Combining Bus and Rail Travel With Bicycle Travel (via Whittier Narrows Recreation Area)
If you want to leave the car at home, you can also reach Rosemead/Durfee intersection easily on public transit operated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) which offers an all-day pass (good for any bus or rail line). During non-rush hours you may take your bicycle on the Green Line light rail to the Lakewood Blvd station, get on the MTA Bus Route 266 and travel north (towards Pasadena) for about 20 minutes. Alternatively, you can start at the north end of that same Route 266, at the Sierra Madre Villa Gold Line station in Pasadena, and travel south for about 25 minutes along Rosemead Blvd (NOTE: Rosemead Blvd and Lakewood Blvd are the same street, State Route 19). Most MTA buses have a rack that holds two bicycles at the front of the bus (See Reference 2 below for more information). Note that the south end of the Gold Line originates in the regional rail hub of Los Angeles Union Station, which is also the terminus for the Metro Red Line (LACMTA) subway and the various commuter rail lines operated by Amtrak and Metrolink.
To plan a nice trip downhill into the Whittier Narrows Area, start near the north (uphill) end of the trail on the Duarte-Azusa border (see Entry Points section) and travel south. The only reliable public transportation for this is Foothill Transit Bus Route 187 (a separate bus line and extra fare from MTA) which is a 25 minute ride east from the MTA Sierra Madre Villa Gold Line train station. From the entry point near Encanto Parkway and Huntington Drive it is a comfortable 12-mile (19 km) downhill ride (up and over the Santa Fe Dam) to the Rio Hondo bicycle path and Lario connector trail just south of State Route 60 (Pomona Valley Freeway). This connector trail takes you back (west) to Whittier Narrows Recreation Area. You can then catch MTA Route 266 back to the Sierra Madre Villa Gold Line Station. If you have the energy, however, you may prefer to continue through the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, go about 4 miles (6.4 km) north (slightly uphill) on the Rio Hondo Bicycle Path up to the El Monte Bus Station (LACMTA station), from where you can connect to many MTA and Foothill transit bus routes, including MTA Route 287 which will take you back to the Sierra Madre Villa Gold Line station. If your point of origin is really closer to Union Station there are many bus routes that will take you there, such as Foothill Transit Silver Streak (express bus) and Route 481 as well as MTA Bus Routes 70, 76, 370, 376, and 490.
Read more about this topic: San Gabriel River Bicycle Path
Famous quotes containing the words recreation, whittier, combining, bicycle, travel, rail and/or bus:
“Playing snooker gives you firm hands and helps to build up character. It is the ideal recreation for dedicated nuns.”
—Archbishop Luigi Barito (b. 1922)
“The dreariest spot in all the land
To Death they set apart;
With scanty grace from Nature’s hand,
And none from that of Art.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“The wilderness experiences a suddent rise of all her streams and lakes. She feels ten thousand vermin gnawing at the base of her noblest trees. Many combining drag them off, jarring over the roots of the survivors, and tumble them into the nearest stream, till, the fairest having fallen, they scamper off to ransack some new wilderness, and all is still again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things.”
—William Golding (b. 1911)
“I travel light; as light,
That is, as a man can travel who will
Still carry his body around because
Of its sentimental value.”
—Christopher Fry (b. 1907)
“In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.”
—William Congreve (1670–1729)
“Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur “Thou still unravished bride of quietness,” then I am instantly aware that I am in the presence of the literary.”
—Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)