Harbor Gateway Transit Center, formerly Artesia Transit Center, is a large

bus station A bus station, bus depot, or bus interchange is a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can st ...

at the southern end of the

Harbor Transitway The Harbor Transitway (also known as the I-110 Express Lanes) is a shared-use express bus corridor (known as a busway or transitway) and High occupancy toll lane, high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes running in the median (road), median of Intersta ...

that serves as a

transport hub A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or between mode of transport, transport modes. Public transport hubs include train station, railway stations, metro station, rapid transit stations, bus ...

(known locally as a transit center) for the South Bay region of

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

including the

Harbor Gateway The Harbor Gateway, sometimes informally known as the L.A. Strip due to its shape, is a in the South Bay and Los Angeles Harbor Region, in the southern part of the City of Los Angeles. The neighborhood is narrow and long, running along a nor ...

neighborhood of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and cities of Carson, Gardena, and Torrance. The station consists of one large

island platform An island platform (also center platform (American English) or centre platform (British English)) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway inte ...

with 12

bus bay A bus turnout, bus pullout, bus bay, bus lay-by (UK), or off-line bus stop is a designated spot on the side of a road where buses or trams may pull out of the flow of traffic to pick up and drop off passengers. It is often indented into the sid ...

s and a 980 space

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, Rail transport, r ...

parking lot located in the southwest corner of Interstate 110 (Harbor Freeway) and

California State Route 91 State Route 91 (SR 91, locally referred to as the 91) is a major east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California that serves several regions of the Greater Los Angeles urban area. A freeway throughout its entire length, it offici ...

(Gardena Freeway). The station is one of the stops on J Line, a bus rapid transit route which runs between El Monte,

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

and San Pedro as part of the Metro Busway system. J Line buses serve the station twenty-four hours a day; the

headway Headway is the distance or duration between vehicles in a transit system. The ''minimum headway'' is the shortest such distance or time achievable by a system without a reduction in the speed of vehicles. The precise definition varies depending on ...

between buses is about four minutes during peak periods, with less frequent service at other times. The Harbor Transitway also serves as a hub for

Metro Local The Los Angeles Metro Bus is the transit bus service in Los Angeles County, California, operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). Metro Bus operates in the Los Angeles Basin, the San Fernando Valley, and th ...

, Metro Express,

GTrans GTrans is a municipal transit agency that serves Gardena, California and surrounding Los Angeles County neighbourhoods. It was founded on January 15, 1940, as Gardena Municipal Bus Lines. On the agency's 75th anniversary, the agency was renamed as ...

, and

Torrance Transit Torrance Transit is a transit agency primarily serving the South Bay, Los Angeles, South Bay region of Los Angeles County. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . History Torrance Transit inaugurated service on Januar ...

buses. Three game-day shuttle services also serve the station: the

Dodger Stadium Express Dodger Stadium is a ballpark in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a ...

, the

SoFi Stadium SoFi Stadium ( ) is a domed multi-purpose stadium in Inglewood, California, U.S., a suburb of Los Angeles. SoFi occupies the former site of the Hollywood Park Racetrack and neighbors the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome. Opened in September 2020, the ...

Shuttle (via

) and

Galaxy Express Galaxy Express could refer to *Galaxy Express 999, a comic * Samsung Galaxy Express, a smartphone *Galaxy Express Corporation, a rocket vendor *Galaxy Express (band), a South Korean garage rock band *GX (rocket) GX was a design for an expendable ...

(to

Dignity Health Sports Park Dignity Health Sports Park is a multi-use sports complex located on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills, in Carson, California. The complex consists of the 27,000-seat Dignity Health Sports Park soccer stadium, the Dignit ...

). The station, originally called the Artesia Transit Center, was built between 1989 and 1996 as part of the

project and opened to passengers on August 1, 1996. Five 450- kW DC fast chargers are to be installed at the station to support electrification of the J Line. These will use the overhead inverted pantograph style connector under SAE standard J3105.

History

The transit center, originally named the Artesia Transit Center, was built as the southern terminus of the

, a shared-use express bus corridor and

high-occupancy vehicle lane A high-occupancy vehicle lane (also known as an HOV lane, carpool lane, diamond lane, 2+ lane, and transit lane or T2 or T3 lanes) is a restricted traffic lane reserved for the exclusive use of vehicles with a driver and at least one passenger, ...

s (later converted to high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes) running in the

median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

of Interstate 110 (Harbor Freeway) north to

. After about 20 years of planning and construction, the Harbor Transitway was opened on June 26, 1996, at a cost of $498 million. Because of uncertainty on the opening date, buses would not start using the facility until a few weeks later on August 1, 1996. The project was built by the

California Department of Transportation The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is an Executive (government), executive department of the U.S. state of California. The department is part of the Government of California#State agencies, cabinet-level California State Tran ...

(Caltrans) and the transit facilities would be operated by

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), branded as Metro, is the county agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the Transportation in Los Angeles, public transportation system in Los Ang ...

(Metro) after completion. Caltrans envisioned that the transit center and transitway would offer a similar function to the

El Monte Station El Monte Station is a large regional bus station in the city of El Monte, California, United States, adjacent to Interstate 10, serving the Metro J Line, Foothill Transit, Greyhound Lines, and El Monte Transit. It is the Metro J Line's east ...

located at the end of the

El Monte Busway The El Monte Busway (also known as the I-10 ExpressLanes) is a shared-use express bus corridor ( busway) and high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes running along Interstate 10 (San Bernardino Freeway) between Alameda Street near Union Station in Dow ...

