Hostile Transit Infrastructure: Harbor Freeway Metro Station

An overview of one of the loudest transit stops ever.
Sources:
Green line map by Shannon1: tinyurl.com/tb...
Silver line bus photo from LA Metro Library: tinyurl.com/3f...
Other freeway photos/concept art from Caltrans archives
105 freeway construction videos: • Caltrans Rewind: The I...
90s footage of Green Line construction: • LACMTA - 1993 - "Metro...
Judge Pregerson videos: • HAAS Public Service Aw...
I-105 home rebuilding project video clip: • "Caltrans: Building A ...
Music: Melt by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio • Chill Dark Synthwave -...
Further reading:
longreads.com/...
thesource.metr...
www.transitwik...

[@federicoreinfeld6739]

Returning from a trip to Portugal, I was in the "let's take public transit mood" (and hoping to avoid the horrible rush hour traffic), I mapped a public transit route from LAX to North Hollywood via Google Maps. The trip included a transfer at this station. I cannot begin to describe the culture shock and disgust I felt. Everything was dirty, bright and dark at the same time, delayed, unfriendly, incredibly noisy; it was an unforgettable "welcome back to the USA" that I sadly will never forget.

[@NottJoeyOfficial]

That's sadly how public transit in the US is, I'm glad I've experienced what other countries have because I know how terrible we have it here now.

[@chris1789]

That sounds awful. Have you heard of the flyaway bus at lax? I always use it to get downtown to union station

[@kirani111]

@@chris1789 bruh it's like 10 bucks one way 😭 some of us broke bad lmao

[@Dwightstjohn-fo8ki]

@@chris1789 I took the free LAX bus to "Rosa Parks" station only to find in 2019 that the blue line was all torn up, so I jumped on the "Figourara Express" only to find I'm being given an hour sideways tour to downtown, but first: COMPTON! Welcome back.

[@casualintentions]

To be fair, what you described sounds like most of LA, you just left out dangerous

[@alanthefisher]

Fantastic work! LA, the highways and the color grading always make these places feel like a memory of a place

[@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906]

! alan fisher!

[@mrmaniac3]

! alan fisher!

[@Ferrichrome]

! alan fisher!

[@AshLilburne]

Alan Fisher AF

[@AshLilburne]

Alan should give this channel a shoutout before OBF does.

[@williamhuang8309]

This station is proof that a highway is infinitely louder than the noise of the train. You couldn't even hear the train as it arrived and departed! So the next time NIMBYs complain about noise, talk about removing all freeways within a 2km distance since those are much louder.

[@PsRohrbaugh]

I know nothing about these issues in other areas, but in Florida the people who complain about trains aren't anywhere near a highway - they're in suburban or rural areas.

[@TheEngineerd]

@@PsRohrbaugh The suburbs are loud as well, unless you live a mile inside a division, thanks to the stroads that are 3 lanes each way with a posted speed limit of 45.

[@PsRohrbaugh]

@@TheEngineerd 631 Como ct, punta Gorda, FL, 33950. IS an empty lot near me. It's so quiet here the wind is typically the loudest noise. Not sure what you want to call my neighborhood but I love it!

[@TheEngineerd]

@@PsRohrbaugh My first thought was "cul-de-sac?" and I was right.

[@KRYMauL]

@@TheEngineerd You could also, explain that if they care about noise, then cars should be reduced to a crawl.

[@fatviscount6562]

The other absurd part is that the Green Line terminates at Norwalk, less than 2 unwalkable miles from a train station, and Metro hopes to Connect this gap-by 2052!

[@g0g0sag0]

I remember back in college (14 years ago or so), I didn't realize the Metro didn't connect to the Metrolink station. I ended up lugging a suitcase with me in like 100 degree heat while making that walk. Probably the closest I've been to legit heat exhaustion. What a terrible transit experience.

[@roachtoasties]

I'll probably be six feet under by then. :/

[@PeetPeeet]

#4 bus?

[@bobcharlotte8724]

So.. just around the corner then! lol

[@johnbecich9540]

@@g0g0sag0 There has been a BAND AID on that problem, for as long as I can remember... at least since 2009... when I spent an entire year using rails, buses, and my bicycle, to go from my home in Long Beach to South Orange County and Glendale. Even Fairfax. It's a free bus that runs frequently between the Norwalk Metro Station and the light rail terminus aka Green Line Station in Norwalk. Yeah, it's aburd, but that the Greenline didn't go to the airport tops that absurdity.

[@Thomas63r2]

This video should be mandatory viewing for anyone in the mass transportation industry.

[@daisukiman]

"A study from UCLA... traffic noise [exceeds] 90 decibels, exceeding the OSHA limit for noise exposure longer than a few minutes." Yeah I still don't know how I managed to wait 20 minutes for a train on this very platform when I was in Los Angeles 3 years ago 🙃 The noise was... terrible, and the beginning of the video encapsulates it perfectly!!!

