Another Roundup on the Red Line/Purple Line/ Subway to the Sea

Link: Which is the best way west for L.A.'s subway? - latimes.com

Article 1

Which is the best way west for L.A.'s subway?
Wilshire or West Hollywood? As a subway extension draws closer to reality, the debate over the route intensifies.

By Ari B. Bloomekatz

November 15, 2009

Building a subway through the Westside has been the Holy Grail of transportation planners for decades, and many feel they are closer to tunneling than ever before.

Backers envision subway cars packed with shoppers balancing Prada and Barneys bags after Beverly Hills shopping excursions and surfers with their boards tucked under their arms heading for the morning waves, as well as workers.

But now, as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has pushed to fast-track the long-delayed Westside subway extension, there is debate about whether the route for the roughly $5-billion project gets the most bang for the buck.

It's a familiar problem in Los Angeles, a city developed for the automobile whose sprawl makes it difficult for rail lines to cover enough ground to make commuting simple.

The first leg of the Westside extension would spur west from the existing Purple Line along Wilshire Boulevard from Western Avenue to Fairfax Avenue. Wilshire is L.A.'s legendary roadway, lined with office towers, shops and restaurants. The route would go through the Miracle Mile shopping district and stop at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which has lobbied heavily for the line.

From there, future phases would take the Purple Line through Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood.

That route, however, bypasses some key Westside shopping and business areas in Hollywood and West Hollywood, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Beverly Center and the Pacific Design Center.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering an extension route that would cover those areas, but it probably would not be built until after the Wilshire link is done.

The mayor wants the entire Purple Line extension to Westwood completed in the next 10 years, a tall order for a project that has been discussed for nearly four decades and still needs funding.

Current plans have the subway reaching Westwood by 2036, using a mix of revenue from an L.A. County transportation sales tax and federal funding that the MTA is seeking but has not yet received.

"We really determined that Wilshire would have to come first. You're trying to hook up the Purple Line with Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood, where the big ridership would be," said David Mieger, MTA's project manager for the subway.

"The heaviest-used bus lines, the heaviest-congestion corridors, are north and south of Wilshire Boulevard."

The MTA unveiled the West Hollywood extension to great enthusiasm from community groups. The leg would run as an extension from the Red Line in Hollywood through parts of Hollywood and West Hollywood and would connect with the proposed extension of the Purple Line near the intersection of Wilshire and La Cienega boulevards. The Purple Line would then go west along Wilshire to Westwood.

The Purple Line extension to Westwood would generate an estimated 49,000 daily boardings at the new stations and a total of 76,000 new daily boardings throughout the system, according to early studies from the MTA that are being updated. Ridership would increase by 17,900 at new stations if the West Hollywood link is built, according to MTA numbers.

That compares to an average of 78,955 weekday riders on the Long Beach-to-downtown L.A. Blue Line, 149,597 on the downtown-to-North Hollywood Red Line, 38,619 on the Norwalk-to-Redondo Beach Green Line and 22,476 on the downtown-to-Pasadena Gold Line, according to the most current ridership counts from the MTA.

The dilemma is a familiar one for transportation planners, who have struggled to build light-rail routes to capture the most riders possible.

This is difficult because Los Angeles is so spread out and designed for the car, not rail lines.

L.A. has far fewer rail lines than New York, Chicago and other large cities, so passengers often must transfer to buses to complete their trips.

Con Howe, the former director of planning for the city of Los Angeles and now managing director of the CityView Los Angeles Fund, pointed to one example: the MTA's decision not to build the Green Line into Los Angeles International Airport, meaning that people who want to take public transportation to the airport have to take a shuttle to the passenger terminal.

"Unlike New York City, you're never going to have 100 years of subway construction in the city," he said.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, chairwoman of UCLA's Department of Urban Planning, said the West Hollywood alignment is important because the idea of transit is to go to "where you have major concentrations of jobs and people."

"There is a trade-off: It would cost considerably more money. It's all about how much money is available," she said.

Loukaitou-Sideris said that Angelenos are not tapped into a pedestrian culture and that most people are reluctant to walk more than a quarter-mile to a destination.

If that holds true, many who would take the Wilshire subway would need transit to places such as Cedars-Sinai, the Beverly Center and the Westside Pavilion.

