dreadedmonkeygod . net

I'm trying to make plans to head down to the Staples Center on Friday afternoon to catch the NCAA basketball semis. My girlfriend and I want to head down from Simi at around noon on Friday, and return after the last game, which should be over around 9 or so.

So I headed over to Metrolink's website, and clicked on stations and maps from the top nav menu, and I get... an alphabetical list of stations. I'm not sure which lines I should be taking, so alphabetical doesn't help me. I can find simi just fine, but there's no "Staples Center" stop listed here. I need a map.

So I click on the "Interactive Map." Nearly useless. Where's the Staples Center? No matter. I can zoom in, get an idea where everything is, and... no I can't. There aren't any streets marked on this map. (And nevermind that you can only zoom in on the center of the map. Try it. Try getting a closer look at the Riverside area.)

And the printable map is no better. Major stations only, no streets, no links to schedules. Meh.

This is such a simple question: "Where do I get off within walking distance of the Staples Center?" Yet I've been to two maps and a list of stations, and I can't find the answer.

But, soldiering on, I check the Station Locator. I see a Google map! I see little red point markers! Hoorah!

Oh goddammit. Clicking on the markers gets you the street address of the station. No link to the schedule for that line, or even an indication of which Metrolink line the station serves.

I completely bail on Metrolink, and head for Google Maps. From the map of the world, I type "Staples Center", and hit "Search Maps." It finds the Staples Center first try. Right there where the 10 and 110 intersect. And right there as part of the search results is the Convention Center/Staples Center Metrolink stop, marked on the map right there at Pico and Flower. I click on the icon, and the pop-up dialog says it serves the blue line.

Ah! And there's the 7th Street Metro Center at 7th and Flower, serving the red line. And... looking back at the printable map from Metrolink, I see that the red, blue, and yellow lines (I need the yellow to get back to Simi) all meet at Union Station.

Okay, so now I'm in business. I just need schedules for the red, blue and yellow lines for this friday.

So, back to Metrolink I go. I click on Schedules, and get... a listing of schedules by line. Except, they're not using "red", "yellow", or "blue", it's "91 Line", "Antelope Valley Line", etc. No colors.

Back to the printable map, which provides a key. Ah!

• RED: San Bernardino Line
• BLUE: Riverside Line
• YELLOW: Ventura County Line

Now that I know that, I can get what I need.

Let's check that I can get from Simi to Staples starting at noon on Friday.

Wow. The Riverside Line is useless. It heads south from Union Station at 12:45pm, 1:15pm and then there's nothing until 4:15pm. If the yellow line gets me there by 12:45, I'm cool. Otherwise, the red line had better have something.

As it turns out, the yellow line doesn't even leave Simi until 2:42pm, and takes an hour to get to Union station, whereupon I'd have to wait half an hour to catch the blue line. It's quicker to walk the seven blocks from Union to the Staples Center.

But I'm certainly not waiting until 2:42pm to head out from Simi.

Whups. Just realized: the Riverside line isn't blue, it's purple. Blue is the 91 line. Lemme check the 91 line schedule...

(Now, let's be clear: yes, I was confused because the Google map I looked at used a different shade of blue than the Metrolink site. On the map, there is clearly a difference between the "blue" and "purple" colors. But, the Metrolink site never actually names the colors. So if I tell a friend (or a tourist) "Take the blue line," they may very well match "blue" to the purple on the Metrolink maps. Not good. This is really dumb: don't have blue and purple on the same map.)

Anyway, the schedule for the blue line (AKA: 91 Line) is pretty horrible too: nothing heading south from Union Station until 3:20pm.

So, basically, we're driving. There's a Metrolink station a five-minute walk from my apartment in Simi, and another across the street from the Staples center, and we're heading through the nastiest traffic snarl in the world, and the Los Angeles rail system is still worse than driving. (And yes, I also checked the Rail 2 Rail options.)

I weep for my city. In London, or New York, this would be as simple as "Everything runs every ten minutes, so I just take the yellow line to the blue line, and we're there."