Emily Badger
Dec 12, 2011
Link: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/12/imagining-city-without-its-public-transportation/690/
Showing posts with label public transportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public transportation. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
The Big Fix The Transportation Planning Rule Every City Should Reform
Source: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/12/transportation-planning-law-every-city-should-repeal/636/
Completing a major transit project is never a quick and easy process, but if any place should be able to move one swiftly through to completion, it's San Francisco. In 1973 the city adopted a "transit first" policy that gave planning priority to modes of transportation other than the automobile. As the policy expressly states, decisions related to streets and sidewalks "shall encourage the use of public rights-of-way by pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit."
That's strong support for livability on paper, but in recent years the policy has felt much more like "transit worst" in practice. A 2005 lawsuit postponed implementation of the city's master bike plan for years on the grounds that it failed to consider potential harm to the flow of automobile traffic — an injunction that wasn't lifted until August 2010. The city has considered a bus-rapid transit line along Van Ness Avenue since 2004, but an environmental review on the project wasn't completed until early last month — delayed, in part, by an intense study of the same traffic consideration — and now service isn't expected to begin until at least 2016 [PDF].
The source of the disconnect between San Francisco's transit-first heart and its car-centric hand is an arcane engineering measure called "level of service," or LOS. In brief, LOS suggests that whenever the city wants to change some element of a street — say by adding a bike lane or even just painting a crosswalk — it should calculate the effect that change will have on car traffic. If the change produces too much congestion, then a great deal of time, money, and additional analysis must go toward the project's consideration.
The weight of this hidden hand doesn't fall on San Francisco alone. "Intersection LOS is one of the most widely-used traffic analysis tools in the U.S. and has a profound impact on how street space is allocated in U.S. cities," writes Jason Henderson, geography professor at San Francisco State University, in the November issue of the Journal of Transport Geography. As Henderson argues, it's about time cities addressed the problem, and San Francisco is doing just that. It's currently in the process of drafting a new sustainable transportation metric that will replace LOS and promote livability. Still, the fight is far from over.
"Every city I've ever come across has some use of [LOS]," says Henderson, who has conducted an extensive review of LOS and is writing a book on the politics of mobility in San Francisco. "LOS and the privilege of the car is the incumbent. The way the political process is set up is you have to disprove the incumbent."
• • • • •
LOS may be a rather obscure transportation tool, but it's not a terribly complicated one. The chief function of LOS is to measure the delay each car experiences at a particular intersection. A delay of less than 10 seconds means a street has a "good" traffic flow and earns an LOS grade of "A." As the delay increases the grade moves down the alphabet, report-card style, through an "F" grade, given when the average delay exceeds 80 seconds.
In San Francisco and other California cities, LOS influences transportation or development projects through the state's environmental code, the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA requires public agencies to determine the possible impact of development projects on the environment. It essentially serves as a screening process for a project's influence on things like air pollution, water quality, and of course transportation. One of the points on the CEQA checklist under the transportation section is "level of service."
Let's say someone wants to build a bike lane in the downtown Bay Area. Under CEQA, the sponsor of this project must consider whether the change to the street will result in a downgrade of LOS. In San Francisco, generally speaking, the threshold for LOS acceptability is a grade of "E" — or a delay between 55 and 80 seconds. If our hypothetical bike lane eliminates a car lane, that could create enough congestion for each car's delay to exceed the 80-second mark. That would bump the street's LOS from an "E" to an "F," and the project would fall outside the acceptable CEQA threshold.
Now that doesn't mean the lane can't get built, but it does make the project more difficult. If LOS falls to "F," for instance, the sponsor of the bike lane project must then perform a costly and time-consuming environmental impact report. If that report confirms the LOS failure, the sponsor may have to mitigate or offset the congestion through some other means. The alternative to all this time and money is to abandon the project entirely — and often that's what happens.
"That takes that $20,000 or $40,000 bike lane and suddenly makes it a $200,000 project, and it takes a project that might have taken a month or two to go from design to implementation and it could make it into a 2- or 3-year project," says Andy Thornley, policy director at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "In many cases it's not so much that we take the bike lane or the crosswalk all the way through the research and reject it, it's that we don't even go into the environmental review because public agencies don't have the resources to spend the time and the money on these pretty cheap projects. So there is a hugely chilling effect to having to go through all of these hoops."
• • • • •
The influence of LOS comes largely from its inclusion in the Highway Capacity Manual produced by the federal Transportation Research Board. When it was first introduced, several decades ago, the metric harmonized with a broader cultural desire for car travel. Although cities aren't required to abide LOS measures by law, over the years the measure hardened into convention. By the time cities recognized the need for balanced transportation systems, LOS was entrenched in the street engineering canon.
"There was an assumption that there's always going to be driving everywhere, and it's always going to increase, and there needs to be a rational decision-making process to decide where limited transportation dollars should go," says Henderson. "It made sense if you're just assuming there always is going to be driving and in the future there's going to be more cars, and another fuel source, and it's superior to everything else."
There are several quirks about LOS that give it what Henderson calls a "veneer of objectivity." For starters, LOS delay is measured at the peak traffic rush. That reflects the belief that a street's design should be based on its most congested hour or so, rather than configured to handle a wide range of travel modes throughout the day. In addition, the letter grade carries more importance than the numerical delay itself; if a two-second delay nudges a project past an "E" grade, for example, it could be punished more than another project that delays traffic much longer but doesn't drop a letter. And in San Francisco, LOS impact must be determined not just in the present but also decades into the future. A failure 20 years ahead means a failure right now.
