Arcadia (Los Angeles Metro station)

Arcadia
 Gold Line 
Location 200 N First Avenue, Arcadia
Coordinates 34°08′33″N 118°01′44″W / 34.1425°N 118.0288°W
Construction
Parking 300 spaces
Bicycle facilities TBD
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Status near completion
History
Opened c. 1911
Closed 1954
Rebuilt 2015 (anticipated)
Services
Preceding station   Metro Rail   Following station
toward Atlantic
Gold Line
  Former services  
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe
Santa Anita
toward Los Angeles
Main Line

Arcadia Station is a near completed at-grade light rail station in the Los Angeles County Metro Rail system located at the intersection of 1st Avenue and Santa Clara Street in Arcadia, California. When it re-opens, this station will be served by the Metro Gold Line.[1]

This station is currently approved for design/construction as part of the Gold Line Foothill Extension project Phase 2A. It is expected to open in 2015.[2]

A overpass bridge was constructed over Santa Anita Ave, as so the Gold Line rail should not slow traffic on the Santa Anita double drive.

In Arcadia, in the past, there was a steel railroad bridge that transitioned the old Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in between the I-210 to street grade. This bridge, located between Bladwin and Santa Anita, was removed by Caltrans, which deemed the structure unsafe following the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The Phase 2A project constructed a new, fully functioning light rail bridge, known as the "Iconic Freeway Structure" (IFS), as the bridge's replacement. The bridge, designed by Minnesota artist Andrew Leicester, was unveiled in December 2012. Leicester's design was chosen from 17 others in a competitive process. The artist worked with L.A. design consultant AECOM as well as the bridge's builder, Skanska USA, on the final design and construction. The woven-basket look of the bridge's support columns emulate the famed woven baskets of the native Chumash people of the San Gabriel Valley while the underbelly of the bridge is supposed to evoke a Western diamondback rattlesnake.[3]

Former service

Arcadia was not one of the original stops on the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad. For most of the 20th century, the station comprised a Queen Anne-style passenger depot on 1st Street and a plain freight depot on Santa Anita Avenue. The passenger depot was decommissioned in the 1950s, and relocated in the 1970s to the Fairplex.

In the late 20th century, Arcadia Station was used as a testing ground for a number of special or experimental passenger rail services. After the Pasadena Subdivision was decommissioned in 1994, Arcadia became the destination for Metrolink's Rose Bowl Train on New Year's Day. In 1996, a Sprinter was run from Arcadia to Monrovia. For an unknown period of time, the station was the home of a private railcar called the Pine Bluff until its purchase in the mid-2000s.

Future Metro Rail service

Gold Line Foothill Extension service to this station is anticipated to begin in 2015.

References

  1. ↑ foothillgoldline.org, Pasadena to Azusa
  2. ↑ http://www.metro.net/projects/foothill-extension/
  3. ↑ David Ng (December 12, 2012), Artist to unveil Metro Gold Line bridge design in Arcadia Los Angeles Times.

External links