A Line
A Line train at Downtown Long Beach station
Overview
Other name(s)	Blue Line (1990–2019)
Owner	Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Line number	801
Termini	7th Street/Metro Center Downtown Long Beach
Stations	22
Website	metro.net/riding/a-line
Service
Type	Light rail
System	Los Angeles Metro Rail
Depot(s)	Division 11 (Long Beach) Division 24 (Monrovia)
Rolling stock	Kinki Sharyo P3010, AnsaldoBreda P2550 or Siemens P2000 running in 2- or 3-car consists
Ridership	9,099,416 (2021) -2.1%
History
Opened	July 14, 1990; 32 years ago (1990-07-14)
Technical
Line length	21.3 mi (34.3 km)[1]
Number of tracks	2 (except single track Long Beach loop)
Character	Mostly at-grade in private right-of-way, with some street-running, elevated and underground sections
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Electrification	Overhead line, 750 V DC
Operating speed	55 mph (89 km/h) (max.) 24.1 mph (38.8 km/h) (avg.)
Route map Legend Regional Connector (2023)   Foothill Extension Phase 2B (2026) APU/Citrus College ↓(Current L Line) Azusa Downtown I-210 / Foothill Freeway Irwindale San Gabriel River I-605 / San Gabriel River Freeway Duarte/City of Hope Sawpit Wash Monrovia Santa Anita Wash Arcadia East Branch Arcadia Wash I-210 / Foothill Freeway Arcadia Wash Sierra Madre Villa Eaton Wash Allen Lake I-210 / Foothill Freeway Memorial Park Del Mar Fillmore SR 110 / Arroyo Seco Parkway South Pasadena Arroyo Seco High Bridge SR 110 / Arroyo Seco Parkway Highland Park Southwest Museum Figueroa Street Heritage Square SR 110 / Arroyo Seco Parkway Arroyo Seco Low Bridge Lincoln/Cypress I-5 / Golden State Freeway Los Angeles River Metrolink and Amtrak Chinatown Union Station     US 101 / Santa Ana Freeway E Line to Atlantic Little Tokyo/Arts District   Historic Broadway   Grand Av Arts/Bunker Hill   7th Street/Metro Center      Pico    I-10 / Santa Monica Freeway   E Line to Downtown Santa Monica Grand/LATTC   San Pedro Street Washington Vernon Slauson Florence Firestone 103rd Street/Watts Towers Willowbrook/ Rosa Parks I-105 / Century Freeway Compton Compton Creek Artesia SR 91 / Gardena Freeway Del Amo I-710 / Long Beach Freeway Los Angeles River I-405 / San Diego Freeway Wardlow Willow Street Pacific Coast Highway Anaheim Street 5th Street Pacific Avenue 1st Street Downtown Long Beach All stations are accessible. Detailed diagram showing all crossings Regional Connector (2023)      7th Street/ Metro Center ↑ Flower Street Tunnel ↓ Flower Street 12th Street    Pico Pico Boulevard Venice Boulevard I-10 / Santa Monica Freeway 18th Street E Line to Downtown Santa Monica ←↑Flower Street ↓ Washington Boulevard   Grand/LATTC Grand Avenue Olive Street Hill Street Broadway Main Street Los Angeles Street Maple Avenue Trinity Street San Pedro Street San Pedro Griffith Avenue Central Avenue Naomi Avenue Hooper Avenue ↑ Washington Boulevard Washington ↓ Long Beach Avenue 20th Street 24th Street 41st Street Vernon Avenue Vernon 48th Place 55th Street San Pedro ↑ Long Beach Avenue Slauson Slauson Avenue West Santa Ana Branch Transit Corridor 60th Street Gage Avenue Florence Avenue Florence Nadeau Street Firestone Firestone Boulevard 92nd Street Century Boulevard 103rd Street 103rd Street/Watts Towers 108th Street Wilmington Avenue Imperial Highway Willowbrook/Rosa Parks I-105 / Century Freeway NRC to C Line ↓ Willowbrook Avenue 119th Street 124th Street El Segundo Boulevard 130th Street Stockwell Street Rosecrans Avenue Elm Street Compton Compton Boulevard Myrrh Street Alondra Boulevard Greenleaf Boulevard ↑ Willowbrook Avenue Compton Creek Artesia Artesia Boulevard SR 91 / Gardena Freeway Manville Street SR 47 / Alameda Street Alameda Corridor Santa Fe Avenue Del Amo Del Amo Boulevard I-710 / Long Beach Freeway Division 11 yard Los Angeles River I-405 / San Diego Freeway Wardlow Wardlow Road Spring Street Willow Street ↓ Long Beach Boulevard   Willow Street Burnett Street Hill Street 20th Street 19th Street SR 1 / Pacific Coast Highway Pacific Coast Highway 16th Street 14th Street Anaheim Street Anaheim Street 10th Street 8th Street ↔ 7th Street 6th Street Pacific Avenue 5th Street 4th Street 3rd Street Broadway Pacific Avenue ↑ 1st Street Downtown Long Beach ↔ 1st Street (Long Beach Transit Mall) All stations are accessible. This diagram: view talk edit

