Metro To Hold Community Meeting for Westside Subway Extension Optional Crenshaw Station March 17(Souce:www.metro.net)

Link: Metro | news | Metro To Hold Community Meeting for Westside Subway Extension Optional Crenshaw Station March 17

Metro To Hold Community Meeting for Westside Subway Extension Optional Crenshaw Station March 17

Wednesday March 03, 2010

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles Planning Department, invites the public to a community meeting on March 17 to discuss the optional Wilshire/Crenshaw station under evaluation for the Westside Subway Extension Project. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Report (DEIS/DEIR) currently underway for the Westside Subway Extension identifies Wilshire/Crenshaw as an optional station.

“There is not community consensus in this area as to whether there should be a Wilshire/Crenshaw Station,” said Project Director David Mieger. “We promised the community that we would give them an opportunity to discuss this question. Their input will be one factor in helping us develop our recommendation.” He noted that the study must continue to evaluate a station at Wilshire/Crenshaw.

The staff recommendation about the Wilshire/Crenshaw station will be part of the overall recommendations at the conclusion of the Draft EIS/EIR process. Following a public review period, a “Locally Preferred Alternative” will be presented to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors that will make the final decision.

Members of the public are encouraged to attend the upcoming meeting to learn more about the Westside Subway Extension project. Officials from the City of Los Angeles Planning Department also will be on-hand to discuss land-use planning guidelines for the area.

* The meeting will be held Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 6-8 p.m., at the Wilshire United Methodist Church, 4350 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90010.

This meeting is served by Metro Lines 20, 210, 710 and 720. Free parking is available. Spanish & Korean translation will be provided.

Metro anticipates releasing the Draft EIS/EIR for public comment in summer 2010. The Board of Directors will decide on the recommendations later this year.

Special ADA accommodations are available to the public for Metro-sponsored meetings. All requests for reasonable accommodations must be made at least three working days (72 hours) in advance of the scheduled meeting date. Please telephone the project information line at 213.922.6934. The TDD line is 800-252-9040.

For additional information, visit the Westside Subway Extension project web site at metro.net/westside. Project information also can be found for “Metro Westside Subway Extension” on Facebook. The project information line is 213-922-6934.

From the Facebook Metro Westside Subway Extension fan page

Link: Facebook | Metro Westside Subway Extension

Welcome to the official Facebook home of Metro’s Westside Subway Extension! If you live, work, visit, play or simply travel through Los Angeles, then this group is for you. Here you will learn about the planning taking place for the Westside Subway Extension and how it affects you. Comments, questions and posts on our wall will become part of the official public comment record for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Draft EIS/EIR) currently in progress.

Although planning has been underway for a while, don’t worry if you’re new to the process. Welcome! We've posted plenty of background information on www.metro.net/westside explaining how we reached this point in planning for the subway. For those of you who have followed the project for a while, we continue to update this site on a regular basis so be on the lookout for new information.
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Name: Metro Westside Subway Extension
Category: Organizations - Community Organizations
Description: Welcome to the official Facebook home of Metro’s Westside Subway Extension! If you live, work, visit, play or simply travel through Los Angeles, then this group is for you. Here you will learn about the planning taking place for the Westside Subway Extension and how it affects you. Comments, questions and posts on our wall will become part of the official public comment record for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Draft EIS/EIR) currently in progress.

Although planning has been underway for a while, don’t worry if you’re new to the process. Welcome! We've posted plenty of background information on www.metro.net/westside explaining how we reached this point in planning for the subway. For those of you who have followed the project for a while, we continue to update this site on a regular basis so be on the lookout for new information.

Stay in touch!

Should the Westside subway have a Crenshaw station? (Source: thesource.metro.net)

The Source » Should the Westside subway have a Crenshaw station?

Should the Westside subway have a Crenshaw station?


See original article for map

The team of Metro staffers that are planning the Westside Subway Extension are holding a meeting on March 17 to discuss a significant issue: should the subway have a station at Wilshire and Crenshaw boulevards?

Stations cost about $200 million to build and there’s been a wide-ranging discussion in the Park Mile section of Wilshire Boulevard about the prospect of having the subway stop there. This is the area surrounded by the communities such as Hancock Park, Windsor Square, Windsor Village, Fremont Place, Wilshire Park and others (click on the above Google map to see a larger aerial view of the neighborhood). Some people in the area want a station, others don’t. Because there hasn’t been consensus — and this is an issue dating back to early subway planning days of the 1980s — the meeting is being held to discuss the issue and to allow Metro staff to gauge how residents now feel about it.

The station is being considered as part of the subway extension draft environmental impact study and Metro staff will issue a recommendation whether or not to build it in that document. The decision, however, will ultimately be up to the Metro Board of Directors.

Here are a few facts and ideas that frame the issue:

*The Crenshaw station would be just one-half mile west of the current Wilshire/Western station. That’s pretty close compared to other stations on the Westside Extension, which are being planned to be about a mile apart. However, if the Crenshaw station is not built, there would be a two-mile gap between the Wilshire/Western station and a station at La Brea. That’s pretty far.

*The area around Crenshaw and Wilshire is mostly residential and fairly low density in terms of population when compared to Koreatown to the east and Wilshire Boulevard west of La Brea. Preliminary projections suggest that the number of people using the station would be low compared to other stations, though on par with some existing and planned stations. That raises the question over whether money spent on a Crenshaw station might better be spent on other aspects of the line.

*One of the concerns in the community is that a new station will bring additional development. That is probably correct, though new development may occur over time anyway. The question is how much. Generally speaking, the current zoning regulations in place do allow for some additional development — as is the case in much of Los Angeles — but not all that much compared to more dense areas to the east and west.

*There is also the matter of the Crenshaw Line light rail project, which will have one terminus at Crenshaw and the Expo Line — about three miles south of Crenshaw and Wilshire. There are no current plans to extend the Crenshaw Line to the north and the Crenshaw Corridor Northern Segment Feasibility Study indicated that it would probably be better to bring that line up to Wilshire west of Crenshaw, possibly at La Brea, Fairfax or San Vicente.

*Another question sure to be batted around: if a station is not built now, will residents regret that in 10 or 20 years? You can’t really go back and add a station to a line already in operation without shutting it down. And that’s hard to imagine happening.

What do you think? Let us know your opinion by emailing us at thesource@metro.net. Or, to make your views an official part of the study, send them to WestsideExtension@metro.net or on the new Westside Subway Extension page on Facebook.

The press release about the March 17 meeting is below.

METRO TO HOLD COMMUNITY MEETING FOR WESTSIDE SUBWAY EXTENSION OPTIONAL CRENSHAW STATION

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles Planning Department, invites the public to a community meeting on March 17 to discuss the optional Wilshire/Crenshaw station under evaluation for the Westside Subway Extension Project. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Report (DEIS/DEIR) currently underway for the Westside Subway Extension identifies Wilshire/Crenshaw as an optional station.

“There is not community consensus in this area as to whether there should be a Wilshire/Crenshaw Station,” said Project Director David Mieger. “We promised the community that we would give them an opportunity to discuss this question. Their input will be one factor in helping us develop our recommendation.” He noted that the study must continue to evaluate a station at Wilshire/Crenshaw.

The staff recommendation about the Wilshire/Crenshaw station will be part of the overall recommendations at the conclusion of the Draft EIS/EIR process. Following a public review period, a “Locally Preferred Alternative” will be presented to the Metro Board of Directors who will make the ultimate decision.

Members of the public are encouraged to attend the upcoming meeting to learn more about the Westside Subway Extension project. Officials from the City of Los Angeles Planning Department will also be on-hand to discuss land use planning guidelines for the area.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

6-8 p.m.

Wilshire United Methodist Church

4350 Wilshire Boulevard

Los Angeles, CA 90010

This meeting is served by Metro Line 20, 210, 710 and 720. Free parking is available. Spanish & Korean translation will be provided.

Metro anticipates releasing the Draft EIS/EIR for public comment in summer 2010. The Metro Board of Directors will decide on the recommendations later this year.

Special ADA accommodations are available to the public for Metro-sponsored meetings. All requests for reasonable accommodations must be made at least three working days (72 hours) in advance of the scheduled meeting date. Please telephone the project information line at 213.922.6934. The TDD line is 800-252-9040.

For additional information, visit the Westside Subway Extension project web site at metro.net/westside. Project information can also be found for “Metro Westside Subway Extension” on Facebook. The project information line is 213-922-6934.


