Westside Subway Extension Might Be Built In This Lifetime (Source: Beverly Hills Courier)

Link: Beverly Hills Courier, Beverly Hills Newspaper, News, Celebrity, 90211, 90210: Westside Subway Extension Might Be Built In This Lifetime

Westside Subway Extension Might Be Built In This Lifetime
Abbey Hood
Published 08/06/2009 - 7:10 p.m. CST
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Abbey Hood
Will the Westside subway extension ever be built in your lifetime?

Maybe.

An update at Tuesday’s City Council meeting from the Deputy Director of Transportation Aaron Kunz indicated the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is meeting this September to consider including the Westside Subway Extension in the funded element of the long range plan and identifying the Westside Subway Extension along with the downtown Light Rail Connector as the two top priority projects for Metro’s advocacy efforts for federal New Starts funding.

The City Council unanimously adopted a resolution on Tuesday supporting the planning, development, and construction of the Westside Subway Extension by MTA that will serve as an advocacy tool for pursuing funding for the project.

Additionally, the City Council adopted the recommendation of the Mass Transit Committee for route alignments on Wilshire at La Cienega Boulevard and Beverly Drive.

The Mass Transit Committee was appointed in 2006 by the City Council under former Mayor Steve Webb to develop recommendations for alignments and station location; Allen Alexander and Mark Egerman were elected co-chairs.

The committee unanimously agreed upon the Beverly station because it “is 1.1 miles to Center City, serves the core of the business district and has the highest bus transit stop,” said Kunz.

La Cienega was agreed upon because of its proximity to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Beverly Center, he continued.

“I think that this fits in very nicely with the possibility to develop east Beverly Hills and to look into the idea of having an arts and theater district there,” said Councilman John Mirisch.

The Committee presented its findings in January 2007 to the former City Council. At this time the council adopted a resolution appreciating the efforts of the committee.

However, the Westside Cities Council of Government agreed that individual cities would not take a formal position with respect to route alignments and station locations until Metro completed its alternative analysis.

The alternative analysis was completed and adopted by the Metro Board earlier this year. They included two route alignments that are currently being analyzed as part of the draft Environmental Impact Report:

• A Metro Purple Line extension from the Wilshire/Western station via Wilshire Boulevard to Santa Monica.

• A Metro Purple Line extension the Wilshire/Western station via Wilshire Boulevard to Santa Monica plus a Metro Red Lineextension from the Hollywood/Highland station to a future Wilshire/La Cienega station.

Both proposals include the Beverly Hills’ committee’s recommendations for alignment at Beverly Drive and La Cienega.

Metro is estimating if the plans go through the line will be extended to Fairfax by 2019; to Century City by 2026 and Westwood by 2036.

Currently an interdepartmental City staff team led by the Transportation Division of The Public Works & Transportation Department is working with Metro’s team in developing the draft EIS/EIR.

At this time, the team is analyzing the technical requirements of the station locations and the tunneling feasibility of the two route alignments.

Quarterly updates will be provided, be Metro. The Transportation Division will also present updates to the City Council as well as the Traffic and Parking, Planning and Public Works Commissions.

Specifics of the station locations are anticipated to be available in 2010.

There was no fiscal impact adopting the resolution on Tuesday. Metro will negotiate with the City for construction costs when developing funding agreements for the portion of the subway between Fairfax Avenue and Century City.

L.A. County sheriff to supervise MTA security guards (Source: Los Angeles Times)

Link: L.A. County sheriff to supervise MTA security guards - Los Angeles Times

L.A. County sheriff to supervise MTA security guards

As part of its security reorganization, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority loses two executives. The move follows complaints that some guards improperly detained, pushed or struck commuters.


By Richard Winton
August 7, 2009
Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have reorganized their security operations and given the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department the responsibility of supervising transit security guards, officials said Thursday.

The move to transfer supervision of the security officers from MTA executives to the Sheriff's Department follows complaints that some guards have improperly detained, pushed or struck commuters. As a result of the reorganization, two MTA executives lost their jobs.

MTA spokesman Marc Littman said the agency eliminated the positions of Jack Eckles, deputy executive officer in charge of safety and security, and Dan Cowden, MTA security director.

Neither Eckles nor Cowden could be reached for comment.

In May, The Times reported that over the last two years there have been at least 11 investigations into transit security officers accused of mistreating people.

Some of the incidents had been captured on surveillance cameras, prompting sheriff's officials to warn the MTA that some guards were abusing their authority.

Earlier this year, a guard who was accused of attacking a "near comatose and intoxicated" man without provocation at a downtown subway station, was convicted of battery and filing a false police report.

MTA security guards protect the agency's property and revenues. They carry guns, batons and pepper spray, but they are not legally authorized to act as law enforcement officers.

About two years ago they began to operate separately from the Sheriff's Department, which provides sworn deputies to patrol the buses and rails.

In an Aug. 3 memo to MTA employees and sheriff's personnel, MTA Chief Executive Arthur Leahy said that he decided to turn supervision of the guards over to the Sheriff's Department to create a "unified command structure."

Paul Taylor, MTA deputy chief executive, will manage MTA security, with the Sheriff's Department "assuming responsibility for day-to-day operations control" of the guards, Leahy wrote in his memo.

The Play To Block HSR Stimulus Funds (Source: California High Speed Rail Blog)

Link: California High Speed Rail Blog: The Play To Block HSR Stimulus Funds

Thursday, August 6, 2009
The Play To Block HSR Stimulus Funds

The California High Speed Rail Authority held its monthly meeting today, and included a project phasing workshop after the regular meeting, part of Chairman Curt Pringle's efforts to provide more opportunities for the public to get involved with providing feedback on the planning process. One of the outcomes of today's meeting was that the Authority is becoming more assertive in providing management and oversight:

Under the leadership of newly elected board chairman, Curt Pringle, the Authority created three standing committees:

* Executive Administrative Committee: Chairman Curt Pringle, Judge Quentin Kopp, Director Fran Florez
* Operations Committee: Directors Richard Katz, Rod Diridon, Jr. and Russ Burns
* Finance: Directors Tom Umberg, David Crane and Lynn Schenk...

Additional organizational transparency measures include maintaining and keeping current the California High-Speed Rail Authority Web site, posting all applications and other required documentation....

Discussed proposal for development of new “investment grade” ridership and revenue forecasts to assist in attracting public-private partnerships.


All of which is quite welcome.

The board apparently also discussed fast-tracking certain deadlines to enable more stimulus funding to arrive in California. It's hard to figure out exactly what this refers to - the article from ABC/7 in LA is written at something resembling a 6th grade level and is maddeningly vague. But whatever was discussed and decided, it was enough to provoke some of the usual suspects into their usual outrage:

"The biggest danger is that citizens don't get heard, alternatives don't get considered. They don't want to study any route alternatives. And to me, that's absolutely wrong when you're doing a $40 billion project," said Richard Tolmach, California Rail Foundation....

"You can't short-cut the process on a high-speed train. You end up with a mess," said Tolmach.


Tolmach is not being truthful here - the CHSRA spent 11 years studying route alternatives. He's just unhappy they didn't pick his preferred route.

More significant than Tolmach's desire to study the project until 2049 is his implication that stimulus funds are less important than building the project his way. This is a completely crazy approach, jeopardizing the entire HSR project and the federal funds it needs to be built over a relatively minor spat over a routing choice.

Tolmach is joined in working to undermine the HSR stimulus funds by the Planning and Conversation League, which last month sent this rather extraordinary letter to a bunch of state legislative leaders:

High-speed rail on fast track in Calif. (Source: ABC7)

Link, click here.

High-speed rail on fast track in Calif.

Thursday, August 06, 2009
By Nannette Miranda

A high-speed rail may soon be on the fast track in California, if federal stimulus money is approved. A top priority would be the segment from Anaheim to Los Angeles.

Californians may be seeing bullet trains sooner than expected. The California High Speed Rail Authority decided to move up the deadlines so it can qualify for federal stimulus money dedicated to such projects across the country.

The Obama Administration requires projects to break ground by September of 2012, which is four to six years earlier than the original plans. Federal money is desperately needed to supplement the $10 billion financing bond voters approved last year.

"People, when they passed the bond, they expected something to happen," said Curt Pringle, Chairman, High Speed Rail Authority. "And in economic stimulus dollars, the requirement is to spend those dollars, start building something and putting people to work. And we're prepared to do that."
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But not everyone is happy about the sooner deadlines. They question whether there will be enough time to settle lawsuits and get public input. Portions of the San Diego to Sacramento route, especially those through neighborhoods, are being disputed by residents who like their peace and quiet.

"The biggest danger is that citizens don't get heard, alternatives don't get considered. They don't want to study any route alternatives. And to me, that's absolutely wrong when you're doing a $40 billion project," said Richard Tolmach, California Rail Foundation.