[@kpdvw]

And the same morions want to build a state wide High speed Rail system and a high speed train to Las Vegas???

[@ostkkfmhtsh012345678]

Metro really needs floor-to-ceiling full-height platform screen doors for at least their LRT stations for safety and comfort especially at Harbor Freeway station.

[@Dwightstjohn-fo8ki]

@@kpdvw Those "morons" will then have a quiet system, Relay. You're not getting "the concept".

[@TheRandCrews]

@@kpdvwyou do know the noise exposure problem are from constant car traffic surrounding the station, high speed rail would just have the train past in hourly intervals and wouldn’t even matter on how much noise it emits for how quick it arrives and leaves the area

[@analienmango8756]

While it might be a bad station, I do dig the industrial aesthetic it gives off.

[@mrmaniac3]

It would be neat to see some colorful uplighting, illuminating the underside of the overpasses, with maybe some animation like other forms of urban superstructure lighting such as bridges and buildings. But, overall, it should just be dramatically redesigned around people, not cars.

[@colbeausabre8842]

@@mrmaniac3 Putting lipstick on a pig

[@anglaismoyen]

It would be fun as a concept in a video game or something. In real life? Nah

[@ArcturusCOG]

@@mrmaniac3 yea and only country-wide systems should favor cars and trains I’d say.

[@ciello___8307]

it's not pleasant at all for riders. I've ridden the bus through there it's chaotic

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

It says a lot when the only passengers who have no problem using Harbor Freeway are the pigeons and they FLY! I used to live in Jersey City, and I am glad that the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system there was actually built with people in mind. It's an effective system connecting The Heights neighborhood to the other side of the city, as well as Hoboken, Union City, Weehawken, North Bergen, Bayonne, and eventually Bergen County. The vast majority of Jersey City residents don't drive and prefer transit (other transit options include the PATH to NYC, Spanish shuttle buses, NJT rail at nearby Hoboken Terminal, and NJ Transit buses), and it doesn't take long to see why when you compare Jersey City to this system in LA. It's no wonder Jersey City is an honorary borough of NYC. Before Jersey City, I lived in Westchester and it was a five-minute walk down a hill to a Metro North station with convenient express service to Grand Central Terminal (plus on the Hudson Line, which has straight up gorgeous views). Both these places are VERY walkable. Now that I live on Long Island in the typical suburbia place...it's just not the same when a SINGLE bus route runs on a highway from one end to the other every hour.

[@shawng8613]

Great video. The C line (green) freeway stations are terrible but still quieter than the L line (gold) freeway stations. Also, those bollards for the bus platform were only added after a tragic accident involving a drunk driver entering the wrong way and running over transit riders.

[@JuanWayTrips]

Except the Gold Line only has 3 stations in highway medians, while a majority of the Green Line is in the 105 and continues to be the least used rail line for Metro. The rest of the Gold Line is built away from highways.

[@shawng8613]

@@JuanWayTrips Yeah, the L is a great line overall. It's LA's most scenic line. The freeway stations are bad on both, but worse on the L. The C does have more though and that likely does correlate to its low ridership.

[@walterkennedy9474]

Lake station on the Gold/L line is truly unpleasant to use. Too bad it’s closest to my house.

[@kirani111]

@@walterkennedy9474 yo same. Did you ever see that giant pile of human 💩 on the stairs? It was there for like a week. Beats having to squeeze past the couple shooting heroin or that one homeless dude with the 8 inch saw knife tho.

[@walterkennedy9474]

@@kirani111 thankfully I’ve seen none of those (not the most frequent rider sadly), however I’m not surprised that that’s possible

[@giovaniramirez4080]

Great work, while riding the green life for 4 years of my life for highschool it always felt like a line you take to get off and get to another line, the green line seriously lacks any true connection to the rest of the metro network. Love the footage ❤️

[@eriknervik9003]

The green line is very good at that though, I live near the green line and several months ago decided to take my car to work only on Saturday night, the other days I take the train, and since I live by the green line it’s east to walk to Crenshaw station, then ride to blue, then to downtown. It’s convenient in my experience

[@sebcubille]

when the airport connector opens at least the green line will turn into the “line you take to the airport if you live in a specific area” or “the line you take from the airport to get to the blue line to get to union station” 😂 baby steps at least it wont be completely useless soon

[@hebneh]

I will never go to this station so I’ll never experience how horrible it is, but I have to say the view of the multiple freeway structures all around it is intriguing. It’s a view you’d never be able to get otherwise except from a rapidly-moving vehicle, which is not the same as being on foot and able to just stare as you want.

[@mk3a]

Fun Fact: LA Metro has since regretted placing the C Line/Green Line in the middle of the 105. They also stated that if it were to be built today, it would be in a different location and not in the middle of a freeway.