-- Steve Hymon

Should Metro Extend the Red/Purple Lines to Downtown's Arts District? (Source: LAist)

List: Should Metro Extend the Red/Purple Lines to Downtown's Arts District? - LAist

Should Metro Extend the Red/Purple Lines to Downtown's Arts District?


L.A. City Councilmember Tom LaBonge certainly thinks so. At yesterday's Metro Board Meeting, which he is temporarily appointed to, LaBonge entered a verbal motion in an effort to extend rail service on already existing track to 6th Street in the Arts District.

“This is a no-brainer,” he said in a statement. “The track is already there. It would help bring people to the lofts, galleries and restaurants in the Arts District and connect SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) to the rest of the city.”

Specifically, LaBonge's motion drects Metro to report back in 90 days the feasibility, ridership and cost of extending Red and Pruple Line service from its current terminus at Union Station to the Arts District, where a station would be built on 6th Street. The track leads to a maintenance yard.

Currently, a Gold Line station sits at the edge of the Arts District and Little Tokyo at 1st and Alameda.
user-pic
By Zach Behrens in News on February 26, 2010 1:41 PM

LA Mayor Villaraigosa asks Congress for bridge loan to build 'Subway to the Sea' (Source: 89.3 KPCC)

Link: LA Mayor Villaraigosa asks Congress for bridge loan to build 'Subway to the Sea' | 89.3 KPCC

LA Mayor Villaraigosa asks Congress for bridge loan to build 'Subway to the Sea'

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is in Washington this week for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He began his trip with a day-long lobbying effort on Capitol Hill, making an unusual pitch.

Villaraigosa wants to build the “Subway to the Sea” within 10 years

The problem is that it will take three times that long for a voter-approved half-cent sales tax to pay for it.

The mayor is trying to convince Washington to guarantee a “bridge loan” that would pay for faster construction. He says his pitch is unique, that "at a time when almost states and most cities are going to Washington with one hand open, we’re going with money in one hand and an open hand for a partnership in the other."

The problem is that the federal government has never guaranteed a “bridge loan” like the one the mayor wants. But Villaraigosa says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was interested in the idea.

The mayor will make his pitch to members of the California Congressional delegation and the most powerful transportation man in Congress, James Oberstar of Minnesota; he c

Mayor pushes for Subway to the Sea, 'regional connector' (Source: LA Daily News)

Mayor pushes for Subway to the Sea, 'regional connector' - LA Daily News

Mayor pushes for Subway to the Sea, 'regional connector'
Daily News Wire Services
Updated: 02/19/2010 11:42:50 PM PST

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Friday urged Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to provide federal funding for a segment of the so-called Subway to the Sea, as well as a "regional connector" that would link several light-rail lines through downtown.

LaHood was in Los Angeles, along with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., as part of a nationwide tour to solicit public opinion on which projects should be prioritized in the next surface transportation bill.

"We're hoping that as you reconsider the reauthorization (of the transportation bill), that you look to the fact that we're not only the city with the dirtiest air, the worst traffic in the United States of America, we're also a city and a county that has approved investing taxpayer money in transportation," Villaraigosa told LaHood, referring to Measure R.

The first project endorsed by the mayor would extend the Purple Line - which currently ends at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue - by 8.7 miles.

The subway extension would be built under Wilshire Boulevard and pass through Beverly Hills and Century City before ending in Westwood.

The extension is projected to cost $4.1 billion, which would be raised over 30 years through Measure R, a half-percent city sales tax increase approved by voters.

If enough funding could be secured - not only from the federal government but also from the private sector - Villaraigosa wants to extend the subway to the Pacific Ocean. Building
Advertisement
the entire Subway to the Sea is projected to cost $6.1 billion.

Lisa Hansen with the mayor's press office said if enough federal funding can be secured, the money could be used either to build the entire Subway to the Sea over 30 years, or extend the subway to Westwood in 10 years.

The second project is a 1.7-mile, light-rail line connection in downtown Los Angeles, from First and Alameda streets to Seventh and Figueroa streets.

The projects, which would create thousands of temporary construction jobs, are among a dozen that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is hoping to implement over 30 years.

Villaraigosa, however, wants to create a public-private partnership that could finish the projects in 10 years.

Another Roundup on the Red Line/Purple Line/ Subway to the Sea

Link: Which is the best way west for L.A.'s subway? - latimes.com

Article 1

Which is the best way west for L.A.'s subway?
Wilshire or West Hollywood? As a subway extension draws closer to reality, the debate over the route intensifies.

By Ari B. Bloomekatz

November 15, 2009

Building a subway through the Westside has been the Holy Grail of transportation planners for decades, and many feel they are closer to tunneling than ever before.

Backers envision subway cars packed with shoppers balancing Prada and Barneys bags after Beverly Hills shopping excursions and surfers with their boards tucked under their arms heading for the morning waves, as well as workers.

But now, as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has pushed to fast-track the long-delayed Westside subway extension, there is debate about whether the route for the roughly $5-billion project gets the most bang for the buck.

It's a familiar problem in Los Angeles, a city developed for the automobile whose sprawl makes it difficult for rail lines to cover enough ground to make commuting simple.

The first leg of the Westside extension would spur west from the existing Purple Line along Wilshire Boulevard from Western Avenue to Fairfax Avenue. Wilshire is L.A.'s legendary roadway, lined with office towers, shops and restaurants. The route would go through the Miracle Mile shopping district and stop at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which has lobbied heavily for the line.

From there, future phases would take the Purple Line through Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood.

That route, however, bypasses some key Westside shopping and business areas in Hollywood and West Hollywood, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Beverly Center and the Pacific Design Center.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering an extension route that would cover those areas, but it probably would not be built until after the Wilshire link is done.

The mayor wants the entire Purple Line extension to Westwood completed in the next 10 years, a tall order for a project that has been discussed for nearly four decades and still needs funding.

Current plans have the subway reaching Westwood by 2036, using a mix of revenue from an L.A. County transportation sales tax and federal funding that the MTA is seeking but has not yet received.

"We really determined that Wilshire would have to come first. You're trying to hook up the Purple Line with Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood, where the big ridership would be," said David Mieger, MTA's project manager for the subway.

"The heaviest-used bus lines, the heaviest-congestion corridors, are north and south of Wilshire Boulevard."

The MTA unveiled the West Hollywood extension to great enthusiasm from community groups. The leg would run as an extension from the Red Line in Hollywood through parts of Hollywood and West Hollywood and would connect with the proposed extension of the Purple Line near the intersection of Wilshire and La Cienega boulevards. The Purple Line would then go west along Wilshire to Westwood.

The Purple Line extension to Westwood would generate an estimated 49,000 daily boardings at the new stations and a total of 76,000 new daily boardings throughout the system, according to early studies from the MTA that are being updated. Ridership would increase by 17,900 at new stations if the West Hollywood link is built, according to MTA numbers.

That compares to an average of 78,955 weekday riders on the Long Beach-to-downtown L.A. Blue Line, 149,597 on the downtown-to-North Hollywood Red Line, 38,619 on the Norwalk-to-Redondo Beach Green Line and 22,476 on the downtown-to-Pasadena Gold Line, according to the most current ridership counts from the MTA.

The dilemma is a familiar one for transportation planners, who have struggled to build light-rail routes to capture the most riders possible.

This is difficult because Los Angeles is so spread out and designed for the car, not rail lines.

L.A. has far fewer rail lines than New York, Chicago and other large cities, so passengers often must transfer to buses to complete their trips.

Con Howe, the former director of planning for the city of Los Angeles and now managing director of the CityView Los Angeles Fund, pointed to one example: the MTA's decision not to build the Green Line into Los Angeles International Airport, meaning that people who want to take public transportation to the airport have to take a shuttle to the passenger terminal.

"Unlike New York City, you're never going to have 100 years of subway construction in the city," he said.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, chairwoman of UCLA's Department of Urban Planning, said the West Hollywood alignment is important because the idea of transit is to go to "where you have major concentrations of jobs and people."

"There is a trade-off: It would cost considerably more money. It's all about how much money is available," she said.

Loukaitou-Sideris said that Angelenos are not tapped into a pedestrian culture and that most people are reluctant to walk more than a quarter-mile to a destination.

If that holds true, many who would take the Wilshire subway would need transit to places such as Cedars-Sinai, the Beverly Center and the Westside Pavilion.