The project engineers insist the early deadlines won't shorten the period for public hearings or environmental reviews. Train passengers who support high-speed rail think seeing the project starting in three years is good news.

"The sooner we can make transportation available to the masses, quicker, the more people are going to use it and the highways will be less crowded," said Charles DeFevere, a train passenger from Visalia.

But critics warn there could be a price for acting too fast.

"You can't short-cut the process on a high-speed train. You end up with a mess," said Tolmach.

Scenes from the Purple Line scoping meeting (Souce: MetroRiderLA)

Scenes from the Purple Line scoping meeting | MetroRiderLA

Scenes from the Purple Line scoping meeting
Contributed by Wad on August 5th, 2009 at 1:31 pm

Photos by Yours Truly. They can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

Purple Line meeting attendees

The first of five scoping meetings for a Metro Purple Line westward extension kicked off Tuesday night with a small turnout of about 35 people that were mostly supportive in an area that had long been known as the subway’s hornets’ nest.

The meeting was held at the meeting hall of the Wilshire United Methodist Church in Windsor Square, and the reserved crowd could have passed for a church service — save for one speaker.

David Mieger

Of the nearly 3 dozen people who attended, only about a dozen got up to speak their piece for 2 minutes. There was a large delegation of Metro staff, but the talking was mostly by regional representative Jody Litvak and planner David Mieger, above.

Dana Gabbard Jerard Wright "Gary"



Three speakers include, left to right, Southern California Transit’ Advocates’ Dana Gabbard, The Transit Coalition’s Jerard Wright, and a man who identified himself as Gary (affiliation unknown).


The first hour was spent updating where the project stands. This meeting updated some of the alignments that are no longer under consideration. Don’t worry, West Hollywood, you’re still in the game.


Litvak went into detail about the construction methods that will be used for building the subway. Tunneling will be deep-bore, and she says Metro will use a new generation of tunnel-boring machines that helps maintain earth pressure and reduce subsidence. One overhead slide focused specifically on tunneling through the gassy area in Hancock Park that was subject to the federal ban.

Metro obviously has to be careful to avoid the kind of tunneling disasters that plagued the completion of the existing system, but Litvak says there’s no pain-free way of building the subway. Construction is expected to last 4-5 years per MOS. She said if Metro can acquire a property off-street, the worst of the construction is about 9 months — 2-4 months before tunneling and 4-5 months after tunneling but before completion of construction. If Metro cannot and has to take over a street, the painful part is the entire construction process. Wilshire and its intersecting street would have to be periodically closed.

Metro plans quarterly updates of the project. What’s gone:

* In Century City, Metro has ruled out an Avenue of the Stars station. The serpentine approach, in which the line would snake down toward Olympic and have the platform between Santa Monica Boulevard and Constellation Boulevard before returning to Westwood, would have been a mile longer than the straight deviation of the two remaining station possibilities: Santa Monica and Constellation.
* In Westwood, forget about anything onto the campus or inside Westwood Village. The station will either be on Wilshire or portal north of Wilshire where a parking structure currently is. Metro cited the obstacle of the veterans cemetery and not wanting to tunnel beneath it.
* West of I-405 — which Metro says is needed in the third minimum operating segment (MOS) because it forecasts Westwood to not only be L.A.’s busiest subway station, but the one that might become overcrowded — Metro is no longer considering a station at Federal Avenue. It is planning for a VA Hospital station, though a portal has not been identified (as we know, the complexes are set back far from Wilshire). What has been added is a station at Barrington Avenue. A Bundy Drive station has been pushed to MOS 5 — the extension to “the sea”.
* Now for West Hollywood. A Santa Monica/La Cienega station is out, because the platform would be 4-5 blocks to the east, possibly at the West Hollywood City Hall. Metro says there’s more support for a station between La Cienega and San Vicente Boulevard. A Beverly Center/Cedars-Sinai is still in the cards, but the Pink Line complicates a Beverly Hills preference for a La Cienega station. The public wants a junction station at La Cienega, not Beverly Drive. However, this would require the new platform to be pushed between La Cienega and Robertson. Neither Metro nor Beverly Hills care for a Robertson station.

Also, a Wilshire/Crenshaw station is still classified as optional. The community is divided on whether a station should be built here. Opponents say the neighborhood is a poor fit for a subway station and that Wilshire between Wilton Place and La Brea Avenue is a no-man’s land. Proponents point out to the heavy transit usage from Lines 210 and 710 and the collection of office buildings and apartments near Crenshaw, as well as the opening of a new school two blocks away.

The maps have included the Crenshaw Boulevard connection between the Expo Line and the Purple Line in this study. A straight shot up Crenshaw would be bus-only. A route via San Vicente Boulevard to Crackton could be rail or bus and connect at the La Brea or Fairfax stations, or continue via San Vicente (the maps do not show a direct link to the Pink Line).

The next updates will further refine public comment and start finding concepts for station portals. There’s no target date for opening, but Metro will conduct another year of hearings before the Metro board votes on a plan of action sometime in Fall 2010. From there, preliminary engineering work begins and funding agreements are signed.

Finally, here are the planned MOSs:

1. Extension from Western to Fairfax.
2. Extension from Fairfax to Beverly Hills or Century City.
3. Extension from Beverly Hills or Century City to Century City, Westwood and west of I-405.
4. West Hollywood
5. Extension from west of I-405 to Santa Monica.

Good news about TAP cards, but (Source: MetroRiderLA)

Good news about TAP cards, but … | MetroRiderLA

Good news about TAP cards, but …
Contributed by Wad on August 6th, 2009 at 3:51 am

Compass fare card reader at a Trolley station



Photo by Yours Truly. It can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.


The good news: Metro’s TAP cards are so versatile, they work on more than a dozen transit agencies in L.A. County …

… and San Diego County!!!

This was one of the few things I experimented with on my day trip to America’s Finest City, at least the finest city in San Diego County.

Well, it should be no surprise. Cubic is based in San Diego, and it outfitted the Metropolitan Transit System with the same fare infrastructure as TAP — only it’s called Compass down there.

I tried a little experiment. I found one of the newer ticket vending machines identical to the Metro second-generation devices and held up the TAP card to charge it as a Compass card in the same way a TAP would be loaded. And the TVM accepted it! It gave the option of buying a day, weekly or monthly pass. San Diego, like L.A., does not have stored value fully implemented. But this confirms the L.A. cards talk to the San Diego machines.

The bad news: I didn’t actually blow $5 on a pass loaded to an L.A. TAP card. I still bought the paper pass. I also asked an MTS ambassador if I would be allowed to use L.A. media to pay for San Diego fares.

She said she wasn’t sure, so the safe answer is not to do it. San Diego has its own Compass-branded cards that are valid, and while the machines can technically “interface,” fare inspectors can still cite or arrest you for evasion and/or fraud.

This brings me to the closing disclaimer: The information contained in the post herein is strictly informational. If MetroRiders go down to San Diego for joyriding and use TAP cards, MetroRiderLA does not license or endorse this behavior nor will it or any of its authors or administrators be held liable for any fines or criminal actions brought upon you.

Random Bag Checks by Sheriff's on Metro? Yes.Random Bag Checks by Sheriff's on Metro? Yes. (Source: LAist)

Random Bag Checks by Sheriff's on Metro? Yes. - LAist

Random Bag Checks by Sheriff's on Metro? Yes.

sheriff-search.png Apparently, Los Angeles County Sheriff's have been doing random bag checks for Metro since March, according to Damien Newton at StreetsblogLA. Metro staff emphasized to him that the searches are legal, after he spoke to them when a reader witnessed it happening to commuters entering the Gold Line platform at Union Station. Notes Newton: "When Metrolink announced it was going to begin randomly searching passengers' belongings last summer, there was a firestorm of protest. After the horrific crash last September, the agency came under fire for spending money Keeping Us Safe from Terrorists instead of improving rail safety."

Ryan Avent Demolishes Ed Glaeser's Attack on HSR (Source: California High Speed Rail Blog)

California High Speed Rail Blog: Ryan Avent Demolishes Ed Glaeser's Attack on HSR

Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Ryan Avent Demolishes Ed Glaeser's Attack on HSR

Harvard economist Ed Glaeser posted the second in his HSR evaluation series for the New York Times' Economix Blog yesterday. There are several problems with his study, particularly his choice of Dallas-Houston as his example to assess HSR costs. Matthew Yglesias criticized this pick as being unrepresentative and not even being part of the official USDOT HSR route map. I wouldn't hang my hat on that latter factor to undermine Glaeser, since the USDOT HSR map will be updated this fall, and will likely include Dallas-Houston, which is part of the "Texas T-Bone" HSR project.

But is Dallas-Houston a representative corridor? Ryan Avent, writing at Streetsblog Capitol Hill, argues it isn't:

Why would he choose this corridor to examine? Why not begin with the most natural place to construct true HSR -- the Northeastern Corridor -- or the state moving fastest toward building its own true HSR network -- California?

