Hollywood Subway a Box Office Bust

If success in Hollywood is measured by box office performance, then the Metro Rail subway’s debut in the entertainment capital has been a flop.

More than eight months after it opened, the number of passengers riding the Hollywood line has fallen short of expectations.

When the sleek trains premiered in Hollywood amid much fanfare last June, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials proudly predicted the number of passenger boardings on the subway would double from about 40,000 to 80,000 on an average weekday.

But the latest figures show there were just 59,075 boardings on weekdays in February, less than half the gain the MTA had been counting on. A boarding is one passenger riding a train or bus one time. A round trip is two boardings.

Indeed, the entire subway system at this point is carrying only a few thousand more weekday riders than the Metro Blue Line from Los Angeles to Long Beach. The light rail line easily beats subway ridership on weekends.

Even during the peak morning and evening commute periods on the Hollywood line, “there are always some seats,” said Val Shamardin as he rode home from downtown Los Angeles on a recent evening.

A downtown office worker who identified himself only as Zack was enjoying a book while riding the Red Line back to Hollywood. “Compared to how many should be on this thing, it’s pretty minimal,” he said, surveying the number of empty seats.

Based on the Hollywood line’s unexpectedly weak ridership, MTA officials are downgrading estimates for the entire Red Line once the last 6.3 miles of the subway opens to the San Fernando Valley in late June.

Unless the transit agency’s directors follow through on a plan to reroute Valley-to-downtown Los Angeles express buses to drop passengers at subway stations in North Hollywood and Universal City, MTA officials expect that overall ridership on the subway will be 100,000 boardings or fewer per weekday a year after the complete rail line is in full operation. The ridership prediction with the rerouted buses had been 120,000 to 125,000 weekday boardings on the subway.

In fact, MTA officials blame the failure to reach the ridership goal primarily on the MTA board’s decision not to reroute the express buses that run from the Valley to downtown Los Angeles--a move that would have fed bus riders to the subway in Hollywood.

The Valley-downtown express buses are among the top 20 ridership bus lines in MTA’s system.

“People haven’t switched from bus to rail,” said Keith Killough, the MTA’s deputy executive officer for regional transportation planning and development. “We had estimated at least 20,000 a day.

“It will affect the Red Line significantly if we don’t do the bus-rail interface that was planned, unless and until people see the Red Line is a viable alternative to driving.”

MTA officials are confident that worsening traffic congestion on the Hollywood Freeway through the Cahuenga Pass will, over time, get motorists out of their cars.

“Congestion will continue to grow and that will encourage people to take transit,” Killough said. “Some people will take a rail system that won’t take a bus.”

The MTA is planning an intensive marketing campaign to drive that point home. “You have to promote it,” said MTA spokesman Marc Littman. “You have to build the ridership.”

Using the slogan, “A New Way to Express Yourself,” the MTA will try to sell commuters on the idea that the subway will provide a very rapid, convenient and cheaper way to get from the Valley to downtown.

“You save time and money,” Littman said.

Killough points to rapidly rising gas prices as another incentive for motorists to try the subway. A monthly pass for the MTA’s buses and rail system costs $42.

The newly lowered ridership figure for the entire subway system is little more than one-third of the projection of 290,000 daily boardings used in environmental documents during the late 1980s to justify constructing the rail system.

Killough said the initial estimates--now far out of date--assumed much more intensive development in downtown Los Angeles and along the Wilshire Corridor, much higher parking rates and much steeper gasoline prices.

Brian Taylor, associate director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA, said research by various academic experts has shown that ridership forecasts tend to be highest when officials commit to building a rail project. But after a rail line is in operation it tends to carry fewer riders than originally predicted.

Taylor said that if MTA forces people to get off its express buses and ride the subway instead, “it ends up being a little bit of a shell game. . . . We would hope that the goal is not to maximize Red Line ridership over everything else.”

He said it will be interesting to see if bus riders voluntarily transfer to the subway.

“If you’ve invested a billion dollars in the system and riders prefer to stay on the bus that can be highly embarrassing,” he said.

Taylor observed that “people hate to wait” and there is “uncertainty and risk in transferring” from the bus to the subway. Most commuters are interested in reliability, comfort, convenience and the time it takes to travel, he said.

He said, “People like that feeling that they are moving”--that’s why motorists confronted with an accident-clogged freeway may exit and take surface streets.