Some commuters said they were excited about the Wilshire extension but added that a route through West Hollywood made more sense to them.

Last week, Sharon Richards stepped off the subway at the end of the line and made her way to the Metro Rapid bus that runs along Wilshire Boulevard -- the fourth part of her roughly two-hour commute to work in West Hollywood.

"Oooooh, it's gonna be packed," she said as the 720 Rapid approached. "Feel like a sardine."

Richards, 61, has been commuting from Upland to her job as a manager at Cedars-Sinai for more than two decades.

She wakes before dawn, drives to a park-and-ride and catches a bus in Montclair just after 5 a.m., arrives at Union Station where she takes the Purple Line to its last stop, takes the Wilshire bus to La Cienega Boulevard and then hoofs for it the last stretch, a little more than half a mile, to her desk.

"I'm late," Richards muttered as she rushed off the 720.

She said a direct stop near the Beverly Center and Cedars-Sinai would help her and other employees commute.

Jeanne Flores, senior vice president in charge of human resources at Cedars-Sinai, said that fewer than 10% of the 11,000 employees at the medical center use public transportation to get to work.

"The public transportation systems just are not adequate to support our location and the hours that people work," Flores said. "People resign because they just can't do the commute anymore."

Supporters of the Wilshire corridor say it is the simplest and most logical route to take and would be heavily used. They don't deny that a route through West Hollywood would be beneficial, but they note the huge population, cultural and employment centers along the Wilshire route and say that places like Cedars-Sinai and the Beverly Center will be close to future stops along that alignment.

"There's absolutely no question that it should go straight out Wilshire," said Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district is included in the first phase of the subway.

"At the same time, the concept of coming off the Hollywood line is absolutely necessary as well, because that is the de facto Beverly Hills freeway."

LaBonge is referring to the ill-fated freeway that the California Department of Transportation wanted to build along Santa Monica Boulevard from north of downtown to West Los Angeles.

Residents strongly opposed the freeway, and the plan was eventually killed. But that decision is considered one factor in the Westside's notoriously congested traffic.

The Beverly Hills freeway could have run through West Hollywood, where the Mayor Pro Tem, John Heilman, now strongly supports a subway.

Heilman said the West Hollywood route make sense because it would provide a rail alternative for north-south commuters who live in the Valley but work on the Westside.

"No one disputes that Wilshire needs to be served, but a lot of the traffic that is going westbound is coming over from the Valley" and through West Hollywood, he said.

The MTA's directors will make a final decision on the Westside subway alignment next year.

Officials said it's possible that the West Hollywood route could be built after the Purple Line gets to Westwood -- if it ever gets that far. But then, it would probably compete for money with a plan to build the Purple Line extension through Santa Monica.

ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com

Article 2

Link: WeHoNews.com:

WeHo Subway To The Sea: All Aboard!… In 2047?

Thursday, November 12, 2009 – Op-ed by Steve Martin, West Hollywood

West Hollywood, California (November 12, 2009) – For the record, I would love the subway to come through West Hollywood. I am one of the few people in WeHo who actually use the subway.

Steve Martin is a West Hollywood attorney and former-city council member. WeHo News - West Hollywood’s ONLY Newspaper, ONLY ONLINE.

The proposed stations at San Vicente and Santa Monica and at Cedars Sinai would just be blocks from my house. That has to be good for property values. The only problem is that I would be way past the age of retirement by the time the subway gets here. That is unless I’m still working when I’m ninety.

Unfortunately, despite a lot of civic boosterism by City Council and Staff, the prospect for a WeHo subway in our lifetimes is pretty dim.

On November 3, there was well attended community outreach meeting regarding the Westside Metro extension at the Pacific Design Center.

As presented by the Metro consultants, the proposal for a West Hollywood extension from Hollywood Highland down Santa Monica Boulevard to Wilshire is still on the table.

The proposal, entitled “Alternate Four” includes subway stations at La Brea and Santa Monica, Fairfax and Santa Monica and San Vicente and Santa Monica. There would be a stop at Cedars/Beverly Center then it would hook up at Wilshire and La Cienega.

Currently there are Measure R funds to pay for an Red line extension from Wilshire and Vermont all the way to Westwood/U.C.L.A. Currently there is no funding for the “Subway to the Sea” touted by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosia.

At the current schedule, the Fairfax/Wilshire station would open in 2019, but the Wilshire extension would bypass West Hollywood and wind up at Century City in 2026 and hit U.C.L.A. somewhere between 2034 and 2036.

While there is virtually no funding on the horizon for the West Hollywood extension, it did not damper that enthusiasm of the Metro presenters. After a general information session, we broke into groups to discuss how the various West Hollywood stations would be configured.

Because of that announcement, however, about a third of the crowd disbursed, foregoing the break out meetings, discouraged by the construction schedule. As a neighbor of mine put it, why should he care where the subway entrances are located when he won’t be around to enjoy it.
As
one neighbor put it, why can’t they build the subway were there was
local support, given that so many Wilshire adjacent groups were
opposing the Wilshire extension. If those folks in Hancock Park don’t
want a subway, WeHo was happy to take it.

If local enthusiasm would miraculously create a
WeHo extension, we would have a subway down Santa Monica tomorrow.
There was a great cross section of West Hollywood residences in
attendance; the usual City insiders or the local business community
were notable in their absence.

But it is not that simple.

Currently
Alternate 1, the Wilshire/Fairfax to U.C.L.A. extension if funded by
Measure R. Alternate 2 would extend the subway under the 405 freeway to
the Veteran’s Administration Hospital. The Metro folks hoped to find
some loose change under the sofa to pay for Alternate 2.

Alternate
3 is the “Subway to the Sea” would extend the line down Wilshire
through Santa Monica to the Pacific. Alternate 4 is the WeHo extension.
The “alternates” are in priority based upon projected use.

If you have been following the controversy in the
Los Angeles Times, Mayor Villaraigosa and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky
want to get Federal funding for the Santa Monica extension.

They
are opposed by Supervisor Gloria Molina and Congressman Adam Schiff,
who want those Federal funds to extend the Gold Line East.

It seems those insular folks of the eastern part
of the County resent the billions of dollars being spent exclusively on
the Westside. They seem to think their less than fashionable
neighborhoods deserve billions of transportation dollars too.

While
Metro folks seemed to think that funding for the Alternate 4, the WeHo
extension, might occur sometime in the next twenty years, it would take
twenty years of planning, environmental studies and construction before
it would be completed.

Even if funding were found in the next
seven or eight years, the Metro officials said it was unlikely that we
would see a West Hollywood subway before 2045. Or 2050. Or 2055.

I
spoke with the Metro staff during the break with some of my neighbors
about the potential for the WeHo line funding. Metro Staff felt that
the Santa Monica line was had the best chance for any sort of Federal
funding.

Metro
staff pointed out that West Hollywood does not even come close to
meeting the Federal funding criteria based upon cost effectiveness
based upon ridership and construction costs.

When asked if somehow West Hollywood could lobby
to have funding diverted for our extension to be built prior to the
“Subway to the Sea,” Metro staff was emphatic that there was no
possibility of Federal funding for WeHo.

Despite the fact
that West Hollywood currently has a large public transportation
ridership, that actually works against us. The goal of the subway is to
get commuters out of cars, not move bus riders on to an expensive
subway.

The point of the subway is to alleviate gridlock before
Los Angeles becomes uninhabitable. With over thirty percent of West
Hollywood’s adult population being retired or at retirement age, we
don’t currently have the demographics to fit the ridership needs to
meet Federal criteria for funding.

Furthermore we don’t have
the sort of middle class jobs as other areas of the Westside, so we
really are not a credible destination. Getting eastside gays to West
Hollywood hot spots is not a goal of the Metro.

A WeHo subway, while convenient for our residents and visitors, would do little to alleviate regional traffic problems.

If
funding ain’t coming from the Feds, the Metro staff hoped that WeHo
funding might come from a future County bond measure or sales tax
increase earmarked for public transportation, which is not likely in
the next decade.

n top of that, once funding is secured for the
“Subway to the Sea,” it is unlikely that the rest of Los Angeles County
is going to vote for any additional funding for a WeHo extension when
other parts of the County desperately need subway services.

The
west Valley, San Gabriel Valley, Downey and Glendora all want their
“fair share” of any transportation funds that might come from a future
bond measure. The only people who believe funding is imminent are at
WeHo City Hall.