Well, Glaeser was able to use Dallas' low share of commuters taking transit to knock the corridor's estimated ridership down by half. Transit's share of commuting in Los Angeles is nearly three times that in Dallas. In San Francisco, transit's share, at 32.2 percent, is more than seven times larger than in Dallas. Presumably this difference had something to do with his choice.


The Texas T-Bone scored pretty low on The Transport Politic's assessment of US HSR routes. Obviously Glaeser has not picked a representative sample. But Avent argues Glaeser's approach is more fundamentally flawed because of how his metrics work:

This is a bad beginning for Glaeser, but it actually gets worse. He presents a formula for determining whether the direct benefits of rail are worth the costs:

Number of Riders times (Benefit per Rider minus Variable Costs per Rider) minus Fixed Costs.

That seems simple, does it not? Perhaps a little oversimplified? But it must be so, says Glaeser:

I’m simplifying, but a formula needs to be simple if interested parties can seriously debate the numbers, and the only way that America is going to get to the right answer on public investments is if numbers trump rhetoric.

But it matters which numbers we're considering, and omission of important variables that planning experts take seriously is not the way to conduct this debate.

The simple fact is that Glaeser's stripped-down formula obscures far more than it reveals. Again, as I mentioned at the beginning, I am hesitant to judge this series a mere one part in, but the way he has begun here is simply irresponsible.

What are his long-term assumptions? How quickly does he think the population of the Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas will grow? What will that population growth do to the number of people living within easy reach of a train station? How will that population growth interact with planned expansions of local transit systems?

How sensitive are his projections of changes in oil prices? Do they take into account the effect of changing demographics on demand for various kinds of housing and transportation?


In short, Glaeser has left an enormous amount of stuff out of his calculations, exactly as I predicted he would. Avent makes the point Morris Brown expected me to make about the cost of doing nothing:

And that brings us to a final point (which, again, Glaeser may ultimately address): What is the proposed alternative?

Is it doing nothing? Then at what point does the rising cost of congestion justify construction of something? Let's say an alternative is new airport capacity; well, how do the costs and benefits there work out, and how does that math change with oil at $150 per barrel?

Or perhaps an alternative is new highway capacity. Can we see a cost-benefit analysis for that, and how that varies with oil prices, congestion levels, and so on? If we assume that drivers will need to pay the full maintenance cost of the highway network already constructed via a user fee (and currently they're coming up well short), what does that do to expected demand for rail?

Even if you accept the numbers that Glaeser uses (and one shouldn't automatically do so), you're left with almost nothing -- an amateurish, back-of-the-envelope analysis for a corridor that's not even part of the current Obama administration plan. What is this supposed to prove, exactly?


As is typical with conservative economists, HSR is treated as if it will exist in a vacuum, unrelated to any other changes in transportation, land use, oil prices, carbon taxes, population growth, or other costs.

I'm with Avent on this - Glaeser's metrics don't hold up. I'm curious to see part three, but I am not any less doubtful than I was after part one.
Posted by Robert Cruickshank at 4:23 PM

Berkley: High-speed trains a ticket to more tourism dollars (Source: Las Vegas Sun)

Berkley: High-speed trains a ticket to more tourism dollars - Las Vegas Sun

Berkley: High-speed trains a ticket to more tourism dollars


Kyle Hansen

Rep. Shelley Berkley speaks about transportation issues at a press conference Wednesday as U.S. PIRG Field Organizer Jacob Shirk looks on at the Main Street Station Casino.

By Kyle Hansen

Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 | 1:59 a.m.


Rep. Shelley Berkley came to admire to high-speed trains while in Taiwan with her husband.

While there, she was impressed with the speed and efficiency of the system and decided that a similar system was needed at home.

“This is fabulous, we need to do this in the United States of America,” she said.

“How is it that Taiwan and so many other countries around the planet can figure out mass transit and a way of transporting people in a much more comfortable, much cleaner, much safer way than the United States of America?”

Berkley, D-Nev., joined representatives from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in a press conference Wednesday morning to promote public transportation and road maintenance.

“We have a crumbling and ageing infrastructure,” Berkley said. “If we are going to continue our status as a superpower and an important nation in this world, we’re going to have to start moving in a direction that’s going to repair our crumbling infrastructure. It was great for the 20th century, it’s obsolete for the 21st.”

U.S. PIRG representatives have been in the Las Vegas area this week gathering signatures and support for their suggestions to Congress.

“We do need a 21st century transportation plan, one that will enhance our economy, our national security, public health, the environment and quality of life,” field organizer Jacob Shirk said. “We need a transportation system that will prioritize fixing our crumbling roads and not just building new highways.”

The advocacy group claims that 80 percent of federal transportation funds go toward building new highways and cited the deadly collapse of a bridge in Minnesota two years ago as evidence of the need for more money to maintain existing roadways.

“Americans waste millions of hours each year just sitting on roads, most of which are poorly maintained,” Shirk said. “At the same time, we spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars on wasted projects when that money could be going into basic maintenance, into modernization and investing in public transportation.”

A report released by the group says public transportation saves the country 3.4 billion gallons of oil each year, prevents 541 million hours of traffic delay and reduces carbon emissions by 26 million tons.

Berkley said she agrees with the group on the need for new transit solutions.

“We can’t continue to rely on our crumbling infrastructure. It will sink us in the end if we don’t get ahead of this situation, this problem, and move forward,” she said.

But the congresswoman also said she thinks Las Vegas is doing a good job building mass-transit alternatives, citing the Regional Transportation Commission’s Deuce buses and new ACE express buses as examples.

“You can’t talk about getting people out of their cars unless you offer them an alternative,” she said. “I believe the Las Vegas Valley is in the process of offering and building a remarkable alternative to being in your car all by yourself, spending a fortune on gas, spending hours in your car and polluting the air.”

Berkley said the hardest part will be getting people to believe in and use the new transit systems.

“It’s changing a mindset, and that’s a very difficult thing to do. The only way you do that is, over time, demonstrating to people that there’s a better way. Right now, they haven’t seen a better way,” she said.

Part of that, Berkley said, will be building a national system of high-speed trains.

“I believe our transportation department should be developing a bicoastal system (so) that people know that they can get on that high-speed train and get from one end of the country to another,” she said. “You have to instill confidence, it has to work, it has to be inexpensive -- certainly more cost-effective than getting in your car -- it has to get you to where you’re going, it has to be safe.”

Las Vegas can especially benefit from the trains, she said, because of the high number of tourists who come to the area from Southern California.

“Las Vegas depends on tourism dollars. In order to get tourism dollars, you need tourists that come with their dollars,” she said. “Let’s get them here by high-speed train. We’ll get them here faster, cleaner and less expensively, and then they have all those dollars to spend here in Las Vegas. We like that.”

Portland’s Transport Research Guru Headed to Obama Administration (Souce: Streetblog Los Angeles)

Link: Streetsblog Los Angeles » Portland’s Transport Research Guru Headed to Obama Administration

Portland’s Transport Research Guru Headed to Obama Administration

by Elana Schor on August 5, 2009

The U.S. DOT is expected to announce today that it has tapped Robert Bertini, a Portland State University professor who headed Oregon's state-wide transport research effort, as the No. 2 at the Research and Innovative Technology Administration -- the government's home for stats on all things transportation.

large_Rob_Bertini_1.jpgRobert Bertini (Photo: Oregonian)

Bertini's hiring is an uber-wonky personnel move, to be sure. But it also signals the ascent of a reason-based approach to transportation policy, with a focus on increasing efficiency by helping communities shift a greater share of trips onto transit.

In testimony before Congress last year, Bertini outlined the dizzying array of projects his Oregon research consortium, known as OTREC, has embarked upon after its founding in 2005 (with a grant from the federal DOT). Here's just a sampling of what OTREC has studied:

* The socio-economic impacts of imposing a new vehicle miles traveled tax
* The relationship between transportation planning and land use, assuming "a certain set of goals are determined and pursued by politicians and planners," as Bertini put it
* How to shift suburban multi-family housing developments to a broader mix of transport modes
* Using technology to encourage more neighborhood pedestrian activity
* How community safety affects public health for lower-income children

Screen Shows Bus Departure Times to Subway Riders (Source: LAist)

Link: Screen Shows Bus Departure Times to Subway Riders - LAist

Screen Shows Bus Departure Times to Subway Riders

Now here's a nice idea. A reader at LA Streetsblog submitted a photo of a digital TV showing bus departure times at the Union Station Metro Red Line station. Little is known at this point, but it seems to be an experiment or at least the first of many. Line 20 to Santa Monica is departing in 15 minutes with the following one leaving in 24 minutes, it reads. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Start Planning Rail Yard at Verizon Site, Expo Officials to Tell Council (Source: www.surfsantamonica.com)

Link: Start Planning Rail Yard at verizon Site, Expo Officials to Tell Council

Start Planning Rail Yard at Verizon Site, Expo Officials to Tell Council

By Jorge Casuso

August 4, 2009 -- After more than a year unsuccessfully scouring the Westside for available land for a maintenance yard for the proposed light rail line to Santa Monica, Expo officials next week will ask the City Council to begin planning for the facility at the Verizon property neighboring residents oppose.