There's also a great irony underlying the use of LOS as part of CEQA's environmental impact checklist. It seems self-evident that bike projects are favorable to the environment, but the use of LOS to evaluate them can sometimes imply quite the opposite. The person who filed the 2005 lawsuit against the San Francisco master bike plan, for instance, suggested that because bike lanes raise LOS they also raise congestion and car idling, and thereby cause pollution.
That's not the only contradictory aspect of LOS. Case in point: a developer whose building fails an LOS threshold can mitigate the environmental impact by widening the street, which of course would attract more cars and pollution. So instead of encouraging dense development and lower vehicle mileage — the hallmarks of a transit-first city — San Francisco's use of LOS as part of CEQA actually discourages livable design. In a three-part series on LOS at Streetsblog, one transportation consultant called LOS the "single greatest promoter of sprawl and the single greatest obstacle to transit oriented development" in California.
"In the end compliance with CEQA often causes the transportation system to become even more adverse, more dangerous," says Thornley. "It adds more car trips."
• • • • •
The beacon of hope for livability advocates in San Francisco rests in the flexibility of CEQA review. While CEQA recommends that transportation-related projects consider LOS as an environmental measure, it doesn't mandate a particular metric. Any reasonable measurement of transportation sustainability will do.
That realization has led to a counter-movement against the use of LOS under CEQA by some of the city's transit agencies. In 2003 the San Francisco County Transportation Authority performed a review [PDF] of LOS and concluded that it failed to support the "development of a balanced, multimodal transportation system" — arguing instead that LOS preserved the flow of motor cars at the expense of transit, bicycle, and pedestrian movements. In other words, by upholding LOS, the city was violating its own transit-first policy.
Based on that report, the authority began to investigate alternative transportation impact measures. A 2008 follow-up report recommended replacing LOS with an entirely new measure known as "auto-trips generated," or ATG. Instead of asking how much congestion a project creates, ATG looks at how many new automobile trips it produces. Since bike lanes or bus-rapid transit or the like don't generate any automobile trips, those projects would no longer be subject to a full environmental review. (To be more precise: these projects would be covered by a system-wide environmental review the authority plans to conduct as part of the new metric's implementation.)
In tandem with the ATG measure, the authority also suggested the creation of a new mitigation fee for all projects that generated automobile trips. The fee would go toward a general sustainable transportation fund that would finance transit projects across the city. The upshot would be a faster project approval process, more certainty on the part of project sponsors, and more money for livability efforts. All told, the new idea offers a "higher-level view" of transportation impact, according to the report:
Each new automobile trip added onto San Francisco's transportation system contributes to environmental impacts, especially in terms of pedestrian safety and greenhouse gas emissions. Under the proposed approach, CEQA transportation impact analysis would measure the net new trips generated or induced by proposed projects, rather than changes in automobile delay at intersections. ...
Instead of seeking to preserve system efficiency by expanding capacity for driving, the ATG measure recognizes that constraining the growth in automobile trips on San Francisco streets is critical for maintaining system efficiency on our network of finite automobile capacity.
The proposal has changed in many respects since 2008, says Tilly Chang, the authority's deputy director for planning. For starters, it has shifted from ATG to MTG — or motorized-trips generated. That way a housing development project would be subject to the mitigation fee whether it created auto trips or just caused additional transit delay. Whatever the acronym ends up being, says Chang, the approach remains the same.
"Our way of looking at it is we have a longstanding citywide transit-first policy," she says. "Rather than planning for and identifying minimization of motorist delays, we would be shifting our focus toward transit impact, and making sure that transit performance is maintained."
Currently the authority is performing what's called a "nexus" study that will determine the precise ATG/MTG mitigation fee. That effort will conclude around the start of the new year, says Chang. Then the city's planning commission will hold a hearing about the new metric. Then a complete environmental review will be conducted. Then the planning commission must prepare an official ordinance for adoption. And then, if all goes well, the new metric will be phased in as LOS is phased out.
That's a lot of "thens" between now and then, and probably a couple years. Henderson fears that the established legal precedent of LOS use could lead some livability opponents to file lawsuits once a new metric is adopted. Still, he believes San Francisco can ultimately make the change and serve as an example for other cities — and finally, at long last, fulfill its transit-first stance. Thornley agrees.
"To the extent that a city moves forward and is the precedent setter, I think San Francisco is going to be doing that," he says. "It's very exciting to be at the threshold of finally coming out from under the distortions that auto LOS has presented."
Keywords: San Francisco, Transit, LOS, CEQA, Environment, level of service
Eric Jaffe is a contributing writer to The Atlantic Cities and the author of The King's Best Highway: The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route That Made America. He lives in New York. All posts »
Completing a major transit project is never a quick and easy process, but if any place should be able to move one swiftly through to completion, it's San Francisco. In 1973 the city adopted a "transit first" policy that gave planning priority to modes of transportation other than the automobile. As the policy expressly states, decisions related to streets and sidewalks "shall encourage the use of public rights-of-way by pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit."
That's strong support for livability on paper, but in recent years the policy has felt much more like "transit worst" in practice. A 2005 lawsuit postponed implementation of the city's master bike plan for years on the grounds that it failed to consider potential harm to the flow of automobile traffic — an injunction that wasn't lifted until August 2010. The city has considered a bus-rapid transit line along Van Ness Avenue since 2004, but an environmental review on the project wasn't completed until early last month — delayed, in part, by an intense study of the same traffic consideration — and now service isn't expected to begin until at least 2016 [PDF].
The source of the disconnect between San Francisco's transit-first heart and its car-centric hand is an arcane engineering measure called "level of service," or LOS. In brief, LOS suggests that whenever the city wants to change some element of a street — say by adding a bike lane or even just painting a crosswalk — it should calculate the effect that change will have on car traffic. If the change produces too much congestion, then a great deal of time, money, and additional analysis must go toward the project's consideration.