Obviously West Hollywood cannot fund this
extension on its own, but staff keeps insisting that the subway is
coming, but the General Plan Advisory Committee is becoming openly
skeptical and resistive to staff’s insistence that we need more density
to qualify for a subway extension.

But city staff and the
city’s consultant want the Committee to suspend common sense and add
huge heights and densities based upon a phantom transportation system
that will not be seen in our collective life times.

We will not have a West Hollywood subway any time during the life of the new General Plan, which would be about twenty years.

If
in 2031 the planets are aligned for a WeHo extension, we can plan for
it in our next General Plan. Then we can think about major changes in
density. But common sense dictates that we should not approve major
height increases on Santa Monica Boulevard until a subway moves from
the world of fantasy.

The General Plan needs to be based upon the current
realities, not on wishful thinking. While the City Council is anxious
to pander to the developers who want a “Greater West Hollywood,” let’s
not build a West Coast Manhattan until we actually get our subway.

Article 3

Link: Mayor V. Bows To The Westside As He Dedicates Eastside Rail - Los Angeles News - LA Daily

Mayor V. Bows To The Westside As He Dedicates Eastside Rail
By Dennis Romero in City News, community, politics
Sat., Nov. 14 2009 @ 11:09PM

Eastside son Antonio Villaraigosa beamed Saturday as he helped to dedicate the Metro Gold Line extension train that runs from downtown to East Los Angeles. Free rides are being offered Sunday to celebrate the opening and to lure the bus-riding masses. And while a vast majority of county transit users are bus riders, the mayor couldn't pass up a chance to plug his vanity project -- a "subway to the sea" -- in coded language.

Mayor V. stumps for regional rail at the official dedication of the Gold Line extension.​

" ... This is not the end of the ride," he stated. "Thanks to the passage of Measure R, there will be local funding for half a dozen new rail projects in the next decade, which will give Angelenos even greater transit access to jobs and other opportunities throughout the county."

Of course, Mayor V.'s favorite new rail project is a line that would extend from the end-of-the-line subway station at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to Westwood and eventually Santa Monica. Villaraigosa is pushing for the 30-year project to be fast-tracked to a 10-year timetable. And some say he's favored it at the expense of more-pressing public-transportation needs, particularly bus service.

The Measure R Villaraigosa was referring to was the 2008 law passed by county voters that increases sales tax by a half-cent and will pour $40 billion dollars into MTA coffers in the decades to come. Of course, it's just pocket change when it comes to the mayor's vision of bringing light rail to the Westside. Despite promises that the measure would be a panacea for transit needs and traffic congestion, hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it from the federal government, would be needed to complete Mayor V.'s vision of a rail-gilded region.

The mayor's goal of tunneling below the Westside, including a leg through the methane- and tar-plagued Miracle Mile, and then completing his subway to the sea in 10 years would be nearly unprecedented.

As U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard noted at Saturday's dedication, her father, longtime Congressman Edward R. Roybal, had hoped for decades to cut the ribbon on an Eastside line but never lived to see the day. (The leg was officially dedicated in the late congressman's name as the Edward R. Roybal Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension).
Aside from the physical construction, the loopholes, bureaucracy and political maneuvering required to get a multi-billion-dollar project off the ground is daunting.

"As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years, he was a staunch supporter of efforts to bring rail to the Eastside and he worked long and hard towards that end," Roybal-Allard said, referring to her father. "It has been my pleasure to continue that fight and today his dream of affordable, clean and efficient transportation is becoming a reality."

It's interesting how the Gold Line Eastside Extension is couched as a battle won for the transit-dependent Eastside -- a tale of government-done-good for hard-working taxpayers. "This caps a 20-year battle to bring rail back to East L.A. -- one of the most transit dependent communities in Los Angeles," said Villaraigosa.

The "subway to the sea," on the other hand, has seen little battle. While Westside Rep. Henry Waxman once opposed the proposed line, he's gotten out of the way, and now there's nothing to stop the Eastside native Villaraigosa's dream of light rail for the transit-needy shoppers of Rodeo Drive.

Subway extension debated

The Daily Bruin | Subway extension debated

Subway extension debated

Community considers pros, cons of bringing Metro Purple Line to Westwood Boulevard

By Kelly Zhou

Nov. 9, 2009 at 2:17 a.m.
For maps, click here and here.
UCLA students expressed both their encouragement and concern for the Westside subway extension at a Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority station-planning meeting on Nov. 5, highlighting students’ current need for more efficient transportation.

“Most of the students (at UCLA) don’t have a car because there’s nowhere to park, so (the subway) would be a great transportation alternative,” said Chris Santiago, a second-year geography student who attended the meeting.

Santiago is a member of Bruins for Traffic Relief, a student group on campus dedicated to giving students more exposure to public transit and getting better public transportation in Los Angeles.

“We understand that a lot of UCLA students have to travel long distances to get to the campus,” said David Mieger, director of the Westside extension project for MTA. “If you can get from downtown to Westwood in 30 minutes by (subway) versus 45 minutes by car or bus, we think that will be a real advantage for folks trying to commute to UCLA.”

While some students expressed interest in a Westwood subway, others disagreed about the need for the project right now, citing the current economic problems the U.S. is facing.

“It would be the wrong time to try to pursue some sort of expensive program that isn’t a necessity, considering that we’re going through an economic tough time,” said Sina Safvati, a first-year history student. “It’s not fiscally disciplined.”

In addition, some Westwood residents who participated at the meeting were concerned about the impact the subway would have on their homes. Discussion became heated in regard to the subway’s location, as residents were worried about the possibility of noise disruption and vibrations in the ground from the subway.

The Westside subway proposal would extend the Purple Line from Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue all the way to Westwood Boulevard. Held at the Wadsworth Theatre, the Metro planning meeting included discussion about the features of the two options for the Westwood/UCLA station.

The first option is to place the station box off-street, below the UCLA-owned Lot 36. The second would locate the station on-street, under Wilshire Boulevard, west of Westwood Boulevard.

While meeting participants seemed to back both options, Lot 36 had somewhat more support from students and the university administration.

“The advantage of the (option) that is on the UCLA property is that it will be much less disruptive during construction for everyone,” said Renee Fortier, director of UCLA Transportation Services.

Mieger agreed, explaining that off-street construction would have much less of an impact on the community. In comparison, if the Wilshire option is chosen, concrete slabs will be placed over the street to allow people to commute while construction is going on.

Furthermore, the parking lot’s proximity to the stop for UCLA’s Campus Express shuttle is an advantage in the eyes of some students.

“I’m in favor of the Lot 36 alternative, because (the city) can concentrate all of the construction in that parking lot,” Santiago said. “(Also), it’s slightly closer to the apartments and the dorms. It’s right next to the campus shuttle and the FlyAway (shuttle to the Los Angeles International Airport).”

Students have a variety of reasons for using the subway, from exploring Los Angeles to commuting home quickly.

Santiago said the subway would not only make trips to Koreatown or downtown easier, but would also make commuting home more efficient. A Diamond Bar resident, Santiago goes home every weekend by car, but does not leave until late at night due to traffic. By public transportation, it can take up to three hours to get home, he said.

“With the subway, you don’t have to worry about traffic,” Santiago said. “It’s independent of the road system.”

However, other students said they did not support the subway extension, specifically due to the increased traffic and disruption construction would cause.

“I think that not a lot of people are going to take advantage of this service and most people are still going to use their cars,” Safvati said. “I think (the subway) will help UCLA students who don’t live on campus and I think they’re going to use it.”

Safvati, who drives every day from West Los Angeles, said he would not use the subway because it is out of his way.

Nevertheless, the concerns about traffic and congestion in Los Angeles are one of the many factors driving the subway project.

“The traffic is getting to really intense levels, so this (subway) is a way we can carry more people without adding more cars to the surface,” Mieger said. “It’s something we need today, but in the future as we get more people and more growth, this would be a way to accommodate more people without bringing a lot more cars into this area that’s so congested.”

For the Purple Line to extend all the way to the proposed Westwood/UCLA station, it will cost about $4.2 billion in 2008 dollars, so the cost will change with inflation, Mieger said. The Measure R sales-tax increase will help fund the project, but MTA is also looking for federal matching funds so that the subway will be built sooner.

“We wouldn’t start construction in Westwood until probably 2026 or 2028,” Mieger said. “We know we have enough money to get it as far as Westwood, but we’re trying to see if we have additional funds so we can get it built sooner.”