[@jonothandoeser]

Too late.

[@sayrith]

LA Metro says a lot of things and also loves widening freeways. So?

[@TheRandCrews]

@@sayrithhow does a transit agency widen freeways? That’s Catrans or the DOT

[@micosstar]

hmm good point@@sayrith

[@sayrith]

I have always wondered that. And yet, time and time again, widening freeways is on Metro's agenda. In fact, freeway projects are a part of the Measure M initiative passed in 2016. @@TheRandCrews

[@kevboynet]

Add to the negatives: Exhaust from all the cars, and (when traffic is moving) that depressing feeling of knowing that people in cars are getting where they need to go faster.

[@s0nnyburnett]

That's what cars are for, getting you all the way not half.

[@TheEngineerd]

@@s0nnyburnett That's what good public transportation, which exists in numerous countries on multiple continents can do.

[@charged-proton]

@@TheEngineerd That type of public transportation needs mid-high density housing to be commercially viable. That is simply not the case for most of the US making public transportation unviable.

[@TheEngineerd]

@@charged-proton Then you fix the problem. And a train station with relaxed zoning codes around it would allow for gradual upzoning around it. Of course, one thing you snuck in that I don't necessarily need to agree with is you said it needs to be commercially viable. Why does a company need to do this? Roads get to be paid by the taxpayer, but any alternative must be done privately?

[@TheNotverysocial]

@@s0nnyburnett Ideally. But it isn't so much fun when you get gridlocked rush hour traffic, which does come to a stop at times, making the freeways look like giant parking lots/structures. During these times a well organised and coordinated bus and train system looks pretty appealing, knowing its passengers in no way contributed to the mess you got into. And would probably be a liability if they drove, as most are when they have been working for nearly ten hours straight. I'd be inclined to agree the rest of the time.

[@labaguette7512]

I know its hardly a shining example of station infrastructure, but it looks really cool! - everything about it just says LA: a quiet, flaking concrete metro station where strong sunlight filters to the LA-school artwork below, set amongst a monstrously-sized intersection. Do I admire it? Im not sure. Im absolutely fascinated with it, though.

[@stevecarter8810]

It's fully a liminal space, very asthetic

[@LordSkella]

I love these kinds of stops you get to see traffic from a rare angle

[@jdillon8360]

Same. Fascinated but glad I don't need to use it daily.

[@areguapiri]

A pure sh#thole.

[@uroparopa]

quiet???

[@prpr8904]

It looks like a dystopia after an desert type of apocalypse

[@guaposneeze]

"Great entrance to a bad idea" is pretty much every single piece of the LA transit system. You can't walk to it. You don't want to be there. If you go there, there's nothing to walk to. But somebody's cousin's architecture firm made bank designing an entrance that looks cool in marketing material and occasionally on TV.

[@zeo5009]

It’s always someone’s cousin in that town I swear to god

[@bewwybabe8045]

The Mariposa green line station in a nutshell. Shitty station, but there’s butterflies!

[@doverbeachcomber]

Bingo on that last sentence!

[@johnrangel2226]

The saddest part of all is that no one in the "cousin's architecture firm" who profited from the underwhelming design will ever use it.

[@Littlescienceguy]

I utilized this station on a daily basis when I was in college. You are spot on about the noise. Didn’t realize it rose to unsafe levels, but I am not surprised. I had my headphones on everyday, and now I’m glad that I did.

[@katjerouac]

I love all the coffee shops bakeries and restaurants surrounding the station...

[@RuukuLada]

Great video, nice to get more context on this station. I've been here before, but it was so loud that I could barely pay attention to my surroundings, and hurried onto a train.

[@ronaryel6445]

The stations are intended as park and ride centers. Certainly they are not the same as stations that are integrated into housing and retail environments or built into business centers (such as New York City's Jamaica Center subway station or the Sutphin Blvd station hich offers intermodal access to JFK AirTrain and the Long Island Railroad. But imperfect as it is, the Green Line's message is, 'put your car here or drop off your passenger and use the train." And of course all stations are ADA compliant. I agree with the noise assessment. Sound barriers should be redesigned.

[@locomotive282]

Nice video, but you forgot to mention that more people use the emergency exit staircases from the Green line platform than the official central staircases. Also the highway median stations get sweltering hot in the summer despite being elevated enough to get a breeze.

[@securitron5]

What an absolute hellscape that is. Thank you for going in depth on it, great video!

[@fritzyboi6390]

If the Sepulvedans or BYD gets their way, the Sepulveda Pass Line will be just like the Green Line. They try to make it sound good by saying the stations will be located on one side of the 405 freeway, but it's going to be between the freeway and the long ramps, making it a slightly quiet version of the Green Line. Also if they choose the 405 route, you would have to take a 5 minute or more walk or a bus just to get to Sepulveda Blvd.

