June Round Table
Welcome back to another Round Table. This month has had an article every week focusing on some potential new bus routes for SEPTA in lieu of all the fiscal cliffs incoming transit in the US. Despite that, there have been a lot of major transit milestones reached over the past month. Let’s talk about it.
LAX’s Planes Got Their Train
A joke no more as on the evening of June 6th, LA Metro did a joint bus and rail ribbon ceremony as the new LAX Metro Center was officially opened at 5pm PT that day. While LA Metro now services this facility, the Peoplemover connecting the facility to the terminals and rental car facility is still lagging behind, so another shuttle bus has been instituted for the time being.
Once the LAX Peoplemover is in operation, it should hopefully mean fewer people will be renting cars or using the loop in some cases-a part of the city’s goals for a car-free Olympics in 2028…which may or may not be dashed with the current state of things.
Despite that, LA Metro isn’t slowing down as the D branch of the Subway continues down Wilshire Boulevard that will double its station count and nearly triple its length. 3 Stops up to Wilshire/LaCienga are still in the cards to open later this year (along with the D line itself, which has been suspended since the end of May to finish works), with the final terminus for now being the VA Hospital-due to reach in 2027.
Post Olympics aims seem to focus on extending the K line north to connect both metro lines, bringing Universal Hollywood within 2 Metro trains from LAX.
If it takes 16mins to go approximately the 7 miles to the E Line, then another 5.7mi via Le Brea and only 4mins on the B line says maybe up to 40mins depending on speeds and timing of transfer at North Hollywood to the B line to get to Universal minus the Peoplemover and the last mile hike to CityWalk.
With how the rail network is built, the LA area could use more circumferential and coastal as well as additional connections to Metrolink for east-west connectivity from existing points (Norwalk) or potential such as extending the Southeast Gateway to Anaheim, with present plans only call for service between Union Station and Artesia within 20 years. It’s all too much to ask for right now.
Phoenix is a Two-line Network
The Next day takes us to the valley of the sun as the Downtown Hub and southern segment of Central Avenue have been completed. With this, the once line that connected Gilbert to the late Metrocenter Mall is now divided with a North-South and East running lines. The A line connects Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, and Sky Harbor to downtown while the B connects various transit hubs such as the Thelda Williams Transit Center (Metro Parkway), Montebello/19th Avenues, Broadway/Central, and Baseline/Central via the Downtown Hub (with another transit hub nearby on Van Buren St).
Plans now look at finalizing the route west to the state capitol and 79th Avenue/Thomas for the Desert Sky Mall-meaning Phoenix will still be busy at least through the decade on extensions.
The only downside is no more 1-seat ride from Sky Harbor to Castles n’ Coasters, but it should be 1hr 14min, while driving can be done in a fifth of the time unfortunately. I do like the Blue-Green (the Tempe Streetcar)-Orange color scheme used. It would take a lot to increase service-but the North-South line does have route 0 over most of the route, which helps with frequency downtown. Still a good toe truck for your Brampton folding bike though.
Ending Eras
Meanwhile in Louisiana, Baton Rouge’s Dixie Landin’ opened for only one week before closing forever as the adjacent water park has been purchased by Leisure, Sports, & Recreation, LLC, who will reopen the water park in 2026. The water park has been the only asset in operation over the past few years and it seems the outdated dry park will be demolished. They could easily sell the land where the parking lot is and replace the dry park with parking or a full redo of front and back of house in the long term. It’s just south of the I-10/I-12 interchange and I included a stop for the water park in my Blue Sky map for rail in the region, we could easily do a trail under the power lines that pass by the park.
However, I could see with transit the land being too valuable and redeveloped as a new town center type of project. Amtrak is probably the only train that’s coming anytime soon, if at all, and it would not be included in that case.
Allou Fun Park in Athens, Greece has also closed for good. However, Batwing and Shipwreck Falls have reopened at the doomed Six Flags America.
Marineland Update
Just over the border in Canada, Marineland has put all the rides up for auction, including the illusive Dragon Mountain. It still remains unclear if the park will remain otherwise as a rebuilt amusement enterprise, similar to the Cypress Gardens conversion (although 3 coasters and Island in the sky were retained, in addition to the water park).
Amusement insiders even showcased a housing development firm and the clip showed the Empire Zephyr townhouse development in Atlanta. While it has decent park access to Marta busses 9 (which can take you to the zoo-but could also probably bike there theoretically) and 49. Both look to run half hourly on weekdays, but not really in a true combined 15min manner. The development is across the street from a bar and has a Latin grocer in bikeable distance, its basically also next to a prison. At least they aren’t alone since Toll Brothers has a site just next door to both.
If one partner works from home and the other can bike to work or use to transit effectively from there (probably a mix of modes), you could probably go car lite here as you can cycle to the El Progesso (basically a spanish restaurant that’s also a gas station convivence store with produce) or Aldi (compared to the one in Glassboro, this is legit-they are even allowed to sell wine), but likely still to drive the four miles to Wal-Mart or the Home Depot by the airport (which you might just want to call a taxi or Lyft since it would probably cost less than parking at the airport. Kids should also easily be able to walk or bike to an elementary school.