The weight of this hidden hand doesn't fall on San Francisco alone. "Intersection LOS is one of the most widely-used traffic analysis tools in the U.S. and has a profound impact on how street space is allocated in U.S. cities," writes Jason Henderson, geography professor at San Francisco State University, in the November issue of the Journal of Transport Geography. As Henderson argues, it's about time cities addressed the problem, and San Francisco is doing just that. It's currently in the process of drafting a new sustainable transportation metric that will replace LOS and promote livability. Still, the fight is far from over.
"Every city I've ever come across has some use of [LOS]," says Henderson, who has conducted an extensive review of LOS and is writing a book on the politics of mobility in San Francisco. "LOS and the privilege of the car is the incumbent. The way the political process is set up is you have to disprove the incumbent."
• • • • •
LOS may be a rather obscure transportation tool, but it's not a terribly complicated one. The chief function of LOS is to measure the delay each car experiences at a particular intersection. A delay of less than 10 seconds means a street has a "good" traffic flow and earns an LOS grade of "A." As the delay increases the grade moves down the alphabet, report-card style, through an "F" grade, given when the average delay exceeds 80 seconds.
In San Francisco and other California cities, LOS influences transportation or development projects through the state's environmental code, the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA requires public agencies to determine the possible impact of development projects on the environment. It essentially serves as a screening process for a project's influence on things like air pollution, water quality, and of course transportation. One of the points on the CEQA checklist under the transportation section is "level of service."
Let's say someone wants to build a bike lane in the downtown Bay Area. Under CEQA, the sponsor of this project must consider whether the change to the street will result in a downgrade of LOS. In San Francisco, generally speaking, the threshold for LOS acceptability is a grade of "E" — or a delay between 55 and 80 seconds. If our hypothetical bike lane eliminates a car lane, that could create enough congestion for each car's delay to exceed the 80-second mark. That would bump the street's LOS from an "E" to an "F," and the project would fall outside the acceptable CEQA threshold.
Now that doesn't mean the lane can't get built, but it does make the project more difficult. If LOS falls to "F," for instance, the sponsor of the bike lane project must then perform a costly and time-consuming environmental impact report. If that report confirms the LOS failure, the sponsor may have to mitigate or offset the congestion through some other means. The alternative to all this time and money is to abandon the project entirely — and often that's what happens.
"That takes that $20,000 or $40,000 bike lane and suddenly makes it a $200,000 project, and it takes a project that might have taken a month or two to go from design to implementation and it could make it into a 2- or 3-year project," says Andy Thornley, policy director at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "In many cases it's not so much that we take the bike lane or the crosswalk all the way through the research and reject it, it's that we don't even go into the environmental review because public agencies don't have the resources to spend the time and the money on these pretty cheap projects. So there is a hugely chilling effect to having to go through all of these hoops."
• • • • •
The influence of LOS comes largely from its inclusion in the Highway Capacity Manual produced by the federal Transportation Research Board. When it was first introduced, several decades ago, the metric harmonized with a broader cultural desire for car travel. Although cities aren't required to abide LOS measures by law, over the years the measure hardened into convention. By the time cities recognized the need for balanced transportation systems, LOS was entrenched in the street engineering canon.
"There was an assumption that there's always going to be driving everywhere, and it's always going to increase, and there needs to be a rational decision-making process to decide where limited transportation dollars should go," says Henderson. "It made sense if you're just assuming there always is going to be driving and in the future there's going to be more cars, and another fuel source, and it's superior to everything else."
There are several quirks about LOS that give it what Henderson calls a "veneer of objectivity." For starters, LOS delay is measured at the peak traffic rush. That reflects the belief that a street's design should be based on its most congested hour or so, rather than configured to handle a wide range of travel modes throughout the day. In addition, the letter grade carries more importance than the numerical delay itself; if a two-second delay nudges a project past an "E" grade, for example, it could be punished more than another project that delays traffic much longer but doesn't drop a letter. And in San Francisco, LOS impact must be determined not just in the present but also decades into the future. A failure 20 years ahead means a failure right now.
There's also a great irony underlying the use of LOS as part of CEQA's environmental impact checklist. It seems self-evident that bike projects are favorable to the environment, but the use of LOS to evaluate them can sometimes imply quite the opposite. The person who filed the 2005 lawsuit against the San Francisco master bike plan, for instance, suggested that because bike lanes raise LOS they also raise congestion and car idling, and thereby cause pollution.
That's not the only contradictory aspect of LOS. Case in point: a developer whose building fails an LOS threshold can mitigate the environmental impact by widening the street, which of course would attract more cars and pollution. So instead of encouraging dense development and lower vehicle mileage — the hallmarks of a transit-first city — San Francisco's use of LOS as part of CEQA actually discourages livable design. In a three-part series on LOS at Streetsblog, one transportation consultant called LOS the "single greatest promoter of sprawl and the single greatest obstacle to transit oriented development" in California.
"In the end compliance with CEQA often causes the transportation system to become even more adverse, more dangerous," says Thornley. "It adds more car trips."
• • • • •
The beacon of hope for livability advocates in San Francisco rests in the flexibility of CEQA review. While CEQA recommends that transportation-related projects consider LOS as an environmental measure, it doesn't mandate a particular metric. Any reasonable measurement of transportation sustainability will do.
That realization has led to a counter-movement against the use of LOS under CEQA by some of the city's transit agencies. In 2003 the San Francisco County Transportation Authority performed a review [PDF] of LOS and concluded that it failed to support the "development of a balanced, multimodal transportation system" — arguing instead that LOS preserved the flow of motor cars at the expense of transit, bicycle, and pedestrian movements. In other words, by upholding LOS, the city was violating its own transit-first policy.