[@aaravyadav3748]

The Bechtel Alternative will be Underground

[@williamerazo3921]

Sepu line should be on Blvd and should be heavy rail to connect the subway purple and red lines

[@edwardmiessner6502]

Building the Sepulveda Line next to the highway or anywhere in its noise field would definitely be a mistake. I would prefer it be under the boulevard instead

[@nickmonks9563]

Say it with me: Transit stops need to be where people want to be.

[@s0nnyburnett]

Until that spot changes and you have to eminent domain a whole neighborhood all over again.

[@TheEngineerd]

@@s0nnyburnett You build train stations where people live, work, and want to go to. Destroying a neighborhood, which is where people live, is counter productive. You're building a strawman. And why would the spot change? Do you think the Japanese are constantly bulldozing neighborhoods as people decide they really want to go to different parts of Shinjuku (for example), or does the heavily built up train station create a rather stable place people want to be.

[@DrCruel]

The fundamental problem is the people who design US public transit never use it.

[@TheEngineerd]

@@DrCruel I sometimes wonder if they also have all somehow never left the country. Even when visiting countries where I didn't ride the public transport, I could still admire how much better it appeared to work.

[@DrCruel]

@@TheEngineerd I'm sure they know how public transit management can be done very well, and discuss it whenever they are trying to get funding. They just don't bother with such ideas during the design phase, as this would cut into the money the planners will be able to keep for themselves.

[@brunoais]

They could have put sound blockers in the highway itself (instead of a fence) to reduce noise. Same for the pavement. Just a short stretch could have recycled tire rubber mixed in the pavement for reduced noise. Those two together would certainly reduce the noise to around 50dB, which is a huge improvement!

[@azmc4940]

What an amazing dystopian hellscape this is!

[@darkpokemon0426]

Took public transit from LAX to Glendale in 2021 and I remember transferring at this station from Green to Silver lines (my third of four transfers, which took something like two hours, with luggage, because there is no direct connection from LAX to Downtown unless I pay $40 for a private bus service in advance???). This station was awful. The signage was confusing and I ended up exiting on the wrong side, then getting to the wrong platform and missing my bus. Had to endure the traffic noise for a good half hour until I was able to find the correct platform and bus to get on... Nothing about it is easily understood by a new user and it feels unsafe and hostile all around with all the dirty dark corners, leaky pipes, and rusted infrastructure. Really sad to use.

[@KRYMauL]

Yes, LA sucks. Why is this a surprise?

[@thejatomis]

In case you ever need to, there is the LAX Flyaway that departs from union station

[@princessmarlena1359]

Eventually they’ll finish the Expo 2 line to get you from LAX onto the main line of Metro.

[@raymondleggs5508]

2:34 That guy with his head in his hands sums it all up.

[@pauliedweasel]

I worked for the MTA for 3 1/2 months in early 2004 in between jobs at the Union Pacific and the BNSF Railway and it was a real eye opener about just how inefficient municipal transit systems can be. I work for rail communications division on the light rail and subway systems and managed to get to just about all locations in that short period of time including Norwalk station. What impressed me about this station is just how totally useless it was. As mentioned there was no real place to go from Norwalk that didn’t require a car or some form of bus transit and you really didn’t want to go on foot because you always felt like you were going to get mugged. The only people that really benefited from the light rail and subway system was Tudor-Saliba and all the money grubbing subcontractors… Big city politics, graft and corruption as usual! The inside joke was that if you took the initials MTA and turned them around to spell ATM you got how the contractors really felt about the system.

[@joshuanovack480]

Great video, I remember seeing this station many times on when heading down the freeway and a non-place feels like a perfect descriptor.

[@greghuang2314]

I used that station when visiting LA in summer 2021 and it was...awful. The station was so loud it is literally unbearable while waiting for a train or bus, and plus it is not well connected, like at all, to most places in the LA metro area where people would travel to. LA's transit system is so lacking and inadequate for such a huge city.

[@zeo5009]

Honestly, even if it was adequate (which I’m not certain is even physically possible lol) people won’t take it. That’s the perpetual problem with transit in LA. What’s already been built is pretty seriously underutilized as is.

[@ronaldvrooman9695]

@@zeo5009 That might start changing soon, considering the high gasoline prices and our efforts to get away from fossil fuels altogether. We need to start building more light-rail lines now while keeping our bus systems up and running. Greater use of mass transit will be essential if we're going to stave off global warming.

[@rickansell661]

​@@ronaldvrooman9695 Plus other forms of PT. Guided Busways and Trams are good ways of inserting PT into areas where only parts of routes can be segregated for rail routes, light or otherwise. If all you have free for a new route is a river then a Wuppertal style Elevated Monorail is one option.

