Pedestrian View Of Los Angeles

This blog focuses on rail lines in LA country that exist, are under construction or under consideration. The Californian high-speed rail project and southern CA to Vegas project will also be covered. Since most of the relevant developments in the news, rail websites and blogosphere take place on weekdays, this blog will be updated primarily Monday through Friday and occasionally on the weekends. Your comments, criticism and suggestions are encouraged. Miscellaneous stuff will also appear here.

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Friday, June 11, 2010

Blue Line cuts across L.A. County's invisible boundaries (Source: LA Times.com)

Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-blue-line-20100609,0,860045,full.story

COLUMN ONE

Blue Line cuts across L.A. County's invisible boundaries

The oldest light-rail line is a rolling improv theater with a lively cast of characters running 22 miles from Long Beach to downtown L.A.

Blue Line

Marcia Baker, 21, gives her boyfriend, Ramon Diaz, 20, a kiss while riding the Metro Blue Line. L.A. County's oldest light-rail line runs 22 miles from Long Beach to Los Angeles. 
See full story (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)


 

They are strangers on a train. Text-messaging businessmen and hawkers selling pirated DVDs, cotton candy and drugs. Teenage mothers pushing strollers and weary scavengers with strollers heaped with cans and bottles. Students quietly reading textbooks and proselytizers shouting passages from the Bible.

There is the blind man who takes out his glass eyes for money and the tightly coiled gangbangers with whom direct eye contact is not advised. Commuters lost in their iPods next to full-throated yakkers broadcasting personal confessions.

The Metro Blue Line cuts up the middle of Los Angeles County, from Long Beach to downtown, like a surgical incision, exposing an element of the metropolis many never see.

In a place dominated by freeways and the automobile's numbing isolation, the 22-mile light-rail line — the oldest in L.A. County, marking 20 years of service this summer — is a rolling improvisational theater where a cast of thousands acts out a daily drama that is by turns poignant, sad, hysterical and inexplicable.

Whoa! Did a guy just get up from his seat and urinate before stumbling off the train?

Yes, folks, he did.

Five bucks gets you a day pass to one of the most unpredictable shows in town.

In South Los Angeles, the Blue Line's doors open and a wiry homeless man lugging a bedroll collides with a very large woman as they step aboard. He is white, she is black and both explode into expletives.

"That's three times I've been assaulted in the last hour by a black person!" the man roars.

"Just because you're white ... you got a lot of nerve!" the woman shouts.

"I'm calling the sheriff!" the man howls. "You're going to jail! In handcuffs!"

Tension fills the standing-room-only car. Vaughn Gregory stands up, reaches into his fanny pack and begins shooting.

Video.

"How many times have you been assaulted by black people today?" Gregory asks, pointing his phone's camera at the man. "Is it because you're white or is it because you're smelly?"

"Shut the ... up!" the man growls.

"Don't interrupt this interview," Gregory barks. "You're going be a star on YouTube tonight."

The train is now full of laughter. Gregory, 34, sits down to review his film and finish his commute to work at a downtown grocery.

"I stay equipped," he says, pulling a small still camera from the fanny pack. "Because there's always something happening on this train."

Attention all patrons...

The disembodied voice telling riders what they cannot do on the Blue Line is a constant companion. Signs galore warn of prohibitions under Section 640 of the Penal Code, subject to a $250 fine: No entry without valid fare. No littering. No smoking. No spitting or chewing gum. No skateboarding. No loud or rowdy activity. No in-line skating. No playing of sound equipment. No eating or drinking.

Jimmy Jules is dragging a cooler full of bottled water through the train, working the crowd like a baseball stadium vendor.

"Water, water, water, water," he says with an accent of his native Haiti. "Getcha water. Getcha water."

No one needs to go thirsty or hungry on the Blue Line. The trains are lousy with people selling water, candy and peanuts. They work the train front to back before letting it sail off like a ship leaving port; then they grab one going the opposite way.

"There's no jobs out there. It's hard," says Jules, 25. "I didn't want to be sitting around doing nothing." His girlfriend is expecting a baby. He has worked the rails for three months and nets about $80 a day.