, an older but operationally similar facility east of Downtown Los Angeles, offering a large parking lot where commuters would park their cars and ride buses to downtown and serving as a hub in a hub-and-spoke system for the South Bay where riders can transfer between buses. In 1993, Metro staff recommended the creation of a "dual hub" system with a trunk route that served both the Harbor Transitway and the older

. Ultimately, the Metro Board of Directors decided to largely continue to running bus routes as they had before. Ridership on the Harbor Transitway was radically lower than expected: Caltrans had projected that 65,200 passengers would travel along the Harbor Transitway each day, but after 10 years, ridership fell far below those predictions, with the route seeing just 3,000 passengers per weekday in 2004. That amount is low compared to the El Monte Busway, which had 32,000 boardings a day in November 2000. On November 18, 2000, a section of the Harbor Freeway south of State Route 91 was widened, and new bus new stations were added on the shoulder, allowing some bus routes to be extended south to San Pedro. Metro returned to its plan for a dual-hub route in 2009, proposing a new bus rapid transit service called the Silver Line (now J Line) utilizing both the Harbor Transitway and the El Monte Busway. The new higher frequency service would be funded by converting both corridors into high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, to be branded as the

Metro ExpressLanes The Metro ExpressLanes project is a transport project in Los Angeles County, California that debuted in 2012 to "improve traffic flow and provide enhanced travel options on I-10 and I-110 in Los Angeles County". It includes a range of infrastruc ...

. The Silver Line began operations on December 13, 2009, with Metro planning to refurbish the aging stations along both corridors over the coming years, including the Artesia Transit Center. As part of the change, several Metro routes would now terminate at the transit center. Improvements to the transit center started in December 2010 with the installation of bike lockers, adding improved lighting, and the repurposing of an existing building as a Sheriff's substation. In October 2011, the Metro board voted to rename the Artesia Transit Center to the Harbor Gateway Transit Center. Landscaping was improved in October 2012, a self-cleaning

public toilet A public toilet, restroom, bathroom or washroom is a room or small building with toilets (or urinals) and sinks for use by the general public. The facilities are available to customers, travelers, employees of a business, school pupils or pris ...

was opened in February 2013, and monitors with bus departure information were activated in March 2013. Signage improvements were installed in phases starting in 2013, adding new station name signs, decals on walls, wayfinding signs, new entry pylons, and an 80-foot monument pylon visible from the Harbor Freeway. A total of four

Transit Access Pass The Transit Access Pass (TAP) is a contactless smart card used for automated fare collection on most public transport agencies within Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. The card is also available in electronic form, free of charg ...

(TAP) card

ticket vending machine A ticket machine, also known as a ticket vending machine (TVM), is a vending machine that produces paper or electronic tickets, or recharges a stored-value card or smart card or the user's mobile wallet, typically on a smartphone. For instance, ...

s were added at the transit center by early 2017 to support all-door boarding on the J Line. Pre-payment of fares and all-door boarding reduces the time buses need to remain stopped at stations.

Layout

Harbor Gateway Transit Center consists of one large

with 12

s and a 980 space

parking lot located in the southwest corner of Interstate 110 (Harbor Freeway) and

(Gardena Freeway). The transit center is connected to the Harbor Transitway by a flyover ramp. The station is located near the

neighborhood of

and cities of Carson, Gardena, and Torrance. The platform can be accessed by pedestrians from West 182nd Street. The parking lot can be accessed from West 182nd Street or

Vermont Avenue Vermont Avenue is one of the longest running north–south streets in City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, California. With a length of , is the third longest of the north–south thoroughfares in the region. For most of its length be ...

near

Artesia Boulevard Artesia Boulevard is a west-east thoroughfare in Los Angeles County and Orange County, California, Orange County. Route description Artesia Boulevard begins at the intersection with California State Route 1, Pacific Coast Highway. West of th ...

. The station also has a Sheriff's substation, a self-cleaning

, and TAP card vending machines.

The Harbor Gateway Transit Center also houses a free-standing

art installation Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often cal ...

as part of the

's art program that commissions artists to integrate artworks into its stations for the enjoyment of transit customers. Located on the west side of the platform,

Alison Saar Alison Saar (born February 5, 1956) is a Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the African diaspora and black female identity and is influenced by African, Caribbean, and ...

's ''Paraje'' is a by cast stainless steel sculpture depicts a willow tree on the west side and on the east side a willow spirit emerges mysteriously from the tree. The artwork was installed on January 28, 2013. The name ''Paraje'' is Spanish for a resting place between two destinations and the artwork was inspired by the nearby Gardena Willows Wetlands Preserve.

Services

Harbor Gateway Transit Center is used by the Metro J Line bus rapid transit route which runs between the

in El Monte,

and the Harbor Gateway Transit Center, with select trips continuing onto San Pedro. The J Line is part of the Metro Busway system. Harbor Gateway Transit Center is also served by several local bus routes:, the following connections are available:

References

{{Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Los Angeles Metro Busway stations Harbor Gateway, Los Angeles J Line (Los Angeles Metro) Bus stations in Los Angeles Transport infrastructure completed in 1996 1996 establishments in California Transportation buildings and structures in Los Angeles Transit_centers_in_the_United_States Park_and_Ride_facilities_in_the_United_States