Based on that report, the authority began to investigate alternative transportation impact measures. A 2008 follow-up report recommended replacing LOS with an entirely new measure known as "auto-trips generated," or ATG. Instead of asking how much congestion a project creates, ATG looks at how many new automobile trips it produces. Since bike lanes or bus-rapid transit or the like don't generate any automobile trips, those projects would no longer be subject to a full environmental review. (To be more precise: these projects would be covered by a system-wide environmental review the authority plans to conduct as part of the new metric's implementation.)
In tandem with the ATG measure, the authority also suggested the creation of a new mitigation fee for all projects that generated automobile trips. The fee would go toward a general sustainable transportation fund that would finance transit projects across the city. The upshot would be a faster project approval process, more certainty on the part of project sponsors, and more money for livability efforts. All told, the new idea offers a "higher-level view" of transportation impact, according to the report:
Each new automobile trip added onto San Francisco's transportation system contributes to environmental impacts, especially in terms of pedestrian safety and greenhouse gas emissions. Under the proposed approach, CEQA transportation impact analysis would measure the net new trips generated or induced by proposed projects, rather than changes in automobile delay at intersections. ...
Instead of seeking to preserve system efficiency by expanding capacity for driving, the ATG measure recognizes that constraining the growth in automobile trips on San Francisco streets is critical for maintaining system efficiency on our network of finite automobile capacity.
The proposal has changed in many respects since 2008, says Tilly Chang, the authority's deputy director for planning. For starters, it has shifted from ATG to MTG — or motorized-trips generated. That way a housing development project would be subject to the mitigation fee whether it created auto trips or just caused additional transit delay. Whatever the acronym ends up being, says Chang, the approach remains the same.
"Our way of looking at it is we have a longstanding citywide transit-first policy," she says. "Rather than planning for and identifying minimization of motorist delays, we would be shifting our focus toward transit impact, and making sure that transit performance is maintained."
Currently the authority is performing what's called a "nexus" study that will determine the precise ATG/MTG mitigation fee. That effort will conclude around the start of the new year, says Chang. Then the city's planning commission will hold a hearing about the new metric. Then a complete environmental review will be conducted. Then the planning commission must prepare an official ordinance for adoption. And then, if all goes well, the new metric will be phased in as LOS is phased out.
That's a lot of "thens" between now and then, and probably a couple years. Henderson fears that the established legal precedent of LOS use could lead some livability opponents to file lawsuits once a new metric is adopted. Still, he believes San Francisco can ultimately make the change and serve as an example for other cities — and finally, at long last, fulfill its transit-first stance. Thornley agrees.
"To the extent that a city moves forward and is the precedent setter, I think San Francisco is going to be doing that," he says. "It's very exciting to be at the threshold of finally coming out from under the distortions that auto LOS has presented."
Keywords: San Francisco, Transit, LOS, CEQA, Environment, level of service
Eric Jaffe is a contributing writer to The Atlantic Cities and the author of The King's Best Highway: The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route That Made America. He lives in New York. All posts »
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Bruins, Trojans and Getting Mr. Mirisch Back on Track
Source:http://www.citywatchla.com/component/content/article/317-8box-right/2492-bruins-trojans-and-getting-mr-mirisch-back-on-track
11.17.2011
Matthew Hetz
TALK BACK - What does one do when one’s name is in a headline? I find myself in this situation when Beverly Hills Councilman John Mirisch commented in CityWatch on my speculations of his support for a subway station closer to UCLA than to the office towers along Wilshire and Westwood Boulevards.
My previous CityWatch article was in response to Mr. Mirisch’s article of October 10, which uses the rivalry between UCLA and USC to ask why the later has a light rail station on the soon to open Expo Line but the former may not have its own subway station. It is due to history.
The Expo Line in that part of the city was built on the old Santa Monica Air Line rail line. This right-of-way (ROW) was later purchased by Metro in a move of foresight which was initiated by a grass roots movement. This right-of-way goes back to 1895, and while the last train to use the line was in the 1960s, the ROW with trains has always run along USC (see photo above). The USC station is reinstating the past. UCLA does not have an existing ROW slated for future transit construction, and obviously there is no previously existing subway ROW.
I remain curious why Mr. Mirisch has devoted so much time in writing about a proposed Westwood Station when the main thrusts of his arguments have been the opposition of a subway station for Century City at Constellation Blvd., a station favored by me and many others. He supports the station nearer to Santa Monica Blvd.
To Mr. Mirisch’s dismay, I called it a diversion, perhaps I was not completely on-base. But why this concentrated focus on the Westwood Station, within Los Angeles City limits, which is not within his purview as a representative of Beverly Hills?
Mr. Mirisch states that he’s written enough on the Century City station, and tips his hand by writing that the matter will probably wind up in court. On what would this be based? Would the subway passing under Beverly Hills High School for the Constellation Station be sufficient grounds for a lawsuit?
Does this eventually-end-up-in-court argument need backing, so the concentration is now on Westwood: if the Westwood/UCLA Station is not located near the office towers similar to the Century City/Constellation Blvd. Station, but is placed away from them closer to UCLA, then the Century Station should be located along Santa Monica Blvd. away from the greatest concentration of office towers. But this is only my speculation.
As transit rider since 1992 (Bus, light rail and subway.), in my trips to Century City, I have used a number of bus stops around the site. Entering Century City as a pedestrian from Santa Monica Blvd. is to confront the epitome of bad urban planning with thought only given to cars.
It is like a fortress, with limited points of pedestrian entry and exit, most with stairs. This creates a series of impediments for transit riders/pedestrians getting into and out of the compound, especially from a Santa Monica Blvd. subway station.