When he gets collared by sheriff's deputies who patrol the trains, he pleads his case. "I say, 'Listen man, you're doing your job and I'm doing mine. What do you want me to do? Robberies?' "

The Blue Line rumbles through a section of the county that's on nobody's star map. Through unglamorous neighborhoods of industry. Past rail yards, scrap yards and the dirt yards of sun-baked homes in Compton, Watts and South-Central.

Entrepreneurs follow the train like pilot fish. They ride from station to station emptying garbage cans of recyclables. They sell costume jewelry, incense, watches, toys and CDs. They hang out at stations soliciting used tickets and reselling them at a discount.

"You — hanging out on the walkway!" a voice scolds one ticket hustler over a loudspeaker. "You need to leave. The sheriff's on his way."

No need to walk the streets of downtown's Fashion District looking for pirated DVDs. On the Blue Line, the pirates come to you. The going rate is one DVD for $5, three for $10 and seven for $20.

"You got 'Iron Man 2'?" a passenger asks a young man moving through the train with a backpack weighed down with DVDs.

"Naw, I'm all sold out," he answers. "But I'll be getting some more later on today. You gonna be riding later?"

"Iron Man 2" opened in theaters later that week.

"A lot of these guys sell you stuff, and you can hear people laughing and babies crying in the background," says Arlene Valdez, a passenger who buys only from a trusted source: a man with a jet black ponytail who says his name is Joe. He carries a portable DVD player to assuage skeptics.

"His quality is best," Valdez says, buying "Astro Boy" for her son.

Joe gets off at the Florence station and explains that, like Jules, he began selling movies after being laid off from a sales job. "I was embarrassed," he says. "But I had bills to pay."

On the other end of the platform, two men are talking and exchanging money. One is older, with gray stubble and a jaunty zebra-stripe hat. The other is younger and clean-shaven. He's wearing a brown work shirt embroidered with the name Paul.

The pair get on the next train to L.A — but not together. The Hat takes a seat, places a folded newspaper on his lap and pulls out three twist-off bottle caps. He places a nut under one of the caps and the game begins.

"Who's got 20?" The Hat says, his delicate fingers rotating the bottle caps as though they were in a centrifuge. "You can't win unless you make a bet."

Paul is willing and eager — as he is the next day on a different train.

He wins, he loses, he wins again. Eventually other gamblers jump in. Around and around the bottle caps go; where the nut is only The Hat knows.

"If I lose a dollar, I don't holler!" he shouts. "If I lose, I never cry the blues!"

They've taken over a corner of the train car. A dozen gamblers are hollering, laughing, egging each other on. Jacksons are flying. Paul isn't playing anymore. At each stop he pokes his head out the door and scans the platform.

"You want a chance to get even?" The Hat asks a man who has lost a wad. "Don't be scared! A scared man don't win!"

Neither does a bold man.

At the Washington station, Paul and The Hat slide off just as the train doors close. On the platform, they put on a little show for the suckers. "Show me how you did that," Paul asks. Then the train departs and the grifters walk off in opposite directions.

Serendipity is the Blue Line's lifeblood. Within its slender frames of steel and glass, fragmentary images and snippets of dialogue come together to form a visceral mosaic of life.

Listen to the phone conversation of a giggling teenage girl carrying a Hello Kitty lunch box as she recounts a recent night that involved a stolen car, guys "strapped with guns," a misplaced shotgun and her mom's no-good, ex-con boyfriend.

"He treats people on the outside like he's still on the inside," she says.

Watch the agitated man with manicured nails and half his teeth rise from his seat and dance in the aisle.

"People think I'm weak because I got me a cane. But I work out! I work out for a living!" He stops, bends at the waist and touches the back of his hand to the floor. "You know a 60-year-old man who can do this?"

Pity the worn-out woman with frazzled hair and misapplied lipstick who holds a bouquet of dead flowers and coos to a teddy bear swaddled in a baby blanket.

