining P865 light rail vehicles, the original vehicles used on the line. In 2021, the final deliveries of the P3010s resulted to the 15 P2020 railcars to also retire as Metro has no more room for the aging vehicles. A Line vehicles are maintained and stored at the Division 11 yard in Long Beach between Del Amo and Wardlow stations. This facility has capacity for storing and maintaining 86 light rail cars. By the time of the Regional Connector opening in 2022, it is expected that Division 21 in Elysian Park, and Division 24 in Monrovia will be acquired for A Line service as the A and L lines will merge into one route.

References

External links

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Blue Line schedule

Blue Line connections overview

by the Transit Coalition
Killing Time on the Ghetto Blue
from the '' LA Weekly''
Delivery of The First Metro Blue Line Vehicle
{{Public Transportation in Greater Los Angeles Light rail in California Public transportation in Los Angeles Public transportation in Los Angeles County, California Transportation in Long Beach, California South Los Angeles Railway lines opened in 1990 1990 establishments in California