Lake Gold Line Station

The City of Pasadena and Los Angeles Metro should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the Lake Ave Station to exist in it’s current state. I’ve recently had the misfortunate of catching the 180 up Lake from this station with nothing but the company of the ever present smell of urine, overflowing garbage cans, lights that don’t work, unmentionable items on the sidewalk and several rodents to keep me company (plus a few homeless individuals, but hey, if I was homeless I’d probably take shelter there too). Would it kill you guys to clean the station? The platform itself is safe and tidy, despite the roar and emissions from the cars on the 210 but once you start heading up the stairs, the smell of urine hits you strong and hard. Angelenos, quit using our Metro system as your personal bathroom. Metro and/​or City of Pasadena, start taking responsibility for the cleanliness and safety of your stations.

Nice view when you’re waiting for the train. I like this stop because of the environment. This stop can get you go really nice stores. The area is nice. Sort of dark but nice and I feel safe in this area for sure. To be able to take some time and think about all the people going by at miles per hour.

Not the place you really want to be waiting for a bus. Beware of your surroundings! Not even worth a star

I am a big fan of the Gold Line. It seems safe, and its clean. And it gets you where you want to go from downtown LA all the way to the edge of Sierra Madre and Arcadia — (and soon all the way to Azusa).
The Lake Street station in Pasadena is situated in the median in the middle of the 210 highway. If you walk south 4 blocks you will be about 8 blocks east of Old Pasadena, but not far from a few shops and restaurants as well as The Paseo, a large shopping mall. There are also 3 movie theaters and The Pasadena Playhouse within walking distance.
If you walk north of the station a few blocks you will reach The Hat, a fast food pastrami sandwhich place: so I would reccomend going south.

I now live within walking distance to this station and use it more often than I did when I lived by the Allen station. The elevators still smell like urine. I usually take the stairs. Parking is an issue at this station which is why I am grateful I live within walking distance. I still feel a little uncomfortable after dark, not at the station itself but in the area surrounding it – which I have to walk through to get home. It is an easy walk to Ralph’s, Vroman’s Bookstore and The Hat. If you have good walking shoes on, you could make it up Lake to Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles – but I wouldn’t try that at night. During the day, it is fine.

I love riding the Metrorail system for trips. I have heard some negative comments about the public transit system but I’ve concluded certain people are just too pampered in their everyday life to bother with public transportation. First lets address the obvious the Metro rail line is available to anyone who has the money for it; rich or poor, the world is large and filled with all types of people and there is no changing that. So, yes you are going to see a couple mentally ill people, homeless, boisterous, smelly, recluse, uptight, foreign, old, young, disabled, and strange people around the station but all of these people are here to ride the train just like you and me so it’s nothing to be upset about. Secondly, the stations are not private which means that there isn’t a paid staff hired to keep or clean the station; sometimes it is going to be a mess sometimes it’ll be clean just like other public places like parks or trails. The only reasonable complaint I have is the parking situation, there are signs around the area that say «Metro Parking» with arrows but they don’t lead to anything specific, every time I come I end up parking at the church nearby where the signs lead but there is no signs posted in the parking lot stating that THIS church parking lot in indeed the appropriate place to park. Besides my minor complaint the machines always work on the platforms and are easy to use and the has Sheriffs nearby most of the time for any simple questions. Great Station.

Easy to use, and cheap. The parking is at a local church and is kinda difficult to find. But other than that it was a good experience and easy to use. Overall great experience!

This is a great station that’s located near Lake Ave and is close to Colorado Blvd. It’s also located close to Ralph’s market on Walnut. I usually pick up some water or gatorade at Ralph’s when I head out on my Metroline trips.

This station is fine. It’s right in the middle of the 134 freeway. To get there and to get out, you have to climb a lot of stairs or take the elevator.
This station feels safe and is clean. Also, there is no one hassling me for money. It seems like a commuter friendly station.

Easy to navigate, machine for fares are on street level. To get down to the platform you need to take the stairs or the elevator. The elevator smell really bad like they are never washed or sanitized. So sad since NYC subway elevators never smelled that bad and more people use that subway system.
The metro maps in general are not first time user friendly. The fares are low and the trains are clean.
Sad it doesn’t run 24 hours even if they ran the trains not as often. They stop them to early to really use them. For example I went to a hockey game at Staples center and stopped for a beer with a friend before taking the red line to Union station then the gold line to Pasadena. Well I got to union station and the Gold line had already stopped. Had to take a $ 45 taxi ride home. Yep, pretty much a bummer.

This is a great station. It’s usually pretty clean and homeless free. Access isn’t too bad but it’s either a two flight stair climb or and elevator ride in a makeshift urinal (not kidding)
It’s a pretty station but I wish Pasadena and MTA would do something about the local homeless problem.

Tons of traffic at this location and the freeway is right next to it so your dodging traffic at all sides it’s really scary and dangerous. I would rather take the train from another stop then here.