The A Line (formerly, from 1990 to 2019, and colloquially known as Blue Line)^[2][3] is a 22-mile (35.4 km) light rail line running north–south between Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, passing through Downtown Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Watts, Willowbrook, Compton, Rancho Dominguez, and Long Beach in Los Angeles County. It is one of seven lines in the Metro Rail system. Opened in 1990, it is the system's oldest and third-busiest line with an estimated 22.38 million boardings per year as of December 2017^[update]. It is operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The A Line passes near the cities of Vernon, Huntington Park, South Gate, Lynwood, and Carson. The famous Watts Towers art installation is visible from the train tracks near 103rd Street station. The under-construction Regional Connector will directly link this line to Union Station and into the San Gabriel Valley along the current route of the L Line, resulting in a longer A Line and the elimination of the L Line.

Service description

Map of the A Line, including the under-construction 2021 Regional Connector extension. Dashed lines indicate Metro routes planned or under construction.

Route description

The A Line runs 22.0 miles (35.4 km) between Downtown Los Angeles and Downtown Long Beach and has 22 stations.^[1]

The line's northern terminus is the underground 7th Street/Metro Center station. After rising to street level, trains run south along Flower Street, sharing tracks with the E Line. Passengers can connect to the bus rapid transit J Line at 7th Street/Metro Center, Pico, and Grand stations. The A and E Lines diverge at Flower Street and Washington Boulevard just south of downtown Los Angeles. Here the A Line turns east on Washington Boulevard before turning south into the former Pacific Electric right-of-way at Long Beach Avenue. This historic rail corridor has four tracks, two for Metro Rail trains and two for freight trains. Along the corridor, there are some elevated sections to either eliminate street crossings in more densely populated areas or pass over diverging freight train tracks. Passengers can connect with the C Line at the Willowbrook station. Just south of Willow station, A Line trains exit the rail corridor and begin street running in the median of Long Beach Boulevard into the city of Long Beach, where trains travel through the Long Beach Transit Mall while making a loop using 1st Street, Pacific Avenue, and 8th Street.

Hours and frequency

A Line trains run every day between approximately 4:00 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. Trains operate every ten minutes during peak hours Monday through Friday, and every twelve minutes during the daytime on weekdays and all day on the weekends after approximately 8 a.m. (with a 15/20-minute headway early Saturday and Sunday mornings). Night service is every 20 minutes.^[4]

Speed

The A Line takes 53 minutes^[5] to travel its 22.0 mile (35.4 km) length,^[1] at an average speed of 24.9 miles per hour (40.1 km/h). Trips taking an hour or more, however, are not unusual.

Station listing

The following is the complete list of stations, from north to south.

Station	Date Opened	City/Neighborhood	Major connections and notes[6][7]
7th Street/Metro Center	February 15, 1991	Downtown Los Angeles
Pico	July 14, 1990
Grand/LATTC
San Pedro Street		South Los Angeles
Washington
Vernon
Slauson
Florence		Florence-Graham	Park and ride: 116 spaces
Firestone
103rd Street/Watts Towers		Watts	Park and ride: 64 spaces
Willowbrook		Willowbrook	Park and ride: 234 spaces
Compton		Compton
Artesia			Park and ride: 288 spaces
Del Amo		Carson	Park and ride: 362 spaces
Wardlow		Long Beach	Park and ride: 139 spaces
Willow Street			Park and ride: 927 spaces
Pacific Coast Highway
Anaheim Street
5th Street (southbound only)	September 1, 1990
1st Street (southbound only)
Downtown Long Beach (northbound only)
Pacific Avenue (northbound only)

Ridership

History

Nippon Sharyo P865 train leaving Downtown Long Beach station.

Much of the current A Line follows the route of the Pacific Electric Railway's Long Beach interurban line, which ended service in 1961. The old route gave the new light rail trains a private right-of-way between Washington and Willow Street stations allowing them to reach higher speeds between stops.^[9]

The line initially opened as the Blue Line on Saturday, July 14, 1990, at a cost of US$877 million (equivalent to $1.82 billion in 2021 adjusted for inflation),^[1] and ran from Pico to Willow. The street running section to Downtown Long Beach opened in September 1990,^[10] followed by the tunnel into 7th St/Metro Center in February 1991.

The route was a success, and from 1999 to 2001, the Blue Line underwent an US$11 million project to lengthen 19 of its platforms so that they could accommodate three-car trains.^[11] Plans were also made to extend the Blue Line north to Pasadena, but the connection across downtown was deferred, and the northern portion opened as the Gold Line in 2003. That original plan for the Blue Line became reality when the Regional Connector was announced in 2009. Ground was broken for the Regional Connector across downtown in 2014 and is expected to be completed in 2023.

