Photo by Fred Camino via Flickr. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

MetroRiderLA has been quiet this week, save for Lennartz’s post on 50 Cent and the announcement that the New York Yankees won the World Series (of Transit) without even having to pitch its first ball.

The week has been spent finalizing the work for an extemporaneous contribution to Open Source Transit. Ever since LADOT put out the call that it will restructure its buses — for the worse — this led to the suggestion that DASH’s saving grace might be to pick up Metro’s sloppy seconds.

We’ll show you what that looks like, and it’s guaranteed safe for work. They will be divided into San Fernando Valley, central L.A. and South L.A./Harbor areas. The Eastside work was already done in the Gold Line Transit Service Interface Proposals. The Westside doesn’t get any proposals because even within L.A. city limits, there’s the tacit understanding that the area is Big Blue Bus‘ turf.

So come back next week and spread the word. Public participation is welcome and encouraged, and your comments will go to public officials.

The workers of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the agency standing in for defending champions the Philadelphia Phillies, have gone on strike. Despite promises not to leave riders high and dry while the World Series was in Philadelphia, SEPTA workers picketed abruptly Tuesday. Philadelphia has forfeited its spot in the Fall Classic (of Transit).

I am no Yankees booster, but as a result of the Philadelphia strike, I hope New York closes the World Series tonight.

By default, the New York Yankees are the winners of the World Series (of Transit) for 2009, broadcast live exclusively on MetroRiderLA.

It might be for the best that Philadelphia dropped out of the Fall Classic (of Transit). In both the Division and the Championship series, they were taken to the limit by the Rockies and the Dodgers, respectively. (Yes, L.A. readers, the Dodgers managed to hang in there and take it to a 7-game stretch — though in the games evaluating transit, they were largely outmatched.)

On account of forfeiture, the rundown for the games will not appear.

Instead, you’ll see how the eight playoff teams are ranked in 6 of 7 categories (the team vs. team stipulations will not be included here).

Could transit service be a good indicator of success on the diamond? Well, this was a year where the teams with the strongest transit systems happened to rise to the top. Back-testing it to last year’s series, though, would not have matched transit to actual playoff results. The Tampa Bay Rays would have never made it out of the Division Series, that’s for sure. There might have been a better case for the 2007 and 2006 playoffs, though.

Here is how this year’s teams stacked up. Keep in mind, this is very subjective, and the individual matches may have led to some judgment calls that may have appeared differently at game time.

Game 1: Buses

1. New York Yankees
2. Minnesota Twins
3. Colorado Rockies
4. Philadelphia Phillies
5. Boston Red Sox
6. Los Angeles Dodgers
7. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
8. St. Louis Cardinals

Game 2: Urban rail

1. New York Yankees
2. Boston Red Sox
3. Philadelphia Phillies
4. St. Louis Cardinals
5. Minnesota Twins
6. Colorado Rockies

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Los Angeles Dodgers are ineligible in this category.

Game 3: Mainline rail

1. New York Yankees
2. Philadelphia Phillies
3. Boston Red Sox
4. Los Angeles Dodgers
5. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
6. St. Louis Cardinals
7. Minnesota Twins
8. Colorado Rockies

Game 4: Transit information

1. Boston Red Sox (MBTA.com)
2. Colorado Rockies (RTD-Denver.com)
3. Minnesota Twins (Metrotransit.org)
4. Los Angeles Dodgers (Metro.net)
5. St. Louis Cardinals (MetroStLouis.org)
6. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (OCTA.net)
7. New York Yankees (MTA.info)
8. Philadelphia Phillies (SEPTA.com)

Game 5: Team records

1. New York Yankees (103-59)
2. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (97-65)
3. Boston Red Sox (95-67) and Los Angeles Dodgers (95-67), tied
4. Philadelphia Phillies (93-69)
5. Colorado Rockies (92-70)
6. St. Louis Cardinals (91-71)
7. Minnesota Twins (87-76)

Game 7: ESPN stadium comparison

1. Philadelphia Phillies (Citizens Bank Park, No. 4)
2. Colorado Rockies (Invesco Field, No. 5)
3. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (Angel Stadium, No. 7)
4. St. Louis Cardinals (Busch Stadium, No. 9)
5. Los Angeles Dodgers (Dodger Stadium, No. 10)
6. Boston Red Sox (Fenway Park, No. 13)
7. Minnesota Twins (Metrodome, No. 26)

New York Yankees are ineligible in this category (rating was for old Yankee Stadium).

In an interview with the British tabloid The Sun, in a pretty throw-away parting question by the interviewer, 50 Cent revealed that one of the most painful moments in his life was getting his bike stolen as a teenager. Before you could find him in da club, as a boy 50 rode his bike around the streets of his native Queens.

Opening up on the incident, and I quote:

“That was one of those things that happened to me that, it kind of hurt…It’s interesting. Those are the things that inspired you to go in a direction I went into. I had to start to hustle to get the things I wanted or wouldn’t have.”