Second-year political science student and Bruins for Traffic Relief President Matthew Kroneberger, who worked for MTA as a communications intern this past summer, was involved specifically with the subway project.

“There is no question that the baseline of the Westside extension will always include a Westwood/UCLA station,” Kroneberger said. “It’s not just based on bias, but rather on the projected high ridership, high utility and fundamental need for a Westwood station.”

With 65,000 people coming on campus every day, Fortier expects the subway to affect people’s mobility and that it will be “absolutely critical because L.A. is going to grow.”

Referring to UCLA Transportation surveys conducted every spring, Fortier said that of the staff, faculty and students who commute to campus, 21 percent use public transit.

Considering the vast number of people on campus everyday, the Westwood/UCLA subway station would likely be the third or fourth highest in usage in the entire MTA system, MTA regional communications manager Jody Litvak said at the meeting.

Despite the heavy demand this station would create, Mieger said that in the most optimistic scenario, construction for the Westside extension would not begin for at least four years.

Furthermore, the caveat is that construction would begin on the parts of the subway closer to Wilshire and Western, not necessarily the Westwood/UCLA station.

Without federal funding, the Westwood/UCLA station would open around 2036 on this time frame, Mieger said. However, he added that the subway could be built in 10 years if the money were available today.

Students remain undeterred by the lengthy process demanded in such a complex project.

“When the subway is built, it will not only transform the way we get around, it will change the way we interact with the city of L.A.,” Kroneberger said

Mayor's effort to fast-track Westside subway faces challenge (Source: LAtimes)

Mayor's effort to fast-track Westside subway faces challenge | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

Mayor's effort to fast-track Westside subway faces challenge
October 20, 2009 | 2:17 pm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/bottleneck/images/2008/08/20/subway.jpg

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s efforts to fast-track the long-stalled Westside subway faced a challenge Tuesday when a bipartisan group of congressional representatives said the current plan is unlikely to get immediate federal funding.

Villaraigosa has been pushing to have the subway completed in 10 years, more than 15 years earlier than current estimates.

At his urging, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board agreed to submit the subway expansion, as well as a plan to build a light-rail link through downtown, as the county’s two projects to compete against a national pool of federal funding.

But the 14 members of Congress who signed a letter released today said those two programs don’t have a good shot at immediately getting federal funding. Further, they said that L.A. County risks not get anything from the federal New Starts program unless it adds other regional rail proposals, including an extension of the Gold Line in the San Gabriel Valley and a rail line down Crenshaw Boulevard in South L.A. and the South Bay.

“We are very concerned that Los Angeles County is not positioning itself well to receive its fair share of New Starts funding in the near- and long-term,” the delegation wrote. “Metro’s current plan puts the County at risk of being out of the New Starts funding queue for several years, perhaps for the entire surface transportation reauthorization bill.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), David Dreier (R-San Dimas), Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), Jane Harman (D-Venice) and Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), among others. The letter underscores a regional battle underway on the MTA board over which transit projects to pursue and how best to receive federal funding for those projects.

Villaraigosa, L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and others are pushing to make the Westside a top priority. Officials have been trying to build the line for decades but have faced numerous barriers, including the estimated $5-billion or more price tag.

Other officials, however, have questioned the logic of only pursuing federal funding for the Westside extension and the regional connector, and say those projects – particularly the subway – are aimed at only pleasing one region while others are made to wait or build projects that are not as favorable.

For example, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas wants the Crenshaw/South Bay Transit Corridor to be built using light rail, not bus, and said that next month the MTA board will vote on which of the two options to implement. If that project, like the Westside subway, pursues federal funding, the light rail would be more plausible and it would even be possible to build the rail underground in some parts.

In response to the letter, Ridley-Thomas said that it means “that no one plan should dominate. No one rail line should dominate.”

-- Ari B. Bloomekatz

Public Meetings Announced: More Details to Come About the Westside Subway (Source: LAist)

Public Meetings Announced: More Details to Come About the Westside Subway - LAist

Public Meetings Announced: More Details to Come About the Westside Subway


 Is this normal for life after the passage of Measure R or is Metro trying to make transit nerds go crazy?

Metro today announced the sixth, yes, the sixth public meeting about transit taking place this month. Projects seeking community input include the bicycle draft master plan (this one is actually under the jurisdiction of LADOT), bus lanes on Wilshire Blvd., the Crenshaw corridor to LAX, the Harbor corridor, the Rosa Parks station and now the Westside Subway Extension.

Described as a “roll-up-your sleeves” meeting, the attending public will have the "opportunity to review and discuss station locations and entrances, connections to and from the stations, and other issues," according to Metro's announcement.

The five meetings will be held in late October and early November:

Thursday, October 22, 2009

6- 8 p.m.

Stations to be discussed: Wilshire at Bundy, 26th, 16th & 4th Street

Santa Monica Public Library - Multi-Purpose Room

601 Santa Monica Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA 90401


Monday, October 26, 2009

6- 8 p.m.

Stations to be discussed: Wilshire at Crenshaw, La Brea & Fairfax

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) - Terrace Room, 5th Floor

5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036


Tuesday, November 3, 2009

6- 8 p.m.

Stations to be discussed: Hollywood/Highland, Santa Monica Boulevard at La Brea,

Fairfax & San Vicente & Beverly Center

Pacific Design Center

8687 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, CA 90069


Wednesday, November 4, 2009

6- 8 p.m.

Stations to be discussed: Wilshire at La Cienega & Beverly

Beverly Hills City Hall - Municipal Gallery

455 N. Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210


Thursday, November 5, 2009

6- 8 p.m.

Stations to be discussed: Century City, Westwood/UCLA & VA Hospital

Veterans Administration - Wadsworth Theatre

11301 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90073
user-pic
By Zach Behrens in News on October 7, 2009 3:45 PM

Group Claims Expo Rail Line Is ‘Deadly’ (Source: Santa Monica Dispatch)

Santa Monica Dispatch » Blog Archive » Group Claims Expo Rail Line Is ‘Deadly’

Group Claims Expo Rail Line Is ‘Deadly’
By: Peggy Clifford
Published: October 4th, 2009

The following statement was issued Friday by Citizens’ Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line.

MTA board members are claiming that in comparison to their Metrolink peers their rail safety policies are worthy of praise. Not true says a prominent Southern California rail safety advocacy group.

“Comparing the rail safety of Metrolink to MTA is like comparing Ted Bundy to John Wayne Gacy,” said Damien Goodmon, coordinator of the MTA watchdog group Citizens’ Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line (”Fix Expo Campaign”). “Metrolink is among the nation’s deadliest commuter rail systems, and MTA is the nation’s deadliest light rail system. They are different sides of the same coin and share the same failed rail safety culture that has led to scores of preventable deaths on Southland tracks.”

The Federal Transit Administration’s 2007 light rail safety statistics indicate that the national average for light rail accidents is 7.2 per million train miles traveled. Yet the same year, the MTA’s Los Angeles-to-Long Beach Blue Line, the nation’s deadliest at 94 deaths and over 836 accidents, averaged 19.9 accidents per million train miles traveled – over 275% higher than the national average. The fatality rate of the MTA light rail line, in which 225-ton trains travel up to 35 and 55 mph, is far more daunting. There have been some years in the past few when nearly half of all light rail deaths in the country were on MTA’s tracks, which are under the regulation of the California Public Utilities Commission.

Goodmon continued, “MTA claims Blue Line accidents have gone down since the ’90s, but the reality is they went down across the board, because earlier this decade the FTA changed the reporting standards for light rail accidents. It may be good public relations strategy for MTA to spin this as ‘improvement,’ but human beings are still being killed at the same high rate, and service is still being disrupted.”

MTA’s quarterly report indicates that the Blue Line killed 61 people in its first 12 years of operation, from 1990 to 2002. In the six years from 2002 to 2008, 30 more people were fatally wounded. “They’re killing people at the same rate today as they were in the beginning,” said Clint Simmons, the Public Safety Committee Chair of the West Adams Neighborhood Council, where the controversial Dorsey High School crossing on the under construction Downtown-to-Culver City Expo Line Phase 1 is located.

Statistics by the American Public Transportation Association indicate that in 2002 when the Blue Line led the nation with 61 deaths. Comparatively, the second deadliest light rail system in that span of time, which had more riders and more track miles, fatally wounded 22.

