Will the Subway Get to the Sea? And Other Musings on Moving LA (Source: CityWatch)

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Will the Subway Get to the Sea? And Other Musings on Moving LA
LA Transpo
By Ken Alpern

In the past two weeks, we’ve heard talk about the need to expedite planning, funding and construction for the Wilshire Subway and for the Crenshaw Corridor Project.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held a press conference to expedite the Wilshire Subway to a faster timeline than 20 years…and I suspect most Angelenos would agree. Similarly, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas held his own press conference and pointed out the need to properly plan for the Crenshaw Corridor Project, which will either be a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or a Light Rail Transit (LRT) that would connect the Green Line to the Expo Line (the current plan … and maybe the Wilshire/Purple Line and even Red Line as well … a proposed second phase).

Simply put, I think that the Crenshaw Corridor Project should be a LRT, and not a BRT, in order to avoid a repeat of the Orange Line mistake that had a cowardly political cadre in the San Fernando Valley let a few NIMBY's spoil the lot for the majority who always, always, always wanted rail. Ridley-Thomas said the same, and I commend him for his visionary stance.
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The sudden success of the Orange Line Busway is a long and sordid one that I predict will leave SFV taxpaying commuters very unhappy in years to come as even more-successful higher-quality rail lines (which can carry about four times as much as a Busway) get built throughout the county.

This Crenshaw Corridor Project, should it avoid becoming another Busway and become a north-south rail line that is for the Mid-City and Westside, is the appropriate second chapter of rail that should follow the east-west Expo Line. The only reason it's fallen below the radar is because the political and media-grabbing power of the Mid-City region (through which most of this line runs) is unfortunately much less than other regions of the county.

Do I have concerns that this project isn't being done in the right order, considering the need for the Downtown Connector, the Foothill Gold Line and the Wilshire Subway? Yes.

Do I have concerns that this project is being done in a relatively non-coordinated fashion with the Green Line/LAX and Wilshire Subway? Yes.

However, this Crenshaw Line will, when it's done, not only help connect the Green Line to LAX but also the Expo Line to LAX...because they'll both have the access to Century/Aviation station, which will likely be a HUGE transit hub if the LAX People Mover ever connects there (I suspect it will).

The proposed second stage of the Crenshaw Line to the Wilshire Subway...and perhaps to the Red Line at Hollywood/Highland, would make this Crenshaw Line one of the hugest and most vital north-south rail projects since the Blue Line.

I have been a fan of this Crenshaw project for years, despite its opponents, and I look forward to making the Green and Expo Lines even more helpful and connecting once it becomes a reality. I do not believe for a second that its ridership after the first phase will be poor, and I envision a gigantic ridership if it ever proceeds north to Wilshire and beyond.

I also have been a fan of the Wilshire Subway, although it must be looked at as a project that—like the Crenshaw and Expo Lines will be built in phases and should be conceptualized as such. It’ll get to the Sea all right but in what sort of phasework and timeframe is yet to be determined.

The Wilshire Subway might not get the political and budgetary blessings to move further west than a Fairfax Blvd. Extension by 2015-18. However, it packs a much greater ridership, planning and economic punch if it can be built in a longer first-phase to Century City by that time.

This means that we must stop looking at the Crenshaw and Wilshire Projects as “competing”, because if they connect then they will be as “competing” as the 10, 405 and 110 Freeways, which serve as a vital network for hundreds of thousands of commuters every day.

The same can said for the Foothill Gold Line and the Downtown Light Rail Connector, which like the Crenshaw and Wilshire projects are decades overdue. Thankfully, we passed Proposition R which guaranteed us local monies for these projects…but how FAST we’ll see them done requires two things:

1) The political cooperation from Sacramento and Washington to get past their other competing priorities to get the legal, political and economic cooperation and expedite these projects

2) The local cooperation from politicians like Villaraigosa and Yaroslavsky (patron saints of the Wilshire Subway), Ridley-Thomas (patron saint of the Crenshaw Line), and Supervisor Mike Antonovich (patron saint of the Foothill Gold Line) to ensure that all of these worthy projects get moved forward together

Short-term visioning is vital to fast-track the first phase of the Crenshaw and Active ImageWilshire and Foothill Gold Lines, and the second phase of the Expo Line and the Downtown Connector (I prefer to call it Expo Phase III), and moving these five key projects simultaneously is no small achievement for L.A. County.

But it’s a first, decade-long adventure that will guarantee that the Subway to the Sea actually gets to the Sea, and will guarantee that Red, Purple, Expo and Green Lines all someday get connected with a first-rate Crenshaw LRT to make L.A. City and County a first-rate economic powerhouse to the nation and the world.

(Ken Alpern is Chair of the non-profit The Transit Coalition, co-chair of the grassroots Friends of the Green Line, and co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee, but the views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at Alpern@MarVista.orgThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ,)