[@saxmanb777]

Use to commute on the Blue Line in Chicago where my station was in the middle of I-90. I was happy when it was jammed up because I could hear myself think, plus I knew my train would go faster than the vehicles.

[@paulj6756]

In Chicago, the Red and Blue Lines were constructed in the medians of expressways and suffered from the same results in this video. The Stevenson Expressway (I-55) was constructed with the idea that a transit line would be placed in its median. Now keep in mind that it was constructed in an old Canal bed, so it was the least disrupted expressway in Chicago. It was (and remains) not near any neighborhoods. So when the CTA finally received funds to construct the present Orange Line to Midway Airport, they wisely followed former railroad rights of way. This put the intermediate stations in the neighborhoods instead of the isolated expressway.

[@Randomdive]

Exactly my thoughts watching this. Those portions of the Red and Blue lines are so much bleaker than the rest of the system.

[@amfm889]

@Paul J They got it half right. Some of those RR ROW are remote themselves. Ideally it should have been built under/over Archer Ave.

[@davidbannister1993]

Add in the cold, wet weather that Chicago gets, and it's even worse than LA. Waiting for a blue line train in the Winter is the most hellish transit experience I can imagine!

[@zeo5009]

Honestly was harsh as they are, LA needs way more of these highway-metro hybrid lines. Stick one down the 405 and we’d be talking baby

[@birdiewolf3497]

Aren't they trying to get one done by the Olympics?

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

It's the same energy as American commuter rail groups building stations in the middle of some trees or barely any development, add a huge parking lot, and call it a day...that doesn't help pedestrians in any way. At least this place has a bus hub, but for those who live around there its location is atrocious on top of the noise. Before Americans criticize us, they should work on their OWN problems.

[@jamesclark9272]

This was used to be my transfer stop when I was taking the Green to the Silver line on my commute to USC... definitely the least favorite part of my mornings, even my noise cancelling headphones could hardly help with the noise!

[@ttopero]

It’s actually a good thing to use earbuds for sound reduction despite the inability to hear anything from them when on the platform without blowing out one’s ears. This is a problem we have in Denver too, as our lines are built in a where-they-will-them fashion instead of where they’re most useful & appropriate.

[@sayrith]

I recently subscribed to your channel, because, as an LA resident, I would like to know more specific issues about our city instead of more generalized information that Not Just Bikes other urbanist channels offer (while they are very good at what they do). Thanks for showing the good, and the bad of LA and finally at least there is documentation here of what's wrong and where we can go from here.

[@meberg500]

This is actually one of my favorite Metro stations! I wouldn't go there for a picnic, but wouldn't do so at any other station either. The experience of standing in the middle of a massive freeway interchange like that is amazing. Really gives you a sense of just how much goes into the infrastructure most of us take for granted.

[@KRYMauL]

Really because this makes me feel sad because of how flat the LA metro is. This makes me think that the engineer is dumb for not making a better metro system that people actually want to use.

[@TheNotverysocial]

I think it would be far more pleasant to one who is deaf than to anyone else. And even they aren't immune to the pollution, the fumes.

[@stuarttupp3541]

Interesting - there are bus crossovers so the bus can run on the wrong side of the road through the station. That way, they can use one central platform instead of two side platforms.

[@stuarttupp3541]

Of course, it would make more sense if they just ran the whole thing on the wrong side. But that would depend on full segregation from other traffic.

[@XcessiveNinja17]

this was absolutely disorienting during the one time i attempted to use LA public transit to get out of LAX. kept second-guessing whether or not i was standing at the correct bus stop.

[@SimonS44]

Between Essen and Mülheim, Germany the U18 light rail also runs in the median of the A40 highway for a long stretch. At those stations, the entrance to the platform is wholly enclosed and there's a sliding door to the actual platform, so that you can wait in the quiet(er) "indoor" area. On the other side of Essen, the Spurbus busway also runs in the middle of the A40, but unfortunately its stations aren't as luxurious and you can't wait in a quiet area

[@seraphina985]

Yeah but this one also just stops dead at the end of the highway with no connection to any other lines even though a couple run to a station just 2 miles further up. When your transit line ends at a point that is neither destination or interchange it was clearly planned by someone that doesn't understand how transit is meant to work. Well granted there are some houses near that station but there doesn't seem to be any footpath connection directly to the residential streets rather you have to walk like 750 meters to get the the other end of the block and walk back to reach the nearest house that is all of 115 metres from the actual station and the ones 300 metres away on the other side of the highway look even worse.

[@samtrak1204]

Very informative and excellent photography. Thanks for sharing.

[@hugoboyce9648]

Beautiful L.A. urban design!!! 😍❤🥰🤩

[@ellenbryn]

Good grief. Thank you for explaining a minor local mystery. I moved to OC from Boston over 25 years ago, and I've always wondered what that trench with the buses in the middle of the Harbor Freeway was for. Never occurred to me there was a metro station jammed in there. I'm a country girl and didn't much like Boston, but good GRIEF they could teach LA a thing or two about how to build a functional commuter rail system accessible to pedestrians or (gasp) even the disabled.

