Have you taken the A Line yet from Pomona, or for that matter La Verne, San Dimas or Glendora, the four new stations on the light-rail line?
That question was posed here a few weeks ago. Two dozen responses rolled in. I intend a column based on those. It’s partly written, but you can still submit a response. But first, it’s worth addressing the concern that “nobody” is riding the trains on what was originally to be called the Gold Line.
That was articulated in a letter to the Claremont Courier from Don Linde of La Verne, who said he’s waited at train crossings in his town and seen “maybe one or two heads showing on the trains as they pass.”
Noting the $1.5 billion cost to extend the line, Linde concluded: “I’d like to think this is a temporary situation and that soon the trains will be teeming with riders, but the evidence so far seems to reflect just the opposite: a beautiful light-rail extension that dutifully runs on schedule but with hardly a passenger in sight.”
My one trip so far, from Pomona to L.A. for lunch at Philippe, saw a handful of us board in Pomona and more get on at each station as we headed west. The process reversed on the ride east from L.A., with the train slowly emptying.
Linde is correct that the trains are largely empty, but his count of “one or two heads showing” may not fully reflect the fact that some people slouch.
Curious myself, I asked for ridership numbers since the nine-mile extension from Azusa opened in mid-September, as well as for how those numbers match up with projections.
Metro, formally the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, provided me with the five months of numbers from October through February.
Total boardings at the four stations began at 2,817 passengers over the month of October and trended upward modestly, with 3,038 passengers boarding during February.
That’s roughly 100 boardings per day, divided among four stations. A lot of trains are going back and forth, up to seven per hour in each direction. With frequent service, I don’t doubt that at some stops, nobody is getting on or off.
In February, the Glendora station saw 464 boardings, San Dimas 461, La Verne 287 and Pomona 1,826. That means Pomona, the end of the line, had about 60% of the 3,038 total.
Pomona can always be counted on to do more than its fair share.
How do the rider numbers square with projections? Those were estimated only for 2035, after roughly a decade of service.
Those 2035 projections show Glendora with an average of 1,860 riders per month, San Dimas with 1,640, La Verne with 2,190 and Pomona with 5,950.
To get there, Pomona has to triple its current ridership. Glendora and San Dimas should quadruple their numbers. La Verne, really pulling up the rear, would need about eight times more riders.
Get on it, La Verne.
Actually, ridership at what’s known as the La Verne/Fairplex station should get a big boost each May during the Los Angeles County Fair, which this year is May 7-31.
The station is across Arrow Highway from the northern edge of the fairgrounds. Each May alone may skew the numbers in a positive direction.
The 2035 projections were made in 2022 and have caveats, plus or minus. The assumption was that the line would be built farther east to Claremont and Montclair, giving people more destinations and thus more reasons to board.
Instead, a Claremont station may start construction in 2028 and open in 2032. Montclair may not be built.
On the plus side, as the Metro system in Los Angeles grows, that provides new reasons for people in or near Pomona, La Verne, San Dimas and Glendora to board.
Three new stops on the D Line subway along L.A.’s Wilshire Boulevard open May 8, for example. That will put such destinations as LACMA, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Beverly Center in reach for us by rail.
Something no projection could take into account are fluctuations in gas prices. Current high prices seem to be pushing more people to take transit, with overall weekday Metro ridership said to be up in March.
Back to the question of how ridership is matching projections.
A Metro spokesperson told me this: “Given that current ridership is at 20 to 23% of the forecast for ridership in 2035, we are encouraged by riders choosing these stations.”
One person’s train half-full is another person’s train half-empty. Or something like that.
More La Verne
I went to La Verne on Thursday afternoon to take photos of A Line trains going past a mural and past the University of La Verne parking structure.
At the station itself, I waited only long enough to see one train stop. No one disembarked, but two people boarded to head west.
This was my first up-close sight of the station on Arrow Highway at E Street. A black-and-white Metro “pin” pylon sign, about 15 feet tall, marks the spot. These are becoming a common branding and wayfinding marker in and around L.A.
Days earlier, I’d seen a Metro pylon on Wilshire Boulevard at a soon-to-open station at La Brea Avenue. It was disorienting to see one in sleepy La Verne.
It’s also an adjustment for us locals to see trains pass, and crossing arms lower on E Street and elsewhere, every five minutes or so.
Taking the long view of the situation, I mused about how Pacific Electric trolleys a century ago connected far-flung towns in Southern California by rail.
Most towns in the Inland Empire and San Gabriel Valley had stations. Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne and Pomona all did. Trains ran daily on this very same right-of-way.
Most of the trains stopped running in 1941. You’d have to be near 90 to even remember them.
And now, what’s old is new again. (Except people who are 90. They’re still old.)
brIEfly
Back to the Grind, the Riverside coffeehouse that turned 30 last week, got a moment of national recognition in Washington, D.C. On the floor of Congress, Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, read into the record a congratulatory message to owner Darren Conkerite for making his shop “a cornerstone of downtown Riverside’s cultural life.” Takano knows whereof he speaks: He’s been a customer since the early days.
David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, a customer since the latter days. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.