Service changes are driven by customer and operator feedback, increased ridership, increased number of bus, rail operators
Continuing its commitment to improve riders’ travel experience, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) announced today that effective Sunday, Dec. 10, it is improving frequency of service on its light rail service (A, C, E, and K lines), adding later trains on its A and E Lines and making changes to several bus lines.
A and E Lines
For the first time, weekday peak hour trains (5 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m.) on the A Line (Long Beach to Azusa) and E Line (Santa Monica to East Los Angeles) will operate every eight minutes instead of the current 10 minutes. Trains will operate every 10 minutes instead of 12 minutes during weekdays at midday and Saturday/Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Two additional trains will be added to the nightly schedule in each direction, extending service by an extra 40 minutes each night on both weekdays and weekends. Last A Line trains will depart APU Citrus (Azusa) and Downtown Long Beach at 11.45 pm nightly, with last E Line trains departing Downtown Santa Monica 11:54 pm and East LA (Atlantic) at 12:18 a.m. nightly.
“We’ve had a lot of feedback from riders about the need to improve rail frequency and to increase late-night service on our rail lines,” said Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins. “Over the past 18 months, Metro has worked hard to hire more than a thousand new people to support bus and rail operations. We can now increase rail operator staffing to support an expansion of our rail service to meet increasing demand. Rail ridership has grown by about 13 percent so far this fiscal year, so we are now offering 10-minute or better service on weekdays from 5 am-7 pm across our entire light rail system, and we are adding more trains to serve our late-night passengers. The new 10 minute off peak rail frequency is a level of rail service we haven’t ever offered in the past, which we hope will drive even more people to Go Metro.”
C and K Lines
Improvements in frequency will also be made to the C and K Lines, as weekday midday trains will operate every 10 minutes instead of 12 or 15 minutes. Saturday/Sunday C Line service will also increase to every 10 minutes instead of every 15 minutes. However, K Line trains will operate every 20 minutes on Saturday and Sunday due to construction and testing work through May 2024 to connect the C and K Lines and the forthcoming LAX/Metro Transit Center Station, set to open in late 2024. K Line weekend frequency is planned to increase to 10 minutes as soon as these works are completed.
Bus Service
Metro is also making changes to several bus lines, including schedule adjustments to improve on-time performance and added trips on some lines to provide more room on lines where ridership has increased. There are six weekday, 14 Saturday, and 24 Sunday Metro bus lines that have exceeded pre-COVID ridership levels as of September 2023. A small number of lines have route changes to more conveniently connect people to their destinations or other transit lines and to address the impacts of construction.
A complete list of the new timetables is available at metro.net/mybus.
About Metro
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) is building the most ambitious transportation infrastructure program in the United States and is working to greatly improve mobility through its Vision 2028 Plan. Metro is the lead transportation planning and funding agency for L.A. County and carries more than 950,000 boardings daily on a fleet of 2,200 low-emission buses and six rail lines.
Stay informed by following Metro on The Source and El Pasajero at metro.net, facebook.com/losangelesmetro, twitter.com/metrolosangeles and twitter.com/metroLAalerts and instagram.com/metrolosangeles.