I wish this station was located further south on Lake. this location is right above the freeway. crazy traffic and drivers ‘aiming’ for the pedestrians coming off the train. i hardly exit at this one, if i can help it

You get to be in the middle of the freeway dodging traffic???
unfortunately no. You do get to see the 210 on either side, and depending on what time you use the station, you get to see one side stopped an the other side flying by.

It is indeed a pretty bad gold line experience. Yes, it is convenient, yes, it is dirty and yes, it is in the middle of the freeway. Not my favorite drop-​off/​pick-​up location. Do pay attention and if you are traveling with kids you might want to avoid this station stop.

If you like the smell of fresh urine in the elevators (along with the ambient temperature inside around 95 degrees), you’ll love this station. It’s also noisy as heck — they could’ve at least done a better job with soundproofing, being that this is in the middle of the 210. I honestly try to avoid the Gold Line period, because it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars.

As a pedestrian or bicyclist, has your destination ever been… the middle of the freeway? If you need to get to the Gold Line around Lake street in Pasadena, it might be, but that’s one of the only times.
I know it seems «convenient» to dump a train station in the middle of a freeway coming from the perspective of someone that never really rides public transit, but thinks that it’s ok for others, but for the people actually riding the train, to be blunt, it sucks. This stop has an excessive number of health and safety hazards and plenty of simply inconvenient features that lead one to believe people only really take the train from this stop if they have to.
–Health hazards: You’re standing in the middle of the freeway waiting for the train, exposed to all sorts of lovely chemicals and smells coming from car emissions. These are known to cause heart attacks and asthma flare ups among other problems. If you’re riding the train because you care about not contributing to LA’s air pollution, know that you will still be exposed to high concentrations of pollutants at the Lake station. Also, you know those insanely loud motorcycles that drive by, angry honking drives or just how loud a large number of cars can be? Yup, have fun listening to all those to a lovely backdrop of freeway traffic sounds. Remember, traffic gets super bad on the 210 during rush hours.
–Safety hazards: Pasadena’s homeless seem to cluster around freeway off and on ramps. Being in the middle of a freeway, the Lake station is an awesome spot for the homeless! To get to the station, you must walk over the freeway, past the off and on ramp and feeder streets and then to an area with covered walkways and benches. Perfect homeless spot! As a pedestrian, this stop is pretty unsafe as well. Walking to the stop includes having to weave across Lake through many crossing signals that cover a limited number of intersections in the area and walk through car traffic attempting to get on the 210. People and cars don’t mix, but as the 210 is a popular destination, there is no way that you won’t have to walk through cars here. I’ve been hit or nearly hit way too many times as a pedestrian over the years. Having limited crossings for Pedestrians encourages people to cross at intersections without signals, especially when trying to get to work on time or catch a train before it passes. Also, because of the location, if you do end up here alone and in trouble, no one is going to hear you. It also seems possible, although not likely, that cars could end up on this platform in the case of an accident.
–Other inconveniences: This is one of the few Gold line rail stops that has a bunch of stairs. Plan accordingly. When walking away from this station, you will walk a minimum of 5 – 10 minutes before you even get someplace that might be considered a final destination because of the aforementioned stairs, location, street crossing difficulties and excessive car traffic. Old town and other popular Pasadena destinations are about a mile away. Dress in layers as it gets super hot in the summer being in the middle of a freeway and can get super gusty when windy.
–Conveniences: Close to destination on or near Lake.
Look, I know LA needs public transportation, but making more and more stops like Lake, located in the middle of the freeway, is not going to help to convince people to ride more often. I only use this stop when I have to, otherwise I’d much prefer Memorial Park, Del Mar or Fillmore. Outside of some stations or stops in sketchy locations, this is truly the worst stop I’ve waited at in the MTA system.

Woe is me… my first Dukedom is one of the worst stations on the otherwise stellar Gold Line.
On your way to LAX with a ton of luggage? May as well hump it down the three flights of stairs, ’cause a thrown back is much better than 40 seconds in the urinal masquerading as an elevator.
Hide your wallet, cigarettes and anything else that will attract the particularly aggressive né’re-do-wells.
Once on the platform, you will find that you’ve entered some sort of cosmic rift in the meteorological continuum where you will be buffeted by an wind, carcinogens and perhaps gamma rays… frigid beyond belief in the winter or early morning and Mojave-​like in the Summer. Pick a random canto from Dante’s Inferno and you’ll get the picture.
Give a one-​fingered salute to the CCTV cameras, ’cause you know they’re laughing at your sorry ass.

The maintenance of this particular station has been nothing short of non-​existent. I walk the Lake St. bridge almost every day, I’ve literally seen people sitting on benches surrounded by trash. Over-​flowing trash cans are apparently the norm and after numerous complaints to LA Metro, nothings been done. Disgusting.

From here, it’s a 15 minute walk to Wilson and Green, Wilson and Colorado.
There’s usually some layabouts on the stairs and if you’re lucky, they’re smoking pot. I’d love to see some of these transit cops that everyone talks about. They’re like the boogy man: Pay your fare or the Trannys’ll get you!!!