Monrovia station

Monrovia
Location	101 W Duarte Road, Monrovia
Coordinates	34°07′57″N 118°00′08″W / 34.1326°N 118.0021°W / 34.1326; -118.0021Coordinates: 34°07′57″N 118°00′08″W / 34.1326°N 118.0021°W / 34.1326; -118.0021
Owned by	Metro
Tracks	2
Construction
Parking	350 spaces: 296 free 54 paid reserved 3 charging stations
Bicycle facilities	20 bike rack spaces 24 bike lockers[1]
Disabled access	Yes
Other information
Status	in service
History
Opened	1926
Rebuilt	March 5, 2016[2]
Services
Preceding station   Metro Rail   Following station Arcadia toward Atlantic Gold Line Duarte/City of Hope toward APU/Citrus College   Former services   Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Arcadia toward Los Angeles Main Line Pasadena Subdivision Azusa toward Chicago Dearborn Station

Monrovia is an at grade light rail station in the Los Angeles County Metro Rail system located near the intersection of Duarte Road and Myrtle Avenue in Monrovia, California. This station is served by the Metro Gold Line.^[3]

This station was constructed as part of the Gold Line Foothill Extension project Phase 2A. The station opened on March 5, 2016.^[4][2]

Station layout

Platform	Side platform, doors will open on the right
	Southbound	←  Gold Line toward Atlantic (Arcadia)
	Northbound	→  Gold Line toward APU/Citrus College (Duarte/City of Hope) →
	Side platform, doors will open on the right

Bus connections

• Metro Local: 264^[5]
• Foothill Transit: 270, 494^[6]

Neighborhood and destinations

The city of Monrovia is planning to create a transit-oriented district around near its station. The district, known as the "Station Square Transit Village Mixed Use District", will be designed to feature mixed retail, residential and office uses, with pedestrian amenities and connections. Construction of phase one of the new district started in 2017.^[7] Plans are to restore/renovate the historic 1926 Monrovia Santa Fe train station depot at the location, though the actual use of the station is not yet determined.^[8][9][10]

Vehicle maintenance facility

The Gold Line Authority and Metro have built a new Maintenance and Operations (M&O) Facility in Monrovia, east of Monrovia station. The 27-acre (11 ha) facility will service, clean and store light-rail vehicles for Metro's fleet, with a total storage capacity of 104 vehicles. The facility is located just north of the ROW between California Avenue and Shamrock Avenue. It cost $53 million to build.^[11]

History

1926 Monrovia train station, just west of the Goldline stop

Rail Mule car with passengers in Monrovia 1884. The mules are loaded on the platform as the car is ready to coast downhill on Myrtle Avenue to the Santa Fe train station

The station reuses the former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway depot, built 1926 in a Spanish colonial revival-style.^[12] The 1926 station replaced a wooden depot built on the site in 1886 by the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad used till 1972. Installed in 1887, a mule-drawn railway, a single passenger car, called the Myrtle Avenue Railroad^[13] at that time ran from the Monrovia station up Myrtle Ave to downtown Monrovia. On the way back down to the rail station, the mule was loaded onto a flatcar and downhill gravity took the cars back to the station. By the early the mule 1920s the street car system was removed. In 1906 the Pacific Electric rail car arrived in Monrovia. The PE Pasadena and Monrovia line ended in 1951. Santa Fe Middle School near the station is named after the Santa Fe Railway.^[14] The Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad built the first train tracks and station in Monrovia in 1887. The Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad was founded in 1883, by James F. Crank with the goal of bringing a rail line to San Gabriel Valley from downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad was sold on May 20, 1887 into the California Central Railway. In 1889 this was consolidated into Southern California Railway Company. On Jan. 17, 1906 Southern California Railway was sold to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and called the Pasadena Subdivision. Amtrak-Santa Fe ran the Southwest Chief and Desert Wind over this line in Monrovia, but relocated the Desert Wind to the Fullerton Line in 1986. The Santa Fe line served the San Gabriel Valley until 1994, when the 1994 Northridge earthquake weakened the bridge in Arcadia. With the completion of the Goldline in Monrovia the 1926 Monrovia train station is slated to be restored.^[15][16][17]

Santa Fe Depot was used in a number of Hollywood movies through the years. It is used two times in the 1966 movie "The Trouble with Angels", both a the start and the ending in which the girls leave St. Francis Academy.^[18]

See also

• Los Angeles County Metro Rail
• Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
• Los Angeles Metro Rail rolling stock

References

Photo gallery

• 
  California Central Railway map 1888, with Monrovia stop.
• 
  Map of the 1886 Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad, with Monrovia stop.
• 
  Map of the Gold Line, with the Foothill Extension along the top.
• 
  Inside a Goldline tram.
• 
  The original train that stopped at the current Goldline stop in 1886.
• 
  Super Chief-Southwest Chief train that stopped at the current Goldine station from 1936 to 1994.
• 
  Desert Wind train that stopped at the current Goldine station from 1979 to 1986.
• 
  Myrtle Ave 1892
• 
  Monrovia 1903, Myrtle ave Pacific Electric Rail line replaced the mule tram in Monrovia
• 
  Gold Line Kinkisharyo P3010 train.
• 
  A Siemens P2000 Gold Line train.

External links

• Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority
• Metro Project Page, Gold Line Foothill Extension
• I Will Ride - Blog of Foothill Extension supporters