[@justabaldguy]

Great video. Relating to volume, I quite enjoyed your calm, soft voice. I appreciate not being shouted at or hit with a wide variety of sounds. I'm subscribing.

[@QiuyuanChenRyan916]

Looking back I think in north america if you like to take subway system or similar name. visit the Montreal QC. That each station is something to remember.

[@22Maka25]

F this station lol. I would always catch the silver line from downtown around 10pm, and be dropped off at the very bottom platform like a minute or two before the east-bound green line train would come. As fast as i tried to run up the stairs or force the elevator doors closed, i would always miss it and have to wait another 20 minutes in the absurd loudness of that damn station. Beautiful vid, ty!

[@nathantenhave3291]

Great work, I hope you keep making videos.

[@MrWphilips]

Watching the wind blowing the litter across the platform says everything! Also note the canopy is inadequate to provide protection from any rainfall or harsh winds which prevail daily!

[@LibrasLion]

As someone who used this line and frequented the station, it FEELS harsh and dangerous.

[@Windows98R]

Never knew the station was ill engineered. I always loved the whole industrial look of it while I drove myself to and back from high school.

[@reddwarfer999]

Exactly. The irony is you can only appreciate the building properly from the highway.

[@meberg500]

I wouldn't consider it ill engineered. Middle of a freeway seems like a good place for rail to me. Two major freeways, each with a major transit line down the middle, how else would this work? Not have a way to transfer from one to the other?

[@KRYMauL]

@@meberg500 Theoretical, sure. In practice it's a non place. At least when you do one side of freeway a TOD can be built there.

[@vic_qt3.14]

This video is so well made, astounding quality. Bravo!

[@14megasxlr]

I live near this place. used to use it for work for years. I only remember it, and by extension, all of LA, as a confusing homeless den.

[@ianbent0n]

Similar to MacArthur BART station in Oakland, it's pretty annoying waiting for a train up there in the middle of a freeway.

[@lol_iyoutube]

Great work so far on your videos, looking forward to what more you can share about LA.

[@jerry132526]

You do great work. Nice videography, great content, and awesome music. Thank you for the education!

[@rpvitiello]

I’m used to the east coast where highways and train lines often parallel each other for most of the route, but the highway and and tracks diverge for a main station in the middle of the town or suburb, then where the highway and track meet is a separate park and ride station. This way you can serve people not using a car at all, and still have a park and ride for car users.

[@zackzarate]

seriously awesome channel. your videos get better and better

[@robertdemitro1520]

Time to enclose the transit line with glass and add colour , lighting and retail space , like cafes . Provide security and cameras too . The art is practically unseen . This station is a blank canvas and artist can do so much with the space, especially urban artists that paint on buildings , but use mosaic tiles for scenes , sculptures can be added and the benches can be so more comfortable . I bet once revitalized the station would be used more often and if made pedestrian freely , more ridership . I would have a great time making this Metro station rider friendly !

[@ninjanerdstudent6937]

Very nice video. I feel like you made this video to support you Master’s Thesis in Architecture.

[@Niko9mmykepazaa]

LA and autocentric southern cities in USA aren't the only ones with hostile or atrocious infraestructure. Chile, as the most loyal alumni of neoliberlaism and everything that derivates from that model (yes, even the autocentric and highway dependant cities) also has hostile transit infraestructure plastered around the 3 biggest cities: Santiago, Viña del Mar and Concepción. Santiago even has an entire metro line that runs amidst of a highway with inefficient integration to the neighbors in some stations. Amazing video. I can tell why sometimes transit in LA just doesn't work the way it should. However the infraestructure, as hostile as it actually is, is also alluring in a dystopic and apocalyptic sense.

[@DavidinSLO]

In addition - the Green Line stops short of LAX by two miles on the west, and two miles short of the Metrorail station on the east.

[@AshLilburne]

How is it possible you only have 257 subs? Loved the video mate, that number is sure to go up

[@GenericUrbanism]

His sub count doubled

[@thermiter36]

This video does a good job of criticizing the horrific aesthetics and user experience of transit designed by people who never use transit. But it goes deeper than that. The whole reason LA continues to build transit projects and voters overwhelmingly approve taxes to fund more transit, is because they're trying to reduce car dependency. Everyone knows that traffic sucks, air pollution sucks, noise pollution sucks, so they want to achieve some kind of modal shift to transit. THAT is the ultimate failure of this design. It is counter-productive to the goal of getting people to use transit. The two highway median lines in LA (the A Line and C Line) both have daily ridership below 30,000. Despite having 36 stations between them and running through lower income neighborhoods where fewer people own cars, both lines are complete failures. All the drivers going past this station can see how miserable it is and instantly know they will never want to use it to go anywhere.

