Late-night travelers beware: Planned transit agency cutbacks would end midnight light-rail and subway service in Los Angeles County beginning next month.
In a switch from previously announced cost-saving measures, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority now intends to drop the last hour of service from its Gold and Green light-rail lines, as well as the Wilshire-Western leg of the Red Line subway. The last runs on some trains would start as early as 11:30 p.m.
The MTA also plans to reduce the number of cars during off-peak hours to save money on electricity and maintenance.
The cutbacks are scheduled to begin June 26, said spokesman Ed Scannell. They do not require the approval of the MTA board, but that panel will review them this month as part of the agency's overall $2.8-billion proposed 2005-06 budget, which takes effect July 1.
John Catoe, MTA director of operations, said the reductions are needed to make up for shortfalls in state funding and to maintain the agency's bus operations, which are protected by a court order.
Altogether, he said, the proposed budget calls for a 6.1% reduction in rail service, in order to save $9.4 million.
The plan drew harsh criticism from transit advocates, who said that eliminating the last hour of service would make it harder for transit-dependent workers to get home from late-night jobs.
Riders who rely on a complicated patchwork of trains and buses could miss connections if a train is eliminated or if they miss a train because it is too crowded, said Bart Reed, director of the Transit Coalition, a Sylmar-based advocacy organization.
"Removing an hour of service takes the safety net away," Reed said. "It harms the system integrity."
Last week Catoe told reporters that the agency planned to save money by slightly increasing the time between trains on several routes. At the time, Catoe said that most riders would not notice the changes, which were supposed to amount to "a minute or two longer" between trains.
But this week, Catoe said the agency would instead cut back daily late-night service. Top administrators changed their minds over the last few days, deciding it would be better to eliminate some late-night service than rework scheduling throughout the day, Scannel said.
Losing an hour of service would mean cutting three trips in each direction on each of the three affected lines, he said. He said he "could not get" ridership figures for those late-night trains, but said there were few passengers on some.
