City of Los Angeles' take on American Apparel situation

I posted yesterday about the lack of a direct bus line between the American Apparel operation at 7th and Alameda and Union Station. I included the MTA's response -- there's lack of ridership -- but the city of Los Angeles, which operates the DASH bus system, needed time to get an answer.

Their answer just arrived in my e-mail box. Here it is, courtesy of the city's Department of Transportation:

During our recent  restudy of DASH Downtown Los Angeles, LADOT took a look at serving the industrial area in the southeast part of Downtown.  After analyzing employment  and residential densities, we decided not to serve the area.  In  addition, we took the following into consideration:

1. The area is already heavily served by Metro, the primary provider of transit service in L.A. County.  Most of its service operates in an east/west direction reflecting ridership patterns.  Metro tried operating a Line 58 connecting Union Station and the Metro Rail  Blue Line Washington  Station at Washington Blvd/Long Beach Ave but despite a number of routing changes including operating exclusively on Alameda Ave, it had very limited ridership and was canceled by Metro.

2. With regards to the 5000 employees at American Apparel, has the company worked with Metro to analyze the home ZIP codes of its employees? LADOT's experience operating DASH Route E indicates that many employees working in the garment industry live immediately west of Downtown in the Westlake Community. While DASH Route E does not extend far enough east to serve American Apparel, Metro's Rapid Line 720 (Santa Monica-Whittier) does. Currently, Metro Rapid does not stop in the vicinity of American Apparel, but Metro might be convinced to add a stop at 6th/Alameda based on the ZIP code analysis suggested above.

3. LADOT is facing a severe shortfall in the Proposition A sales tax funding it receives from Metro and uses to operate its fixed route transit services. Not only is LADOT unable to expand DASH service at this time, it is proposing to trim service to reduce its deficit. (LADOT studied over a hundred new DASH routes in 2005 and selected the top 22 based on their predicted performance with the intention of launching one new service each year. Because of the deficit, however, it has not implemented any of them.)

One other point I wish I had made in the original post: American Apparel is more than doubling the size of its outlet store at the site. It's already difficult for customers to find parking there and it seems the problem will only get worse if the company keeps hiring.

-- Steve Hymon

Comments

[erisa jennean]

Really? If people stopped shopping at American Apparel the problem would solve itself?
Where do you people live?
LA is full of immigrants that spend their hard earned money here. They are an integral part of our local economy and community, whether you acknowledge it or not. If you don't like immigrants you should move, like to Alaska.
All day long citizen and immigrants are in constant symbiotic relationship. Look around you. Get out of your car. Get on a bus or train, ask someone about bringing bikes on Metro at commuter times. You can't. And the limit is 2 bikes per bus.
Mr. Hymon's response was much more realistic and helpful than your insulated, ignorant, privileged perspectives.
And go ask your parents or whoever how xenophobia affected their lives when they immigrated to the US

[Michael]

Maybe people should stop buying clothing from a factory that hires/exploits illegal labor.

The transportation problem would solve itself.

[Me]

Many if not most of the employees of American Apparel are illegal aliens. As if our state isn't bankrupt enough, the last thing we should worry about is how to get the county to pay for the illegal aliens' ride to work. Have you noticed all the "Legalize LA" bus stop ads that this company put up all over the city? Hmmm. I wonder why...

[David Raether]

How about building a trolley from Union Station to American Apparel?

It could be done quickly and with relative low cost...

[Tony Fernandez]

1.6 miles? It seems like bikes would be able to cover that ground pretty well. Maybe the workers could rent bikes to and from union station?

[Bart Reed]

Well, sometimes you have to drag folks kicking and screaming to address a need. Somewhere along the time frame of Metrolink service to LA Union Station, LADOT started to operate the Metrolink Shuttle to Bunker Hill. The route has high ridership as it connects with the train service.

http://www.ladottransit.com/dash/routes/metrolink/metrolinkshuttle.pdf

Now, is it possible that there could be a similar shuttle service to some of the big job sites such as American Apparel from the Metrolink / Gateway Plaza bus terminal and the El Monte Busway, where the potential riders to the AA neighborhood seem to arrive in significant numbers?

At one time, the Metrolink Bunker Hill Shuttle got its buses as they arrived from the burbs, but were simply too late in the morning commute to make a second inbound trip. Perhaps there is an unmet need here and both DOT, Metro and AA need to work together to potentially address this need. Perhaps AA may need to adjust shift times to work with a Train / Bus Shuttle arrangement. There needs to be some political will, if not agency cooperation.