“We called the Blue Line ‘Death Row,’” said former MTA light rail operator Lester Hollins. At a community forum held at Dorsey H.S., Hollins told the crowd his MTA superiors reprimanded him for stopping his Blue Line train to pick up a toddler who had wandered on the tracks through a hole in the fence.

For the past two years, the Fix Expo Campaign, which collaborates with internationally renowned and respected experts in rail safety and vehicular accident causation, has submitted numerous public records requests for MTA to produce their accident reports. “They’ve stonewalled,” said Goodmon. “MTA just gives the number of accidents and deaths the FTA requires they report, not specifics about potential cause, age of victims or anything substantive about each individual incident. This is in stark contrast to Metrolink, where every accident is put on the Federal Railroad Administration’s safety website and the public can view the age of victims, preliminary determined cause, location, time, etc.,” said Goodmon.

“MTA claims they can’t give us the info because of potential lawsuits,” said Simmons. “That says a lot about how bad MTA’s system is if they’ve got to hide records from the public. And by the way how can it be litigiously okay for Metrolink to make the data available on the web, but not MTA?”

Goodmon continued: “MTA knows our intent is to illustrate for the world that they are making the same mistakes today on the Expo Line in South LA as they were when they designed the Blue Line: putting tracks down in the middle of highly congested areas without ‘grade separation.’” Grade separation involves the train entering a trench or going over the street on a bridge.

MTA’s statistics indicate that the most accident-prone portions of the Blue Line are where the 225-ton train operates with no gates. “92% of all vehicular accidents and 76% of total accidents occur at crossings with no gates,” said Goodmon. “Yet, 40 of the 45 street-level crossings on the under construction Expo Line Phase 1, have no crossing gates including Crenshaw, Vermont, Western and Normandie, and only one street-level crossing has them on the under construction 6 mile Eastside Extension.” MTA’s own study predicts the Expo Line will be involved in 52 accidents per year.

“They’re repeating the same mistakes, so obviously the number of light rail accidents is going to go up,” said Hollins. “You or someone you know will experience tragedy because of the MTA’s new street-level tracks.”

“They’ll be spared in Culver City, where the city demanded and MTA provided the money to build the train there without a single street-level crossing,” said Carol Tucker of the Baldwin Neighborhood Homeowners Association.

In a hearing before the California Public Utilities Commission, Russ Quimby, the former national chairman of all rail accident investigations for the National Transportation Safety Board, testified regarding planned Expo Line street-level crossings, “If the crossings at Farmdale (near Dorsey High School) and Western (near Foshay Middle School) don’t qualify for a grade separation from a safety perspective, then no crossing would.” Yet MTA has decided not to put the train underground or elevated at Western, and though directed by the CPUC to grade separate, is reapplying to run the train at street level at Dorsey HS.

“The first issue is why hasn’t MTA gone back and put the deadliest light rail train in the country in a trench like the Alameda corridor or in the air like the Green Line in El Segundo so they can stop killing people,” said Goodmon. “The second issue is how are they getting away with repeating this unsafe design on new lines in South LA and on the Eastside? These are the primary reasons we’ve called for a Congressional investigation into MTA’s planning practices and policies.”

Tucker continued: “One has to wonder if the deadliest light rail line in the country was rolling through Hancock Park, Miracle Mile, Beverly Hills and Century City, whether MTA would get away with calling their system ’safe,’ let alone spending money on new projects. But because these accidents are occurring in Watts and Compton instead of West Hollywood and Culver City there is no outcry – they have no shame.”

# # #

* The Citizens’ Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line (Fix Expo Campaign) is a collaboration between over a dozen South LA community groups, neighborhood councils and homeowners association, civil rights leaders and rail safety advocates. As part of their request that MTA build train underpasses or train overpasses on the currently proposed street-level Expo Line, the group has highlighted the criticism by several rail safety experts, transportation safety experts, and former MTA rail operators, including but not limited to: Prof. Meshkati; Russ Quimby, the former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman of All-Railroad Accident Investigations; Ed Ruszak, national expert in vehicle accident causation; along with former MTA Blue Line operators.

No. 1 with a bullet train California's high-speed rail plans should be first in line for federal transportation stimulus funds. (Source: LAtimes.com)

Link: No. 1 with a bullet train -- latimes.com

Editorial
No. 1 with a bullet train
California's high-speed rail plans should be first in line for federal transportation stimulus funds.

October 4, 2009

The "cash for clunkers" program is over, so if you weren't in the market for a car during its summer run, tough luck. But for Californians, all is not lost. Thanks to the foresight of voters, we're poised to receive a big portion of federal transportation dollars being doled out under another stimulus program, this one for bullet trains.

Last November, voters passed a bond measure(2008) approving $9.95 billion to fund a high-speed train line from San Diego to Sacramento. They couldn't have known it then, but the timing was fortuitous. Months later, as part of the stimulus package, Congress dedicated $8 billion to pay for high-speed rail projects across the country. California is the only state where voters have already approved funding for a bullet train, and it has the most state-of-the-art proposal, with the most planning work completed, in the nation. Because the funding is meant to stimulate the economy as quickly as possible, officials at the Federal Railroad Administration are expected to give priority to applicants that can start hammering rail spikes soon. So when the California High-Speed Rail Authority submitted its application on Friday, it had powerful arguments on its side.

Given the scale of the authority's ambitions, it's going to need every advantage it can get. The bullet train is projected to cost $40 billion, and there's a good chance the price tag will be higher. With state bonds covering at most a quarter of the cost, planners are relying on federal money and private capital for the rest -- and so far, no private investors have materialized. The authority is applying for $4.7 billion of the $8-billion federal pot, yet there will be heavy political pressure to spread the money across a broad geographical region rather than giving so much to a single state. Even so, there are strong reasons to award California an outsized share.

It is undeniably parochial for The Times to argue that Washington should send tax money to California for a project that would boost the local economy. But nobody has to take our word that the Golden State should be first in line. In addition to the timing considerations, there is the important matter of ridership -- for the rail program to be successful, it should focus on projects that can move the most people. America 2050, a Washington-based public planning think tank, studied regions with the highest potential ridership for high-speed rail, ranking them by city pairs (routes between two cities). A line connecting New York and Washington was ranked the highest, but three of the top 10 city pairs would be connected by California's bullet train, including L.A. to San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose. If federal officials want the most bang for their stimulus buck, they should look west.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Please Sir, May We Have Some More Subways? (Source: Curbed LA)

Link: Curbed LA: Please Sir, May We Have Some More Subways?

Please Sir, May We Have Some More Subways?

Thursday, September 24, 2009, by Neal Broverman

 In a statement released today, Metro announced they were officially applying for federal money to help pay for the Wilshire subway extension, as well as the Regional Connector that would link up various light-rail lines and provide transfer-less trips around the County. "The two projects are expected to score highly in the rankings necessary to secure Full Funding Grant Agreements (FFGA) under current federal New Starts requirements," according to the release. Metro is hoping the president helps fund these two easy-to-sell projects, so local Measure R monies can be freed up to pay for less high-profile rail lines like the Gold Line Foothill extension into Montclair. [Metro]

Wilshire Bus Only Lanes: The Above-Ground Subway to the Sea (Source: LA Subway Blog)

Link: The LA Subway Blog: Wilshire Bus Only Lanes: The Above-Ground Subway to the Sea

Wilshire Bus Only Lanes: The Above-Ground Subway to the Sea
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The LA City Council voted to move ahead with the EIR for the LA City Wilshire Bus Only Lanes (Streetsblog Reports). This project would improve transit travel times in the Wilshire Corridor. You could think of it as the low cost peak-hour above-ground subway (that runs in mixed traffic through Beverly Hills and Santa Monica).

Paul Koretz from CD 5 has taken a page from David Vahedi's playbook and bowed to Westwood Wilshire Corridor Condo interests (some of which fear change and the realization that they don't live on a two-lane back country road) in expressing skepticism over the project. Paul is a 25-year member of the Sierra Club and surely is aware of the positive environmental implications of improving transit service using natural-gas fueled buses. While localized environmental concerns should be studied in any project, I suspect the Corridor Condo interests will seek to use the CEQA/NEPA process to derail any attempt to change the pastoral nature of their homestead, even if it provides a street buffer that only professionally-trained drivers will have access to. The regional environmental implications of improving transit service will be favorable.

Schedule permitting, Sirinya and I will be at the Westwood meeting.