When watching the interview you can see he is still really affected by that loss. With a personal experience that he still remembers vividly, 50 would seem like a natural supporter to push for better metro, bike lanes and racks. After his champagne campaign, 50 should be recruited in raising awareness for bike campaigns in metro areas from NYC to LA. A lot of stars are needed to elevate metro’s profile. 50 has a stake in bicycles, but who will do work to promote better buses, subways, street cars, pedestrian zones, etc. Suggestions?

Which people could be the celebrity talismans of metro and how can they be recruited into putting their weight behind improving mass transit? Celebrity can be the tonic for fixing public transportation’s image problem. Being green is suddenly cool amongst the Hollywood elite, with a number of celebrities brandishing their environmental credentials. Why not take some of that momentum and channel it towards mass transit? Alert the publicists.

50 Cent interview in London

Photo by Fred Camino via Flickr. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

Earlier this week, we gave you the heads-up that LADOT is looking for help on restructuring (read: cutting) its local DASH and Commuter Express service. It is facing a $260 million deficit over 10 years, and with local and state funding drying up, LADOT is looking to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Does LADOT have a lot of unproductive services? Certainly. Will riders allow their bus routes to disappear or change? Certainly not.

What makes LADOT unique is that most of its DASH lines don’t enhance transit service as much as they overlap services. DASH routes largely overlap segments of Metro local lines. In some cases, it can help alleviate overcrowding if riders are more attracted to paying 20% of a Metro fare, and makes a world of difference for very poor riders. The flipside is that LADOT is heavily dependent on poaching existing bus lines to show planners, auditors and City Council members that the services are being used.

Extending that logic, it would follow that if LADOT had to dissolve its bus services, riders could fall back on Metro to travel. This is not economically or politically possible. Plus, LADOT is not in a position in which it can take over busier Metro lines. So what should the city do?

One idea for restructuring — and this was cleaned up to seem respectable for the public policy folks — is first, to leave the DASH branding and 25-cent fare for its core downtown service and create a separate identity for the non-downtown services with fares higher than 25 cents but less than Metro’s $1.25. The second, which will be delved on here, is for LADOT to take over Metro’s sloppy seconds.

If LADOT has a big money problem, Metro has an even bigger one. Despite being first in line at the feeding trough for local sales taxes, Metro is not immune to subsidy shortfalls and it has a bigger problem: Metro bus service is a poor value proposition.

Metro buses are very expensive to run. According to its 2007 filing (the most recent available) on the National Transit Database, Metro’s operating expense for buses is almost $117 per revenue hour. That’s one of the highest in L.A. County. There is very little Metro can do to bring down that cost. To anyone who says all Metro has to do is go strong on the unions, remember that it would take a prolonged work stoppage — and even then, the unions may still come out on top. Also, Metro is not paying all that money into payroll — most of the munis offer far superior compensation and work environment than Metro and are able to maintain bus services in the $95-$110 an hour service range.

Despite Metro’s very high hourly bus expense, on another metric the $117 is more reasonable considering that Metro has heavy passenger values. Its bus expenses are 58 cents per mile.

With a high time cost but a low productivity cost, Metro’s best suited for operating lines with heavier ridership.

These costs are also why Metro will look at every opportunity to cancel bus lines that operate every 30 minutes or less. We go through this every 6 months when Metro suggests the same crop of lines to kill and riders push back.

Well, at least for routes within L.A. city limits, LADOT should work with Metro to take over these poorly performing lines and give them a lease on life.

LADOT’s report shows a far more cost-efficient operation. All of LADOT’s bus operations are provided by private contractors, which compensate workers closer to unskilled trades rather than their public-sector cohorts. (Most of the LADOT contractors are union, too.) LADOT’s per-hour costs are about $59.50 per revenue hour. Its operating expense is 55 cents per mile, close to Metro’s, but its systemwide productivity is 41 passengers an hour.

These are crude figures, though, as this mixes DASH local and Commuter Express rush-hour services. Any cuts to DASH would have far more adverse effects on its riders than cuts to the commuter buses.

So, with these cost profiles, Metro should seek out LADOT to operate services within the city of Los Angeles that could be operated more affordably or be saved from euthanasia. Metro would pay for any transitionary costs.

In turn, LADOT would have to restructure its services to avoid skimming productive Metro services. For instance, in South L.A., DASH buses almost completely duplicate Line 40 services along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the form of the King East and Leimert/Slauson lines. On Vermont Avenue, Line 204 is duplicated by the Southeast and Vermont/Main lines.

Rather than canceling the DASH lines, these lines can be restructured. Martin Luther King and Vermont are saturated with busy local (and Rapid) lines. All a DASH bus does is take a $1.25 passenger away to the 25-cent bus. Take the DASH service on Martin Luther King and have LADOT service replace the low-performing Line 102. As for the Vermont services, keep the existing loop services but move the buses along Hoover Street — a wide residential and commercial road between bus services on Vermont and Figueroa Street. The other side of the loop would take over services now provided by Line 48, a less productive tail attached to the more productive Melrose Avenue and Temple Street trunk of Line 10.