I do think $400k for less than 1200sqft for what that area has is not worth it for a 2/2. If it seemed $400k was the divider between the 2/2 and 3/3-which are 1300-1500sqft (the latter could hypothetically work as an in-law suite or ADU depending on the 3/3 layout, some have the first floor bath as just a hall, others are hall w/ direct bedroom access-so I have mixed feelings on the available layouts), maybe it would feel a bit more worth it.
Where I grew up in my teens have a 1000 more square feet and only cost $100k more and have only 1 hourly bus to Paoli or King of Prussia (from the King of Prussia-bound side is a death trap, direct highway access (this never bothered me where our unit was), and probably superior schools without any in walking distance (the new elementary school will be just down the road though, so a teacher could take the bus if it works out-but still, the death trap thing).
Empire already has 3 developments in the Niagara Falls areas, so a fourth isn’t out of the question.
Way Down in Florida
Continuing eastward takes us to Florida as The Muppets and Grand Avenue have been evicted from Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Aerosmith hasn’t easily given the keys over to their stretched limos just yet, as they will still seemingly be rocking though years end, with a shorter turn around on the retheme as Rockin Roller Coaster’s ride hardware has been overhauled over the recent years.
Down I-4 in Winter Haven, Legoland Florida joined its west coast counterpart by opening their SeaLife Aquarium. A separate fee, but just within the gates.
Makes me wish they made it included and replace Island in the Sky or redo The Beginning as being fulling outside the park like Hersheypark’s late Rhineland and make Island in the Sky’s plot the new Legoland park entrance and just keep the current entrance as the security check point and just see how Universal handles things from there.
However, not many of them are candidates in my mind
I’ll say Dubai (being apart of Dubai Parks and Resorts) and Malaysia due to being directly connected to a mall already have this category fulfilled
While not directly connected, the Carlsbad Premium Outlets are close enough to LEGOLAND California it would get shot down
New York and Windsor are built hilly terrain
I think encouraging Legoland NY as a base for other stuff would be better financially than keeping people on-site, even if they only spend one day within the park
Billund (mainly the factory and supplemental resorts) and Japan (being in a warf district of Nagoya) are landlocked
I think Korea had some commercial in its plans-but this park hasn’t been doing to well so the whole island might be given a reset if Merlin wants to jump ship
With how the resort area is designed for the German resort, I’m not sure if it would work with how the resort is designed. I think it would easily get away with it since this park is more aimed at thrill seekers than the others, thus could get away with more than the other parks. Also summer vacation (or holiday as they call it) is a big part of German life, so I’d like this resort to prove me wrong. They do have Peppa Pig, Mythica, and a new woodland-themed hotel not shown on Google Maps, but they still have room to work with.
New Wraps
In the Netherlands, Amsterdam has wrapped two trams as part of a promotion and sweepstakes with Walibi Holland by posting a selife on the tram to win a VIP experience with you and 15 friends including ERT on the new pair of coasters, lunch and drinks, and free parking (hey, its in the exurbs of Amsterdam-even the Netherlands isn’t perfect).
It joins last month’s reveal of the Amtrak x Crayola collab of wraps representing creative and travel this summer.
In China, Juneyao Airlines has wrapped one of their jets to promote Legoland Shanghai, which will open next month.
New for 2026
Back state side, Texas is already gearing up for 2026 with Six Flags Over Texas’s Giga dive getting its track-even allowing guests to take a photo with a piece in front of the entrance to Spain.
Down in San Antonio, its the rival who is also shaping up for a B&M of their own, the United chain’s third B&M family invert and first outside of the Busch Gardens parks.
My hope is that since both Busch Gardens parks plus San Diego got Sky Rocket II’s (and Orlando with a custom launch coaster using the tech), that maybe Sesame Place Philadelphia will be the 4th park to get one.
However, I feel they would’ve done it for 2026 since they could focus on history and entertainment for their actual anniversary this year, but keep the museum from this year (maybe 1-2 other things) plus the new invert in the back of the park due to expected tourism for the World Cup and 250th anniversary festivities and instead work on a Sesame Place San Antonio and have it open with a B&M family invert and the in storage Super Grover’s Box Car Derby for 2028 or 2029-but to try and pay off B&M now so Fiesta Texas can’t beat them to it-which I doubt they would anyway since they just invested in kids and family offerings with the DC Universe expansion, so they probably would not look to invest in the kids area until after this proposed Sesame Place would open.
Epilogue
It was interesting going back to weekly blogging, although it was all batched out much ahead of time and no video to complete the theme of SEPTA’s highs and lows. For what its worth, SEPTA is the best penny pincher to ever pinch pennies because its had no choice for so long. It’s great they built the center city tunnel, getting it to its full potential now will probably cost more than the tunnel did then-but we should be thankful that they got it through despite the loss of the diesel services to the Leigh Valley and Reading plus service beyond Fox Chase and Wawa.