The Blue Line was renovated in 2019, with the southern half of the line being closed for the first five months and the northern half closing for the following five months (10 months total). Metro provided bus shuttle service to compensate for the lack of rail service. Metro officially reopened the line on November 2, 2019, rebranding it as the A Line.^[2][3][12]

Future developments

Regional Connector Transit Project

Metro is currently testing the Regional Connector, a light rail subway tunnel in Downtown Los Angeles that will connect the A and E Lines to the L Line and allow a seamless "one-seat ride" on the A Line to Union Station. When this project is completed, service will be simplified into the following configuration:^[13]

• A Line
  • The northeastern segment of the L Line (north of Little Tokyo/Arts District) will serve as an extension to the current A Line
  • The Foothill Extension will also be absorbed into the A Line, extending it further to Pomona–North station upon completion
• E Line
  • The southern portion of the current L Line to East L.A. will be combined with the current E Line, which will keep the E Line name but use the gold color on maps

The groundbreaking for constructing the Regional Connector took place on September 30, 2014, and it is expected to be in public service in early 2023.^[14]

Current issues

Capacity limits

A Line train arriving at 7th Street Metro Center.

The line often operates at capacity, and various options to increase capacity have been considered, such as four-car or more frequent trains. Both have problems: it would be difficult or impossible to lengthen some of the station platforms, and the number of trains already causes delays for other vehicles at level crossings. Thus it may not be possible to increase A Line ridership without a costly grade-separation project, either by elevation, by an entrenchment method similar to that used by the nearby Alameda Corridor freight rail "expressway," or by building another parallel transit corridor to relieve capacity strains from the A Line. When the Regional Connector project linking A and E Line tracks with the L Line tracks in Little Tokyo is completed, this may result in even more capacity problems, with ridership expected to grow even more once the connector is open for service.

Safety at level crossings

A Metro A Line train heading to Long Beach arrives at Willow station.

Over 120 motorists and pedestrians have been killed at A Line level crossings since 1990. There have been more than 800 collisions,^[15][16] making the line easily the country's deadliest and most collision-prone rail line.^[17]

Train at the Slauson station

In 1998, the MTA commissioned Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. to evaluate the cause of Blue Line collisions and recommend affordable solutions. The study reported the high ridership (over 70,000 per day) was a contributor:

The MBL has one of the highest ridership counts for light rail lines in the Country. This factor is perhaps the most important contributor to the grade-crossing accident rate. The high ridership results in increased pedestrian traffic near stations compared to other light rail systems. In addition, although MTA Operations does not allow high passenger loads to dictate safe operations, there is pressure to maintain travel times and headway schedule requirements (e.g., a passenger trip from Los Angeles to Long Beach in less than one hour).

Other contributing factors identified were the high population density leading to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic around the tracks, the diverse varied socio-economic community around the line that creates literacy and language difficulties for public education campaigns, driver frustration due to the slow traffic speeds around the line that leads to more risk-taking behavior, and the shared right-of-way with freight traffic in the fastest running section from Washington station to Willow station, where trains operate at a maximum of 55 mph (89 km/h) between stations.

The collision rate has declined somewhat following the installation of four-quadrant gates at some crossings where the A Line shares the right-of-way with freight rail between Willowbrook station and Artesia station. The gates prevent drivers from going around lowered gates. In addition, cameras along some problem intersections issue traffic tickets when drivers go around gates.

Operations

On Metro Rail Operations' internal timetables, the A Line is called line 801.

Maintenance facilities

The A Line is operated out of the Division 11 Yard (208th Street Yard) located at 4350 East 208th Street. This yard stores the fleet used on the A Line. It is also where heavy maintenance is done on the fleet. The Yard is located between Del Amo and Wardlow stations. Trains get to this yard via a wye junction on the southbound tracks. Northbound trains can enter and exit the yard via the cross tracks on the north and south side of the junction.

Rolling stock

Blue Line train in the 1990s

The A Line uses 2 different types of rolling stock from Siemens and Kinki Sharyo.

When the Blue Line first opened in 1990, the line had 54 Nippon Sharyo P865 light rail vehicles, numbered 100–153. These cars wore a unique livery consisting of several blue stripes and a single red stripe, reflecting the Blue Line's color designation and its Pacific Electric Red Car heritage.

In 2000, Metro transferred all 15 Nippon Sharyo P2020 (Numbered 154-168) light rail vehicles from the Green Line to the Blue Line fleet. These light rail vehicles were nearly identical to the older P865 model but were about five years newer and originally had an automated control panel for automatic train operation in each cab.^[18]

In 2012, Metro transferred some Siemens P2000 light rail vehicles from the Gold Line to the Blue Line fleet.

In 2017, the Blue Line received 78 Kinki Sharyo P3010 light rail vehicles, the first new fleet since it opened in 1990. As the P3010 fleet was introduced, Metro gradually retired all of the remaining P865 light rail vehicles, the original vehicles used on the line. In 2021, the final deliveries of the P3010s resulted in the 15 P2020 railcars retiring as Metro has no more room for the aging vehicles.

A Line vehicles are maintained and stored at the Division 11 yard in Long Beach between Del Amo and Wardlow stations. This facility can house and maintain 86 light rail cars.

By the time of the Regional Connector opening in 2023, it is expected that Division 21 in Elysian Park and Division 24 in Monrovia will be acquired for A Line service as the A and L lines will merge into one route.