Riders will still have existing bus services, and more importantly, won’t lose them. Riders shouldn’t lose them.

This is not a complete entry as to how LADOT can realign its services to better meet the needs of bus riders. But the complete entry is coming. This is MetroRiderLA after all, and one key part of the Transit-Oriented Lifestyle (TM) is to keep Los Angeles beautiful. In this case, it’s time to get out the brooms, pressure washers and pooper scoopers to clean up another mess. It’s time for another installment of …

OPEN SOURCE TRANSIT!!!

Throughout next week, I will turn my attention away from MetroRiderLA and focus on creating Google Maps of some suggested route changes I would recommend to LADOT. Leave your comments on the post and they’ll be sent to public officials. Your feedback is important.

Do come back for the conclusion of the World Series to see if either the New York Yankees or the Philadelphia Phillies win the Fall Classic (of Transit).

Amazingly, teams with stronger transit systems advanced both in real life and the Fall Classic (of Transit). Even more amazingly, the L.A. Dodgers made it past the first round on transit quality. Take a minute to absorb that.

There was only one divergence from this Fall Classic and the real series. The Red Sox eliminated the Angels 3-1, and bad umpiring spotted the Halos their only game. All other games matched the actual winners of the Division Series, but there were no sweeps here. In fact, each of the three games went 3-2. Phillies vs. Rockies proved to be the match-up of the series, as the last games decided on the closest of values. Our own Dodgers squeaked out a victory, but lost on both urban bus and urban rail fronts. St. Louis fielded a better team, but the Dodgers rallied to come back with better intercity rail, a better Web site, and better performance in the 2009 season.

The Fall Classic (of Transit) now moves on to determine which teams will win the American and National League pennants.

The first installment outlined how the Major League Baseball teams fared if the teams’ home transit systems were weighed against each other. The first four games would evaluate transit service: Game 1 was local bus service, Game 2 was urban rail service, Game 3 was mainline rail service and Game 4 was quality of online transit information. If more games are needed, these would be settled by the teams’ actual performance. Game 5 was the 2009 regular season record,

American League Championship Series

Boston Red Sox (Fenway Park) vs. New York Yankees (Yankee Stadium)

Hey, if ESPN milks these two teams to justify its existence, MetroRiderLA can tug at the udders, too. Park your arses and fasten your seat belts, it’s time for

EAST COAST BIAS!!!

The Red Sox and Yankees are not only defending the honor of their respective cities, they are also representing their transit systems: Boston’s MBTA and Gotham’s MTA.

Game 1: Buses

The series against the Angels exposed how weak the Sox are on the bus front. They have more lines, but a weaker service profile (8, 19, 55, 60 and 65) The Yankees, with four high-frequency bus lines (1/2, 6 and 13), take the opener handily. Winner: Yankees.

Game 2: Urban rail

Boston dusts itself off after Game 1 and fields a decent effort in the D branch of the Green Line. It also proves to be no match for the busiest transit system in America, with the triple threat of 3 subway lines serving Yankee Stadium. Could there be shades of 2004 again? The Yankees hope not. Winner: Yankees.

Game 3: Mainline rail

If there is one matchup in the entire series that is a must-see, this is it. The bats are burning as both Boston and New York both field heavy Northeast Corridor and other Amtrak services. The momentum continues with commuter rail with both being served by colossal networks. Fenway and Yankee Stadium even have commuter rail stops for their respective ballparks. However, in the end, New York pulls ahead with more commuter lines offering more service. Winner: Yankees.

Game 4: Transit information

Boston stands on the brink of elimination. Here, though, we see where Boston rekindles the memory of the 2004 series. MBTA, fielding the best transit Web site in the major leagues, overpowers the mediocre MTA.info. Winners: Red Sox.

Game 5: Team records

If you’re looking for a repeat of the magic 2004 season, fuhgeddaboutit. Yankees were the best in the league with a 103-59 record. Boston settled for a wildcard berth this year with a 95-67 record. Winner: Yankees.

New York Yankees win the American League Championship 4-1. Real-life outcome: Yankees beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 4-2 to win the American League Championship. Yankees advance to the World Series.

National League Championship Series

Los Angeles Dodgers (Dodger Stadium) vs. Philadelphia Phillies (Battery Park)

Yes, the taunting of Philadelphia is intentional by misnaming Citizens Bank Park. Appropriately enough, the two remaining NL clubs are represented by two agencies most people love to hate: Metro and SEPTA. A lot of it is deserved, frankly. But we’ll leave the snivelgasms to the comments. Would a Metro vs. SEPTA look any different than the Phillies’ 4-1 series victory over the Dodgers to capture the National League pennant? Let’s take to the field.

Game 1: Buses

This matchup sees a lot of RBIs but no true hits. The Dodgers are second worst in the majors for bus access to the stadium. Effectively, there are only two buses to take, and it still involves a long hike up a hill and buses mired in nasty traffic. Worse, the Dodgers could have improved their standing by providing better access through Chinatown. The 110 Freeway is like L.A.’s equivalent of the Great Wall of China.