The Constellation Blvd. station would be ideally located. It would sit in the middle of Century City to better serve the entire site with businesses and offices north and south of the station and is much closer to the Century City Westfield Mall.
A station along Santa Monica Blvd. would favor the northern part of Century City, and to the north of that station is the golf course of the Los Angeles Country Club with limited membership and no access for transit riders.
Metro posts photos and reports on the various stations along the Wilshire Subway. Pages 63-65 pertain to the Century City Station Alternatives.
It seems there are many mistakes in my opinions. Mr. Mirisch’s writes, “Hetz notes the similarities between Westwood and Century City. How does he know there are similarities? His answer: he once took a bus down Westwood to Wilshire and Sepulveda and noted that both areas have high-rise office buildings.”
As stated here and in my previous article, I am a transit rider since 1992. I cannot begin to count how many bus rides I’ve taken. Some days I ride five buses or more. I cannot begin to count how many times I’ve taken a bus to and from Westwood Village during the day or night.
My comment on the similarities between Westwood and Century City was based upon my transit riding since 1992, not a onetime bus ride. It was based on the many different bus stops I’ve used, and which ones do and do not serve the transit rider.
In one mistake I did indeed call the Purple Line the Red Line, and while that is embarrassing in (cyber) print, it is not nearly as frustrating as mistaking the Purple Line for the Red Line when travelling west from Union Station up to the Wilshire/Vermont Station. I am not the only transit rider to get on the wrong subway train and end up on the Purple Line and not the Red Line which share the same route.
Metro should have never indicated in colors so close in the spectrum for these two lines which share routes. It is confusing. The color for the Purple Line needs changed to another, contrasting color.
With the subject Metro, Mr. Mirisch says I am not so much as “transit advocate” as I am a “Metro advocate.” Just because I may be in agreement with some positions from Metro that does not mean I carry their water. I have disagreements with some of the projects.
I strongly oppose placing any more light rail lines down the center of freeways. Why? Ride the Green Line and get out at the stations which are in the middle of the Century Freeway. The noise, immediate proximity to vehicle exhaust, and being locked into a station in the middle of the freeway is why. Some Gold Line stations are in the center of a freeway, and I did not support the placement of those stations.
Mr. Mirisch in his second article becomes specific on his location in Westwood Village, “How can Hetz possibly know that ridership on Wilshire and Westwood would be greater than it would be on, say, Westwood and Le Conte, which to me seems to be the logical location for a UCLA/Westwood station? Yes, logical: Westwood/Le Conte is actually a gateway to both UCLA and Westwood Village.”
How would Mr. Mirisch know that the Westwood/Le Conte station would have higher ridership than a Wilshire/Westwood station? As I previously stated, UCLA has very large seasonal changes of population dependent upon when the university is in session. The office towers would retain year round a large number potential riders, dependent, of course, upon the economy and employment trends.
This is the similarity between the Wilshire/Westwood and Century City stations. These are large centers of year round employment, and a plus would be that the Constellation station would be closer to the Century City Mall.
Le Conte is not the gateway to Westwood Village, that is Wilshire and Westwood Blvds. The traffic patterns, and gridlock at Wilshire and Westwood Blvd. bear this out. An incredible amount of traffic approaches Westwood and UCLA from the east and west on multi-lane Wilshire Blvd, and four lane Westwood Blvd to the south. These are the major entry points into Westwood. Le Conte is nowhere close in carrying capacity to compare to Wilshire Blvd.
At the Le Conte Station, subway riders wishing to get to the east and north parts of the campus would still need to transfer to a bus. To walk to those areas of the campus from Le Conte and Westwood would be very time consuming.
Mr. Mirisch says I’m mistaken in my real-world transit riding experience of taking buses into UCLA, such as from the Westwood/UCLA Station at Wilshire and Westwood. “Ultimately, Mr. Hetz's solution to those wanting to use public transit to get to UCLA is similar to Metro's. It's an admonition to "take the bus." Is that really the best we can do?”
We should be better, but the current reality is that it is buses which carry people into Westwood and UCLA.
Is this perfect? No. I would be happy as a clam if instead of taking a bus to Westwood and Wilshire Blvds, as thousands of current transit riders do, I could instead take a subway or light rail.
But funding for this is years away, and then there is always opposition, that familiar, repeating refrain, further slowing the building of new subway and light rail lines.
If the station was at Le Conte, questions arise on how the area would handle the large of number of buses serving this station. Would this require the construction of a transit center to handle the buses?
The much wider and greater carrying capacities of Wilshire and Westwood Blvds are superior in serving the subway station than Le Conte.
The reality is that buses will remain the backbone of transit in Los Angeles. So it’s not so much my “admonition to ‘take the bus,’ ” but the stating of reality. Unless there is a subway station close to one’s home or work, it will be necessary to take a bus to get to a subway or light rail station.
Some will want to drive to the subway station. I would recommend trying to be fully transit, and taking a bus to the subway. This would be ideal in reducing traffic and the pollution from vehicles. But people will want to drive to the subway station though a robust transit network may eventually move people from their vehicles to transit.
With parking lots built around subway stations so people could drive there, where would these parking structures be built to serve the Le Conte/Westwood station?
The existing office towers along Wilshire and Westwood Blvds have large parking garages. These are ready to also serve those who would drive to the Wilshire/Westwood station, park, and then take the subway.
Mr. Mirisch asks for my opinion on tunneling under a cemetery. This pertains to matters of the dead, and religious, moral, metaphysical and theological issues which are too lengthy to include in this discussion.
There have been subways built under cemeteries, and for some it has created controversy. This would probably be no different considering the history of opposition to the subway and light rail lines in Los Angeles.
This is also an answer which would involve not only the Wilshire Subway, but could also affect an underground rail line underneath the Sepulveda Pass to finally connect by rail West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.