Some commuters said they were excited about the Wilshire extension but added that a route through West Hollywood made more sense to them.

Last week, Sharon Richards stepped off the subway at the end of the line and made her way to the Metro Rapid bus that runs along Wilshire Boulevard -- the fourth part of her roughly two-hour commute to work in West Hollywood.

"Oooooh, it's gonna be packed," she said as the 720 Rapid approached. "Feel like a sardine."

Richards, 61, has been commuting from Upland to her job as a manager at Cedars-Sinai for more than two decades.

She wakes before dawn, drives to a park-and-ride and catches a bus in Montclair just after 5 a.m., arrives at Union Station where she takes the Purple Line to its last stop, takes the Wilshire bus to La Cienega Boulevard and then hoofs for it the last stretch, a little more than half a mile, to her desk.

"I'm late," Richards muttered as she rushed off the 720.

She said a direct stop near the Beverly Center and Cedars-Sinai would help her and other employees commute.

Jeanne Flores, senior vice president in charge of human resources at Cedars-Sinai, said that fewer than 10% of the 11,000 employees at the medical center use public transportation to get to work.

"The public transportation systems just are not adequate to support our location and the hours that people work," Flores said. "People resign because they just can't do the commute anymore."

Supporters of the Wilshire corridor say it is the simplest and most logical route to take and would be heavily used. They don't deny that a route through West Hollywood would be beneficial, but they note the huge population, cultural and employment centers along the Wilshire route and say that places like Cedars-Sinai and the Beverly Center will be close to future stops along that alignment.

"There's absolutely no question that it should go straight out Wilshire," said Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district is included in the first phase of the subway.

"At the same time, the concept of coming off the Hollywood line is absolutely necessary as well, because that is the de facto Beverly Hills freeway."

LaBonge is referring to the ill-fated freeway that the California Department of Transportation wanted to build along Santa Monica Boulevard from north of downtown to West Los Angeles.

Residents strongly opposed the freeway, and the plan was eventually killed. But that decision is considered one factor in the Westside's notoriously congested traffic.

The Beverly Hills freeway could have run through West Hollywood, where the Mayor Pro Tem, John Heilman, now strongly supports a subway.

Heilman said the West Hollywood route make sense because it would provide a rail alternative for north-south commuters who live in the Valley but work on the Westside.

"No one disputes that Wilshire needs to be served, but a lot of the traffic that is going westbound is coming over from the Valley" and through West Hollywood, he said.

The MTA's directors will make a final decision on the Westside subway alignment next year.

Officials said it's possible that the West Hollywood route could be built after the Purple Line gets to Westwood -- if it ever gets that far. But then, it would probably compete for money with a plan to build the Purple Line extension through Santa Monica.

ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com

Article 2

Link: WeHoNews.com:

WeHo Subway To The Sea: All Aboard!… In 2047?

Thursday, November 12, 2009 – Op-ed by Steve Martin, West Hollywood

West Hollywood, California (November 12, 2009) – For the record, I would love the subway to come through West Hollywood. I am one of the few people in WeHo who actually use the subway.

Steve Martin is a West Hollywood attorney and former-city council member. WeHo News - West Hollywood’s ONLY Newspaper, ONLY ONLINE.

The proposed stations at San Vicente and Santa Monica and at Cedars Sinai would just be blocks from my house. That has to be good for property values. The only problem is that I would be way past the age of retirement by the time the subway gets here. That is unless I’m still working when I’m ninety.

Unfortunately, despite a lot of civic boosterism by City Council and Staff, the prospect for a WeHo subway in our lifetimes is pretty dim.

On November 3, there was well attended community outreach meeting regarding the Westside Metro extension at the Pacific Design Center.

As presented by the Metro consultants, the proposal for a West Hollywood extension from Hollywood Highland down Santa Monica Boulevard to Wilshire is still on the table.

The proposal, entitled “Alternate Four” includes subway stations at La Brea and Santa Monica, Fairfax and Santa Monica and San Vicente and Santa Monica. There would be a stop at Cedars/Beverly Center then it would hook up at Wilshire and La Cienega.