"He represents a guy I used to live with in South-Central," she says.

Nod in agreement with the man wearing seven wristwatches, a spray-painted yellow hat and a red windbreaker adorned with the face of Colonel Sanders cut from a bucket of chicken.

"I'm writing a book with all the answers," he says. "I'm a soldier for God. Special Forces level."

Hand a few bucks to the beggar who goes from car to car explaining the golf-ball-sized divot in his forehead.

"Two cholos with guns," he says. "The bullet is still inside."

The cast of characters changes with each boarding — nearly 78,000 a day, more than 2 million a month.

"I've seen all the greats," a black man in his 50s says to a stranger sitting across from him, a white man in his 60s. " Wilt Chamberlain. Lew Alcindor."

The conversation begins with basketball's greats and careens on an improbable path: Careers, politics and travel. Wives, ex-wives and a Filipino mistress. Health problems, the CIA and Vietnam. Nixon in China and family in prison.

Half a dozen stops later, the men step off the Blue Line in Long Beach.

"It's been nice talking to you," the black man says. "I apologize because I do run my mouth."

"We all do," the white man says.

"My name is Steve."

"Roger."

"Pleased to meet you, Roger," Steve says, extending his hand. "I like meeting an intelligent man."

And the two part ways, strangers no more.

mike.anton@latimes.com

Thursday, June 10, 2010

3 articles on the 30/10 plan

Article 1


Mayor Villaraigosa's 30/10 plan: Moving forward

The innovative plan for funding local transit projects moves closer to reality.

 
 

The 30/10 transit plan is the most important initiative ever proposed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. If, as seems increasingly likely, it's embraced by Congress, it will become one of the nation's most significant public infrastructure projects..

Essentially, 30/10 proposes leveraging the half-cent sales tax increase to which 68% of Los Angeles County residents agreed when they passed Measure R with federal loans secured by those tax revenues. Those loans would allow the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to build the 12 crucial projects specified in the measure in just 10 years rather than the projected 30.

When Villaraigosa first proposed 30/10 last fall, it seemed like the longest of shots, but his tireless lobbying — and the initiative's self-evident merits — won over powerful congressional allies, particularly Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, as well as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. In fact, 30/10 is one of those ideas that gets better under close examination. Consider, for example, that completion of the 12 transit projects would reduce annual particulate emissions by at least 500,000 pounds, reduce annual gasoline consumption by 10.3 million barrels and, by conservative estimates, cut automobile travel by 208 million miles each year.

Over the next decade, it also will create at least 166,000 well-paying construction jobs.

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That hasn't been lost on the Obama administration, which continues to struggle under the burden of intractable unemployment. As Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky put it when the MTA board unanimously voted to back Villaraigosa's initiative: "You can't turn the economy of this nation around unless you turn around the economy of California. The antidote to the recession is the 30/10 plan. It's a huge investment in jobs right now.... We're ready to do it, and we're ready to pay for it."

In fact, in a recent conversation with the mayor, President Obama called the proposal "a template for the nation."

It is, however, still an innovation, and Congress needs to approve a novel way of funding it. Late last week, Washington took two long steps in that direction. On Thursday, LaHood wrote to Boxer, promising that the administration would include 30/10 funding "in the next transportation reauthorization bill." The senator also said that LaHood already is "working with me on finding every opportunity under current law so we can accelerate 30/10 now." Equally important, Boxer announced that the Federal Transit Administration, which also reports to LaHood, has agreed that, for funding purposes, it will accept a single environmental review for the entire 9.3-mile subway extension west under Wilshire Boulevard rather than the three different assessments the project normally would require.

"That's a big deal," said Deputy Mayor Jaime de la Vega. "Now we can treat the whole extension as one project as we should … and the savings will be huge." According to De la Vega, construction bids submitted in anticipation of 30/10's accelerated schedule are coming in 15% to 30% under projected costs for Measure R's 12 projects. "With those savings, we actually could build more transit" than the ballot proposition included, he said.