If I understand Mr. Mirisch’s “ ‘transitive law of subway station location’ on the basis of noting there are high-rises in both places would be considered the height of transit-planning prowess” correctly, it means that subway stations should be built around densely populated areas. I think that’s accurate.
Mr. Mirisch then comments that a subway station at the VA with its open spaces does not fit this law. No, it would not. However, I do support this station because it would serve Veterans.
I see Veterans on the buses, going to the VA. I hear them talk of the physical pains they still suffer of which they seek relief. There are also the Veterans’ emotional and psychological scars which need care.
In this month of remembering our Nation’s Veterans with Veterans Day, I feel it is the least we can do to repay the Men and Women Veterans who served our nation by having a subway station at the VA. Mr. Mirisch?
I agree with Mr. Mirisch that discussions on transit planning are good. My question remains what is the basis for this discussion, is it for the entire Los Angeles region, or is more local for Beverly Hills?
Indeed, Beverly Hills once had rail lines within its city limits, and world still turned. This time they will be underground, but the world will still turn. Perhaps it is time for Beverly Hills to regain its past.
(Matthew Hetz is a bus rider and transportation advocate. He lives on LA’s Westside.) –cw
11.17.2011
Matthew Hetz
TALK BACK - What does one do when one’s name is in a headline? I find myself in this situation when Beverly Hills Councilman John Mirisch commented in CityWatch on my speculations of his support for a subway station closer to UCLA than to the office towers along Wilshire and Westwood Boulevards.
My previous CityWatch article was in response to Mr. Mirisch’s article of October 10, which uses the rivalry between UCLA and USC to ask why the later has a light rail station on the soon to open Expo Line but the former may not have its own subway station. It is due to history.
The Expo Line in that part of the city was built on the old Santa Monica Air Line rail line. This right-of-way (ROW) was later purchased by Metro in a move of foresight which was initiated by a grass roots movement. This right-of-way goes back to 1895, and while the last train to use the line was in the 1960s, the ROW with trains has always run along USC (see photo above). The USC station is reinstating the past. UCLA does not have an existing ROW slated for future transit construction, and obviously there is no previously existing subway ROW.
I remain curious why Mr. Mirisch has devoted so much time in writing about a proposed Westwood Station when the main thrusts of his arguments have been the opposition of a subway station for Century City at Constellation Blvd., a station favored by me and many others. He supports the station nearer to Santa Monica Blvd.
To Mr. Mirisch’s dismay, I called it a diversion, perhaps I was not completely on-base. But why this concentrated focus on the Westwood Station, within Los Angeles City limits, which is not within his purview as a representative of Beverly Hills?
Mr. Mirisch states that he’s written enough on the Century City station, and tips his hand by writing that the matter will probably wind up in court. On what would this be based? Would the subway passing under Beverly Hills High School for the Constellation Station be sufficient grounds for a lawsuit?
Does this eventually-end-up-in-court argument need backing, so the concentration is now on Westwood: if the Westwood/UCLA Station is not located near the office towers similar to the Century City/Constellation Blvd. Station, but is placed away from them closer to UCLA, then the Century Station should be located along Santa Monica Blvd. away from the greatest concentration of office towers. But this is only my speculation.
As transit rider since 1992 (Bus, light rail and subway.), in my trips to Century City, I have used a number of bus stops around the site. Entering Century City as a pedestrian from Santa Monica Blvd. is to confront the epitome of bad urban planning with thought only given to cars.
It is like a fortress, with limited points of pedestrian entry and exit, most with stairs. This creates a series of impediments for transit riders/pedestrians getting into and out of the compound, especially from a Santa Monica Blvd. subway station.
The Constellation Blvd. station would be ideally located. It would sit in the middle of Century City to better serve the entire site with businesses and offices north and south of the station and is much closer to the Century City Westfield Mall.
A station along Santa Monica Blvd. would favor the northern part of Century City, and to the north of that station is the golf course of the Los Angeles Country Club with limited membership and no access for transit riders.
Metro posts photos and reports on the various stations along the Wilshire Subway. Pages 63-65 pertain to the Century City Station Alternatives.
It seems there are many mistakes in my opinions. Mr. Mirisch’s writes, “Hetz notes the similarities between Westwood and Century City. How does he know there are similarities? His answer: he once took a bus down Westwood to Wilshire and Sepulveda and noted that both areas have high-rise office buildings.”
As stated here and in my previous article, I am a transit rider since 1992. I cannot begin to count how many bus rides I’ve taken. Some days I ride five buses or more. I cannot begin to count how many times I’ve taken a bus to and from Westwood Village during the day or night.
My comment on the similarities between Westwood and Century City was based upon my transit riding since 1992, not a onetime bus ride. It was based on the many different bus stops I’ve used, and which ones do and do not serve the transit rider.
In one mistake I did indeed call the Purple Line the Red Line, and while that is embarrassing in (cyber) print, it is not nearly as frustrating as mistaking the Purple Line for the Red Line when travelling west from Union Station up to the Wilshire/Vermont Station. I am not the only transit rider to get on the wrong subway train and end up on the Purple Line and not the Red Line which share the same route.
Metro should have never indicated in colors so close in the spectrum for these two lines which share routes. It is confusing. The color for the Purple Line needs changed to another, contrasting color.
With the subject Metro, Mr. Mirisch says I am not so much as “transit advocate” as I am a “Metro advocate.” Just because I may be in agreement with some positions from Metro that does not mean I carry their water. I have disagreements with some of the projects.
I strongly oppose placing any more light rail lines down the center of freeways. Why? Ride the Green Line and get out at the stations which are in the middle of the Century Freeway. The noise, immediate proximity to vehicle exhaust, and being locked into a station in the middle of the freeway is why. Some Gold Line stations are in the center of a freeway, and I did not support the placement of those stations.
