Expo Line: LA Planning Yet to Get on Board (Source: CityWatch)

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Expo Line: LA Planning Yet to Get on Board

MOVING LA
By Ken Alpern

Rightfully so, critics of mass transit repeatedly excoriate the lack of passenger destinations to encourage ridership in rail lines both in and out of LA County. After all, who would ever use a passenger rail line that fails to access key stops where commuters want to go? But there is such a number of potential destinations that it’s not just a matter of bringing a given rail line to these destinations…it’s a matter of encouraging these destinations to come to the rail line.

Fortunately, the first (Mid-City) phase of the Exposition Light Rail Line appears to be on its way to drawing local and regional Active Imagecommuters; whether or not the second (Westside) phase will follow suit is anyone’s guess. There’s no doubt that Staples Center, USC and the museums near Exposition Park will automatically provide key destinations for travelers to access. The Natural History Museum is creating a 3½ acre outdoor wilderness exhibit adjacent to the line that will provide a potential student field trip staple:[LINK]

Culver City is in the process of creating and re-creating the neighborhoods near the Expo Line to prepare for both the traffic and the economic potential that the Expo Line will offer when service opens either in late 2011 or in 2012. Santa Monica is pursuing the arduous path of doing the same for the Expo Line when it opens for service in that city in 2015-16.

As for Los Angeles, it’s no shock (although it’s a bit sad) to learn that it’s nowhere near to accommodating and preparing for the Expo Line as we see in Culver City and Santa Monica. The budgetary debacle has devastated the Planning Department’s ability to hammer down the West LA Community Plan with respect to zoning and transportation, but more importantly the routing issue that dogged the Expo Line for over 20 years prevented any significant focus on Planning as well.

We now know that the Expo Line has been approved for routing along the historic Right of Way from Palms to Rancho Park to Exposition/Sepulveda (crossing by Cheviot Hills). Although the line has been approved by the Expo Authority Board for at-grade (ground level) crossings at Overland Ave. and Westwood Blvd., it remains yet to be determined whether it will be elevated or at-grade at Sepulveda Blvd.

If the legal history of the Expo Line’s configuration near Dorsey High School is any indication of the future, then Westside legal challenges will keep all potential grade crossing alternatives possible regardless of any expert’s claim that he/she knows what will happen. Political compromises are made, learning curves go up, and court dramas go in places that no one can predict…but it does appear that the question of what path the Expo Line will take has been resolved.

Although there are those who believe that planning for all possibilities is akin to “giving in” to the opposition, the alternative paradigm of preparing for all contingencies now while we have some time to do so is another belief that is arguably more thoughtful and helpful for all parties interested in creating an Expo Line that fits into the communities it traverses…as well as creating a series of communities that fit the potential of the Expo Line.

In particular, what remains of Planning and the CD5 office/team of Paul Koretz must work together to have some sort of “game plan” for whether the Expo Line is elevated, ground level, or in a trench between Palms and West LA. What will we want with respect to zoning, green space, open space, tree planting/preservation and traffic/parking conditions on intersecting streets? Can there not be a master plan created for all three possibilities, once the legal and engineering challenges are concluded?

While there are those who hope to tie up the line in legal obstacles, it doesn’t appear likely that either the state or federal or county governments are much interested in stopping this line in some for—even if it means throwing some more money for betterments to this line—so that a three-alternative game plan can and should occur while the legal challenges and community input proceed. They’re not mutually exclusive.

Furthermore, the question of what will exist by the Exposition/Sepulveda and Olympic/Bundy stations is almost a blank slate at this point—Los Angeles is virtually a decade behind Culver City, who has been confronting this line for about that long, if one can actually comprehend that different approach. It must be reminded that it is NOT the responsibility of the Expo Line Authority to do the Planning for the cities and communities through which the rail line is to traverse…but the Authority is still forced to do SOMETHING.

Perhaps, then, it is understandable that (even if one wholly disagrees with) the decision made by the Expo Authority to go with a minimalist approach through West L.A. while it receives virtually no guidance or consensus from the City of Los Angeles on how the Expo Line should be configured along the Right of Way routing through West Los Angeles. The differing agendas of the various councilmembers on the Expo Authority Board have sent impossibly mixed messages to the Authority.

No one really has a clue of what can, will or should exist at Olympic/Bundy and Exposition/Sepulveda stations, but one can be certain that both the Bundy Village and Casden developers for those two station sites have a long way to go before a development plan can be created to satisfy the local residents, the political leadership and Los Angeles City Planning. At this immediate time, it must be concluded that the Bundy Village developers are more at loggerheads with the grassroots and political leadership that opposes them than the Casden developers, who have raised a few hackles among the neighbors but who are trying to compromise and mitigate with them as well.

As Angelenos, particularly those of us in the Westside, we can always just shrug our shoulders and say, “How could we plan for something that wasn’t yet determined?” Perhaps that was true in the past, but that excuse to bury our collective head in the sand can no longer pass muster.

The time MUST come, and probably starting this year as Preliminary Engineering efforts commence before the Design/Build phase of the Expo Line project, where the neighbors and the region focuses on:

1) Neighborhood preservation with respect to zoning and density

2) True transit-oriented development, not overdevelopment that will make car traffic worse

3) Affordable housing where appropriate, but not providing and excuse to build and develop out of control

4) Bicycle, bus, pedestrian and train commuter amenities that don’t overly hurt the quality of life of the car commuters who now and will still be the majority of those commuting through the region

5) Tree planting and greening the wide Right of Way between Sepulveda and Overland, as well as repairing and even improving the trees and sidewalks on Sepulveda, Westwood, Overland and other major streets to be intersected and impacted by the rail line

6) An Expo Bikeway that fits into major bicycle projects planned for Sepulveda and other major thoroughfares

7) Safety and security measures that make all Expo Line train stations into pleasant and safe places to go, and which become and remain good neighbors to the adjacent communities

The City of Los Angeles has the opportunity (if not responsibility) to create a pedestrian-friendly, bicycle-friendly, kid-friendly and business-friendly neighborhood from the freeway to Palms Park, from the Westside Pavilion Mall to National Blvd., and from Pico Blvd. to Palms. The ongoing legal battles need not prevent the community and L.A. City Planners from planning an improvement to the region and providing guidance to the Expo Line Authority.

… and it should be remembered that despite the passions of those who are concerned about the Expo Line (or any other rail line) reaching a sufficient number of quality destinations, we do have the opportunity to get those destinations to the Expo Line as well.

(Ken Alpern is a Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) and is both co-chair of the MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee and past co-chair of the MVCC Planning Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and also chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at Alpern@MarVista.org.This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.) -cw