At the end of August, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials cut rush-hour service on the Expo Line, increasing the wait time between trains from six minutes to eight minutes. The change eliminated two trains per hour during peak periods on the line, which carries 60,000 daily riders between downtown and Santa Monica.
Since the cuts, complaints about hot, crowded, smelly commutes have flooded social media. Some trains have been so crammed that passengers with bicycles, wheelchairs and strollers have been stranded on platforms. Commuters squished into one another wear backpacks, earbuds and thousand-yard stares.
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Although the cuts did save money, they were intended to make the line run more smoothly, said Metro senior executive officer Conan Cheung.
“We budget what we need to run,” Cheung said. If trains run slightly less often, a breakdown or a delayed train is less likely to cause cascading delays on the line, he said.
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Metro also faces operational challenges along the street-level portion of the Expo Line through Exposition Park, where trains must wait at traffic lights. Because the signals run on 120-second cycles, Metro trains move fastest through the area if they run at even-numbered intervals of six minutes, eight minutes or 10 minutes, Cheung said.
The most frequent service Metro could operate on the Expo Line is a three-car train every five minutes during rush hour, he said, but the signal timing precludes that.