[@RXTransit]

Perth WA, with its Freeway Running lines to great effect: Am I joke to you?

[@egret4393]

Awesome video, I work at Paramount and take the 605 South to the 105 West. So cool to see a video about this metro line.

[@ethanb4461]

As an LA native, you nailed it.

[@gconsp]

The Expo Line is a breath of fresh air in comparison

[@jdillon8360]

There is a somewhat similar station in Melbourne, Australia next to a freeway called Kananook. There they put quite high noise barriers between the freeway and the train line. It reduces the noise from vehicles quite a lot. I don't see why the same couldn't be installed here. Those barriers inside the station make no sense at all.

[@Thanos_Kyriakopoulos]

In Athens they built the suburban railway of Athens for the greatest part in the middle of a highway, and it's so similar to LA's green line that I think it could be the inspiration. Boring grey stations in the middle of a noisy highway. It's a real headache anytime.😞

[@Njndirish13]

The noise sounds permanent

[@enthusiastech]

My new job is close to LAX and I'll be using the green line to commute with a transfer at this station. I don't know if I'm prepared to see how bad it really is later this month.

[@Troy-ol5fk]

Installation art seems pretty creative

[@jimholder6656]

The classic 1950s book "The Lonely Crowd" by David Riesman et al came up with a great word that could apply to this and other L.A. transit stations: "anomie."

[@brickman409]

It might be worth pointing out that this is the interchange that the opening sequence of the movie La La Land takes place in. Fitting that a movie that's all about Los Angeles begins in a traffic jam here.

[@musicelect]

I had the displeasure of transferring through one of these stations on the 110 freeway when traveling from Long Beach to LAX. It embodied all of the negative aspects of public transit. Noisy, uncomfortable, unwelcoming, dangerous, threatening, depressing. The only benefit was the cost. The entire 22 mile ride cost $3 and I didn’t even pay that because I was given a free transit card by a nearby police officer. The low cost (free) ride didn’t make up for the negative aspects. It’s no wonder Uber and Lyft are so popular.

[@kpdvw]

Berlin, S Bahn,.....comes every few minutes, stations all over the place !

[@MrBaskins2010]

this looks terrifying. america's #1 in crumbling transit

[@flyingdaytrader]

You basically described the whole of the LA Metro system. There is a reason ridership is decreasing - it doesn't save time, take you to where you want to go, is dirty and uncared for. I'd rather sit in traffic than ride metro most of the time. The only exception is the red line. That subway line is the only line that actually takes you places you want to go and keeps you out of mind crushing traffic from downtown to Hollywood.

[@photosbyernesto9621]

such a depressing place... I think Michael Mann captured the alienation perfectly in his movie "Collateral"!

[@XcessiveNinja17]

i've been here to transfer from LAX, to the green line, to the silver bus. it was better than i expected for LA, in that it was functional, and the bus actually came at some point. but next time i'm definitely going to try some other route

[@CancelYoutube026]

You can take k line instead after 2026, also b line would be the fastest route in the entire system.

[@timothyschollux]

Reminds me of the train station mentioned in the "town of cats" short story by Haruki Murakami which is part of his novel 1Q84.

[@michaelhughes3302]

Seems like fun spot to visit.

[@joshgross7791]

Love the trippy music.

[@Finallybianca]

Honestly surprised those benches with the fluted are unwaxed they look kinda fun to skate.

[@grahamturner2640]

Another issue with freeway median transit is that it’s not ideal for higher density residential development due to air pollution concerns. Also, I-10 in Phoenix has a somewhat similar story to the Harbor Freeway in LA, though I’m not sure if there were civil rights concerns. In the early 1970s, after finishing the important rural interstates initially planned for Arizona and I-10 through Tucson, ADOT decided to finally finish I-10 by building an elevated freeway to minimize ground disruption and NIMBYism, but that idea was rejected. Later that decade, local voters decided that if I-10 were to be finished, the median should be used for transit. The initial idea when I-10 was being finished was that it should be a busway, but after that idea was scrapped and 25 years after the freeway was finished (it was finished in 1990), the city of Phoenix decided that at some point, I-10 in west Phoenix would be a good place for a light rail extension, and that extension has a finalized route plan, but will have to wait for the Capitol extension to be built, so it won’t be done for probably another decade. Of the 8 stations planned for the 9.4 mile extension, only 5 are planned to be freeway-adjacent along the 7.5 miles meant to be in freeway ROW’s, and of those, only 1 is meant to be in the median of I-10 (35th Avenue), while the rest are meant to be just north of the freeway.

[@Ntyler01mil]

The various benches are all fragments of an ionic column capital. The first two benches are an “egg and dart” motif, which would form the decoration that would be found between the volutes on an ionic column capital.