"Eight months ago, people in Washington thought we were nuts," Jeff Carr, Villaraigosa's chief of staff, told The Times this week. "Now, the feds have come around to seeing this as a model for the nation." In fact, LaHood told Boxer in his letter that he shares her belief "that the 30/10 model — leveraging a comprehensive long-range transportation plan and a sustainable local funding stream — has the potential to transform the way we invest in transportation projects across the nation."

Carr and De la Vega point out that this isn't the first time Los Angeles has been at the cutting edge of transit funding. The Alameda Corridor — the dedicated 20-mile rail line that now links the busy ports of San Pedro and Long Beach to the intercontinental railway line east of downtown — was first conceived by local planners and officials in the early 1980s. They began piecing together rights of way, but it took until 1997 for Congress to pass the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which gave the project what it needed: federal loan guarantees secured by the corridor's future revenues.

Measured against that history, 30/10 has moved forward at the speed of light. Perhaps that's because, as Carr put it, "It's good policy and good politics." How often can you say that?

timothy.rutten@latimes.com


Article 2


L.A. plans for more rail lines gets a boost in Washington

June 5, 2010 |  8:13 am

L.A. got some good news this week in its effort to fast track some major transportation projects.

On Friday, officials announced that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood had expressed support for L.A.'s fast-track plans and saw them as a potential model for other transportation projects.

"I can assure you that the U.S. Department of Transportation is committed to working with you to explore this promising approach in the next transportation reauthorization bill," LaHood wrote in a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Besides the proposed Westside subway, other projects Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hopes to speed up include a long-sought rail extension to Los Angeles International Airport, a Crenshaw Boulevard line, a Gold Line extension through the San Gabriel Valley and busways in the San Fernando Valley.

Villaraigosa said that any money Washington advanced to L.A. would be repaid from the $40 billion projected to be generated over the next 30 years from a half-cent sales tax approved by county voters last year -- a selling point that has resonated with lawmakers.

--Shelby Grad


Article 3

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

High-speed train gives South Africa a lift

High-speed train gives South Africa a lift

The 100-mph Gautrain makes its inaugural runs from Johannesburg to the airport. For riders the first day, sub-Saharan Africa's only such transport is a symbol of their country's progress.

Smiles for South Africa train

A passenger takes a picture of fellow riders alongside the new Gautrain, sub-Saharan Africa's first high-speed rail line, shortly after its launch in Johannnesburg. (Alexander Joe / AFP/Getty Images /June 8, 2010)

 

South Africa's fast train was so new when it carried its first passengers Tuesday that it wasn't quite finished. Builders had left string tacked to a wall in the underground station in upscale Sandton, and their notes were still scrawled on walls. There were patches of rough unfinished concrete, paint drips and the earthy cement smell of a building site.

But it didn't matter. For South Africans, the Gautrain (pronounced how-train), traveling at 100 mph and linking the area's airport with Sandton, is a powerful symbol of modern Africa, and their country's advancement and preparedness for the World Cup beginning late this week.


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An oft-repeated proud South African mantra that the country has world-class facilities suddenly seemed real as passengers glided down escalators so new they squeaked, to the sleek tiled platforms below.

The section linking Sandton to the airport opened Tuesday. When it's finished, the nearly $4-billion Gautrain linking Pretoria, Sandton, Johannesburg, the airport and other locations will have 10 stations, three of them underground, and nearly seven miles of underground track. It's not exactly the sprawling Paris Metro, but there's nothing else like it in sub-Saharan Africa.

Critics contend that the Gautrain will turn out to be a white elephant. They believe the money could have been better spent upgrading transport infrastructure for poor blacks.

The train isn't affordable for the poor: It costs nearly $6 a day for people from Alexandra township to get a bus to a nearby Gautrain station and then go onward to Sandton and back.

But despite the debate, the excitement of the Gautrain's launch seized the country's imagination. People rose at 4 a.m. to be among the first passengers. They tweeted from the train, took cellphone photos, uploaded video and crowed that it was "the most beautiful train in the world."

