Talk:Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

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Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: January 11, 2008

Contents 1 Major cleanup needed 2 Current organziation of article 3 Truce? 4 cleanup-date tag 5 So I did it 6 Pictures 7 Reorganization 8 Citing references 9 Governance Council reversion 10 APTA Award 11 Split? 12 Metro Design Studio 13 Old RTD Page 14 Fleet 15 New News - someone pls add 16 Can we get there from here? 17 Bus Colours 18 Criticism Section Needed 19 NPOV? 20 GA review

[edit] Major cleanup needed

I deleted large swaths of the history section, because most of it is already repeated in the other five articlesa about the Metro Rail. However, I don't know how long of a pargraph is needed to cover the basics of the history of the Metro Rail. Second, the buses really need some history. We see a whole bunch of stats rambled off - greenest fleet ever and all that - but WHEN did they switch and WHY did they switch? And so forth. We really need some info on that area. And then there's the organization - as the dividers stand now, they are identical and can be quite confusing. Hbdragon88 06:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks like I've been overruled on the history section, but the bus section is still in need of some history. Hbdragon88 04:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

All of a sudden, there is a lot of pictures in the page. Not only are they cluttered, but they are from the MTA. I was told that photos from the Metro website are disallowed on Wikipedia. Pacific Coast Highway|^{Spam me!} 10 June 2008

thanks for shrinking them down a bit, it looks better. In response to your concern about the pictures 1. The pictures are for promotional use which makes them fair game according to the wikipedia image uploading copyright guidelines. Note the copyright tag that accompanies them. 2. Additionally, They came from this page which gives permission to publish them. http://www.metro.net/news_info/gallery.htm "You can then copy the image for possible publication if you wish. Thanks for visiting the Pressroom Photo Gallery and come back often as new photos are displayed." I think wikipedia falls within the spirit of this statement 3. The photos illustrate several important things in relation to the text. The stylings of the Compo Bus, The colors of the Rapid, Local and Express buses as well as the unusal physical characteristics of the sixty foot Metro Liner. I moved the logo down to where the text talks about the the logo so the reader can glance at the logo as they read about it and how it came into being. Lastly, I'm not sure why the photo of the interior subway shot is a candidate for deletion? I think for a system that has over 70 miles of rail at least one rail shot is appropriate, specially since much of the text is about rail. --SAUNDERS 01:02, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Current organziation of article

This article is about the authority not the history of indivisual lines. For History of individual lines one can refer to those independent articles.

It is not necessarily to devide the history of MTA up into further categories. This only makes the readability of the article more difficult as the flow is heavily disrupted. For example the history as it now appears starts in 2004, eleven years after the foundation of the twelve year old authority then it jumps back to 1990, then forward to 2000, then back again to 1993, 1994, 1999 and then once again back to 1994.... It's very difficult to get a quick understanding of how the order these the lines came into operation.

The division also makes the article lopsided as the bus history is obviously less developed then rail.

Beyond the structure the article now several run on sentences and misspellings.

I am hesitant to revert back to the Nov. 12 edit because I have already once reverted HBdragon's edits when he/she deleted swaths of information several weeks ago. It is my hope that someone else will revert or hbdragon him/her self will consider my comments and revert the article him or herself

Thanks

--SAUNDERS 18:16, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Truce?

It is obvious that you both agree that the article needs major work. Can we call a truce and quit doing huge chunks of edits and reversions of each other? Can both of you discuss what you think the major problems are with the article, and then provide some detail on what you think needs to be done? ^BlankVerse 20:07, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The question is I don't know what needs to be done. I was a little bold in deleting large swaths, which was overruled, so I instead worked within the article itself, wikifying links and trying to make it more structured. I found the "History" section to be a laundry list of dates, so I thought that dividing it up by line would flow a little better than jumping around from Blue (1990) to Red (1993) to the BRU truce (1994?) to Red (1994) to Green (1995) and then back to Red (1999/2000); there is disagreement that I didn't think would be an issue. Hbdragon88 20:31, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Since the article is about the LACMTA, I think that a strait timeline approach is probably the best, with this article covering only the major events and controversies, and all of the details about each line relagated to the individual articles. It helps to understand the history of the LACMTA to know that they were looking for funding for W, while planning X, and building Y, while finishing up on Z.