Philadelphia, it turns out, is not that much better. Line C is the best bus service of the bunch, providing reasonable weekday service that wanes during the weekends. Lines 17 and 71 also run near the Alkaline Flats, but those run hourly and the latter is an industrial shuttle into the docks.

This will rear its head in another game, but finding the schedules to these routes on SEPTA’s Web site is research worthy of a master’s thesis. It’s a whole lotta work wading through the site just to find these schedules.

Game 1 is a yawner, and the real losers are the (transit) fans. Winner: Dodgers.

Game 2: Urban rail

The Phillies show what they are made of. Dodgers lose the game before taking the field. The Broad Street Line is the player of the day. Winner: Phillies.

Game 3: Mainline rail

Despite the Dodgers’ valiant efforts with a busy western Amtrak hub, its Metrolink commuter rail service doesn’t hold a candle to the Northeast Corridor and its powerful Regional Rail network. Proximity to New Jersey adds more oomph to this lineup. Winner: Phillies.

Game 4: Transit information

Phillies are up two games and the series is beginning to look bad for the Blue Crew, yet it’s a guarantee that Game 4 will be the Achillies heel for the Phillies. If the Phillies advance to the World Series (of Transit), wear protective eyegear before comparing MTA.info and SEPTA.com. It’ll be disappointing.

If the Dodgers win, that leaves L.A. with the best Web site with the teams remaining in the series. Winners: Dodgers.

Game 5: Team records

Only two games separate the National League’s two best teams this year. Fortunately, the Dodgers had the NL’s best record, 95-67. Philadelphia was close behind with 93-69. Dodgers are able to do in fantasy what they couldn’t do on the field. Winners: Dodgers.

Game 6: Dodgers vs. Phillies in 2009

The Dodgers and Phillies were close this season, with the Blue Crew winning 4 of 7 games in the regular season. Winners: … Ha ha! Not so fast! Don’t pop those champagne corks just yet. Postseason play counts, too. The Dodgers and Phillies played each other 12 times. Dodgers won 5 games, but lost the other 7. The Dodgers protest this development, but when everything settles down, the Phillies pull ahead to force a decisive Game 7. Winners: Phillies.

Game 7: ESPN stadium comparison

Those geniuses at ESPN held a series a few years ago to rate a fans’-eye view of all Major League Stadium ballparks. It assessed things most people care about (food, beer, sight lines, seat comfort) and even something that MetroRiderLA couldn’t care less about, parking. For this seventh and final game, we turn it to the ESPN experts to determine which team has a better park, Dodger Stadium or Citizens Bank Park. The rankings come from ESPN’s baseball stadium rankings.

Of Dodger Stadium, Eric Neel calls it:

… a pristine, 41-year-old, sun-splashed jewel, tucked up in the Los Angeles hills, a place where baseball in the warm night air is the thing.
No wacky sideshow diversions, no post-modern self-conscious “character.” Just a simple structure carved into the hill, an open-air theater waiting for the drama of each game (which lately means waiting to see how the poor Bums will scratch out their one run a night) to unfold.

Its total: 82.5. Its ranking among 30 parks: 10.

Neel then reviewed the Phillies’ ballpark, opened in 2004. It was written in 2004, and the reference is dated to quote here. So how did Neel score Citizens Bank Park?

Its total: 85. Its ranking among 30 parks: 4.

Whoa! Irony alert. Once again, the deciding game factors on a score of 10 and 4. In the 2009 NLCS, Phillies beat the Dodgers 10 to 4 to advance to the World Series. Here, the Phillies is ranked the fourth-best ballpark in Major League Baseball, six places ahead of the Dodgers 10th. Epic! Winners: Phillies.

Philadelphia Phillies win the National League Championship Series 4-3. Real-life outcome: Phillies win the National League Championship Series 4-1. Phillies advance to the World Series.

So amazingly, the Fall Classic (of Transit) mirrors the outcome of Major League Baseball’s World Series, albeit with the teams much more competitive in the blogosphere than out in the field. Dodgers put up a fight to take Philly to the max, but it wasn’t meant to be. The Dodgers strength in stadium transit should have surprised most observers, though.

The World Series (of Transit) 2009 will be embargoed until the conclusion of the World Series. Most readers here can discern the outcome pretty quickly, but come back for the smartass analysis that has come to define this series.

If other Southern California pro sports teams reach the playoffs, a similar rundown of transit tournaments is likely. Remember, come back to MetroRiderLA after the conclusion of the World Series to see if either the Yankees or the Phillies can take the World Series (of Transit).

So we won’t be treated to a Surfliner Series between the Angels and Dodgers. (This is a family transit site; we won’t use that vulgar F word that generally describes that series.) However, for baseball fans who are transit fans as well, it’s a small consolation that the 2009 World Series will be the Acela Series pitting the New York Yankees of the Bronx versus the Philadelphia Phillies of Philadelphia. It promises to be a great series between two solid teams, and it’s great for fans to go car-free.