The Bus Riders Union is fighting MTA’s plans to reroute buses to feed the subway. Organizer Deborah Orosz said the group objects to bus passengers being denied a choice.

She said that changes in bus service along Hollywood and Sunset boulevards have meant an extra transfer to the subway, overall longer trip times and longer walking distances.

“At least a third of these new passengers have been forced [to] transfer from the buses,” Orosz said. “That’s not new ridership.”

By the time the subway system is complete, the massive public works project will have cost local, state and federal taxpayers more than $4.6 billion. And that raises questions about the cost effectiveness of the mass transit system.

“Although L.A. is relatively densely developed compared to most urban areas in the U.S.,” Taylor said, “it is not dense enough to take advantage” of the high number of people that can be transported by rail systems like those in Manhattan, Tokyo or Mexico City.

Taylor said the Red Line has the “capacity to carry an enormous number” of passengers and “we’re nowhere near that.”

He said buses that use city streets and highways have enormous cost advantages over rail systems.

“Even if the Red Line were carrying many times the forecast ridership, it still wouldn’t be a competitive investment with the bus system,” Taylor said. “Only when the ridership gets extremely high, like in Manhattan,” is a subway competitive.

After riding on the system with some of his students recently, Taylor remarked that the subway is “a wonderful service, beautiful, fast and clean,” and MTA is “making an attempt to operate it in an attractive fashion.”

Those comments echo the positive reviews heard from regular riders on a recent evening.

Curtis Barber, a park maintenance worker, said he used to take the bus to work downtown, but decided to try the subway instead.

“This thing is kind of fast,” he said. “I get where I want to go in half the time.”

Anna Hemanez rides the rail line five days a week from the Beverly and Vermont station to work at a shop on Olvera Street near Union Station.

“It’s easier than the bus,” she said. “You wait a long time for the bus.”

Hemanez said she can make the trip in just 10 to 15 minutes.

Legal secretary Jim Warmoth is one of the many subway riders who take the train between the Wilshire and Vermont station near his office and Union Station to catch a Metrolink train to the suburbs, in his case, Santa Clarita.

Warmoth said he is from Chicago and is a veteran rail rider. He likes the Red Line.

“It’s a good system, but it really hasn’t caught on like it should,” he said. “A lot of Californians have trouble with the concept. They are so used to their automobiles.”

MTA officials say the true test of the subway system will come when service begins to the San Fernando Valley. The grand opening for the public is set for June 24.

One of those eagerly awaiting the start of service to North Hollywood is receptionist Terry Ramos, who lives there, but gets a ride in the morning to Hollywood, where she catches the subway downtown.

“I have usually ridden the bus, but the train is faster and better,” she said. “I always find a seat, especially in the morning. I love it.”

MTA public relations and marketing officials are laying the groundwork for opening the last leg of the subway from the station at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue through the Santa Monica Mountains to Universal City and North Hollywood.

Their goal is to get the word out--through media events locally, meetings with transportation coordinators at major businesses and contacts with travel agents, airlines, hotels and tour operators--that the subway is coming to the Valley. A major emphasis will be on Universal Studios, home to one of the region’s biggest tourist attractions, as well as CityWalk and the Universal Amphitheater.

Although tourists are expected to use the system, they are not factored into ridership estimates generated by a sophisticated computer model that looks at the area’s population, income and travel characteristics.

Through newspaper ads, billboards, and direct mail to households near the rail line, MTA plans to get the word out that the subway’s final segment will bring to nearly 60 miles the county’s rail network, providing access to destinations from Long Beach to the Valley.

Warren Morse, who heads MTA’s marketing effort, said the goal of the campaign, which may include free rides on opening weekend, is “getting people to see what the system does for them.”

He said new brochures will show would-be riders how to take Metro Rail to L.A.’s brightest spots.

One of the subway’s fans is attorney Dana Reed, chairman of the California Transportation Commission.

Reed said MTA needs to focus more on luring commuters out of their cars. As he rode the Hollywood line on a recent evening, he predicted that expansion of service to the Valley would boost rail ridership.

“When this gets to North Hollywood, I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily driving their car into L.A.,” Reed said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but it will pick up.”

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Red Line Ridership

Average weekday ridership has fallen short of the 80,000 projected boardings per day.

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Note: A boarding is one passenger riding a train once. A round trip is two boardings.

* Service opened to Hollywood in mid-month

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority

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