Expo Construction Authority officials said they will ask the council members to scrap their plan to split up the yard after vocal opposition from area residents and a key landowner at a council meeting last month. ("City Council Greenlights Alternate Plan for Rail Yard," July 17, 2008)

Approved 4 to 2 on July 14, the plan would have used a city-owned parcel at 1800 Stewart Street and a Santa Monica College-owned parcel, as well as the originally proposed site currently owned by Verizon near Olympic and Stewart streets.

"There was no support for the hybrid site as was being proposed," said Samantha Bricker, the chief operating officer for the Expo Construction Authority. "The concern was that (we would) pursue and environmentally clean a site that had no support.

"We're all in favor of looking for things that make sense for our project, and this seemed to stoke more opposition," Bricker said. "I think the City heard that as well."

Expo officials said they -- as well as City officials -- have exhausted the hunt for a property adjacent to Phase 2 of the line, which will run from Culver City to Downtown Santa Monica.

"Unfortunately on the Westside, there are not many parcels adjacent to the line that meet the criteria," said Bricker. "We need an evenly shaped parcel" that is big enough.

"The City hired their people (consultants), we hired our people, we searched everywhere and didn't find anything," said Rick Thorpe, the Expo Construction Authority's CEO.

"We've spent over a year going over 32 different locations," Thorpe said. "Now I think we're at the point" of deciding on the Verizon site and start planning ways to make it work.

City officials, who are in constant contact with the Construction Authority, said they are continuing to explore options, but are also moving ahead with plans for the Verizon site.

"We're working on other things, including what the Verizon site wo

High Hopes for High-Speed Rail (Source: Scientific American)

Expo yard proposal could negatively impact SMC

local news section
Expo yard proposal could negatively impact SMC
By Melody Hanatani
write the author

080509_CTY_SMC_RAIL_IMPACT_


While much of the debate over the Expo light rail maintenance yard has been focused on the impact to neighbors, the latest proposal is also expected to result in some inconveniences for Santa Monica College. Considered an alternative to a controversial proposal to locate a facility on the current Verizon site, the most recent version would spread the functions of the yard over several properties, placing the noisier operations to the west side of Stewart Street onto city-owned property. Doing so could also entail use of a 2.35 acre parking lot at 2909 Exposition Blvd., which the college bought in late 2006 for $17.3 million using Measure S bond money. photo by Brandon Wise.

August 05, 2009

EXPOSITION BLVD. — While much of the debate over the Expo light rail maintenance yard has been focused on the impact to neighbors, the latest proposal is also expected to result in some inconveniences for Santa Monica College.

Considered an alternative to a controversial proposal to locate a facility on the current Verizon site, the most recent version would spread the functions of the yard over several properties, placing the noisier operations to the west side of Stewart Street onto city-owned property. Doing so could also entail use of a 2.35 acre parking lot at 2909 Exposition Blvd., which the college bought in late 2006 for $17.3 million using Measure S bond money.

"For various reasons, the particular plan does not work for the college but we are continuing to explore alternatives in order to bring rail to Santa Monica," Don Girard, the senior director of government relations and institutional communications for SMC, said.

If the Exposition Construction Authority ultimately decides to adopt the alternative proposal, SMC would most likely have to search for a new location to build a satellite parking lot. College officials have already asked City Hall to aid in that process, looking specifically at areas that are adjacent to one of SMC's four existing campuses — Main, Bundy, Madison and Academy.

The revenue from the sale of the existing lot would have to be used toward college capital programs as required by the bond measure. Girard said he anticipates that the property would be sold at around or above the price the college paid back in 2006 because of an increased level of interest in the area, which is due to see some changes under the Land Use and Circulation Element.

City officials are also looking at other options for the maintenance yard and is expected to present those findings at the City Council meeting on Aug. 11.

"We're working furiously to see what's possible," Kate Vernez, the assistant to the city manager on government relations, said.

The council last month authorized its staff to continue exploring the alternative proposal, favoring it over the previous option to place the yard directly across from homes. Officials also requested the Exposition Construction Authority to include the new option in its environmental analysis.

The latest proposal would move the louder operations to the west side of Stewart next to cultural arts complex Bergamot Station and the City Yards, while the storage tracks and train washing facility would be kept on the east side of Stewart Street. The yard would also be separated from homes on the south side of Exposition Boulevard by a mixed-use development that will include residences and perhaps some neighborhood-serving retail.

The alternative plan once again met with opposition from neighbors who were joined by the Lionstone Group, which has a leasehold on the city-owned site until 2030. Representatives from Bergamot Station also expressed their displeasure with the proposal.

Both the Exposition Construction Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority supported the alternative proposal but the lack of community support, increased cost from having to acquire the Verizon and college lots, and an unwilling leasehold seller could mean that the agencies are no longer interested in the option, Vernez said.

"We're trying to close on these issues before going to council on Aug. 11," she said.

The college's parking lot has about 220 spaces, which are about 80 to 90 percent occupied during the fall and spring semesters. The lot is serviced by the Big Blue Bus' Sunset Ride, which sees anywhere between 150 to 230 boardings a day at the stop. The Sunset Ride also stops at the college.

"We're really happy with the success of the Sunset Ride," Dan Dawson, the marketing manager for the Big Blue Bus, said. "If they were to locate something with the Expo line there, it would be pretty easy for us to make modifications or changes."

The college has about 4,200 spaces between the various campuses.

The Exposition lot was purchased to help alleviate a long-standing parking shortage problem for the college. While such an issue doesn't exist at the satellite campuses, Girard said that there is still a parking shortage at the main campus where construction recently began for a new subterranean structure that will include more than 500 spaces.

College officials looked at several candidates for the satellite lot back in 2006, including the old Papermate facility.

David Finkel, the vice-chair of the college Board of Trustees, sees positive and negative attributes of the proposed alternative plan, the former of which would be the preservation of Bergamot Station as a cultural center and protection of residents because of the buffer zone between the yard and the homes.

The bad point is that it means a maintenance yard will be located in Santa Monica at all and that it takes away SMC's lot. He said the Board of Trustees is still waiting to see what position it should take on the matter.

"The college has to protect the public interest by either protecting our land or getting a replacement, which serves the same purpose, so the public doesn't get hurt for the bond money spent," Finkel said.

High Hopes for High-Speed Rail Will a boom in government investment bring true high-speed rail to the U.S.?

Link: High Hopes for High-Speed Rail: Scientific American

High Hopes for High-Speed Rail
Will a boom in government investment bring true high-speed rail to the U.S.?

By Michael Moyer

Widespread high-speed rail service, last seen in the U.S. during the Hoover administration (when passenger trains ran faster than they do today), stands ready for its comeback. Last November California voters approved a $10-billion bond toward a rail system that will move passengers the 432 miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles in just over two and a half hours. The federal stimulus package sets aside $8 billion to jump-start rail projects around the country, and the Obama administration has pledged another $1 billion a year for the next five years for high-speed rail.

Infatuations with high-speed rail systems have come to the U.S. before, of course—most recently, Texas and Florida trumpeted regional plans, only to abandon them after a few years. But advocates now see a difference. "It's more than plans this time, it's money," says James RePass, chair of the National Corridors Initiative.

In its quest to build a 21st-century rail network, the U.S. will rely on 20th-century technology. Magnetically levitated trains such as the 19-mile-long Shanghai Transrapid are not under serious consideration. Rather advocates see a potential for systems like those in Japan and Europe, where simple improvements such as dedicated track lines and overhead electrification allow trains to regularly exceed 180 miles per hour. The Japanese Shinkansen (“bullet”) trains, for example, average 132 mph between Tokyo and Osaka, a distance of 320 miles. Spain’s recently completed AVE line between Madrid and Barcelona covers 386 miles in under three hours; since it started service in February 2008, air travel between the two cities has dropped an estimated 30 percent.

The U.S. is too large to have train service connect the entire country the way it does in Spain and Japan. Instead the U.S. Department of Transportation wants to nurture the development of regional networks. The blueprint is the Northeast corridor, in which Amtrak’s Acela Express runs from Boston to New York City and down to Washington, D.C., at an average speed of 80 mph—“high speed” only if one is inclined to grade on a curve. That is fast enough, though, to entice riders concerned about airport delays and highway traffic: Amtrak estimates that the line carries 36 percent of all rail-air traffic between New York and Washington.

