Union Station
Train Stations, Trains, Metro Stations
800 N Alameda St
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Skip the sentimental stuff about art deco, who cares? And my cute anecdote about a bathroom encounter – someone who put their hand underneath my stall while I was peeing and me peeing on their hand, thinking that they were grabbing for my backpack (I deduced they were actually schizophrenic because that didn’t stop them), this station is good. It’s clean, pretty straight-forward and gets people in and out, like a station should.
I bike and don’t drive in LA. I primarily use Union Station for utilitarian purposes, step aside reviewers who reviewed this station based on one experience they had here.
- Bus from Union Station directly to LAX (or LAX to Union Station) – $7
The bus is in front of the station, there seems to be no uniform bus that takes you to and from LAX/Union Station. They accept credit card only at a kiosk next to the buses, but sometimes, if you give $7 cash to the driver, they’ll let you on. It happened to me once, whether she pocketed that money and was actually out of protocol, I have no clue.
- Access to Metro Red Line to Hollywood (or Purple Line um to a Koreatown-ish area) – $1.50
This is in the underground area, get a ticket or refill the TAP card in the semi-underground area where the machines are. There is a place there to tap your TAP card. If you want to go to Hollywood, make sure you listen to the loudspeaker, or you may end up in the Koreatownish area of Wilshire/Western. This can also take you to other downtown areas, but why not just walk to Pershing Square? It’s really close.
- Metrolink and Amtrak trains to various places – $ – $$$
There are actual people who can help you get a ticket here, on top of machines. The Metrolink is CHEAPER than Amtrak but serves mostly the vicinity of Orange County/Riverside and Greater LA. Amtrak seems to be able to take you elsewhere, should you want to go to Chicago like they did back in the 40s.
There is ABSOLUTELY nothing within the vicinity of Union Station except Little Tokyo, which is not very fun after 4 hours. You have the rest of downtown if you’re without large bulky suitcases, but if you have bulky suitcases, there is a Starbucks here.
Useful: 5 Funny: 3 Cool: 2
7/5/2012