Which brings us to the point of this pointless fun exercise. Let’s revisit the 2009 MLB playoffs and stack up the teams to see how they compare for a baseball fan to go sans car. Which ballpark would win the 2009 Fall Classic of Transit?

Here are the rules. The divisionals would have a best 3-of-5, just like the big leagues. Similarly, the league championships and the World Series would have a best 4-of-7. The first four games evaluate transit access: Game 1 weighs local bus services, Game 2 weighs urban rail services and Game 3 weighs mainline rail (commuter rail and Amtrak); Game 4 evaluates transit information available on the agencies’ websites. The latter four focus on the teams performance: Game 5 focuses on the teams’ 2009 record, Game 6 focuses on the teams’ records facing each other … and Game 7, should any series get that far, will use ESPN’s baseball stadium rankings.

The matchups follow the same brackets as the 2009 MLB playoffs. Batter up!

American League Division Series

L.A. Angels of Anaheim (Angel Stadium) vs. Boston Red Sox (Fenway Park)

The Angels, who have been a dominant force on the field, have to be carried to this game by the Orange County Transportation Authority. This agency, which is shaping up to be a shell of itself next year, has to go up against the colossus that is the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. This is one year the Angels should have sat out the playoffs.

Game 1: Buses

Shockingly, this proves to be a competitive game. Competitive, if you consider that the Angels only have to walk in meeting the lowest of expectations and manage to meet them. Boston, for having such a powerhouse transit system, is a big disappointment around Fenway Park. OCTA has only two local buses (50 and 57) meeting at State College Boulevard and Katella Avenue. The commuter buses don’t count. MBTA has five routes circling Fenway Park (8, 19, 55, 60 and 65). Amazingly, the Fenway services are more OCTA-like than Boston-like. Only three of them run seven days a week. The strongest route in the bunch is OCTA’s 57, which provides 12-15 minute service on State College Boulevard. Plus, OCTA — at least this year — has something the Boston buses don’t: owl service. This is a close one that comes down to an umpire’s call. Winner: Angels.

Game 2: Urban rail

Two words: Boston Massacre. Boston has a branch of the Green Line come somewhat close to the park. Angels don’t even show up. Winner: Red Sox.

Game 3: Mainline rail

After an abysmal showing in the second showing, the Angels have to make up some ground. Fortunately, the Angels have Anaheim Station right in their backyard. It’s home to the second-busiest Amtrak route in the nation — the aforementioned Pacific Surfliner — and has seven-day Metrolink service. However, Boston is the north end of the Northeast Corridor and is a hub for several Amtrak trains. Plus, it’s complemented by an excellent, far-reaching commuter rail service with memory schedules. Angels are back on board, but it’s not enough. Winner: Red Sox.

Game 4: Transit information

It all comes down to this. The Angels were only able to take away Game 1 unconvincingly based upon some fielding errors by MBTA’s buses. (It would look something similar to the game-deciding bad throws that enabled the Yankees to take two games in the ALCS). Boston rebounded by a rout in urban rail and a home-run derby in Game 3. How does OCTA.net stack up with MBTA.com?

OCTA’s website is chock full of information, and it’s navigation would merit a B+, but it’s clearly evident that it’s a website designed by government bureaucrats rather than someone with a background in customer marketing or use-case scenarios. One would expect OCTA to have an international audience. Orange County is not the bedroom community to L.A. and San Diego anymore. It’s an urban suburb in its own right, and considering that the bulk of its economy comes from tourism, OCTA.net needs to make its site more intuitive for new riders. Worse, it commits the cardinal sin of transit Web sites: publishing schedules in PDF only. Sorry, but any site that does not list timetables in formatted HTML is lazy.

Boston, on the other hand, would come the closest to the standard every public transit agency needs to emulate. If the Fall Classic were just evaluating Web sites, the BoSox would run away with the title. MBTA.com covers all the bases: Sharp, clean design; easy navigation; schedules in plain text; clear maps and fare info; content available in several languages; and just about everything a new rider needs to get around. MBTA.com is wicked pisser. Winner: Boston.

Boston Red Sox win the division series 3-1. Real-life outcome: Angels win the divisional series 3-0.

Minnesota Twins (Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome) vs. New York Yankees (New Yankee Stadium)

Once again, we have a David vs. Goliath situation, as the Twin Cities roll with the Metropolitan Council versus the unstoppable New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This looks like another mismatch.

Game 1: Buses

What is this Fall Classic good for if not to stir up a little crap? Getting to Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx yet not too far from Manhattan, should be a cinch. Yankee Stadium is served by four high-frequency routes (1/2, 6 and 13). Service goes well into the night and the headways aren’t worse than 15 minutes. On the other hand, the Twins have a distinctly Minnesotan transit system. The best routes have 15-minute service, while 30 to 60 minute service is the norm for the Twin Cities. On the other hand, the Metrodome occupies a well-bused section of downtown Minneapolis and is served by almost a dozen bus lines with a broader reach to the metro area. It’s a controversial opener, but the underdogs squeak by. Winner: Twins.

