Metrolink adds 26 trains to its schedule, Historic Filipinotown gate debuts, and more

As riders begin to return, Metrolink announced this week that it has added 26 trains back to its schedule, restoring service to a level that has not been seen since prior to the onset of the global pandemic more than two years ago.

Weekday ridership on Metrolink trains is currently at 30 percent, relative to pre-pandemic levels. The agency expects that percentage to grow to 44 percent by mid-Summer. Metrolink's weekend ridership has reached 70 percent of its pre-pandemic level, according to the agency.

Here's what we're reading this week:

Yes, This Heat Is Punishing Us — Record High Temps Across Southern California "For the second straight day, Los Angeles International Airport reached 95 degrees, topping a record for the date of 93, set in 1989. While downtown L.A. didn’t break any records, it’s currently sweating it out at 95 degrees." (LAist)

New gateway lets you know you've arrived in Historic Filipinotown "What's called the Historic Filipinotown Eastern Gateway over Beverly Boulevard near the 1st Street Bridge is part of efforts to raise awareness of the neighborhood." (Eastsider)

They were spending all their income on rent. A garage turned ADU saved them "Record-low mortgage rates and the pandemic may have prompted reluctant first-time home buyers to take the plunge recently, but skyrocketing prices across the country, and in Los Angeles in particular, means that many young couples can’t save for a down payment on a house. As rents continue to increase, some millennials are having to get creative, and are choosing to live in accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, as a way to live near their families, in neighborhoods where they grew up, and can’t afford." (LA Times)

Why prime real estate owned by the VA is leased for a private school, a ballpark and an oil well – and not homes for veterans "But thousands of veterans used to live here, in permanent housing, for decades. There was a thriving community with a trolley to the beach in Santa Monica, where the veterans had a bath house also donated by Baker. When the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers opened here in the late 1800s, it is said, hundreds of men walked all the way from San Francisco to reach it." (CNN)

How a tech billionaire’s bid to uplift the poor became a windfall for the rich "Billions of dollars’ worth of tax breaks for the wealthy are being generated by the Opportunity Zone program, often in pursuit of luxury high-rises, high-end hotels and swank office space. It has subsidized hulking self-storage units nestled alongside freeways and upmarket apartments for employees of the hottest Bay Area tech firms....One thing the tax break has fallen short on: creating opportunities in low-income communities." (LA Times)

Councilmember Raman Celebrates New Riverside Drive Protected Bike Lanes "...as part of a repaving project, the city added new protected bike lanes on a 0.6-mile stretch of Riverside Drive between Los Feliz Boulevard and Glendale Boulevard, immediately southeast of Griffith Park." (Streetsblog LA)

Westfield malls go up for sale as U.S. shoppers find other places to buy "Among the company’s malls in the Los Angeles area are such high-profile properties as Westfield Century City, Westfield Santa Anita in Arcadia and Westfield Topanga & the Village in Warner Center." (LA Times)