Here's the latest from Metro:
===
Metro, the City of Los Angeles, and Los Angeles County are considering the feasibility of implementing a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project on Wilshire Boulevard. This joint effort will be evaluated through the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Assessment (EIR/EA).

The EIR/EA, which will be prepared in compliance with State and Federal environmental requirements, will examine the potential for dedicated curbside bus lanes during the morning and evening rush hours along Wilshire Boulevard, from just west of the I-110 freeway to the Santa Monica city line, excluding the City of Beverly Hills.

These same three agencies began evaluating the proposed Wilshire BRT Project in November 2008 as part of preparing an Initial Study/Environmental Assessment (IS/EA). An EIR/EA is now being prepared as a consequence of input received at several community meetings held along the corridor at that time, additional public input, and technical analyses that have been conducted.

Please join us at any of the four (4) scoping meetings to learn more about the Proposed Project and Project Alternatives. These meetings will provide the public the opportunity to comment on the project and any potential effects of the project that should be considered in the Draft EIR/EA. The content presented at these four meetings will be identical, so please make sure to attend at the time and location most convenient for you.

Monday, October 5, 6:00 – 8 pm
Felicia Mahood Senior Center
11338 Santa Monica Bl
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Wednesday, October 7, 6:00 – 8 pm
Wilshire United Methodist Church
4350 Wilshire Bl
Los Angeles, CA 90010

Thursday, October 8, 6:00 – 8 pm
Westwood Presbyterian Church
10822 Wilshire Bl
Los Angeles, CA 90024

Tuesday, October 13, 6:00 – 8 pm
Good Samaritan Hospital, Moseley-Salvatori Conference Center
637 Lucas Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90017

All meeting locations are accessible by public transit. Please go to Metro.net to plan your trip. Parking is also available. Garage parking at Good Samaritan is not validated and costs $8.

For additional information or questions, please visit the Wilshire Bus Rapid Transit EIR/EA website at metro.net/Wilshire.

Metro Is Drilling On Wilshire Boulevard For The Westside Subway Extension (Source: Santa Monica Mirror)

Link: Santa Monica Mirror

Metro Is Drilling On Wilshire Boulevard For The Westside Subway Extension
Hannah Heineman, Mirror Staff Writer
Metro has begun the process of preparing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Draft EIS/EIR) and part of the process includes exploratory drilling in Santa Monica to assess the conditions below ground.

The exploratory drilling will help Metro determine what engineering strategies will need to be used to construct the subway’s underground tunnels and stations. This will be done by analyzing soil samples. Metro’s Manager of Community Relations, Jody Litvak, explained to the Mirror that Metro has been drilling at 70 locations throughout the Westside and Santa Monica is one of the last locations to be drilled in.

Wilshire Boulevard at 25th Street, 16th Street, and 5th Street were the three locations where drilling has been occurring this week. The locations were chosen based approximately on where Metro is expecting to place the stations for the subway. Right now, stations are projected to be placed at Wishire Boulevard and 26th Street, 16th Street, and 4th Street. Some parking lane and traffic disruption has been caused by the work. Litvak mentioned that so far Metro “hasn’t found anything unexpected” in the drilling that it has completed.

According to Metro documents, the Draft EIS/EIR purpose is to study the potential effects of the Westside Subway Extension “during construction and once it is operating, and also to evaluate measures to avoid, minimize and mitigate any adverse impacts.” This process will include the refinement of project alternatives, define Wilshire Boulevard segments, future segments, specify station details, “examine the cost effectiveness of various segments, and evaluate the timing and funding of a future project.” The study will also look at the entire Santa Monica alignment with and without a West Hollywood component.

Litvak stated that the Draft EIS/EIR should be released for public input in the summer of 2010. The Metro Board will then adopt the draft and the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA). The LPA will define the project that will be examined in the Final EIS/EIR process and the project that will be funded by federal matching funds. Another year will be needed after that to complete the EIS/EIR.

The next round of community meetings for the project will be scheduled in early to mid October. Theses meetings will be tailored to the location where they are held so that the community can give input on the planning and urban design around the stations. They will also include updates on the project.

Further information on the Westside Subway Extension can be found at metro.net/Westside or on Facebook at “Metro Westside Subway Extension.”

Will the Subway Get to the Sea? And Other Musings on Moving LA (Source: CityWatch)

Link: CityWatch - An insider look at City Hall - Will the Subway Get to the Sea? And Other Musings on Moving LA

Will the Subway Get to the Sea? And Other Musings on Moving LA
LA Transpo
By Ken Alpern

In the past two weeks, we’ve heard talk about the need to expedite planning, funding and construction for the Wilshire Subway and for the Crenshaw Corridor Project.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held a press conference to expedite the Wilshire Subway to a faster timeline than 20 years…and I suspect most Angelenos would agree. Similarly, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas held his own press conference and pointed out the need to properly plan for the Crenshaw Corridor Project, which will either be a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or a Light Rail Transit (LRT) that would connect the Green Line to the Expo Line (the current plan … and maybe the Wilshire/Purple Line and even Red Line as well … a proposed second phase).

Simply put, I think that the Crenshaw Corridor Project should be a LRT, and not a BRT, in order to avoid a repeat of the Orange Line mistake that had a cowardly political cadre in the San Fernando Valley let a few NIMBY's spoil the lot for the majority who always, always, always wanted rail. Ridley-Thomas said the same, and I commend him for his visionary stance.
Sample Image
The sudden success of the Orange Line Busway is a long and sordid one that I predict will leave SFV taxpaying commuters very unhappy in years to come as even more-successful higher-quality rail lines (which can carry about four times as much as a Busway) get built throughout the county.

This Crenshaw Corridor Project, should it avoid becoming another Busway and become a north-south rail line that is for the Mid-City and Westside, is the appropriate second chapter of rail that should follow the east-west Expo Line. The only reason it's fallen below the radar is because the political and media-grabbing power of the Mid-City region (through which most of this line runs) is unfortunately much less than other regions of the county.

Do I have concerns that this project isn't being done in the right order, considering the need for the Downtown Connector, the Foothill Gold Line and the Wilshire Subway? Yes.

Do I have concerns that this project is being done in a relatively non-coordinated fashion with the Green Line/LAX and Wilshire Subway? Yes.

However, this Crenshaw Line will, when it's done, not only help connect the Green Line to LAX but also the Expo Line to LAX...because they'll both have the access to Century/Aviation station, which will likely be a HUGE transit hub if the LAX People Mover ever connects there (I suspect it will).

The proposed second stage of the Crenshaw Line to the Wilshire Subway...and perhaps to the Red Line at Hollywood/Highland, would make this Crenshaw Line one of the hugest and most vital north-south rail projects since the Blue Line.

I have been a fan of this Crenshaw project for years, despite its opponents, and I look forward to making the Green and Expo Lines even more helpful and connecting once it becomes a reality. I do not believe for a second that its ridership after the first phase will be poor, and I envision a gigantic ridership if it ever proceeds north to Wilshire and beyond.

I also have been a fan of the Wilshire Subway, although it must be looked at as a project that—like the Crenshaw and Expo Lines will be built in phases and should be conceptualized as such. It’ll get to the Sea all right but in what sort of phasework and timeframe is yet to be determined.

The Wilshire Subway might not get the political and budgetary blessings to move further west than a Fairfax Blvd. Extension by 2015-18. However, it packs a much greater ridership, planning and economic punch if it can be built in a longer first-phase to Century City by that time.

This means that we must stop looking at the Crenshaw and Wilshire Projects as “competing”, because if they connect then they will be as “competing” as the 10, 405 and 110 Freeways, which serve as a vital network for hundreds of thousands of commuters every day.

The same can said for the Foothill Gold Line and the Downtown Light Rail Connector, which like the Crenshaw and Wilshire projects are decades overdue. Thankfully, we passed Proposition R which guaranteed us local monies for these projects…but how FAST we’ll see them done requires two things:

1) The political cooperation from Sacramento and Washington to get past their other competing priorities to get the legal, political and economic cooperation and expedite these projects

2) The local cooperation from politicians like Villaraigosa and Yaroslavsky (patron saints of the Wilshire Subway), Ridley-Thomas (patron saint of the Crenshaw Line), and Supervisor Mike Antonovich (patron saint of the Foothill Gold Line) to ensure that all of these worthy projects get moved forward together

Short-term visioning is vital to fast-track the first phase of the Crenshaw and Active ImageWilshire and Foothill Gold Lines, and the second phase of the Expo Line and the Downtown Connector (I prefer to call it Expo Phase III), and moving these five key projects simultaneously is no small achievement for L.A. County.