Game 2: Urban rail

To its credit, Minnesota opened a light rail line connecting downtown to the airport and Mall of America, and the Metropolitan Council is building upon it. Southern California also owes the Twin Cities a thank-you for returning us Art Leahy, L.A. Metro’s current CEO and former CEO of OCTA.

Though if any team has to face off the Yankees in the Fall Classic (of Transit) — and it’s bound to happen with the Yankees prodigious lineup and its bottomless payroll — they are battling a tank offensive with pebbles. No system in the majors can match the sheer size and fury of the New York City subway system. And yes, Yankee Stadium has its own station served by three lines: B, D and 4. At least Minnesota was able to get on the board, unlike the shellacking the Angels took at Boston’s hands. Winner: Yankees.

Game 3: Mainline rail

Here is where the Yankees begin to look like the Yankees. Minneapolis doesn’t have a downtown train station; it’s closer to St. Paul. Plus, all the Twin Cities have is the Empire Builder. Metro Council is opening a commuter rail line, the Northstar, but it won’t be geared to Twins fans — even though its downtown terminal will be the Twins’ new ballpark in 2010, Target Field.

I could list New York City’s Amtrak and commuter service, but rustling up the links would take days for each line. Metro-North commuter rail has a Yankee Stadium Station. At this point I’d invoke the mercy rule. Winner: Yankees.

Game 4: Transit information

The Twins are on the brink. All they have now is their website. They have one game — one better than their actual performance against the Yanks in real life. Can they stay alive?

Shockingly, they can. Even more shockingly, they do. The biggest shock of all is how come New York, which out of all American cities, needs to have a site that looks like the Yanks’ starting lineup and not like a Yankees Stadium men’s room after the final pitch.

New York needs to have a site much like Boston, with information at hand and a more organized front page. It looks like a basic HTML class exercise. Worse, it’s the friggin’ PDF schedules. Oy!

Minnesota is also more downhome, geared to locals, but it has a slightly better navigation, HTML schedules and definitely a more polished appearance. The land of lakes looks stronger here. Winner: Twins.

Game 5: Team records

The Twins, which had to play the Detroit Tigers in a tiebreaker just to get a wildcard berth, have managed to claw in by their fingers to get into the playoffs. The club would have envied to get a result like this in the 2009 playoffs, yet it still would have meant a close to the 2009 season and being wiped out in the first round of the playoffs.

In 2009 Minnesota finished with an 87-76 record. Meanwhile, the Yanks were the only team to finish the regular season with more than 100 wins: their final record was 103-59. Winner: Yankees.

New York Yankees win the division series 3-2. Real-life outcome: Yankees win the divisional series 3-0.

National League Division Series

Los Angeles Dodgers (Dodger Stadium) vs. St. Louis Cardinals (Busch Stadium)

How can the Blue Crew compete with the birds on the transit front? It promises to be a nail-biter.

Game 1: Buses

First off, when it comes to transit service to baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the National League’s cellar dwellers. Fortunately, the Texas Rangers have absolutely no public transit of any kind whatsoever, so L.A. can at least say “At least we’re not the Texas Rangers.” However, the lack of even basic bus service compounds the worst traffic flow for any MLB stadium, and this of course earns Angelenos the well-earned ridicule of being the douchebaggiest fans of all Major League Baseball. (L.A. fans don’t know that a baseball game goes 9 innings and not 6, and if it hadn’t been for Manny Ramirez’s marquee value, most Dodger fans would have come just to see and interact with a beach ball).

St. Louis, though, has a DASH-like downtown circulator bus, Line 99, that runs high-frequency service Monday through Saturday. It can be utile for many games. The drawback, though, is that other than some peak-hour express lines, there isn’t much else in the way of local bus services in and around Busch Stadium. There are some other local bus lines, but the walk is comparable to what Angelenos would have to endure.

Angelenos have to rely on Lines 2 or 4 to get to the game. Chinatown has several other frequent bus lines and Gold Line access, but the 110 freeway forms a barrier to pedestrians. The error costs the Blue Crew the game. Winner: Cardinals.

Game 2: Urban rail

St. Louis has MetroLink, which is its light rail line. There’s a Stadium station across from the ballpark, and folks from two states can see themselves a ballgame. (MetroLink crosses over into Illinois). Also, St. Louis uses the same Nippon Sharyo light rail cars as we have on the Blue Line.

L.A. has a much bigger urban rail network, but it doesn’t do a lick of good for baseball fans. The 110 freeway barrier rules out the Gold Line. Winner: Cardinals.

Game 3: Mainline rail

I’m betting the Cardinals club wished the series turns out like it does here and not how it did in the field. St. Louis is on the verge of sweeping the Blue Crew. Let’s see if it can come through with its railroads.

St. Louis has no commuter rail lines but is served by three Amtrak trains: the Texas Eagle, the Missouri River Runner and Illinois Service. As a plus, St. Louis’ Amtrak station is reasonably close to Busch Stadium.