What is missing, IMHO, is more info on the bus part of the LACMTA. For that, you might have to tap the Busriders Union website, and maybe some of the old stories at the LA Weekly. ^BlankVerse 13:37, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I realigned the page more to the year-by-year format, although it now reads a lot more choppily and list-like. I still think that the page is better served by separating the Metro Rail and the Controvery section. Hbdragon88 22:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

As you can tell from the page history and the expanded length of the article I pretty much spent the whole day working on the article. I did a lot researching on bus history via the Metro website which both of you said needed more attention. I also filled out a little more of the back history on rail, which I got from the great LA Weekly article on the history of the Red Line. Lastly, I put in some promotional pictures of L.A. buses and color scheme. Still need one good shot of the L.A. subway for balance and because I like pictures :*) It would be nice to find a little more information on the 4 transit strikes and one near transit strike in the agencies relatively short history. Namely which months and reasons. Cheers mates,--SAUNDERS 05:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I personally think that the article is much easier to read, and it is much easier to understand the history of the LACMTA in User:SSAUNDERS new version. ^BlankVerse 20:53, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm back. Since my edits have resulted in two minor wars, I've decided to make any major changes into a temp page and propose them here before making any more drastic edits to the main article itself. Here in this temp page I again propose dividing up the bus and rail sections and giving mroe descriptive headers to each important part of the Metro Rail. My rationale behind it is that the History section is rather hard to read, with all the information crammed together like that; dividing it up into more sections would be better. I have attempted to retain the year-by-year dating that SAUNDERS has believes is better while still trying to make sense in sections. Feel free to shoot it down if it's totally stupid. Hbdragon88 08:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, although where to we put some of the non transit stuff? Like the history of the Freeway Service Patrol, highway projects, etc. Calwatch 00:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] cleanup-date tag

User:Pacific Coast Highway added the {{cleanup-date}} tag to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. I left a message on his talk page saying that he need to join the discussion on this talk page describing what he thinks needs to be done to improve it. In my own opinion, I think that article has already been greatly improved over the last few days by User:SAUNDERS. If he does not respond, I will delete the cleanup template.

As for the transit strikes, does the bus drivers union have a website? Also, there probably should be a little more info on the Bus Riders Union (maybe they even deserve their own article). ^BlankVerse 20:48, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I removed the cleanup tag, mainly because the pictures cluttered up the page. As to those, I uploaded the very same photo, and was met with this response. To that accord, I listed those pictures on Ifd.Pacific Coast Highway|^{Spam me!}

[edit] So I did it

I messaged BlankVerse about a proposed temp page (listed above). BlankVerse said that it was too decisive. So I altered it, reintergrating the bus history into the rail history. Then I left notes on SAUNDERS's and BlankVerse's user pages to request more inquires. It has been a few days now (12 for SAUNDERS, 4 for BlankVerse). I've rolled my changes in there. - Hbdragon88 03:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks pretty good, but as usual, everybody feels they need to clean up, myself included. I do support more commas for extra readability, instead of the short clipped unpunctuated sentences that some prefer. Commas are your friend, and are not evil. Calwatch 08:43, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

comma, comma, comma, comedian....Boy George Thinking about things to add....How about a link to Henry Huntington, since most of the rail routes follow old red car right of ways. How about a link to GM, since they fundamentally altered transit in Los Angeles for 40 years. I think there is way too much "related" stuff that doesn't help give focus to the central theme which should be what is Metro and what does it provide. The off topic stuff is interesting, but should be in a different sub-catagory Gohiking 16:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

I would like to avoid using Image:Los_angeles_bus_colors.jpg Image:Bus_los_angeles_local.jpg if at all possible. So far I have managed to catch a somewhat decent picture of the Metro Express (blue) bus. I'll upload it soon. Can someone take a take a picture of the Metro Local and Metro Rapid ones so we can delete the copyrighted ones? - Hbdragon88 05:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

• Uploaded. Can be found at Image:MetroExpress.jpg - Hbdragon88 05:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
• Okay cool. User Morven has uploaded Image:Metro Local bus.jpg. The Metro Local bus has been tagged for deletion. I'm heading into LA tomorrow, so I'll see if I can get a good Metro Rapid one. Hbdragon88 03:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• I figured that having Image:LACMTA_Rapid_Bus.jpg was good enough to illustrate the article; that, with the two free Express and Local imgaes, makes the Image:Los_angeles_bus_colors.jpg obselete. Now - all is left is the Rapid image. I don't commute there anymore, so could someone possibly grab a picture? Hbdragon88 21:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
• Woohoo! Someone uploaded Image:720_Metro_Rapid.jpg, which replaces the last fair use bus image. Hbdragon88 05:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization

I reordered the article so that the enormous History section appears after the basic information about the organization and its services. I know that other transportation authority articles seem to first discuss the history, but no article has a history section THIS long. I felt it really detracted from the article, although the information is very important. Instead of shortening the history section, I simply moved it down. If people are unhappy about this, please feel free to revert my reorganization. I feel it's a much easier read this way, but I'm sure I don't speak for 100% of the readers here. --SameerKhan 10:49, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citing references

I went through about half of this article and cited a lot of statements. I need someone to format these references correctly and add more to the rest of the article. Stuff like Julian Burke, the BRU agreement, Day Pass, naming change, and others need to be cited. I'd like to work this up to a possible WP:FA status. Can we do it? - Hbdragon88 05:51, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Governance Council reversion

Once again, we have an anon reverting my comments about the Governance Council. My source is the California State Auditor, which says, to wit:

One issue identified by the MTA in its planning phase for sector implementation was a need for community input. However, weaknesses in its methods of advertising governance council meetings could cause it to miss opportunities to use these meetings effectively as a means of improving community input into bus operations and tailoring services to local needs. For example, the MTA occasionally advertises monthly governance council meetings via "Metro Briefs" in local newspapers. However, MTA staff acknowledged that the MTA does not advertise the governance council meetings in these print advertisements on a monthly basis, making it difficult for the public to know how to find out when a council meeting is about to occur. Moreover, the MTA does not provide links to its monthly governance council meeting schedules on its Web pages for service sectors or for bus routes. Currently, the only avenue MTA bus riders have for determining the sector responsible for a given route is through a toll-free number for customer service. Callers to this number must go through several steps to reach MTA staff members who can provide this information. Further, the MTA does not publish the fact that bus riders can get sector-related information through this number.

Continuing to change the sentence to remove criticism of the GC's is POV and will be dealt with reversion. Thanks. Calwatch 03:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] APTA Award

I added information on Metro's APTA award to the history section, I put it at the top because it works nicely with the brief history of Metro. Although, it seems a little out of place in the whole article so suggestions of where it would be better placed would be appreciated. RickyCourtney 05:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I moved it to the bottom because the history is arranged chrologically - starting fromthe formating of the SCRTD and LATAC in the 1960s and 1970s down to the Expo Line in 2005. Or it could be placed at the very top before the first header, but I think the history is good for now. Hbdragon88 20:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split?

This article is currently 54KB long. Curious to know how we can trim thsi down. Many long articles have a short history in a "History" header with an in-depth article forked off from the main one. I think we shoudl do this here, but I wanted to get some other opinions. Hbdragon88 22:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Do it Jorobeq 20:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Metro Design Studio

I think as a part of the Wikipedia pages of Metro we should include information on the "Metro Design Studio" they were recently featured in Communicaton Arts, the first time a transportation agency has ever been featured in it. The studio also creates the agencys quarterly magazene. So any feedback where it might work the best on this page? RickyCourtney 17:48, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old RTD Page

Back when I lived in California, circa 1978, the Los Angeles-based bus system was known as "RTD". There is a lot of history there, and it might be better to use the existing Southern California Rapid Transit District (which currently is a redirect to this article) and have the history of the agency there. RTD's service changes (they went from a series of different numbers to a unified numbering system), the time they had a special subsidy back around 1974 or so and bus service anywhere for 25c on weekdays and 10c on sundays. The constant problems with service, etc. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) 03:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

If you can expand on the RTD's history, be bold and go for it [1]! The article before was a one-pargraph stub that sipmly summariezed what this current page had. Hbdragon88 06:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fleet

• Added info about rail fleet. Please check numbers... there is dispute on the web about the specific numbers... but the numbers I put should be close.
• I propose to split the fleet section into a new article, "Fleet of the LACMTA."

Comments? Concerns? Suggestions?
RickyCourtney 01:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I see that there are several areas where people are suggesting splits.

Regarding "History_of_the_Metro", I am against it because it really belongs here, and instead separate the LACTC, RTD, and other predecessor agencies instead, using a "before - Agency - after" timeline format instead.

I am against splitting off the "Fleet of the LACMTA", and I have a bigger objection to this section primarily because Wikipedia doesn't need to know every bus in the fleet (see WP:NOT#IINFO) although a summary of the type of fleet would be fine. I appreciate the people who have maintained the list, but I think it's too much info to be on the wiki page. If there was a "Wiki Transit" project, I would have no problem with it going there. Gohiking 19:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

RickyCourtney, Thanks for moving the fleet off the main page. Just that change alone makes the page flow much better. Sorry about the mess up yesterday with the edit, usually Wikipedia will notifies when there was another edit in between your edits, but it didn't happen yesterday. Gohiking 19:55, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New News - someone pls add

not sure where it would go, but "In boost to LA subway extension, House lifts tunneling ban" -- this clears the way for construction of the red line along Wilshire to Santa Monica

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/16644770.htm Revolute 23:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Remember that we are not Wikinews, and also remember that the same bill passed the house last year, but never went further. I'd wait until the Senate also passes it and then President Bush signs the bill, before I would go and amend anyplace on the Wikipedia where the tunneling ban is mentioned [2]. BlankVerse 09:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can we get there from here?