But it’s a first, decade-long adventure that will guarantee that the Subway to the Sea actually gets to the Sea, and will guarantee that Red, Purple, Expo and Green Lines all someday get connected with a first-rate Crenshaw LRT to make L.A. City and County a first-rate economic powerhouse to the nation and the world.

(Ken Alpern is Chair of the non-profit The Transit Coalition, co-chair of the grassroots Friends of the Green Line, and co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee, but the views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at Alpern@MarVista.orgThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ,)

Will Wilshire Ever Be Traversable? (Source: Curbed LA)

Link: Curbed LA: Will Wilshire Ever Be Traversable?

Will Wilshire Ever Be Traversable?

Friday, September 4, 2009, by Neal Broverman

While it's great news that the Purple Line extension is swiftly advancing, its first extension to Fairfax most likely won't open for at least five years. So there was hope that a planned bus-only lane on the boulevard would ease traffic for crosstown transit riders (and possibly drivers). Well, hold on a sec, reports Streetsblog. Now, a full environmental impact report is being required, one that won't be ready until the summer. On top of that, it seems many Westside homeowners don't like the idea of a bus-only lane on Wilshire—public outreach done in 2008 found both strong support and strong opposition to the project. "At the very least [the lane] now faces more obstacles to overcome than it did in 2008. In addition to needing a green light from an environmental standpoint, the project will need to survive another alternatives analysis and another round of public outreach in some areas where a bus only lane instead of street parking is a scary proposition to local residents." [Streetsblog

Subway To Sea (Through WeHo) Making Progress (Source: Wehonews.com)

Link: WeHoNews.com:

Subway To Sea (Through WeHo) Making Progress

Monday, August 31, 2009 – By WeHo News Staff, West Hollywood

West Hollywood, California (Monday, August 31, 2009) - As more exploratory drilling takes place here in West Hollywood last night and again tonight, plans move apace to build the Subway to the Sea with a West Hollywood spur that would join the Red Line and Purple Line in what most are calling a “Pink Line.”

Last month five scoping meetings took place, one of them in WeHo, where people affected by the plans gathered to express concerns and to offer ideas on how to complete the $7 - $11 billion extension of the current Purple Line.

Regional representative for the Westside Subway Extension, Jody Litvak and chief planner David Mieger outlined the process so far and explained some major changes that came up since the last round of public meetings.

Chief on that list of changes would be not placing a subway stop on La Brea at Santa Monica Boulevard.

Because of the turn-radius need for a stop there, the platform would have to be place four to five blocks to the east, in Los Angeles.

Ms. Litvak said, “There’s more support for a station between La Cienega and San Vicente Boulevard, say for example at City Hall in the center of town,” she said.

That said, there remains avid support for a Beverly Center/Cedars-Sinai stop, but the Pink Line complicates a Beverly Hills preference for a La Cienega station, she explained, but there is also strong support from 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, Ms. Litvak said.

She said that they continue to study options, but that a La Cienega/SMB station would likely be between La Cienega and Robertson.

Ms. 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.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) will perform exploratory drilling as part of the planning and Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report for the proposed Westside Subway Extension in West Hollywood on Sunday, August 30, 2009 from 9 p.m. through Monday, August 31, 2009 at 6 a.m. at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Sweetzer Avenue.

During this process, soil samples will be removed and sent to the lab for analysis in order to assess the conditions below the ground surface and prepare the necessary plans for the Proposed Westside Subway Extension.

The next updates will further refine public comment and start finding concepts for station portals.

Stimulus… More Like Stymied (Source: I Will Ride Blog)

I Will Ride Blog

Stimulus… More Like Stymied
Posted by Albert

Three articles in Friday’s editions of the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News focused on the the Subway to the Sea and its federal funding status (status: unknown). Now we support the Subway to the Sea as much as your average West LA folk, so there’s no issue with the project itself. Mass transit options, whatever and wherever they are, are good. The whole county is in dire need of a legitimate public transit alternative to the congested freeways as well as freedom from the polluted air that comes with traffic snarls.

In one Los Angeles Times report, it was revealed that much of the federal stimulus money that California had received for transportation was going to “routine” projects – not toward projects that President Obama had hoped “would both be built quickly and achieve long-term goals such as reducing pollution and congestion.” Now if you’re a Foothill Extension supporter, you can’t help but read this and scream: Oh come on! The explanation for perhaps why the ready-to-go Foothill Extension was stymied and not put up for federal stimulus money can be found in this excerpt:

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority thought about applying for stimulus funds to stretch the Red Line light rail to the sea but scrapped the idea when officials realized the project couldn’t be completed in the timeline the president outlined, said David Yale, MTA’s deputy executive officer of regional programming.
“The president’s charge was to get the economy jolted, so we needed to identify projects that could move quickly and get out to bid quickly,” Yale said.

Source: Stimulus funds in California mostly go to routine projects, study says, Los Angeles Times

The Foothill Extension seems to fit that “charge,” seeing as how with the help of federal funding, the entire line to Montclair can be finished and operating by 2017. Not to mention the thousands of construction jobs that would come with it, the billions of dollars that would jolt the San Gabriel Valley economies, the reduction in congestion on the 210, and the improvements in air quality for millions of residents.

However, all is not lost, as a group of the Subway’s biggest supporters –including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky – are urging “local governments to put aside their differences over planned transportation projects and launch a coordinated effort to secure enough federal stimulus dollars and matching funds to expedite the subway extension as well as other much-anticipated projects to be financed by Measure R, the county’s new transportation sales tax.” The list of projects they want to come along with the ride to the federal government?

Those include the Expo Line light-rail route from downtown to Santa Monica with a completion date in 2015, the Gold Line’s Foothill extension to perhaps Azusa by 2017 and a downtown light-rail line to connect the Blue, Gold and Expo lines by 2025.

Source: L.A. mayor wants to speed up work on Subway to the Sea, Los Angeles Times

Though we’re currently emphasizing the use of federal funds to build out these projects, remember that the revenue from Measure R’s half-cent sales tax increase is still slated to pay for the majority, but not all, of the cost of these lines. And with the Subway to the Sea doing its best roommate-who-raids-your-part-of-the-fridge-without-paying-their-fair-share impression, Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s office seems to be having none of it:

Tony Bell, spokesman for county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, said the subway extension will only serve three of the county’s 88 cities, all of which will be required to “foot the bill.”

“The residents of the San Fernando, San Gabriel, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys will all be paying for a gold-plated, multi-billion dollar underground subway that will have no impact on our regional transportation crisis,” Bell said. “In fact, it will funnel money away from projects that will improve mobility on a regional basis.”

Source: Subway to sea gains footing, Los Angeles Daily News

We’re encouraging our readers to send their thoughts to the newspapers in 150 words or less by emailing letters@latimes.com and dnforum@dailynews.com. Do it! And please send us a copy at info@iwillride.org when you do.

L.A. authority collects soil samples for proposed subway extension (Source: www.progressiverailroading.com)

Link: L.A. authority collects soil samples for proposed subway extension

L.A. authority collects soil samples for proposed subway extension

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) recently completed exploratory drilling in West L.A. as part of the planning and environmental process for the Westside subway extension.

LACMTA collected soil samples at 70 Westside locations over the past two-and-one-half months. The samples will be tested in labs to assess underground soil conditions and help determine an optimal subway route based on drilling and construction techniques. LACMTA needs to complete testing before it can prepare the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report.

After the agency completes the environmental review process next year, LACMTA officials will recommend a route, or the locally preferred alternative, that will include the mode, alignment and station locations. The board will need to approve the route before any final environmental analysis, design/engineering or construction can begin.

The agency currently is considering two options: a Wilshire subway that would extend the Metro Purple Line via Wilshire Boulevard and a Wilshire/West Hollywood subway that would incorporate all of the Wilshire subway as well as a spur from the Metro Red Line in Hollywood via Santa Monica Boulevard.

LACMTA estimates project costs at $4.1 billion for a partial Wilshire subway to Westwood/405, $6.1 billion for the full Wilshire subway alternative to Santa Monica and $9 billion for the Wilshire/West Hollywood subway combination. The Measure R county sales tax would partially fund the project.