Currently there are Measure R funds to pay for an Red line extension from Wilshire and Vermont all the way to Westwood/U.C.L.A. Currently there is no funding for the “Subway to the Sea” touted by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosia.

At the current schedule, the Fairfax/Wilshire station would open in 2019, but the Wilshire extension would bypass West Hollywood and wind up at Century City in 2026 and hit U.C.L.A. somewhere between 2034 and 2036.

While there is virtually no funding on the horizon for the West Hollywood extension, it did not damper that enthusiasm of the Metro presenters. After a general information session, we broke into groups to discuss how the various West Hollywood stations would be configured.

Because of that announcement, however, about a third of the crowd disbursed, foregoing the break out meetings, discouraged by the construction schedule. As a neighbor of mine put it, why should he care where the subway entrances are located when he won’t be around to enjoy it.
As
one neighbor put it, why can’t they build the subway were there was
local support, given that so many Wilshire adjacent groups were
opposing the Wilshire extension. If those folks in Hancock Park don’t
want a subway, WeHo was happy to take it.

If local enthusiasm would miraculously create a
WeHo extension, we would have a subway down Santa Monica tomorrow.
There was a great cross section of West Hollywood residences in
attendance; the usual City insiders or the local business community
were notable in their absence.

But it is not that simple.

Currently
Alternate 1, the Wilshire/Fairfax to U.C.L.A. extension if funded by
Measure R. Alternate 2 would extend the subway under the 405 freeway to
the Veteran’s Administration Hospital. The Metro folks hoped to find
some loose change under the sofa to pay for Alternate 2.

Alternate
3 is the “Subway to the Sea” would extend the line down Wilshire
through Santa Monica to the Pacific. Alternate 4 is the WeHo extension.
The “alternates” are in priority based upon projected use.

If you have been following the controversy in the
Los Angeles Times, Mayor Villaraigosa and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky
want to get Federal funding for the Santa Monica extension.

They
are opposed by Supervisor Gloria Molina and Congressman Adam Schiff,
who want those Federal funds to extend the Gold Line East.

It seems those insular folks of the eastern part
of the County resent the billions of dollars being spent exclusively on
the Westside. They seem to think their less than fashionable
neighborhoods deserve billions of transportation dollars too.

While
Metro folks seemed to think that funding for the Alternate 4, the WeHo
extension, might occur sometime in the next twenty years, it would take
twenty years of planning, environmental studies and construction before
it would be completed.

Even if funding were found in the next
seven or eight years, the Metro officials said it was unlikely that we
would see a West Hollywood subway before 2045. Or 2050. Or 2055.

I
spoke with the Metro staff during the break with some of my neighbors
about the potential for the WeHo line funding. Metro Staff felt that
the Santa Monica line was had the best chance for any sort of Federal
funding.

Metro
staff pointed out that West Hollywood does not even come close to
meeting the Federal funding criteria based upon cost effectiveness
based upon ridership and construction costs.

When asked if somehow West Hollywood could lobby
to have funding diverted for our extension to be built prior to the
“Subway to the Sea,” Metro staff was emphatic that there was no
possibility of Federal funding for WeHo.

Despite the fact
that West Hollywood currently has a large public transportation
ridership, that actually works against us. The goal of the subway is to
get commuters out of cars, not move bus riders on to an expensive
subway.

The point of the subway is to alleviate gridlock before
Los Angeles becomes uninhabitable. With over thirty percent of West
Hollywood’s adult population being retired or at retirement age, we
don’t currently have the demographics to fit the ridership needs to
meet Federal criteria for funding.

Furthermore we don’t have
the sort of middle class jobs as other areas of the Westside, so we
really are not a credible destination. Getting eastside gays to West
Hollywood hot spots is not a goal of the Metro.

A WeHo subway, while convenient for our residents and visitors, would do little to alleviate regional traffic problems.

If
funding ain’t coming from the Feds, the Metro staff hoped that WeHo
funding might come from a future County bond measure or sales tax
increase earmarked for public transportation, which is not likely in
the next decade.

n top of that, once funding is secured for the
“Subway to the Sea,” it is unlikely that the rest of Los Angeles County
is going to vote for any additional funding for a WeHo extension when
other parts of the County desperately need subway services.