Other regions ideal for a high-speed rail network—in which cities are too distant to make driving convenient and too close to make a flight worthwhile—include the Dallas–San Antonio–Houston triangle, the Floridian triad of Orlando-Tampa-Miami, the upper Midwest Milwaukee-Chicago–St. Louis corridor, and northern and southern California. The federal dollars will go to projects in 10 intrastate regions such as these, connecting cities that are between 100 and 600 miles apart.

A prime goal of these regional networks will be to alleviate travel congestion. In California, for example, a growing population will require an extra 3,000 miles of highway lanes, five large airport runways and 91 airport gates by 2030—improvements that would cost an estimated $100 billion. “That will not happen,” says Quentin Kopp, chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority. “There will be a necessity, a transportation necessity, of using something besides our automobiles.”

Yet high-speed rail faces tougher challenges in the U.S. than it does in Japan or Europe. The modern geography of the U.S. is based on the Interstate Highway System, and driving here is far cheaper than in other countries. For instance, drivers pay about $90 in tolls during that one-way trip from Tokyo to Osaka, on top of $6.50 a gallon for gas. (The economics may become worse for cars if the U.S. puts a price on carbon—trains are 28 percent more efficient than passenger vehicles on a passenger-per-mile basis.)

In addition, most rail lines in the U.S. are primarily used for freight, and federal regulations, combined with industry practice, discourage passenger trains from exceeding 110 mph on track that freight trains also use. Moving faster than 125 mph requires a rail line akin to a highway—no intersections with road traffic at any point. Hence, true high-speed rail will require miles of new track, elevated above (or sunken below) existing roads, on newly acquired land that cuts the straightest line from A to B. All told, the tab might run from $40 million to $65 million per mile. Although some of the federal money will help start projects with this level of ambition, the rest will be used for more prosaic track and signal upgrades that will squeeze a little extra speed from existing lines.

Critics correctly point out that the rail lines will never make back in passenger fees what they cost to build. Yet neither was the interstate highway system a for-profit venture. It did, however, open the landscape to increased movement of people, goods and ideas. Train advocates hope that high-speed rail will do the same.

The Crowded Skies
Alleviating air traffic congestion is one of the major goals of the new push into high-speed rail. According to a study by the Federal Aviation Administration, without a major overhaul of the air traffic control system, 27 of the 56 largest airports in the country will push past excess capacity by 2025. Even with an overhaul, 14 of them will be over capacity.

Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "The Third Way."

L.A. County Sheriff’s Checking Bags at Union Station (Source: Streetsblog Los Angeles )

Link: Streetsblog Los Angeles » L.A. County Sheriff’s Checking Bags at Union Station

L.A. County Sheriff’s Checking Bags at Union Station

by Damien Newton on August 5, 2009

Alert reader and commenter "M" brings news that Metro has joined its partner agency Metrolink as a transit agency that randomly searches the bags of its passengers.

I'm not sure if anyone else has alerted you to this, but this morning the sheriffs were doing bag inspections when entering the Gold Line at Union Station. This is the first time I've seen this inspection happen on the Gold Line (I know it's happened with the Metrolink trains in the past). Do you know if the same people that provided money for the Metrolink train inspections are giving money for the Gold Line as well?

According to Metro staff, the searches were completed by the L.A. County Sherriff's Office. The sheriff's have a security contract with Metro and have been conducting these searches since March to Keep Us Safe from Terrorists. Staff also repeatedly mentioned that these searches are legal, which appears to be true.

When Metrolink announced it was going to begin randomly searching passengers' belongings last summer, there was a firestorm of protest. After the horrific crash last September, the agency came under fire for spending money Keeping Us Safe from Terrorists instead of improving rail safety.

Streetsblog Los Angeles » L.A. County Sheriff’s Checking Bags at Union Station

L.A. County Sheriff’s Checking Bags at Union Station

by Damien Newton on August 5, 2009

Alert reader and commenter "M" brings news that Metro has joined its partner agency Metrolink as a transit agency that randomly searches the bags of its passengers.

I'm not sure if anyone else has alerted you to this, but this morning the sheriffs were doing bag inspections when entering the Gold Line at Union Station. This is the first time I've seen this inspection happen on the Gold Line (I know it's happened with the Metrolink trains in the past). Do you know if the same people that provided money for the Metrolink train inspections are giving money for the Gold Line as well?

According to Metro staff, the searches were completed by the L.A. County Sherriff's Office. The sheriff's have a security contract with Metro and have been conducting these searches since March to Keep Us Safe from Terrorists. Staff also repeatedly mentioned that these searches are legal, which appears to be true.

When Metrolink announced it was going to begin randomly searching passengers' belongings last summer, there was a firestorm of protest. After the horrific crash last September, the agency came under fire for spending money Keeping Us Safe from Terrorists instead of improving rail safety.

LACMTA Regional Connector (Source: Wikipedia)

LACMTA Regional Connector - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LACMTA Regional Connector
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Metro rail map of downtown Los Angeles with possible routing of Regional Connector (in dashed blue line)

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority Regional Connector project (also referred to as the Downtown Connector or Downtown Light-Rail Connector) is a proposed mass-transit rail project in Downtown Los Angeles, connecting the Blue and Expo Lines to the Gold Line and Union Station.

[edit] Alignment

This light rail extension would begin at the 7th Street/Metro Center station, which is currently the northern terminus of the Blue Line and future terminus of the Expo Line and connect to the Gold Line Eastside Extension (currently under construction) on Alameda Street at either Aliso, Temple or 1st Streets. The operational intent is to allow through running of service between the four corridors (Blue, Gold, Expo and Eastside Extensions). The project is still at very preliminary stages of planning and thus no alignment has yet been determined, but a number of alignments have been identified for screening by an alternatives analysis.

As of May 2008, LACMTA has narrowed the alignment to two possible alternatives, one being an at-grade option and the other being a subway option [1]

. Both alternatives include either two or three stations between the 7th Street/Metro Center station and the junction with the Gold Line. The preliminary results have been updated at the October 16th and 21st, 2008 community meetings to provide estimates on ridership, cost, cost-effectiveness and trip times to provide further analysis for a future EIR[2]

The advancing this Alternatives Analysis to a future EIR has been approved by the Metro Board at the January meeting.


The at-grade option (Build Option 1)

Flower to 2nd to Los Angeles (northbound track) or Main (southbound track) to Temple to Temple/Alameda junction with Gold Line.

* Stations at Flower between 3rd and 4th (at-grade), Bunker Hill/Disney Hall (underground) and at Main and Los Angeles and 1st (at-grade).

* New Riders: 7,620 to 8,391

* Boardings at new stations: approx. 15,100

* Cost-Effectiveness: $20.36 - $24.75 (Medium-Low to Low)

* Cost: $706 - $790 million

* Route length: 1.79 miles

* Travel Time from Union Station to Pico: 13.6 - 14.4 minutes


The subway option (Build Option 2)

All subterranean route Flower to 2nd to Central surfacing to 1st/Alameda junction with Gold Line.

At 1st/Alameda intersection, Alameda Street will be separated from tracks with a short trench, First Street will stay an at-grade crossing but with train priority signalization. Pedestrians will be separated from train movements by strategically located pedwalks above the tracks. [3]


* Stations at Flower between 4th and 5th (underground), Bunker Hill/Disney Hall (underground) and at Main and 2nd (underground).

* New Riders: 10,195

* Boardings at new stations: 12,457

* Cost-Effectiveness: $18.63 (Medium)

* Cost: $910 million

* Route length: 1.58 miles

* Travel Time from Union Station to Pico: 12.2 minutes

[edit] History

The connector was envisioned as far back as 1984 when planning and building the Long Beach Blue Line and restudied with a through connection in the Pasadena Light Rail Corridor studies in 1990. LACMTA envisioned the Blue Line running through downtown to Union Station and onward to Pasadena with potential future lines (Burbank/Glendale to the northwest and Exposition Park/Santa Monica to the south and west). The connector was not completed due to lack of funds and realignment of the Red Line Eastside Extension which later became an extension of the Pasadena Gold Line.

The connector was formally studied for the first time as a stand alone project in a Major Investment Study in 1992–1993, in preparation of its Long Range Transportation Plan. The project was again revived in 2004, when LACMTA staff initiated a technical feasibility assessment for a potential regional connector. This study focused on conceptual methods to provide a regional connector and to alleviate potential operational constraints[4]

.

The 2004 staff study looked at the potential alignments of the Downtown Connector that could not be done entirely underground due to funding constraints due from the voter approved 1998 Prop A ban on local county subway funding. Most of the alignments contained a partial underground alignment along Flower Street, surfacing somewhere between 5th Street and 3rd Street and then proceeding east to Alameda Street, where it would join the tracks of the Eastside Line, which continue northward to Union Station or eastward to Boyle Heights. There were conceptual stations at the following locations:

* Central Library.
* Bunker Hill.
* Los Angeles City Hall.
* Little Tokyo.