Here, though, the Dodgers bring out the big lumber with Union Station being the hub of the Surfliner and several long-distance trains. We also have a Metrolink, and it helps us take the win to stay alive in the series. Winners: Dodgers.

Game 4: Transit information

Both Metro.net and MetroStLouis.org, the home page for the Bi-State Development Agency (St. Louis’ transit system) are roughly equivalent in functionality. They have OK, not great, navigation and information for new riders. Both rely on PDF schedules. Tsk tsk.

Metro, though, comes ahead on style. Bi-State’s webmaster got carried away with the Spry tools and created too many tabbed menus. L.A., though, has some of the finest graphic design for transit systems in America, and it extends to the Web site. Metro has much cleaner presentation, a nice front page organization, and it’s easier to find the URL. Metro has a choice, easy-to-remember site name. MetroStLouis is bound to lead to some slip-ups, especially if you primarily know it by its corporate name. Winner: Dodgers.

Game 5: Team records

Dodgers, being the team of Hollywood, know a good Hollywood story that hits all the right dramatic moments. Baseball wrote its finest script in 2004 with the legendary Yankees-Red Sox ALCS. The high concept: The Yankees led the series 3-0 and were on the verge of sweeping the hated Sox until Boston rallied to win the fourth, fifth, sixth and deciding seventh games and going on to dominate the World Series to break its curse. Hollywood really needs to make a movie about that.

Oh yeah, back to this series. The Dodgers pull a mini-Boston in this round, but this is only the series opener and a Dodgers-Cards rivalry isn’t exactly epic. The Dodgers had the best record in the National League, and the Cardinals had the fewest wins of any NL playoff team. (Even wildcard Colorado had one more win). Dodgers in 2009: 95-67. Cardinals: 91-71. Winners: Dodgers.

Los Angeles Dodgers win the division series 3-2. Real-life outcome: Dodgers win the divisional series 3-0.

Colorado Rockies (Invesco Field) vs. Philadelphia Phillies (Duracell Field)

I know the correct name for the defending champs’ home field is Citizens Bank Park. The jocular name is for a particular incident that helped cement Philadelphia’s reputation for having some of the most vicious sports fans in the country. On the other hand, Coors Field in Denver is the progenitor of the modern “urban park” format that most new MLB sports palaces have followed. It helped usher in the ballpark as downtown development anchor and helped to de-emphasize the primacy of parking.

Game 1: Buses

Coors Field is within easy access to dozens of bus lines entering downtown Denver, a gem in its own right. Philadelphia’s ballpark is toward the river, far away from the Center City. It’s hard to tell what buses go to The Bank, as SEPTA does not produce a system map and its bus routes are not plugged into Google Maps. For that matter, SEPTA has a horrible page not only for a big city, but for any transit system. I throw a battery at the SEPTA webmaster.

New Jersey Transit also serves Philadelphia, but buswise it’s not much better than SEPTA. It’s hard to make a comparison. Pugnacious defenders of Philadelphia, set the record straight. Until then … Winners: Rockies.

Game 2: Urban rail

Denver has a growing light rail system, and there are two lines that serve the park (C and E). Alas, both run every 30 minutes, which would be nice for commuter rail but rather thin for an urban rail system. Also, Line E only runs during rush hour. Meanwhile, SEPTA runs the Broad Street line with much higher frequencies and adds special trains for games near Pattison Station. Winner: Phillies.

Game 3: Mainline rail

This is where transit starts matching the real outcome of baseball. Denver shows up bringing the California Zephyr and no commuter rail in place yet. Philadelphia is a juggernaut, being a key point on the Northeast Corridor and having an expansive Regional Rail network. Let’s throw in the Atlantic City Line for good measure. It’s over before it began. Winner: Phillies.

Game 4: Transit information

I reiterate my point: SEPTA’s Web site is not fit for human consumption. Now Denver’s, on the other hand, has something that could give Boston a run for its money. Plus, Denver’s RTD was never as big of a civic embarrassment as L.A.’s RTD was. Winner: Rockies.

Game 5: Team records

We have another 3-2 series. Shoot, if you’re a baseball fan, make MetroRiderLA your home. We make baseball exciting. Once again, it comes down to a decisive fifth game. Who takes it? Philadelphia, and just narrowly. The Phillies had a 93-69 record; the Rockies had 92-70. It’s such a shame it had to come to this. Winner: Phillies.

Philadelphia Phillies win the division series 3-2. Real-life outcome: Phillies win the divisional series 3-1.

This post has grown so long that the Championship Series with be forthcoming in another post. Come back soon, and in the meantime, let’s argue about some sports.

East L.A. Civic Center station. Photo by Yours Truly. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

The official opening day to the public for the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension is Sunday, November 15.

Mike Cannell, Metro’s general manager of Metro Rail, will answer these questions tonight at the Transit Coalition’s monthly meeting. It begins at 6:30 p.m. at Philippe, 1001 N. Alameda St., in downtown Los Angeles. It is one block north of Union Station. It’s accessible by the subway, Gold Line, Metrolink, Amtrak and several Metro and municipal bus lines (search our archives for links to schedules).

