Article 1
Link: The Argonaut: Top Stories
Expo Construction Authority to vote on Westside light rail EIR for Phase Two
BY GARY WALKER
Los Angeles transit officials are scheduled to take another step towards moving mass transportation forward on the Westside Thursday, February 4th, when the construction board of the Metro Rail Mid-City/Exposition Light Rail Transit Project votes on the light rail line’s Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR).
The Exposition Construction Authority, which is in charge of building the Westside light rail line, will consider station alignments for Phase Two of the mass transportation project, the location of a maintenance facility in Santa Monica and the addition of a third station along Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica.
The construction authority will also recommend pursuing the right-of-way route owned by Metro that will run along the Expo right-of-way and Colorado in Santa Monica, said Samantha Bricker, chief operating officer of the construction authority.
Phase Two would begin in Culver City, where an aerial station is planned, continue down Palms Boulevard and proceed along the Metro owned right-of-way near the Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10).
The first leg of the 15.3-mile transit corridor began in downtown Los Angeles and will end in Culver City. Originally, the Culver City station was scheduled to open this year, but due to cost overruns and the potential added expenditure of building an overpass at a planned station in South Los Angeles, its opening has been bumped to early next year.
Metro hopes to open the first phase of the line at Crenshaw Boulevard later this year.
The Santa Monica City Council unanimously supported the EIR in November.
The maintenance facility that will service the rail cars, which Metro is proposing to build on Olympic Boulevard in the Stewart Park neighborhood, has had its share of controversy. Residents who live blocks away from the proposed facility, which the EIR suggests building on the current Santa Monica College parking lot and the former Verizon telephone site, have complained about the location.
Eleanor Path, a Stewart Park homeowner, says that it is unfair to ask one of the most racially and economically varied areas in Santa Monica to take the brunt of a 24-hour-a-day/seven-days-a-week, industrial train maintenance yard.
“To the neighborhood, this is an unjustifiable discrimination,” said Path, who is a proponent of the light rail line.
Metro officials say they have added new technology that would eliminate “wheel squeal” from the train, and a car wash and a cleaning platform would be relocated north of the Verizon property. A 110-foot sound barrier would be built to reduce noise from the train and the light rail yard.
In addition, Metro authorities have canceled plans for a paint and body shop, and proposed adding directional lighting to reduce glare and installing landscaping to make the sound barrier less conspicuous.
“We’ve been working with community groups and with Santa Monica officials in what we think has been a very collaborative way,” Bricker said. “We’re hoping that the project will win approval so that we can begin to move forward with the project.”
Mass transit advocacy groups are backing the environmental document and the proposed alignments for the second stage of the light rail project.
“Our official position is we support the recommended preferred alternative without delay,” said Darrell Clarke, the president of Friends 4 Expo, a transit advocacy group. “There’s been an extensive planning and environmental process. It’s time to move forward.”
Clarke says the preferred alternative, which was recommended over a proposal that would travel down Venice Boulevard and then go west toward Santa Monica, is “a mile shorter, faster and will attract more riders.”
Santa Monica City Councilwoman Gleam Davis thinks the mid-city station at 17th Street and Colorado is a crucial addition to the light rail line.
“It is very important, because it is much closer to both Santa Monica-UCLA Hospital and Saint John’s hospital,” Davis told The Argonaut. “It is also closer to Santa Monica College, and we should be able to take a lot of traffic off of the major streets there through buses and shuttles and get people onto the train.”
Clarke agrees that having the third station was a wise move by the council.
“We pushed for that all along, in order to serve the whole mid-city part of Santa Monica,” he said.
The other stations will be at Bergamot Station and Fourth Street and Colorado.
Santa Monica city leaders asked the construction authority to include an additional station on the line to take advantage of the opportunity to create a pedestrian streetscape that would attract tourists, locals and residents from outside the city to shop. There are also plans for a transit-oriented mixed-use development at the 17th Street station.
“That would give people a real sense of being in Santa Monica,” said Davis, a mass transit proponent who replaced the late Herb Katz on the council last year.
Davis said there are also plans to have a transit-oriented plaza at Fourth Street and Colorado, where the line is slated to end.
Despite protests from some Stewart Park residents, Clarke feels that Metro has by and large been very cooperative with the city government on the station alignments and the maintenance yard.
“I think that they tried very hard to work with the city,” said Clarke, a former city planning commissioner who lives a few blocks south of the proposed maintenance facility.
Davis also believes that the transportation agency has worked well with her council and said she and her colleagues have analyzed the proposed site for the maintenance yard from every angle.
“When you have an installation of mass transit in a neighborhood, there are often some conflicts,” the councilwoman noted. “We don’t control where the maintenance yard goes. Our job is to mitigate any potential impacts to the neighborhood.”
The board will only consider the certification of the environmental document and its possible approval February 4th. There will be no further discussion on the site of the maintenance facility or other topics.
Bricker said the Metro Board of Directors could vote on the EIR at its March meeting, pending its approval by the construction authority.
The second stage of the Expo Line is slated to reach Santa Monica by 2014.