Nearly 11,000 people clambered aboard the Gautrain on Day 1, mainly eager South Africans taking an hour or two off work for the trip, like children trying out a new Christmas gift.

The jubilant mood took hold the moment customers escaped the lines, bearing the gold plastic cards that serve as tickets.

The train ride from Sandton to O.R. Tambo International Airport took 15 minutes, less than half what it might have taken by car.

There was heavy security in the carriages. (South African commuters sometimes burn trains in protests over poor services or other issues.) Rules were posted prominently: no gambling, begging, loud noises, shouting, fighting, informal trading or similar disturbances.

Spokozi Meyoli, 35, a manager in a government department, exuded excitement as she bought her tickets from a machine. Assistants hovered around helpfully, intercepting anyone who hesitated for more than a second or two.

"We are just using it for fun and to be part of history," said Meyoli, of Pretoria, with her 3-month-old son, Esinaso Moribe, and her brother Monezi Meyoli, 27. "We wanted to be among the first, that is all.

"It's 2010," she added. "Everything is happening. We wanted to have the experience so we can tell the story."

However, she acknowledged that she probably would not be able to afford to use the train regularly. She was not likely to pay the more than $25 for a return ticket from Pretoria to Johannesburg, even to save traveling time, when her small, ancient Japanese car would get her back and forth for a fraction of the cost.

"It will be for the elite," she said.

But if the train substantially cuts traffic between Pretoria and Johannesburg — a 45-minute drive that stretches to about two hours during peak traffic time — it could be worthwhile for South Africa's economy, she added.

Vusi Ndaba is a member of South Africa's black middle class. A computer programmer with his own consulting firm, he lives in Sandton, though he grew up in Alexandra township. He took a trip Tuesday with colleagues from his firm to try out the train, have lunch at the airport and return to Sandton.

He has traveled to Europe and New York, where he found Westerners voiced insulting stereotypes about Africa.

"The typical idea is about underdevelopment — all the Afro-pessimism," he said. "I think [the train] is symbolically significant. It's a natural progression to have infrastructure that changes people's lives."

Ndaba said poor workers had long had to make their way from Alexandra to Sandton by taxi or even on foot to fill service jobs.

"Alexandra and Sandton have always been close, but the traffic has always been one way. I am hoping that this will make Alexandra more accessible and make the traffic go the other way. I certainly plan to use it to visit my mother in Alexandra."

As the train pulled into Sandton station, one white-haired Afrikaner woman burst into joyful applause.

"Come on, give it a hand!" she shouted. Everyone joined in, clapping and laughing.

No one cared whether a little noise broke the rules.

robyn.dixon@latimes.com


Mayor Villaraigosa's 30/10 plan: Moving forward

Mayor Villaraigosa's 30/10 plan: Moving forward

The innovative plan for funding local transit projects moves closer to reality.

 
 

The 30/10 transit plan is the most important initiative ever proposed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. If, as seems increasingly likely, it's embraced by Congress, it will become one of the nation's most significant public infrastructure projects..

Essentially, 30/10 proposes leveraging the half-cent sales tax increase to which 68% of Los Angeles County residents agreed when they passed Measure R with federal loans secured by those tax revenues. Those loans would allow the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to build the 12 crucial projects specified in the measure in just 10 years rather than the projected 30.

When Villaraigosa first proposed 30/10 last fall, it seemed like the longest of shots, but his tireless lobbying — and the initiative's self-evident merits — won over powerful congressional allies, particularly Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, as well as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. In fact, 30/10 is one of those ideas that gets better under close examination. Consider, for example, that completion of the 12 transit projects would reduce annual particulate emissions by at least 500,000 pounds, reduce annual gasoline consumption by 10.3 million barrels and, by conservative estimates, cut automobile travel by 208 million miles each year.

Over the next decade, it also will create at least 166,000 well-paying construction jobs.

» Don't miss a thing. Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.

That hasn't been lost on the Obama administration, which continues to struggle under the burden of intractable unemployment. As Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky put it when the MTA board unanimously voted to back Villaraigosa's initiative: "You can't turn the economy of this nation around unless you turn around the economy of California. The antidote to the recession is the 30/10 plan. It's a huge investment in jobs right now.... We're ready to do it, and we're ready to pay for it."