Mr. Mirisch in his second article becomes specific on his location in Westwood Village, “How can Hetz possibly know that ridership on Wilshire and Westwood would be greater than it would be on, say, Westwood and Le Conte, which to me seems to be the logical location for a UCLA/Westwood station? Yes, logical: Westwood/Le Conte is actually a gateway to both UCLA and Westwood Village.”
How would Mr. Mirisch know that the Westwood/Le Conte station would have higher ridership than a Wilshire/Westwood station? As I previously stated, UCLA has very large seasonal changes of population dependent upon when the university is in session. The office towers would retain year round a large number potential riders, dependent, of course, upon the economy and employment trends.
This is the similarity between the Wilshire/Westwood and Century City stations. These are large centers of year round employment, and a plus would be that the Constellation station would be closer to the Century City Mall.
Le Conte is not the gateway to Westwood Village, that is Wilshire and Westwood Blvds. The traffic patterns, and gridlock at Wilshire and Westwood Blvd. bear this out. An incredible amount of traffic approaches Westwood and UCLA from the east and west on multi-lane Wilshire Blvd, and four lane Westwood Blvd to the south. These are the major entry points into Westwood. Le Conte is nowhere close in carrying capacity to compare to Wilshire Blvd.
At the Le Conte Station, subway riders wishing to get to the east and north parts of the campus would still need to transfer to a bus. To walk to those areas of the campus from Le Conte and Westwood would be very time consuming.
Mr. Mirisch says I’m mistaken in my real-world transit riding experience of taking buses into UCLA, such as from the Westwood/UCLA Station at Wilshire and Westwood. “Ultimately, Mr. Hetz's solution to those wanting to use public transit to get to UCLA is similar to Metro's. It's an admonition to "take the bus." Is that really the best we can do?”
We should be better, but the current reality is that it is buses which carry people into Westwood and UCLA.
Is this perfect? No. I would be happy as a clam if instead of taking a bus to Westwood and Wilshire Blvds, as thousands of current transit riders do, I could instead take a subway or light rail.
But funding for this is years away, and then there is always opposition, that familiar, repeating refrain, further slowing the building of new subway and light rail lines.
If the station was at Le Conte, questions arise on how the area would handle the large of number of buses serving this station. Would this require the construction of a transit center to handle the buses?
The much wider and greater carrying capacities of Wilshire and Westwood Blvds are superior in serving the subway station than Le Conte.
The reality is that buses will remain the backbone of transit in Los Angeles. So it’s not so much my “admonition to ‘take the bus,’ ” but the stating of reality. Unless there is a subway station close to one’s home or work, it will be necessary to take a bus to get to a subway or light rail station.
Some will want to drive to the subway station. I would recommend trying to be fully transit, and taking a bus to the subway. This would be ideal in reducing traffic and the pollution from vehicles. But people will want to drive to the subway station though a robust transit network may eventually move people from their vehicles to transit.
With parking lots built around subway stations so people could drive there, where would these parking structures be built to serve the Le Conte/Westwood station?
The existing office towers along Wilshire and Westwood Blvds have large parking garages. These are ready to also serve those who would drive to the Wilshire/Westwood station, park, and then take the subway.
Mr. Mirisch asks for my opinion on tunneling under a cemetery. This pertains to matters of the dead, and religious, moral, metaphysical and theological issues which are too lengthy to include in this discussion.
There have been subways built under cemeteries, and for some it has created controversy. This would probably be no different considering the history of opposition to the subway and light rail lines in Los Angeles.
This is also an answer which would involve not only the Wilshire Subway, but could also affect an underground rail line underneath the Sepulveda Pass to finally connect by rail West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.
If I understand Mr. Mirisch’s “ ‘transitive law of subway station location’ on the basis of noting there are high-rises in both places would be considered the height of transit-planning prowess” correctly, it means that subway stations should be built around densely populated areas. I think that’s accurate.
Mr. Mirisch then comments that a subway station at the VA with its open spaces does not fit this law. No, it would not. However, I do support this station because it would serve Veterans.
I see Veterans on the buses, going to the VA. I hear them talk of the physical pains they still suffer of which they seek relief. There are also the Veterans’ emotional and psychological scars which need care.
In this month of remembering our Nation’s Veterans with Veterans Day, I feel it is the least we can do to repay the Men and Women Veterans who served our nation by having a subway station at the VA. Mr. Mirisch?
I agree with Mr. Mirisch that discussions on transit planning are good. My question remains what is the basis for this discussion, is it for the entire Los Angeles region, or is more local for Beverly Hills?
Indeed, Beverly Hills once had rail lines within its city limits, and world still turned. This time they will be underground, but the world will still turn. Perhaps it is time for Beverly Hills to regain its past.
(Matthew Hetz is a bus rider and transportation advocate. He lives on LA’s Westside.) –cw
Sunday, May 8, 2011
A Royal Event for the Expo Line
Joel Epstein
Though my invitation to the royal wedding appears to have gotten lost
in the mail, I was pleased to have received an invitation to the recent
tour of the Expo Line station at Western and Exposition. And at the cost of a Metro Day Pass,
the amount I spent on travel to the event sure beat the airfare to
London and the price of all the special clothes I would have had to have
bought for the wedding.
True, the intersection of Western and Exposition is hardly
Westminster Abbey or LA's most inviting corner for that matter. A gas
station, a donut shop, a couple of bodegas or whatever they're
called in LA, and now, a gleaming new Metro light rail line. That is
what greeted me last Monday when I got off the bus at around nine in the
morning to join the festivities. I was there for a press event with
the local politicians who on the whole have supported the project. And
in spite of the gray sky and cool weather, it was a great occasion.