Article 2
Streetsblog Los Angeles » Expect Plenty of Debate Before Tomorrow’s Vote on the Expo Line FEIR
Expect Plenty of Debate Before Tomorrow’s Vote on the Expo Line FEIR
by Damien Newton on February 3, 2010
Tomorrow's meeting of the Expo Construction Authority Board of Directors promises to be one of the best-attended, most controversial and longest meeting of the body. The Board is scheduled to vote on approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Phase II of the Expo Line, and there are still many issues that are controversial with various constituencies. The meeting begins at 2:00 P.M. at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration at 500 West Temple Street. For those of you that plan on listening in at home, you can call in at (213) 974-4700 or (877) 873-8017. Spanish language call information and more details at the meeting can be found at the Expo Construction Authority's website.
If the FEIR is passed tomorrow, only a court order or loss of funding could stop construction of the controversial light rail line. While a close vote is expected, passage seems somewhat assured. There are seven voting members of the Expo Construction Authority, and only a majority is needed to approve the documents. Assuming that Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Santa Monica City Council Woman Pam O'Conner and Culver City Council Member Scott Malsin all vote in favor of the project, then only one vote is needed from Los Angeles City Council Members Herb Wesson, Bill Rosendahl, Paul Koretz or County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. Yaroslavsky has already announced his support on his blog.
So what issues need to be addressed? It seems as though the controversy over where to put a rail yard in Santa Monica has cooled off, but that leaves several controversies to be addressed.
The main obstacle to passage is the local advocacy group Neighbors for Smart Rail, that is an umbrella group consisting of local organizations and homeowners groups from areas such as Cheviot Hills and Westwood Gardens. Some of these groups have been opposed to the line for, literally, decades, and others have joined the effort recently. Their main concerns with the project, as outlined in an email to members, can be found here:
The report calls for all train crossings through our community to go at street level (at-grade), blocking traffic as often as every 2 ½ minutes, 22 hours a day at Overland, Westwood, Military and Sepulveda! They have not studied any below grade options and will consider elevating at Sepulveda only if someone else pays for it!
The FEIR document is woefully deficient and the data is flawed - it should not be adopted! We need your support to show the Expo Board that we care about our homes, our schools and the quality of life in this neighborhood. It's time to stand up and be counted.
Unlike some of the other groups attending tomorrow's meeting, Neighbors for Smart Rail aren't encouraging changes to the document, but its outright rejection. It is widely assumed that Neighbors for Smart Rail will be pursuing a legal remedy if they don't succeed tomorrow, but they're keeping that decision close to their vest and haven't said anything about future plans other than what happens tomorrow will determine their next steps.
So what changes would Neighbors for Smart Rail like to see? Their stated position is that grade-separated crossings need to be more seriously studied and approved for crossings at all major intersections and near schools. They note the high accident rate for at-grade rail crossings, most recently exemplified by a Gold Line crash last week.
Countering the assertions of Neighbors for Smart Rail is the pro-Expo group Friends 4 Expo Transit who have relentlessly pushed for the quick construction of the Expo Line from Downtown L.A. all the way to Downtown Santa Monica. They have been encouraging members to write the Expo Board, and show up tomorrow, to provide a counter-weight to the opposition. In response to Neighbors for Smart Rail, Friends 4 Expo write:
We've waited years for this alternative to horrible Westside traffic, that will serve this dense corridor's many residents, jobs, recreational, educational, and cultural opportunities, plus provide landscaping and a bike path.
Its opponents, after failing to detour the line from its straight path to Santa Monica, now demand unprecedented special treatment for one neighborhood under the guise of "Build it right or don't build it." But their prohibitively expensive, long deep tunnel beneath the existing railroad right-of-way has never been built on any modern U.S. light rail line and would threaten Expo's completion.
Friends 4 Expo is supported by broader transit groups such as the Transit Coalition and the Southern California Transit Advocates.
Friends 4 Expo points out that the planned crossings are consistent with Metro's policy, but even that policy is under fire. Just last week, Supervisor Ridley-Thomas, one of those voting tomorrow, wrote to Metro CEO Art Leahy and asked for a review of the crossings policy.
Another group concerned about the line's impact on traffic is the UCLA Bicycle Coalition. While the group expresses support for the concept, and writes that it's "pretty exciting to get a new train line in our 'hood;" they have serious concerns that the configuration will make cycling on Westwood Boulevard, one of the most heavily cycled roads in L.A. County, dangerous and daunting.
Current plans will reconfigure lanes on Westwood Blvd in such a way that it will be a pretty nasty road to bike on. We're asking the board to redesign the street here to preserve space for bikes, and to even add bike lanes. (More details in the letter below).
I know a lot of us bike on Westwood regularly, so we should rise up and demand that this road stay safe for bicyclists.
The cyclists are also asking their members to write the Board or attend tomorrow's meeting.
A third issue to be addressed, is the configuration of the station at Overland Avenue and Westwood Boulevard. A group calling itself "Expo Greenway" is urging that instead of a parking lot the space around the station should be preserved as green space. "Park not parking" is the slogan, and a full detail of their plan can be read at their website.