Wikipedia's articles on transit in Los Angeles are almost as confusing as the reality of transit in Los Angeles. For example, the Pacific Electric Railway article contains big chunks of historic stuff that I'd say belong either here or in the Southern California Rapid Transit District article. While the P.E. article seems overlong, the Los Angeles Railway article is still fairly stubby. Both contain some inaccuracies. Also, I've just created a stub for Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, the pre-SCRTD post-Metropolitan Coach Lines agency which people often conflate with the current LACMTA. There's also the Los Angeles County Metro Rail article, which has some overlaps with other articles. I'm not sure if some of these articles ought to be merged, or split apart and rearranged, or what, but some serious re-organization is surely in order. Also, for anyone interested, in both the new MTA stub and in the P.E. article I've linked a PDF from the Huntington Library which covers the history of L.A. transit plans from 1951 until sometime after 2001. It's worth looking at, and clears up some of the fuzzy details about the subject. Whyaduck 06:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bus Colours

I'm an Australian tourist that's been in Venice/Santa Monica in Los Angeles today (10 May 2007). I took photos of Orange, Green, Blue, and Red buses, all seemingly on non-express roads.

This article states that there are 3 colours of buses (red, blue, and orange), but the Blue bus (which should be an "Express" according to the article) was going along Main St (a minor road).

Could someone perhaps look into the description for the bus service and address the current colour scheme for the buses? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.15.1.228 (talk) 06:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

I believe the LACMTA may substitute colors when none are available. For instance, I've seen Metro Express routes being handled by Metro Rapid red buses and the old Metro Local paint scheme buses. hbdragon88 06:30, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Another possibility is that our Australian tourist may have mistaken a Big Blue Bus for a LACMTA bus. The Big Blue Buses tend to outnumber LACMTA buses in the area between Venice, Brentwood, Santa Monica, and Westwood. --Coolcaesar 07:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

A agree... I think I know the area he is talking about... my guess is that the orange and red buses were Metro Local and Rapid, while the blue (periwinkle) buses were probably a bus from Big Blue Bus, and the only transit agency to my knowledge in the LA area the runs green colored buses is Culver CityBus, which also serves near the Santa Monica Area. RickyCourtney 17:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism Section Needed

Considering all of the controversy over the transit system in LA, this article gives a surprisingly rosy picture of things. Might we add a section on criticism of the system, its policies, and its governance? There are many well-documented sources of criticism that could be used.aluxeterna 17:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Criticism is sprinkled throughout the article, both in the 1998 measure, the multiple strikes, and other situations. If there is something that we have grossly missed, by all means please edit it in. However, I believe that criticism is better spread throughout the article instead of ine one big section. hbdragon88 23:57, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV?

Large swaths of this article, particularly the sections about rail transit planning, appear to use heavily biased language. This really does need to be dealt with to return the article to a more neutral tone. It's annoying that I have to write this as I'm a huge fan of rapid transit and a big supporter of the L.A. metro, but this is an encyclopedic article and is really needs to have the personal opinions of the author removed from the content. 134.50.7.201 01:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

--I've done a lot of work to clean up this article and I think it has valid criticisms. There are small areas with biased language, but if you want to edit it, then make sure the facts stay there and don't be biased for Los Angeles. Phattonez 20:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you be more specific in your concerns? What about the article that annoys you? hbdragon88 22:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

I looked over this article and decided to quick fail the article due to a couple of points 1.) External links in article when the information should be cited, 2.) Colors (distracting, and I think people know the colors of the rainbow). This is also against WP:MOS. 3.) Some original research in paragraph structure (no cites) 4.) Cites are not properly formatted according to WP:CITE. 5.) Trivia section. You are welcome to get a second opinion or have the article re-assessed once improved to GA-quality.miranda 10:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The GAN was a procedural one as someone inserted the WP LA template with a GA-class rating and another user removed it. I am well aware that there are a number of holes (stuff that's been around for ages but hasn't been cited), and if I ever get around to it I will nominate the article myself. hbdragon88 (talk) 22:02, 11 January 2008 (UTC)