In fact, in a recent conversation with the mayor, President Obama called the proposal "a template for the nation."

It is, however, still an innovation, and Congress needs to approve a novel way of funding it. Late last week, Washington took two long steps in that direction. On Thursday, LaHood wrote to Boxer, promising that the administration would include 30/10 funding "in the next transportation reauthorization bill." The senator also said that LaHood already is "working with me on finding every opportunity under current law so we can accelerate 30/10 now." Equally important, Boxer announced that the Federal Transit Administration, which also reports to LaHood, has agreed that, for funding purposes, it will accept a single environmental review for the entire 9.3-mile subway extension west under Wilshire Boulevard rather than the three different assessments the project normally would require.

"That's a big deal," said Deputy Mayor Jaime de la Vega. "Now we can treat the whole extension as one project as we should … and the savings will be huge." According to De la Vega, construction bids submitted in anticipation of 30/10's accelerated schedule are coming in 15% to 30% under projected costs for Measure R's 12 projects. "With those savings, we actually could build more transit" than the ballot proposition included, he said.

"Eight months ago, people in Washington thought we were nuts," Jeff Carr, Villaraigosa's chief of staff, told The Times this week. "Now, the feds have come around to seeing this as a model for the nation." In fact, LaHood told Boxer in his letter that he shares her belief "that the 30/10 model — leveraging a comprehensive long-range transportation plan and a sustainable local funding stream — has the potential to transform the way we invest in transportation projects across the nation."

Carr and De la Vega point out that this isn't the first time Los Angeles has been at the cutting edge of transit funding. The Alameda Corridor — the dedicated 20-mile rail line that now links the busy ports of San Pedro and Long Beach to the intercontinental railway line east of downtown — was first conceived by local planners and officials in the early 1980s. They began piecing together rights of way, but it took until 1997 for Congress to pass the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which gave the project what it needed: federal loan guarantees secured by the corridor's future revenues.

Measured against that history, 30/10 has moved forward at the speed of light. Perhaps that's because, as Carr put it, "It's good policy and good politics." How often can you say that?

timothy.rutten@latimes.com

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Chinese Concept: The Train that Never Stops

Chinese Concept: The Train that Never Stops

There have been many different Train concepts that aim to be the future of transportation, adding more speed, more room, more comfort and more features, but what about a new conceptual design looking to create a train that doesn’t need to stop?This innovative concept train by Jianjun Chen is made up of out of the box thinking and aims to save tremendous amount of time for passengers and train personnel.

Basically, the train is made up of the regular train compartment and also the ‘boarding/unboarding’ compartment. Passengers may board the ‘boarding’ compartment while waiting for the train to arrive at the station. As the train arrives, it slows down and is located beneath the ‘boarding’ platform, latching on and begining to carry the now boarded compartment. Passengers are then able to go down into the actual train and continue their journey. Moreover, as the train arrived at the station and picked up a new compartment, the previous station compartment was unlatched and was left at this current station, allowing passengers to board at their own time-constraint and leisure. Check out the video for a demonstration of the Non-stop Train.

Of course, this new Future Train concept is just that…a concept, but it is also an innovative one that aims for increased efficiency and time saving. I guess the major issues would be how to be able and populate tremendous amount of passengers on the small compartments and also what about an inertia problem that could occur when the train starts carrying the compartment or letting one go?

What do you think of such a concept, is it realistic or is it just a dream that could never become a reality? What other challenges do you see it needs to solve for it to become a possible design?

For other cool train posts, check out the World’s Smallest Train Model that really works, the Model Train Briefcase for enthusiasts or the actual Futuristic Car Concepts for those more interested in futuristic concepts.

Thanks Mickael for the tip :)



Read more: Chinese Concept: The Train that Never Stops | Walyou http://www.walyou.com/blog/2010/06/07/non-stop-future-train-concept/#ixzz0qHfQTqIn