Train Travel

The Fugliest Motel in Los Angeles? Best Western Royal Palace, 2528 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A.

Road-weary tourists and business travelers know it's hard to find an affordable place to get some shut-eye in this town, which is why visitors to the Best Western Plus "Royal Palace" Inn & Suites are fair to judge the rooms here as they are: fine, quiet enough and clean enough, for the low price tag ... More >>

Measure J Transit Tax Election Results: Mayor Villaraigosa's $45 Billion For Rail Falling Just Short of 2/3 Vote

By Hillel AronSee also: Measure J Transit Tax -- Too Soon? Update: Los Angeles County voters rejected Measure J, which needed 66.7% to pass, by two percentage points, 64.72 to 35.28. See next page for more. Things are not looking good for Measure J. With 33% of precincts reporting, the proposal is ... More >>

Measure J Transit Tax -- Too Soon?

'Temporary' hike would last to 2068, after most current voters are dead

Village Trailer Park Closure Decision Postponed

See also: A Santa Monica Trailer Park -- and Its Senior Residents -- Face Off With Fancy New Development. After hearing from an estimated 70 members of the public during a grueling six hour meeting, the Santa Monica City Council adjourned Tuesday night without any kind of resolution on the contenti ... More >>

California Bullet Train to Nowhere Gets $6 Billion Via State Lawmakers

California's bullet train dreams have had a nightmare of a year, including lagging public support and a need for billions in a bad economy. But supporters eked out a dreamy victory today: The state Senate approved an $8 billion package to fund the first leg of the train (from nowhere to nowhere):

Crafted, the $8 Million Crafts Market That Will Be the Biggest in the U.S., Opens in San Pedro

Collapsible Christmas trees, Barbie dolls and iPads -- a tidal wave of goods mass-produced overseas hits the Port of Los Angeles every day. Moving this bounty from ship to shore is the lifeblood of San Pedro. It may seem odd then, that the latest attraction at the port is a humungous marketplace of ... More >>

DesertXpress: High-Speed Train Will Run From Vegas to Palmdale, Serve Booze

A high-speed rail from SoCal to Vegas is every party girl and businessman's dream, obviously. But up until now, DesertXpress Enterprises' proposed route, nicknamed the "bridge to nowhere," has been laughable. That's because it ended in freaking Victorville -- a creepy desert trucker-stop of a city ... More >>

Train Gets A New Pop Music-Inspired Wine Label

Taking the train to some fabulous coastal getaway sounds so fantastically retro, a high speed getaway to a 1950s-era bungalow -- at least least until you get to those $100-a-pop Union Station ticket prices. Cheap summer train trip option #2: Pick up a few bottles of the band Train's recently release ... More >>

I Wish Review

Hirokazu Koreeda's latest

How to Enjoy L.A. Arts and Culture Without a Car

When someone asks me if they have to rent a car when visiting L.A., I really, really, really, really want to say no. Of course you can experience L.A. without a car. I do it every day. But for me to explain all the quirks of navigating our transit-nascent city to a wide-eyed visitor, I'd pretty much ... More >>

California's $100B Bullet Train 'Not Feasible' at This Time, Says Peer Review Group for the High-Speed Rail (Surprise, Surprise)

The Bullet Train: Even more expensive a pipe dream than the L.A. mayor's "Subway to the Sea."​How many more warnings will it take for starry-eyed California politicians to realize the voter-approved $100 billion Bullet Train is a budget disaster waiting to implode? On top of skepticism from t ... More >>

Bullet Train Fantasy or Fiscal Nightmare? Californians Turn Against $100 Billion High-Speed Rail Plan

A bullet train cruises past Mount Fuji in Japan.​We had our doubts about this multi-billion, high-speed-rail utopia that would plow through homes, farmland and towns. Now you do too. Don't get us wrong. Prove we need it and we're there. But with the cost of a ticket doubling to an estimated t ... More >>

$100 Billion Bullet Train

Democrats fray as cost skyrockets, feds bail, and Amtrak starts to look good

The Phenomenal Finish to 2011 L.A. Beer Week: Kern River Brewing Company at Far Bar L.A.B.W. Closing Festival at Union Station

Cambria GriffithOfficial 2011 L.A. Beer Week Souvenir Glass​ The spectacular closing weekend of the 2011 L.A. Beer Week features Far Bar hosting gold-medal winning Kern River Brewing Saturday, followed by the L.A. Beer Week Closing Festival featuring over 70 brewers at historic Union Station o ... More >>

Total Bummer: Annual Amtrak Mooning in Laguna Beach Suffers from Crackdown (With Photos, NSFW)

Paul T. BradleyTake THAT, British archers, er, Amtrak...​ There's an annual Orange County wildlife spectacle rife with enough tradition, mystery, and lore to intrigue even the most seasoned of naturalists. Swallows be damned, we're actually talking about the Annual Mooning of the Amtrak in La ... More >>

Beats, Rhymes, and Strife: How Michael Rapaport Learned the Hard Way Why A Tribe Called Quest Just Can't Get Along

Kevin ScanlonMichael Rapaport with his lone ATCQ supporter, Phife Dawg​Michael Rapaport answers the door to his Hancock Park house with a vague look of panic on his familiar, strawberry-blond mop-topped face. As he struggles to restrain two massive dogs so I can make my way into his home, I no ... More >>

Is the Essential Character of L.A.'s Landmark Union Station in Some Kind of Danger?