LACMTA staff analyzed a number of at-grade, street running couplets, transit mall, elevated and hybrid subway/at-grade/elevated alignments along various east-west streets such as; Temple Street, First Street, Second Street and Third Street and utilizing available grade-separated infrastructure such as the Second Street Tunnel through Bunker Hill (between Hill and Figueroa Streets) or the Third Street Tunnel (between Hill and Flower Streets) to minimize costs, improve operating times and improve the feasibility of constructing the project.

In July 2006, the LACMTA Board voted to approve funding and staff to initiate a Major Investment Study (MIS) for the Regional Connector in conjunction with approval of a similar study for the extension of the Red Line subway. In June 2007, the LACMTA Board approved the consultants to perform the Alternative Analysis and MIS and in November 2007, preliminary outreach meetings for the Alternative Analysis were held at Central Library and the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). The results from these meetings were presented to the public in February 2008, including the descriptions of the eight route alternatives identified for analysis. These eight alternatives have been narrowed down to two as of May 2008.

Those results were shown to the public on October 16th and 21st 2008. [5]

After these meetings, the results of the Alternatives Analysis will be shown to the full Metro Board for a vote in January 2009 to continue through to the next step in the Environmental process. At the January Metro Board Meeting, the Regional Connector was approved and received funding to continue in the EIR process.

List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership (Source: Wikipedia)

List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership

Percentage of public transport commuters in major U.S. cities in 2006

The following is a list of United States cities of 100,000+ inhabitants with the 50 highest rates of public transit commuting to work, according to data from the 2006 American Community Survey. The survey measured the percentage of commuters who take public transit, as opposed to walking, driving an automobile, bicycle, boat, or some other means.

1. New York, New York - 54.24%
2. Jersey City, New Jersey - 46.62%
3. Washington, D.C. - 38.97%
4. Boston, Massachusetts - 31.6%
5. San Francisco, California - 30.29%
6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 26.43%
7. Arlington, Virginia - 26.28%
8. Yonkers, New York - 25.47%
9. Chicago, Illinois - 25.38%
10. Newark, New Jersey - 24.04%
11. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - 21.14%
12. Alexandria, Virginia - 20.55%
13. Baltimore, Maryland - 19.55%
14. Seattle, Washington - 17.79%
15. Berkeley, California - 17.36%
16. Daly City, California - 17.27%
17. Oakland, California - 16.72%
18. Buffalo, New York - 15.62%
19. Richmond, California - 15.55%
20. Hartford, Connecticut - 15.5%
21. Atlanta, Georgia - 14.85%
22. Edison, New Jersey - 14.82%
23. Paterson, New Jersey - 13.85%
24. East Los Angeles, California - 13.75%
25. Minneapolis, Minnesota - 13.19%
26. Portland, Oregon - 12.64%
27. Cleveland, Ohio - 12.22%
28. Miami, Florida - 12.16%
29. Stamford, Connecticut - 11.86%
30. San Juan, Puerto Rico - 11.26%
31. Bridgeport, Connecticut - 11.24%
32. Cincinnati, Ohio - 11.17%
33. Honolulu, Hawaii - 11.08%
34. Los Angeles, California - 10.97%
35. Concord, California - 10.85%
36. Rochester, New York - 10.78%
37. St. Louis, Missouri - 10.28%
38. New Haven, Connecticut - 10.%
39. Milwaukee, Wisconsin - 9.96%
40. Naperville, Illinois - 9.7%
41. Santa Ana, California - 9.24%
42. Providence, Rhode Island - 8.89%
43. Bellevue, Washington - 8.81%
44. Madison, Wisconsin - 8.74%
45. St. Paul, Minnesota - 8.22%
46. Ann Arbor, Michigan - 8.13%
47. Elizabeth, New Jersey - 8.01%
48. Dayton, Ohio - 7.57%
49. Denver, Colorado - 7.44%
50. Eugene, Oregon - 7.37%

Connector meeting in Little Tokyo The green line is the proposed Regional Connector Transit corridor. (Source: Rafu Shimpo)

Link: Connector meeting in Little Tokyo – Rafu Shimpo

Connector meeting in Little Tokyo
The green line is the proposed Regional Connector Transit corridor. Source: Metro

The green line is the proposed Regional Connector Transit corridor. Source: Metro

On Wednesday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Japanese American National meeting, representatives from the Metro Regional Connector Light Rail Transit team will be speaking about the transit project which could dramatically change Little Tokyo. It’s a chance for the public ask questions and view renderings of the four alternatives for a regional connector.

The purpose of the regional connector is to provide seamless travel for transit riders between the Metro Blue and Gold Lines, as well as the Gold Line Eastside Extension and Expo Line. Among the alternatives being considered is a subway line which would be at First and Alameda streets. Other alternatives include a street car option that would run along Main and Los Angeles streets, a bus and shuttle van system or to not build a connector at all.

The project, particularly the subway option, has raised concerns about noise pollution, pedestrian safety, the impact of construction on Little Tokyo businesses and the loss of parking spaces.

—GWEN MURANAKA

U.S. public transit improvements will be a tough sell "Shinkansen" bullet train (Source:Los Angeles Times)

Link: U.S. public transit improvements will be a tough sell - Los Angeles Times

David Lazarus:
U.S. public transit improvements will be a tough sell
"Shinkansen" bullet train

Kyodo News
Japan’s transportation system, which includes bullet trains, could not be duplicated in the U.S. without massive trade-offs
It won't be enough to lay down lots of track and hope people leap aboard trains and subways. It also will take discouraging the use of cars and making cities less comfortable.
David Lazarus
August 5, 2009
It's hard to appreciate how truly pitiful our public transportation system is until you spend some time with a system that works.

Over the course of two weeks in Japan, I rode just about every form of public transit imaginable -- bullet trains, express trains, commuter trains, subways, street cars, monorails and buses. Nearly every ride was smooth, on schedule and affordable.

The only glitch came when a major thunderstorm forced one train I was taking through the mountains of Kyushu to be delayed for safety reasons. Anguished railway employees repeatedly apologized for the inconvenience and said there'd be no charge for the remainder of the trip.

So I have to wonder: Is it possible we could ever have anything even remotely similar here?

"It can happen," said Martin Wachs, director of transportation, space and technology for Rand Corp. in Santa Monica. "But it will only happen over a long period of time and will require a number of policy changes."

Specifically, it won't be enough to just lay down lots of track and hope people will leap aboard trains and subways. You also have to discourage the use of cars -- which most Americans won't stand for -- and make our cities considerably less comfortable.

Good luck with that.

Los Angeles County is attempting to improve its public transportation with tax money from Measure R, which was approved by voters in November. The half-cent sales tax increase is intended to raise as much as $40 billion for a laundry list of projects, including a long-awaited "Subway to the Sea."

However, sales tax revenue is way down because of the crappy economy, and it's an open question when work will begin on many of the projects on the Measure R wish list -- and where the money will be found to finish that work once it gets started.

California faces similar funding issues now that voters have approved Proposition 1A, which allows the state to borrow nearly $10 billion to get the ball rolling on a high-speed rail line between Southern California and the Bay Area.

The planned 800-mile system would, in fact, cost tens of billions of dollars more than that. How much more, nobody knows for sure.

Similar projects are planned or have been proposed nationwide.

Brian Taylor, director of UCLA's Institute of Transportation Studies, said the hardest part isn't constructing the infrastructure for a world-class public transit system. It's creating the necessary incentives to get Americans out of their cars.

"We now keep the cost of driving as cheap as we possibly can," Taylor said. "As long as we do that, we won't be able to make public transportation work."

He said investments in transit projects need to be accompanied by policies designed to make driving costlier and thus make public transportation more attractive.

These policies include significantly higher charges for parking virtually wherever you go and the increased use of toll roads.

New York demonstrates the viability of this notion. Who'd even consider the hassles of driving and parking in Manhattan when you can take the subway instead?

Taylor also believes that gas taxes need to go way up, with much of the money used to fund transit resources. Higher prices at the pump could be offset by a modest reduction in sales taxes.

The net result, he said, would be more limited use of cars for everyday activities and increased ridership of public transportation, which, in turn, would help generate revenue for additional transit projects.

This is a big part of the formula that the Japanese used for their system and also is the one pursued by most European countries.

If we don't put these policies in place here, people will look at our current investment in public transportation 10 years down the line and say what a waste it was," Taylor said. "And then we'll start investing again in roads."

David Boyce, an adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University, said another key piece of the puzzle is land use. Americans prefer low-density communities and large lots for their homes.

This may be swell from a quality-of-life perspective, but it's an enormous challenge for public transportation, which requires relatively large numbers of people moving from point A to point B on a daily basis to be profitable.

