Why Nobody Rides the K Line (Yet)

75,346
0
Published 2023-05-28
My attempt to unravel the spaghetti mess that is LA Metro’s new K line and some surrounding developments.
















My Twitter: twitter.com/metamodernismyt
My Instagram: www.instagram.com/metamodernismyt/


Music: Elevator 4 by Stevia Sphere steviasphere.bandcamp.com/track/elevator-4

Stadium parking photo by Ron Reiring: www.flickr.com/photos/84263554@N00/52372640610
BYD Skyshuttle monorail video by SF’s Rail Depot:    • 🚝 Innovative or gadgetbahn? The BYD S...  
Future metro map by @nander

All Comments (21)
  • @barbeej12
    I am one of those few passengers who ride the K line. More and more passengers are riding it as they learned the route. If it wasn't for the K line I will be using my var more to go to work. But it was due to the K line that I am driving less to work.
  • All those new stadiums in Inglewood without a direct train connection is so disappointing. Great historical overview of the K line, though! It's important that people understand the history of these lines, and how much better our transit could be if we just had some long term regional planning.
  • Your point at around 11 minutes is key. LA is split up into 1000 little islands by uncrossable 7 lane highways. This is why people feel like they need to drive to pick up some eggs. Because they need to get one island over and walking there might kill you. LA needs to fix this and take out several car lanes for much higher capacity bus and bike lanes. And it's also so messed up that mass transit needs to go through environmental review when it is objectively GOOD for the environment. Using environmental law to block mass transit is like using your roach killer spray to hold the door open so roaches can get in. It's misuse and needs to be stopped immediately. This video is everything I wanted to know and more. Fantastic and 100% spot on.
  • @bluntman900
    I'm a train operator on the K-line. You sir are Right!
  • Most major stadiums are usually replaced every 30 years, give or take, which is ironically about how long it takes a government transit agency to build anyting.
  • Even though the plans aren’t perfect, it’s really great to see a city that has made awful transit-based decisions in the past try to right their wrongs and invest so much in transit. It’s safe to say that no other city in the US is investing as much in transit as LA!
  • @PASH3227
    Crenshaw is NOT DENSE. According to the Mapping LA project, density is average for an LA neighborhood. It's frustrating that the northern portion of the K Line has a high density of underground stations like its Koreatown, yet most of the area surround the Leimert Park and MLK Stations are single family homes and auto-centric strip malls. There are no plans to rezone the R-1 portions, just densify the commercial areas on Crenshaw Boulevard. The plans for Crenshaw Mall involve leaving the main low rise structures in tact while adding offices and housing in the parking lots and unattached buildings. It similar to mall redevelopment in OC, yet OC malls don't have an underground light rail station.
  • @erejnion
    It's wild to hear that a metro line comes every 10 minutes as an European. We're conditioned to think that anything over 5 minutes is already too much. 10 minutes is, like, fine, in a spur, on a weekend.
  • @Tomzski
    The K line was a life saver when I went to a Chargers game last season
  • @deebte__
    for every station you add you get everyone already served by the system the opportunity to go to a place and the people served by the new station to get anywhere in the system, one station can really do a lot
  • @guaposneeze
    Getting out of LAX is such a baffling experience. How do I wank from the terminal to mass transit? Oh, it's easy. You take a shuttle. To a bus lot. To get a bus to a train line. That's half built. To take another bus. Your flight to LA probably took less time than getting 5 miles away from LAX. Also, those "aspirational" 70's sci fi Domes and Pyramids station designs are just bafflingly terrible. Why would anybody want to make a train stop so giant that there's nothing around it in convenient walking distance? NYC subway stops are mostly just nondescript stairs that go to the train, so the surface entrance is literally about 6 feet from the shop you wanted to get to.
  • @choco1490
    these little trains are lovely & the stations are beautiful, LA just needs to build dense housing around the stations, so many ppl want to live near a station but cant bc of housing costs
  • We should extend the Sepulveda Subway line that goes from the valley all the way to SoFi. The Subway wants to keep going, and SoFi is the logical destination beyond LAX.
  • @LimitedWard
    Can't wait to visit LA when I'm 70 and it's finally walkable!
  • The inglewood people mover really needs to use the same technology as the LAX people mover and to then connect the two lines and extend to the C as planned. Then it could be ran as a small system.
  • I see this a lot of times in the US, a metro line that doesn’t go to the airport (let alone a long distance train), but to a people mover or bus station in the neighborhood, on which you need to transfer if you want to go to the airport. Urban planning mistake if you ask me. Imagine how many people work at the airport and how many passengers need to got to and from the airport. You want those people from the city (center) to the airport via rail as quick as possible, not in multiple transfers. Top 5 of European airports: London, train and metro; Paris, train, high speed train, and metro; Frankfurt, train, high speed train and S-bahn; Amsterdam, train and high speed train; Madrid, train and metro. All with stations under or next to the terminal(s). USA has a long way to go before they get it.
  • L.A. keeps building like this the metro will start looking impressive in the next several decades.
  • @HGM19922
    I think the K line has potential, I'm still salty that Metro didn't utilize the eastern portion of the Harbor Subdivision to build a rail corridor that could've served Downtown LA, whether it would've tied in with an underground subway that would connect with the E-Line at the Expo trench, or utilized a portion of the future WSAB south of Union Station.
  • @ergodoy7741
    excellent analysis. I love the irony that no EIR was needed for SoFI yet metro expansion is forever bogged down in EIA requests from neighborhoods who don't want it (I'm looking at you Beverly HIlls)
  • I just couldn't believe it when I found out that LA doesn't have a train station inside LAX, but instead, if you choose public transportation to get to LAX, you take a train to a BUS that sits in traffic with all the cars! Glad to see that they're finally fixing it. We've avoided booking conferences in LA because of the poor public transportation.