Of course, there are other issues to be addressed, including the fate of the Expo Bike Path which will be approved if the FEIS is approved tomorrow but is not funded by the Construction Authority. However, heading into tomorrow's showdown at Kenneth Hahn Hall, these are the groups that appear to be doing the most mobilizing.
If tomorrow seems a little short on stories here at Streetsblog, it's because we're planning on "live tweeting" the hearing via telephone.
Article 3
Link: All aboard Expo to the Westside | Zev YaroslavskyAll aboard Expo to the WestsideLink: Groups Prepare to Fight Over Train to Santa Monica Tomorrow - LAist
February 2, 2010
This Thursday marks a turning point in the decades-long effort to bring mass rapid transit to the Westside of Los Angeles. That’s when I, along with my colleagues on the Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority Board, will cast a crucial vote on extending the Expo Line from Culver City to Santa Monica.
I intend to vote yes, and here’s why.
The Westside has waited for decades to become part of the growing regional mass transit system of Los Angeles County. While transit lines have been built in downtown, Pasadena, Long Beach, the San Fernando Valley and along the Century Freeway, the Westside’s public transit system is exclusively made up of street buses. The Expo Line will give commuters who work and live in the western part of L.A. County an alternative to sitting in their cars for up to 3 to 4 hours each day getting to and from work or school. For the first time since the legendary Red Car system was dismantled after World War II, the Westside will have mass rapid transit.
And Thursday’s vote is a key step to getting us there.
The Expo Board will consider the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for Phase 2 of the project, the section of the light rail that will run from Culver City to Santa Monica. We must approve the FEIR before we can award a design and construction contract for this long-awaited project. If approved, Phase 2 could begin some construction before the end of this year, with completion planned in 2015. The line’s ridership is estimated to be 64,000 a day by 2030.
The Expo Line in its entirety will connect downtown Los Angeles with Exposition Park/USC, Crenshaw, Culver City, Pico/Sepulveda, West Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The first phase, which runs between downtown and Culver City, is now under construction and working toward an opening next year.
The Expo Line has had its share of critics, with concerns raised about matters ranging from grade crossings, impact on neighborhoods and placement of the project’s maintenance yard to delays and noise during Phase 1 construction.
But I firmly believe that the FEIR has addressed these issues in great detail and that we can deliver a project that will reflect what our region wants and needs. Extensive analysis has been done to ensure that the Expo Line is built in a manner that is as respectful as possible of the communities through which it will run. New elevated grade separations have been recommended where appropriate. Those intersections include: Venice Boulevard, Bundy, Centinela, Pico-Gateway, Cloverfield/Olympic and Sawtelle. The remainder of the grade crossings will be at street level.
It’s significant to note that the overwhelming majority of the 9,000 comments received on the environmental impact report have been positive. State Senator Fran Pavley and Assembly members Mike Feuer and Julia Brownley also have voiced their support for the project. And the cities of Los Angeles, Culver City and Santa Monica have partnered with Expo to build it.
The $1.5 billion Expo Line is being funded largely through the Measure R half-cent sales tax that was approved by county voters in 2008. The project, coupled with the extension of the subway westward, also partially funded through Measure R, will bring much-needed mass rapid transit to the Westside.
All of us have waited a long time for this moment. Building the Expo Line and extending the subway to the Westside are among the reasons I helped write Measure R and fought so hard to get it passed. An effective rapid transit system will improve our quality of life. System users will save time and money while reducing wear and tear on body and soul.
Come and join us at the Hall of Administration at 2 p.m. Thursday, and let’s get this train moving.Article 4
Groups Prepare to Fight Over Train to Santa Monica Tomorrow
The big day is tomorrow. The Expo Line's construction authority board is scheduled to vote on the second phase, which will bring the line from Culver City to Santa Monica (the first phase between downtown and Culver City is already under construction). The vote could go a variety of ways, including being voted down--meaning no train--to what's expected: the route as seen in the photo above.
In his preview of the meeting, Damien Newtwon at Streetsblog LA rounds up what two groups--one for, one against--are saying in their latest e-mail blasts. "The report calls for all train crossings through our community to go at street level (at-grade), blocking traffic as often as every 2 ½ minutes, 22 hours a day at Overland, Westwood, Military and Sepulveda!" says detractors of rail line, Neighbors for Smart Rail. "The FEIR document is woefully deficient and the data is flawed - it should not be adopted!"
Friends 4 Expo Transit are prepared for the opposition. "Its opponents, after failing to detour the line from its straight path to Santa Monica, now demand unprecedented special treatment for one neighborhood under the guise of 'Build it right or don't build it,'" they say.
No matter, it appears the light rail line will be approved. "I intend to vote yes," wrote Count Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky on his blog. "It’s significant to note that the overwhelming majority of the 9,000 comments received on the environmental impact report have been positive," he noted.
user-pic
By Zach Behrens in News on February 3, 2010 2:55 PM
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