The
west Valley, San Gabriel Valley, Downey and Glendora all want their
“fair share” of any transportation funds that might come from a future
bond measure. The only people who believe funding is imminent are at
WeHo City Hall.

Obviously West Hollywood cannot fund this
extension on its own, but staff keeps insisting that the subway is
coming, but the General Plan Advisory Committee is becoming openly
skeptical and resistive to staff’s insistence that we need more density
to qualify for a subway extension.

But city staff and the
city’s consultant want the Committee to suspend common sense and add
huge heights and densities based upon a phantom transportation system
that will not be seen in our collective life times.

We will not have a West Hollywood subway any time during the life of the new General Plan, which would be about twenty years.

If
in 2031 the planets are aligned for a WeHo extension, we can plan for
it in our next General Plan. Then we can think about major changes in
density. But common sense dictates that we should not approve major
height increases on Santa Monica Boulevard until a subway moves from
the world of fantasy.

The General Plan needs to be based upon the current
realities, not on wishful thinking. While the City Council is anxious
to pander to the developers who want a “Greater West Hollywood,” let’s
not build a West Coast Manhattan until we actually get our subway.

Article 3

Link: Mayor V. Bows To The Westside As He Dedicates Eastside Rail - Los Angeles News - LA Daily

Mayor V. Bows To The Westside As He Dedicates Eastside Rail
By Dennis Romero in City News, community, politics
Sat., Nov. 14 2009 @ 11:09PM

Eastside son Antonio Villaraigosa beamed Saturday as he helped to dedicate the Metro Gold Line extension train that runs from downtown to East Los Angeles. Free rides are being offered Sunday to celebrate the opening and to lure the bus-riding masses. And while a vast majority of county transit users are bus riders, the mayor couldn't pass up a chance to plug his vanity project -- a "subway to the sea" -- in coded language.

Mayor V. stumps for regional rail at the official dedication of the Gold Line extension.​

" ... This is not the end of the ride," he stated. "Thanks to the passage of Measure R, there will be local funding for half a dozen new rail projects in the next decade, which will give Angelenos even greater transit access to jobs and other opportunities throughout the county."

Of course, Mayor V.'s favorite new rail project is a line that would extend from the end-of-the-line subway station at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to Westwood and eventually Santa Monica. Villaraigosa is pushing for the 30-year project to be fast-tracked to a 10-year timetable. And some say he's favored it at the expense of more-pressing public-transportation needs, particularly bus service.

The Measure R Villaraigosa was referring to was the 2008 law passed by county voters that increases sales tax by a half-cent and will pour $40 billion dollars into MTA coffers in the decades to come. Of course, it's just pocket change when it comes to the mayor's vision of bringing light rail to the Westside. Despite promises that the measure would be a panacea for transit needs and traffic congestion, hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it from the federal government, would be needed to complete Mayor V.'s vision of a rail-gilded region.

The mayor's goal of tunneling below the Westside, including a leg through the methane- and tar-plagued Miracle Mile, and then completing his subway to the sea in 10 years would be nearly unprecedented.

As U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard noted at Saturday's dedication, her father, longtime Congressman Edward R. Roybal, had hoped for decades to cut the ribbon on an Eastside line but never lived to see the day. (The leg was officially dedicated in the late congressman's name as the Edward R. Roybal Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension).
Aside from the physical construction, the loopholes, bureaucracy and political maneuvering required to get a multi-billion-dollar project off the ground is daunting.

"As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years, he was a staunch supporter of efforts to bring rail to the Eastside and he worked long and hard towards that end," Roybal-Allard said, referring to her father. "It has been my pleasure to continue that fight and today his dream of affordable, clean and efficient transportation is becoming a reality."

It's interesting how the Gold Line Eastside Extension is couched as a battle won for the transit-dependent Eastside -- a tale of government-done-good for hard-working taxpayers. "This caps a 20-year battle to bring rail back to East L.A. -- one of the most transit dependent communities in Los Angeles," said Villaraigosa.

The "subway to the sea," on the other hand, has seen little battle. While Westside Rep. Henry Waxman once opposed the proposed line, he's gotten out of the way, and now there's nothing to stop the Eastside native Villaraigosa's dream of light rail for the transit-needy shoppers of Rodeo Drive.