Union Station in downtown Los Angeles​Nothing is certain yet, but we can already see a major brouhaha brewing over the future plans for Union Station if it's sold to the California High-Speed Rail Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The much-beloved Union Station is actu ... More >>

California's $43 Billion Bullet Train Will Go To ... Bakersfield?

A bullet train, German-style.​The Weekly's Jill Stewart noted this week that California's planned high-speed rail line's "route to nowhere" now has a route to ... somewhere -- but not here, or San Francisco, or San Diego, or pretty much anywhere a vast majority of California's population resid ... More >>

California Bullet Train To Los Angeles Via Bakersfield: Real Or A $43 Billion Mirage?

Money is so tight, the new leg doesn't actually go into Bakersfield as pictured.​The California High-Speed Rail Authority, ridiculed for its secrecy, mismanagement, conflicts of interest and crazy overspending -- and for choosing as the California bullet train's first leg a "route to nowhere" ... More >>

Three Victims, Possibly Taggers, Dead After Amtrak Train Hits Them In Commerce

Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner.​Updated throughout. Third man confirmed dead. First posted at 11:02 p.m. Monday. Three males were dead after an Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train struck them in Commerce Monday night, according to reports. The pair might have been suspected taggers, and the area wher ... More >>

Barbara Boxer's October Surprise: A $900-Million Federal Gift For High-Speed Rail From L.A. To San Francisco

A bullet train from L.A. to San Francisco? Feds just put a $900 million down payment on it.​Is California going off the rails on this crazy train? There's crazy money being poured into a high-speed rail line that would connect L.A. to San Francisco, and a big announcement that Washington has f ... More >>

Book Review: What I Eat: Around The World In 80 Diets (Hardly That Kind of Diet Book)

​What I Eat: Around The World In 80 Diets is the sort of coffee table book you have to remove before the guests come over -- at least if you want them to leave after that final bottle of Pinot has been polished off. The latest photo-journalism book from husband-wife authors Peter Menzel and Fa ... More >>

Only About 1 In 100 Metro Employees Ride MTA Trains And Buses

​The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority has put millions -- billions if you count the build-'em-and-they'll-come strategy of subway and light rail -- into trying to get folks out of their cars and into trains and buses. Metro, as it's known, has been trying to get Angelenos to " ... More >>

Does Rail Have a Future?

Mayor Villaraigosa Complains About Not Being Able To Tax Residents More

​Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa decried the hurdles involved in raising city taxes during a discussion about the sources of the city's huge deficit, which will grow to nearly $700 million in July. In an interview with National Public Radio published over the weekend, the two-thirds vo ... More >>

L.A. Light Rail? Or Keep Your Car?

Villaraigosa's rush aside, the sales-tax increase won't pay off for decades

Riled Over California's High-Speed Rail

It sounded like such a good idea. But the highly disruptive routes anger many

I'll Be Working on the Railroad: California's Bullet Train Gets on Track

The on-again, off-again bullet train connecting San Diego to Sacramento and San Francisco is on again -- for now. Today the state of California formally applied for $4.7 billion in federal stimulus money to construct the line in several segments. (The two-pronged route roughly resembles the constell ... More >>

Running Joke: I Don’t Have a Car in L.A.

Somers Town: Truth in Advertising

Shane Meadows’ latest gets at the heart of working-class London

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

School Board to Cut $1.6B The LAUSD has voted to make deep cuts in a three-year budget, almost guaranteeing further layoffs and the elimination of summer school. L.A. TimesHollywood Denies Murder Former pot dealer and fugitive Jesse James Hollywood told a Santa Barbara jury he did not order the murd ... More >>

What's My (MTA) Line? A Tale of Two Names

L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina's proposal to christen the stretch of the Gold Line that cuts through the mostly Latino Eastside  "Linea de Oro" met with the reality of all cultural politics in this city and emerged with a cumbersome, but bilingual moniker. The Metropolitan Transportation ... More >>

Rider on the Storm: The Best and Worst of L.A. Buses, Subways and Light Rail

Scenic journeys to hell, on wheels

Proposition R: The Most Expensive

Suburbanites hold the cards in approving a countywide sales-tax increase for mass transit

Tonight in LA: Santogold on Hollywood Boulevard at 6 p.m.

Hey, if you're near a train station and feel like doing a little jerk-dancing after work, hop on down to the Central Courtyard at Hollywood & Highland and see a free show by Brooklyn's Santogold. Her breakout performance at this year's Coachella was as funky as it was fun, and we can't get enough of ... More >>

Rolling on the Coachella Express to Indio

On the Coachella Express, there are a few distinct types of people: the media, which was invited to document the maiden voyage of the Amtrak line that departed LA's Union Station Thursday afternoon, and who wouldn't leave the kids alone. Local LA news crews were doing their two-minute Coachella ... More >>

Best Escape From L.A.

The Amtrak Pacific Surfliner

The 20 Best L.A. Italian Restaurants

Winter Restaurants 2007 – The Italian moment and four classic delis

Final Destination

Snakebites

Mooning America

Killing Time on the Ghetto Blue

The nation's busiest- and deadliest - light rail line

Boris Kirov, Soviet Superhero

Episode #6: "The Triumph of Captain Liberty"

Letters

Letters

Almost Aboard

Eastside L.A. ponders its transit future

Two Trains Running

Riding the rails in Fillmore

Poetry in Locomotion

The Arroyo Special

The Blue Line is a damned good idea — that costs too damned much

Dig No More

But is this anyway to kill a subway?