After having done a study abroad in Barcelona, Spain, seeing how integrated public transit is to public life in a metropolitan city, I took away how amazing it was to have a way to get home in the middle of the night from all quarters on public transit. On festival days like La Merce, the metropolitan transport authority of Barcelona (Transport Metropolitans de Barcelona/TMB) will run continuously with additional service running. In 2012’s edition of La Merce, the TMB ran service for 91 hours continuously in the subway system.
In LA, it took until 2012 before late night rapid transit became something regular. Now we hear that over the Labor Day weekend, Metro will run late night service on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. It’s something that I happen to feel is a very positive thing for Los Angeles — a milestone of sorts — on our path to becoming a great city with great public activities and spaces.
Andrew Reker 