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.

Does American Apparel deserve improved mass transit?

I went down to visit the American Apparel warehouses this morning in the industrial part of downtown Los Angeles. The two giant warehouses where 5,000 employees work assembling clothes over three shifts sits at the corner of 7th & Alameda, just 1.6 miles from Union Station, which is also on Alameda.

This being Los Angeles -- City of Traffic and Angels -- there is no direct bus service to Union Station down Alameda Street. Thus the reason for my visit.

Employees who do want to reach Union Station by mass transit have to take a circuitous route that involves walking a few blocks to a bus that travels west into the heart of downtown, where they transfer to the subway. It's a journey that requires 31 minutes of travel time, not counting the initial walk to the bus, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority trip planner.

That's 31 minutes to travel 1.6 miles as the crow flies, which I compute to be 3.2 miles per hour. That's not slow. That's Stone Age.