To address this, Boyce said, construction of new rail networks must be accompanied by a commitment to higher-density cities and suburbs in the form of more condos and apartment buildings near transit hubs.

It also requires dense clusters of office buildings and retail outlets that represent the jobs and stores people want to reach.

The way things currently stand, jobs and homes are spread so far and wide, it's almost impossible to imagine getting around many metropolitan areas without a car. As a result, public transit is perceived by many people as impractical and inconvenient.

"It's not a lost cause," Boyce said. "We can turn this around. But we need to address land-use issues if we're going to do it."

I hate to be cynical, but I simply can't imagine political leaders at the local, state or federal level telling voters that they support a big increase in gas taxes, sky-high parking fees and high-density neighborhoods.

So don't hold your breath for a public transportation system that rivals what our friends abroad enjoy. It's not going to happen -- at least not until a majority of us agree that we're prepared to accept the trade-offs necessary to bring about such a wholesale change in how we live and travel.

Until then, we'll always have Paris.

And Tokyo.

David Lazarus' column runs Wednesdays and Sundays. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

L.A. Metro to test turnstile-gate waters at four subway stations (Souce: /www.progressiverailroading.com)

Link: L.A. Metro to test turnstile-gate waters at four subway stations

L.A. Metro to test turnstile-gate waters at four subway stations

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) recently began installing turnstile gates at four Metro Red Line subway stations to determine if the equipment helps prevent fare evasion and boosts station security.

By the month’s end, the gates will be operational at the Normandie, Union, Westlake and Pershing Square stations. Metro is the only U.S. subway operator with a barrier-free “proof-of-payment” system through which fares are randomly checked by civilian fare inspectors and sheriff’s officers, according to LACMTA. The agency estimates it loses about $5 million annually to fare evasion, and its fare evasion rate on rail lines stands at 6 percent.

The turnstile gates are a key component of Metro’s Transit Access Pass (TAP) program, which calls for implementing an automated regional fare collection system to provide county transit riders more seamless travel among modes. In addition to installing the gates, Metro plans to install more video surveillance cameras at all gate entrances and assign more security personnel to key stations.

Metro officials will monitor operations at the four gate-equipped stations. If “all goes well,” the agency will install a total of 379 fare gates at all subway stations — as well as all Metro Green Line, and key Metro Blue and Gold line light-rail stations — by early 2010, LACMTA officials said in a prepared statement.

Gold Line Adventures Along The Arroyo Seco (Souce: www.arroyolover.blogspot.com

ArroyoLover: Gold Line Adventures Along The Arroyo Seco

Gold Line Adventures Along The Arroyo Seco

One of my favorite ways of seeing the Arroyo Seco is through the window of the Gold Line light rail, which connects Pasadena with Downtown Los Angeles and runs parallel to the Arroyo for most of its distance.

Even though it's a short 20 minute ride from the Del Mar Station to Union Station, I find myself always seeing something new as I gaze out the window. One day, it's the purple lupin wildflowers at Los Angeles Historic Park. Another day, it's a falcon, dive bombing at its prey. Sometimes I even daydream that the beautiful hillsides with their 'stacked' homes are part of Tuscany, not Northeast Los Angeles.

The people watching on the train is fun, too. In the early mornings, commuters can be found reading the paper, covertly sipping coffee (open containers are not permitted on the train), napping, listening to an iPod or talking on their cellphone.

The Gold Line attracts a lot of 'tourists,' too. On my excursions, I've met British Airway employees on a quick getaway to Pasadena before their next international flight schedule ~ German students making films about Los Angeles architecture ~ Big Ten fans seeing the 'big city' after absorbing their alma mater's loss in the Rose Bowl Game.

Some of my favorite fellow travellers are the bicyclists. It's always fascinating engaging these urban street bipeds. Sometimes, they are just using their bicycle as a commuting connection between the train and work, but more often, they are off to an adventure: beach bicycling in Long Beach; street exploring in search of the new taco truck find; hooking up with friends in Hollywood. More often than not, they are students on their way to a charter or local university campus.

It's always interesting to note the people 'energy' on the train too ~ commuters going to and fro work catching 20 minutes of peace in contrast to bicyclists and tourists animated about their rail adventure.

And then, there is the special moment that strikes you unaware.

Such a moment happened last Friday when I was returning home from downtown. It was late afternoon and the train was filling up fast. An older couple boarded the train with seats still available, but not side-by-side. The gentleman took the aisle seat in front of me and the woman sat down next to me. All was quiet for a few minutes as we left the station until the gentleman turned to the young woman next to him and excitedly proclaimed in an accent that sounded Eastern European: 'My wife just became an American citizen!'

The woman in front of me turned around and the very happy, yet shy new American showed us her 'certificate.' It was a joyous but quiet moment ~ the train car did not break out in applause, because only the woman in front of me and myself could hear the old man's comments above the afternoon rider din.

We congratulated her, smiled and then each returned to watching the scenery fly by as the train headed northeast to our destination.

It was all I could do to hold back tears of happiness for her.

What's a "Street Trolley?" (Source: blogdowntown.com)

blogdowntown: What's a "Street Trolley?"

What's a "Street Trolley?"
By Eric Richardson
Published: Friday, July 31, 2009, at 12:20PM


A modern streetcar in Portland, OR.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The L.A. Times has a short piece on the Downtown streetcar effort running this morning on its L.A. Now blog. In a twist, though, it calls the proposed car a "street trolley."

I understand streetcar. I understand trolley. But "street trolley?"

Transportation planners are considering three different routes for a proposed street trolley that would run through downtown Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Street Car Inc. has been working with city officials and downtown property owners on the trolley concept, which is designed to connect the sprawling city center. It comes as officials are working on a plan to revive the movie palaces along Broadway, which is where the streetcar would run.

The Times also used the street trolley term in a January 2008 article on the Bringing Back Broadway effort, but it doesn't have any real history of doing so. A quick search of the Times' own archives reveals only 77 matches for "street trolley" (and many of those are in cases like "10th street trolley"). There are 9596 matches for "streetcar."

The trolley term (though certainly not this street trolley twist) was widely used early in the project's life, but advocates prefer the word streetcar to separate the operation of today's modern systems from the idea of a historic toy.

Street trolley gaining steam in downtown Los Angeles (Source: LA times)

Link: Street trolley gaining steam in downtown Los Angeles | L.A. Now | Los Angeles Times

Street trolley gaining steam in downtown Los Angeles
11:40 AM | July 31, 2009

Transportation planners are considering three routes for a proposed street trolley that would run through downtown Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Street Car Inc. has been working with city officials and downtown property owners on the trolley concept, which is designed to connect the sprawling city center. It comes as officials are working on a plan to revive the movie palaces along Broadway, which is where the streetcar would run. Here are the proposed routes:

-- Option 1: The streetcar would run from Bunker Hill to the South Park area. It would pass the Music Center, then proceed down Broadway. It would then veer west on Pico Boulevard to Figueroa Street, hitting the Convention Center, Staples Center and L.A. Live, before returning north on Hill Street.

-- Option 2: This route is somewhat shorter, with a smaller run along Figueroa.

-- Option 3: This route would not go as far south, ending at 11th Street, and would return north on Olive Street.

Downtown boosters have hailed the trolley system as a way of getting visitors and workers around within the area.

The trolley would be the centerpiece of an effort to turn Broadway into the theater and dining district. Government officials and private developers have earmarked nearly $40 million, hoping to pull the gentrification that has swept much of downtown into the district's main commercial area. They envision many of the movie facades giving way to a live theater district forming on the street, with a trolley car system running down its center.

-- Shelby Grad

Metro: Westside Subway Extension Project Meeting (Source: Streetsblog Los Angeles)

Link: Streetsblog Los Angeles » Metro: Westside Subway Extension Project Meeting

Metro: Westside Subway Extension Project Meeting

by Damien Newton on July 27, 2009

When
August 4, 2009 6:00 pm August 5, 2009 6:00 pm August 6, 2009 6:00 pm August 11, 2009 6:00 pm August 12, 2009 6:00 pm

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) will hold five community meetings on the Westside Subway Extension Project to provide an update on Metro’s continued progress with this project.

In April, Metro held six public scoping meetings to obtain community input to help shape the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Report (DEIS/R) process that is currently underway.

Metro now will present a summary of what was heard during the scoping period, provide an update as Metro continues to refine the alternatives, and discuss the potential subway construction process.

A complete listing of meetings is as follows:

* Tuesday, August 4, 2009, Wilshire United Methodist Church, 4350 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles. Spanish & Korean translations will be provided at this meeting.
* Wednesday, August 5, 2009, Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood. Russian translation will be provided at this meeting.
* Thursday, August 6, 2009, Santa Monica Public Library, Multi-Purpose Room, 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica. Spanish translation will be provided at this meeting.
* Tuesday, August 11, 2009, Beverly Hills Public Library, Auditorium, 444 N. Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills. Spanish translation will be provided at this meeting.
* Wednesday, August 12, 2009, Westwood Presbyterian Church, 10822 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. Spanish translation will be provided at this meeting.

