What about upgrading the Orange Line to Light Rail? (Source:http://ridethepinkline.blogspot.com)

LINK: http://ridethepinkline.blogspot.com/2010/06/what-about-upgrading-orange-line-to.html

What about upgrading the Orange Line to Light Rail?

Let me preface this blog post by stating I think bus service is wonderful, and I support a county-wide network of transit only lanes and busways.

However, I do not subscribe to the belief that a seat on the bus is as "good" as a seat on a train, nor do I agree with the choice of Metro to brand busways with official colors like the "Orange Line" and the "Silver Line".

The San Fernando Valley seems to be left out of mass transit planning in  Southern California . Meanwhile the entire  San Gabriel Valley  political structure is united and is eagerly anticipating two or more Gold Line extensions eventually on the northern prong to Montclair  and even  Ontario   Airport  and on the southern prong to possibly  Whittier  and/or  Duarte . The reason for this is obvious. With our oversized, too populous, too few legislative districts at the national, state, county and municipal level, many of the politicos who represent the southern  San Fernando Valley  also represent and have their power bases in the Westside. All of their attention is going toward extending the Purple Line to the Westside, which of course is the most needed and highest profile transit project in planning.

Just how did this former rail corridor end up as a busway anyway?

From Wikipedia:

The majority of the Orange Line is built on part of the formerSouthern Pacific Railroad Burbank Branch right-of-way. This had passenger service from 1904 to 1920, with stations at several locations including  North Hollywood  and Van Nuys. It had Pacific Electric Red Car service from North  Hollywood to Van Nuys again from 1938 to 1952.

The right of way was purchased by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (now Metropolitan Transportation Authority) in 1991 along with several other rail road right of ways across the Southland for future use in transportation projects.

The California Legislature passed a law in 1991 introduced by Alan Robbins which prohibited the use of the corridor for any form of rail transit other than a "deep bore subway located at least 25 feet below ground". Later Los Angeles County passed Proposition A in 1998, promoted by supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, which prohibited Metro from using its county sales tax funding to build subways anywhere in the county.

With subway and light rail now off the table the only option left to develop the transit corridor was to build a busway.

The "Orange Line" busway is already at capacity and shows the limits of BRT. The San Fernando Valley deserves an east-west rail project that connects  Warner   Center  with the Red Line (and could potentially be extended east through  Burbank  and  Glendale to meet up with the Gold Line in  Pasadena ). Since the  San Fernando Valley  politicos are focused elsewhere, it is up to you and me to remind them that simply extending a busway north doesn't cut it. Perhaps some of you could lobby to get VICA (Valley Industry and Commerce Association) behind an east-west line and a north-south line for the  San Fernando Valley . If the San Gabriel   Valley  is getting two light rail lines, the  San Fernando Valley  deserves no less.

In Measure R which was approved by voters in 2008, there is a project study for a north-south transit project connecting the Orange Line with Wilshire/Westwood through the  Sepulveda   Pass. If this were a rail project, many local transit advocates see it logically being extended south down to LAX and north up to Sylmar Metrolink. That would take care of a needed north-south rail line for the  San Fernando Valley .

What about east-west rail travel? The most obvious solution is to upgrade the existing Orange Line to light rail.

I asked the incomparable Kymberleigh Richards (http://transit-insider.org), member of Metro's San Fernando Valley Governance Council, her thoughts on the issue and the possible challenges and here is what she had to say:

Here are the problems that would be faced:

1. You would need to retrofit the busway without seriously disrupting existing service, otherwise what's the point? You wouldn't want to inconvenience the existing passengers by forcing them to a slower alternative during construction. The most likely way to proceed would be to close one segment at a time, one lane at a time, then cut grooves into the pavement down to the roadbed and install the rails so that they were flush with the pavement (like a grade crossing, only along the entire alignment) then reopen the lane to bus traffic. Service would continue to run with only a minor delay by using the remaining open lane to run both directions, with flagmen. Grade crossings would require a bit more logistics, especially the major arterials like Van NuysBlvd.

2. You would have to use a low floor light rail vehicle in order to avoid having to retrofit the existing station platforms. This means the existing light rail cars would not be compatible with the Orange Line. So there would be a third fleet of LRVs at Metro; heavy rail subway (Red/Purple), high floor/high platform light rail (Blue/Green/Gold/Expo/Crenshaw) and low floor/low platform light rail ( Orange ). So forget any Orange Line extensions that would interline with something else.

3. Because of the constraints of construction, the technology will have to be something other than overhead catenary for power. Installing that would require full busway closure for longer periods of time, which puts us back to inconveniencing passengers during construction. Third rail power, like the Red/Purple Line, is also out of the question because of the open-air operation (you can't have passengers in danger of making contact with the electric source). A DMU, like the  San Diego  system, is going to be far too expensive for this and brings constraints of its ownto the process. So either you need a protectedthird rail(very costly; they are experimenting with this in some of the Middle Eastern countries, where cost is no object) or a self-contained, rechargeable on-board power source. Perhaps some type of storage battery that could plug in at the layovers?

4. The street running segment between Canoga Station and Warner   Center  would have to be negotiated with traffic engineers at LADOT. I doubt they'd give up traffic lanes for the light rail, and I don't savor the idea of running light rail in mixed-flow traffic.

And of course, you'd have to do an entire new scoping/AA/EIR/EIS and figure out where the funding is coming from. Just that last part (the $$$) pretty much means all the Measure R projects would have to be underway and near completion before you could start programming funds for an Orange Line upgrade.

No one has ever done a busway-to-light rail conversion. We'd be breaking new ground, which is why there's no hard research available on the subject.

Hmm. Sounds problematic, doesn't it? However, why couldn't this be the first corridor to attempt a busway to light-rail conversion? I'm game.

In any event, the Robbins bill would have to be repealed for any light rail project, so start lobbying your state legislators if you want to see ANY rail service in this area, for a subway ain't coming to this corridor this century.

What about alternatives? Metrolink commuter rail is in the northern San Fernando Valley, but many people travelling to the San Fernando Valley  are travelling to/from a destination on or near  Ventura Blvd.  in the southern part of the Valley.

1) San Fernando Valley transit advocates could lobby for a subway under  Ventura Blvd.  connecting  Warner   Center  with the Universal   City  station. Yes, sounds great. Only there are easily 50 years of subway projects ahead in line, assuming those actually get full funding and constructed.

2)  San Fernando Valley  transit advocates could lobby for a transit-only lane on  Ventura Blvd.  that ran buses and modern streetcars. This would require taking away street parking on Ventura Blvd.  and possibly losing a lane of traffic each way. I have no problem with this as I don't believe we can or should socially engineer our cities in favor of single-occupancy motorists anymore, but I suspect not a few single-occupancy motorists would object. However, a streetcar is much less expensive than a subway and could be up and running within a few years, while it will be decades before we would see a subway on  Ventura Blvd.  Here's a fun map I created for a  Ventura Blvd.  streetcar project to spur your imagination:

One challenge of doing some project on Ventura Blvd. means you need to find another way to connect Burbank and Glendale into Metrorail.

Your thoughts?