Metro Gold Line

It was to be a little aesthetic touch added to the Eastside extension of the Gold Line as it neared completion. But no one imagined what gremlins would be unleashed when workers added a layer of paint to the concrete at "cross-over" points where the light-rail trains could switch tracks. The coloring agent was made of iron oxide. And at intersections like 1st and Clarence streets in Boyle Heights it caused the painted concrete to conduct an electrical circuit that basically told a lie. "It was sending out a false signal that the train was there," said Dennis Mori, the Gold Line Eastside extension's project manager.

Compelled by their hankering for a breakfast of pozole, Ricardo and Rosa Solis casually strolled across the railroad tracks on First Street to a Mexican restaurant. They didn't know that around the corner, MTA and law enforcement officials had just concluded a news conference Monday exhorting people not to do exactly that. Later this summer, light rail trains will return to Boyle Heights and East L.A. for the first time in half a century.

When light rail returns to the Eastside neighborhoods of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles this summer, many Spanish-speaking residents will undoubtedly talk about taking el tren. But will commuters say they are riding la Linea de Oro? Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina will propose during an MTA board meeting today that the Eastside extension of the Gold Line be officially named la Linea de Oro, Edward R. Roybal.

A car struck a Metro Gold Line train at an intersection in Highland Park late Sunday, but no one was seriously injured, police said. The accident occurred about 8:50 p.m. near the Gold Line's Highland Park Station, at Avenue 57 and Marmion Way. Officer Mike Lopez, a police spokesman, said the driver of the car suffered scrapes and bruises and was treated at the scene. No one on the train was hurt.

A battle is looming in the depths below downtown Los Angeles as transportation planners try to find a way to smooth out the commute for thousands who take rail into the city center each day. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is studying how to link the three major rail corridors that go into the city center: the Blue Line, the Gold Line and the upcoming Exposition Line.

On the far eastern side of Pasadena, the Gold Line tracks run in the middle of the 210 Freeway and then, at Madre Street, they just stop. The old rail right of way continues up the middle of the freeway and extends across the width of the Valley, roughly paralleling the 210. Hardly any freight trains use the corridor, and it's been decades since passengers rode those rails. Public officials from across the San Gabriel Valley are hoping to change that soon.

Attendees at Thursday's board meeting of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority got a treat: a public spat between Los Angeles County Supervisors Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavsky that ended when Yaroslavsky walked out. His exit came after he had earlier described Molina's words as "selfish nonsense." At the root of the dispute were two items: rail safety and Measure R, the proposal to raise the sales tax by half a cent in Los Angeles County to pay for transit and freeway projects.

For 18 months, small chunks of concrete have been falling from the Metro Gold Line's elevated station in Chinatown and crashing onto the sidewalk several yards below. No one has been hit by the debris, but transit officials acknowledge the potential danger to pedestrians near the station. Black webbing has been hung under the Gold Line bridge from Union Station to Chinatown to catch falling rubble (it's also provided a nesting place for pigeons).

TRAVELING by subway in Los Angeles involves a kind of magical thinking. To get the most out of the city's Metro Rail system, you need an open mind but also blind optimism. It's not simply that Angeleno life has been literally mapped out around cars and that commuting by subway in these parts is viewed as an alternative lifestyle decision even more radical than driving a Prius.

A Gold Line light-rail train carrying dozens of people hit a pickup during rush hour Tuesday morning in Highland Park, injuring seven people, authorities said. The crash occurred shortly before 8 a.m. at a crossing at Avenue 55 and Marmion Way. The 35-year-old driver of the pickup truck was taken to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena with unspecified injuries, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. Suzan Young said.