All meetings are from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and are easily accessible by public transit. Parking is also available at all the locations.

The scoping meetings held in April initiate the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Draft EIS/EIR) process that was authorized by the Metro Board of Directors last January. The Westside Subway Extension is slated to receive partial funding from Measure R the half-cent sales tax increase approved by voters last November.

* Two “Build” alternatives are moving forward for analysis in the Draft EIS/EIR: a Wilshire Subway that extends the Metro Purple Line via Wilshire Boulevard
* and; a Wilshire/West Hollywood Subway that incorporates all of the Wilshire Subway and also includes a spur from the Metro Red Line in Hollywood via Santa Monica Boulevard. A “No Build” alternative and a “Transportation Systems Management” alternative are also being considered as a required part of the environmental review process.

In January 2009, the Metro Board approved the two Build alternatives for further environmental review and preliminary engineering. At the conclusion of this phase of evaluation for the project the Metro Board of Directors will be asked to select a Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA). Selection of an LPA precedes final environmental review final engineering and construction.

Content presented at these meetings will be identical so members of the public can attend on the day and location most convenient for them.

For additional information or questions, please visit the Westside Subway Extension Project web site at metro.net/westside or contact the project information line at 213.922.6934.

Vegas Maglev Supporters Strike Back (Source: California High Speed Rail Blog)

California High Speed Rail Blog: Vegas Maglev Supporters Strike Back

Vegas Maglev Supporters Strike Back

On the heels of months of favorable publicity for the DesertXpress steel-wheel HSR project, crystallized by Senator Harry Reid's shift of support away from maglev and toward DesertXpress, the backers of the SoCal-Vegas maglev project have countered with a op-ed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Richann Bender, executive director of the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission, criticizing DesertXpress's claims and arguing that maglev hasn't been given a fair shake:

Construction on the first segment of the maglev train -- the fastest train in the world -- can begin in 2010 and would be built entirely in Nevada by hard-working Nevadans.

The backers of the high-speed, conventional-rail DesertXpress would like to "reprogram" this guaranteed $45 million away from Nevada, and instead expect us all to just wait five years for their privately owned train to nowhere to get taxpayer-backed loans. This is not in the best near-term or long-term interests of Nevada jobs or Nevada's economy.


Bender isn't starting off on a good note. The op-ed suggests that the maglev project is really about connecting Las Vegas to a proposed airport site at Primm (along the CA/NV border), undermining the claimed benefits of a train to bring people from Southern California to Las Vegas.

Worse in my mind is Bender's embrace of the deeply misleading anti-rail frame of a "train to nowhere." In fact, it was the Vegas maglev project that led Congressional Republicans to adopt that term during the February debate over the stimulus. While I can understand Bender's desire to undermine the rival DesertXpress project, employing this kind of framing is a monumentally stupid move, for it will merely fuel its usage - which will come back and bite the maglev project, especially when they go to Congress looking for more funding. I don't like to use the disparaging "gadgetbahn" term that is sometimes used to attack maglev, partly because I don't like using phrases and frames that are designed to serve an anti-rail agenda.

Bender lists some other claimed advantages of maglev - it's faster; it's a success in Shanghai; and:

Maglev is also greener than traditional forms of ground and air transportation, and unlike DesertXpress, it complies with all state and local land use and environmental regulations.


I would be curious to see substantiation of this claim. Obviously it's difficult to provide in-depth evidence in a short newspaper op-ed, but that kind of charge does need supporting evidence.

The heart of the op-ed are three points designed to raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about the DesertXpress project: lack of connectivity to SoCal urban centers, costs, and public funding. First up is the issue of the route:

The maglev project also addresses the primary reason for constructing a high-speed rail system: congestion on Interstate 15 throughout the region, connecting Las Vegas to the heart of the population and business centers in the Southern California Basin.

DesertXpress' proposed ending of Victorville, Calif., falls well outside of congested highway areas.


This isn't a fair criticism for two reasons. Number one is that ending at Victorville actually does include many of the primary congested highway areas on the trip to Vegas - where Interstate 15 narrows north of Victorville is where most of the traffic delays on the trip to Vegas commence. So a terminus of Victorville would do much to avoid most of the worst congestion, even if the rest of the journey into the SoCal metroplex won't yet be covered by DesertXpress.

But that journey could well be completed if DesertXpress built an extension westward across mostly empty desert to link up with the California HSR project at Palmdale. This has been discussed by the two projects, and while it would be fair to criticize this as being no guarantee at all of a future connection, neither is it right to exclude that possibility.

Next up is cost:

Second, maglev costs about the same as traditional high-speed, steel-wheel-on-rail trains. DesertXpress supporters have repeatedly cited a nonexistent $40 billion price tag as a reason for not building the maglev project. A March 2009 Government Accountability Office report lists the true estimated cost of the Las Vegas to Anaheim maglev project as $12.1 billion.

In fact, the Federal Railroad Administration also estimates the cost of traditional high-speed, steel-wheel-on-rail trains at $30 million to $50 million per mile, which would mean DesertXpress could cost up to $9 billion for the Las Vegas-to-Victorville route (far more than the $4 billion reported on the organization's Web site). If you put the two projects side by side, this puts maglev in the same cost per mile range.


There's been a lot of debate about the FRA's cost estimates. Certainly any project built in the desert between Victorville and Vegas would be on the low end of those estimates (once you go from Victorville into the SoCal megalopolis those costs will rise significantly). But maglev's history on costs is just not favorable. Consider the fate of Munich's maglev:

Plans to build a magnetic levitation train from the center of Munich to the airport were trashed on Thursday after construction costs almost doubled from €1.85 billion ($2.90 billion US) to €3.4 billion ($5.33 billion US). This is a major disappointment to Siemens, the company who exported the maglev to Shanghai, China, but cannot build a commercial maglev system within its home country.


And the Shanghai maglev has had ridership problems - running trains that are 80% empty, unable to recoup any part of the enormous construction costs.

Part of the problem in Shanghai was that the maglev system route isn't ideal - it doesn't connect the highly traveled corridors. This would seem to be a problem with the proposed Vegas maglev route. As noted above, the initial segment would run from Primm to Vegas - not exactly a high-traffic route. If/when a new airport is built there to relieve McCarran, then perhaps there will be high ridership on this maglev route. But without firm plans to build the entire line from Vegas to Anaheim, it is still much too likely that the costs on this first segment will balloon and kill the rest of the route, leaving Nevada with something of a white elephant.

Finally there is the issue of public funding:

Third, and perhaps most important, from the beginning maglev has made clear that it intends to use a combination of both private capital and government funding. To date, no high-speed rail project in the United States has been constructed solely with private capital.

This didn't stop DesertXpress from actively selling the idea of a privately funded train. In fact, advocates of DesertXpress have for years cited the "private" element as one of the primary reasons their project deserves support.

As recently reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, however, their focus has now shifted to seeking taxpayer funded federal loans to cover the majority of financing for the project.


I never thought it was good or beneficial that DesertXpress made a virtue of being privately funded, given the extreme unlikelihood that they would be able to keep that promise. That being said, the reason Bender mentioned this is to sow doubt about DesertXpress's claims and plans. There's nothing wrong with seeking federal funding for HSR or maglev, but the mere fact that DesertXpress has shifted its plans doesn't imply any inherent problem with their project.

It's a typical line of attack for critics of passenger rail - anytime the details change, they use that change as supposed evidence that the project is not viable, is being mismanaged, should not be trusted, etc. As with the "train to nowhere" frame, Bender is playing with fire here, especially since the op-ed hasn't offered any actual reasons or explanation as to why DesertXpress made the shift.

It's a shift that makes sense. It's become much more difficult to raise billions in private capital for anything, as banks hoard their funds and as the recession continues to deepen. That's not the same as being impossible to raise those funds, and private investors are much more willing to get involved with something that has federal financial involvement, as will the California HSR project. A good project with sound management will change parts of their plan when conditions warrant, instead of plowing ahead with an obsolete model. DesertXpress's shift is in itself not a bad thing, and shouldn't be taken as such.

I can understand why the Vegas maglev project feels the need to strike back at the DesertXpress project, which has all the momentum these days. Maglev backers have a much tougher case to make, particularly on the cost angle, and they are in very real danger of seeing their project fall apart. I'm all for a close comparison of the two plans to link California to Nevada, and all for criticism when the evidence supports it.

But Richann Bender and the Vegas maglev project haven't made that case here. Instead they have used anti-rail arguments to undermine a rival without offering solid evidence to back up their claims. It's an unfortunate and desperate move that isn't necessary and isn't welcome.
Posted by Robert Cruickshank at 8:46 PM