[@JasperHuskyFox]

It gives off a liminal space kinda vibe. Id love it as a Gmod map, because it feels like something you'd only see in a dream but a a feeling you've been there before It's so neat

[@mrxman581]

The Green line will be getting upgrades and further noise mitigation will happen especially since this line will have increased ridership due to it's realignment so it connects to LAX People Mover and the Crenshaw line.

[@BKHaveItYourWey]

Pretty similar to a bunch of BART Stations that are directly next to freeways, like Dublin and Castro Valley.

[@mrjackharbour]

Thanks for the video. With the mess they have already created, could some kind of out and back bus service at each train stations help? Like treating the station as a hub and having buses to bring people in from the surrounding areas? Not a transit expert here, just asking.

[@joshdaniels6987]

Hey I pass by this place everyday- and on the freeway and the FastTrack, it's still loud

[@ericsgonzalez]

MacArthur Bart Station in Oakland designed by SOM has the exact same noise exposure on the platforms.

[@veggiedisease123]

Even worse, the Green Line doesn't connect to any other metro lines. It was built for an industry that no longer exists, at least in its original form. The Green Line was meant to funnel suburban workers to the numerous defense plants in the South Bay. When the Soviet Union collapsed, so did the LA defense industry. They moved to cheaper Southern states and the executives moved to Northern Virginia. A lot of people don't realize that LA was the center of the defense/aerospace industry during the Cold War. Many of the major achievements in American aerospace were designed and built in the LA area. The Green Line will eventually connect to the rest of the Metro system, but right now it's kind of a weird anachronism.

[@princessmarlena1359]

My dad told me and my siblings that, when we were kids.

[@danielkelly2210]

It connects to the Blue Line.

[@CancelYoutube026]

It connects to metrolink, a line and k line.

[@dvderek]

Really great choice of topic and cool video

[@Ratcher.]

great vid. now i have both west coast and east coast covered in terms of infrastructure and urban environments.

[@Yavin4]

Los Angeles does not exist. Yes, there are homes there, as well as restaurants, theaters, sports stadiums, etc. But these are places, destinations. In between them, there is little to nothing. Just vast stretches of concrete primarily for car use. There is no city in between the places.

[@wendolin]

Thanks for making this video

[@chrisransdell8110]

I have no qualms with the points in the video but I think it leads to obvious, more complicated, and to-date, unsolved questions. How can we build transit that covers useful American suburban (at least inner suburban) distances that ISN'T a horrific post apocalyptic off-ramp nightmare? The loudest voices in the transit community seem to always be admiring green grassy trolley medians in Amsterdam and other places and their proposals for US transit usually seem to resemble some weird pairing of gigantic heavy metro trains in wildly expensive tunnels with absurdly short stop spacing of half a mile or so per stop. This reflects the reality of people who already live basically in a CBD and just need to go a mile or two and want to do so in style with seemingly infinite capacity. That's an understandable perspecitve but if we want to reduce single occupant car miles driven then we need at least some projects that cover relatively large stretches of land at relatively high speeds. Since, with the exception of Denver, we seem to always have to make do with a single transit mode in a project, we seem to always struggle to find some compromise between the two extremes. While the people waiting at that noisy platform almost surely wish they were somewhere else, I'm guessing a streetcar with 27 leisurely stops between where they are and downtown isn't where they want to be and finding a way to meet those needs without resorting to highway median stations seems like a worthy endeavor. Personally, I think the best mix of urban and suburban services in the US are BART in the bay area and the DC Metro. Both are very expensive and don't really thrill the 'stops should be a 3 minute walk apart' crowd but as backbones to a local system (BART interfacing with MUNI and VTA etc) or even the PATCO SpeedLine in the Philadelphia area seem like goo starting points to me.

[@chrisransdell8110]

@@DallinBackstrom Thanks for the unusually thoughtful reply. I would love to get to Calgary to check it out. I think for transit to be focused on meeting people where thy are at these types of systems are, as you said, the imperfect best we can achieve. Calgary's system should certainly be doing more to improve air quality and reduce Co2 emissions than any 10 mile long system with beautiful stations and 20 stops ever could hope to achieve and for me that's a good start. Portland Oregon has had some success in putting stations in relatively empty suburban areas (MAX was built through Orenco Station and Cascade Station before there was much around either of those stops) and spurring some new urbanist type projects. If that type of development could be done over and over it would be great but I'm not aware of a lot of other similar stories.

[@jasonjackson4555]

I lived in Japan for 3.5 years and I cannot begin to describe the difference between public transit in Tokyo vs. LA. Japan is about 100 years ahead of us. I drive past the green line on my way to and from work every day and I would never ride this garbage. After transferring between trains, buses and a donkey, it would take me 2 hours to get to work if I used public transit. By car, it takes 30min.