Reservations are requested for tonight’s meeting. Send an e-mail with “Dinner reservations” in the subject line or call (818) 367-1661. The Transit Coalition meeting is free to attend.

Photo by Fred Camino via Flickr. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

What a stark contrast to the transit picture in Los Angeles. Just a few days ago, Metro spent the better part of a meeting fighting over how to divide a multibillion-dollar pie among rail projects and constituents fighting for, rather than against, service.

A lot of places in the country are envious to be in L.A.’s position for once. Imagine how sorry that is.

The typical mid-recession planning transit agencies have been focused on, though, is how much service to cut just a year after bus and train services nationwide reached highs not seen in decades. And L.A. is no exception. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the city’s official transit agency, has sounded its own warning sirens about upcoming service cuts. The agency is asking for rider solicitation on how services would impact them. Obviously, this is not a call for MetroReaders to tell LADOT what to cut, but all riders should make their voices heard to tell them what buses to save.

The story is the same. Government funding is being cut back at the time it is needed the most. We can pretty much write off the empty piggy bank that has been the funding coming from Sacramento. Funding from the county’s sales taxes, which funds the bulk of operating costs, has also fallen off sharply. LADOT itself has projected a $260 million deficit over 10 years if it does not restructure service. LADOT is also looking at how much service it duplicates — and outside of downtown L.A., the routes rely on poaching riders from the productive parts of Metro services.

The findings are to go to the L.A. City Council next month. If you need help finding who your council member is, or if you live outside of L.A. city limits and use a Commuter Express or DASH bus to commute to or within L.A., use the boundaries PDF as a guide.

Make your voice heard through official channels. MetroRiderLA only provides the news and links, but any comments posted here have no bearing on policy makers’ decisions. So use the form on the site or contact a council member for help. Your comments then become part of official public record. Remember, the bus you save may be your very own.

Photo by Fred Camino via Flickr. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

A public-sector initiative coming in years late and millions over budget happens so much that it’s not even news. The devil’s in the details.

In this case, Metro’s efforts to create a countywide fare card — the Transit Access Pass, or TAP — has come in by more than 6.5 years (!) behind schedule and the budget for the project has nearly doubled to $154 million from an initial $78.5 million payment. Also, Metro has understaffed an initiative that had complex monetary transactions and had so many different stakeholders. These were some of the findings in a 55-page report prepared by KPMG. A copy of the report was obtained by Dana Gabbard of the Southern California Transit Advocates through a public records request (thanks, Dana), and is available in its entirety in MetroRiderLA’s new account on Scribd.

Much of the delays had to do with additions not foreseen when the Universal Fare System project was green-lighted in 1998. The initial $78.5 million contract for the Universal Fare System was awarded in 2002 to San Diego-based Cubic Transportation. That contract was modified to purchase additional ticket vending machines and fareboxes for contract operators, developing a customer management system and central database (these alone, approved in 2006, added $60 million to the tab), and added expenses with the implementation of fare gates (another $22.5 million in 2008).

The gates have proven to become a problem for Metrolink, since it would mean the end of free transfers between commuter rail and Metro Rail. Metrolink has also said it would not be cost-effective to integrate TAP into its own fare systems. Yet even getting the municipal bus carriers onto the TAP network is proving to be a hassle.

For one, Long Beach Transit — the second largest transit operator in L.A. County — and Torrance Transit will not be a part of TAP. It’s unfortunate to hear, since there are tens of thousands of transfers between Long Beach Transit and the Blue Line; and Torrance provides a substantial amount of local bus service in the South Bay well beyond the city limits. You have essentially much of the south of L.A. County bus and train riders who will still have to carry both a TAP card and cash to complete trips.

Twelve municipal operators are still on board, but the biggest concern for them  is “the accuracy of the fare revenue distribution. Confidence in the clearing, settlement and distribution process is critical,” according to the wording of the audit. The regional clearinghouse blew the biggest deadline of the whole program. TAP cards and the central funds clearinghouse were both supposed to be in place in 2001. TAP only went live in general circulation in early 2008, but the clearinghouse is still not in place and the munis aren’t completely integrated. That will happen in 2010 — so the muni interface has been late by 8 years and 8 months.

The audit did say that it could not assess the revenue channels, as this part of the system is still in the design stage. More than half the municipal operators are concerned about the “effectiveness or independence” of the tests.

One thing the audit did not say was how bloated the bureaucracy was in rolling out TAP. It says Metro has left too much of the TAP job on the shoulders of too few people. From 1998 to 2007, only one staff member was permanently assigned to spearhead TAP, with much of the work distributed among other organizations by matrix management. In 2008, the permanent staff grew to 8 times its size — a total of 8 people (a deputy CEO, two directors and five subordinate systems project managers). Until then, most of the legwork had been provided by Cubic and various other contractors.