Here is what I saw: a train waiting on the east side of the intersection
to roll into the westbound station, newly planted trees along
Exposition Blvd and a for-now graffiti-free train platform that every
day is looking more and more like the working station it will soon be.
Expo, for those who may not know, is LA Metro's latest addition to a
growing network of subways, light rail lines and Rapid buses designed to
make getting around this congested city easier. Aided by Metro's
recently rolled out real-time NextBus
app, which tells you when the bus will actually arrive at your stop,
getting to the event (three buses), was no biggie. Since my travel
around LA generally involves a transfer or two, NextBus has dramatically
improved my transit experience. Anyhow, for the chance to see Expo on
track, this was one occasion I would have endured delays and even twice
the number of potholes we rumbled over.
Standing together on the platform with a ratio of 1.5 reporters to
every politician, the event was a sweet taste of what will hopefully
start running for real in November. Aptly named Thanksgiving is when
Expo Phase 1 from downtown LA to just shy of downtown Culver City starts
operating. That will be a great day, but already Exposition Blvd with
its new rails and stations is looking better than it has in years.
While most of the politicians used their few minutes at the mic to
offer a sound bite about how exciting it is to see this much-fought-over
line almost operational, I spent the morning thinking about what Expo's
arrival says about how far LA has come it its thinking about public
transit. The Gold Line extension to East LA, Expo to Santa Monica, a
Crenshaw light rail line, the subway extension to west of the 405 and a
bus rapid transit (BRT) line on Wilshire Blvd, all speak to Angelenos'
recognition that there has to be an alternative to sitting in traffic on
the freeway and on LA's clogged surface streets. With the wind at our
back, America Fast Forward, the patriotically renamed 30/10 Initiative,
is where LA is going, and for more and more of us, Metro is taking us
there. Now, to speed that ride, if we can just pair the aggressive
transit-building initiative with bus boarding improvements like a TAP
reader on the left-hand side of the boarding area we'll be all set. A
repositioned or added TAP reader will speed boarding especially on busy
routes like the Wilshire 720 Rapid. Hey, San Francisco already does this. Maybe we should too.
Yours in transit,
Joel
Metro's Constellation Blvd Station, Donald Trump and the Truth
Joel Epstein
With Kate and William finally off somewhere alone and Osama Bin Laden gone from the scene it is time to bring the conversation back to the circus at home. And what better freak show to start with than the P.T. Barnum of our time, The Donald.
Watching Donald Trump as he plays and replays the non-story of President Obama' birthplace and pretends that he is anything other than an apprentice preening for the presidency, I can't help but think of another effort to obfuscate the community's judgment. And as opposed to whether or not the president needs to show us his birth certificate, this issue actually matters.
Unlike the birther fiction, spun by the Obama haters into a deadly twister, it is important to this transit rider and to all Angelenos that Metro choose the best location for the Wilshire subway station in Century City. And just when we thought we might actually get one, along comes a campaign of lies and half-truths custom-made to hold up the train.
With the local Beverly Hills press little more than a mouthpiece for the handful of Beverly Hillbillies hellbent on stopping the line short of Constellation Blvd, it is critical that residents of Beverly Hills as well as the rest of LA County know the truth about the best station location.
Though Constellation would attract the most riders, opponents of the station are shameless in their ongoing voodoo engineering campaign about the danger of tunneling under part of the high school property and a few homes in the southern part of 90210. The Beverly Hills School Board, which is leading the charge against the best station location, is spending scarce education dollars that should be going to the three Rs to line the pockets of the three Ls -- the Board's shameless lawyers, lobbyists, and PR lackeys. So far, the Board has somehow funneled north of $400,000 into their wrongheaded drive to show Metro who is boss.
How and why the good citizens of Beverly Hills have let the Board get away with this is beyond reason. If it were my tax dollars at work, I'd have long ago used Google, Facebook and Twitter to assemble a crowd in front of City Hall calling for the School Board's exile to Sharm el-Sheikh or somewhere uninviting out in the Mojave.
To the Beverly Hills taxpayers and to others following this ugly fight, I say don't believe what you read in the Beverly Hills Courier and on the website the School Board has created to deceive the public about Constellation Blvd. The Board and their PR flacks seem to live by the credo, who needs the pesky truth when you can blind them with falsehoods and heated personal attacks on Metro staff? And who doesn't love the Board's favorite canard that Metro is doing the bidding of the Century City developers in proposing a station at Constellation? Like the TV ads for gas-sipping muscle cars and hybrid SUVs, why focus on facts when you can spin a web of deception that makes for an effective clog in the wheels of the train?
As for the Hillbillies' preferred alternative, Santa Monica Blvd. and Avenue of the Stars, there's no there there. Plain and simple, it is a less desirable station location.
For the sake of all Angelenos and the overdue subway to the Westside, it is time to mute the misguided School Board. Only then, when the Board has lost its city-issued credit card, will we see how far their broken megaphone carries. Constellation Blvd is the best choice for the Wilshire Subway Station in Century City.
Yours in transit,
Joel
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Metro holds public meeting on progress of Westside subway extension
Link: http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/07/14/la-metro-holds-public-lunchtime-meeting-progress-w/
Metro holds public meeting on progress of Westside subway extension
Los Angeles County Metro officials briefed people who work in the Miracle Mile area on the status of its proposed Westside subway extension today.
Erika Esau, a librarian at the L.A. Cou
"That last leg from Western and Wilshire where we have to take the bus, it’s just impossible. And it would make it so much easier if we had the connection all the way to Fairfax at least. So I’m astonished that they’re actually making some progress."
Metro staff is drafting environmental impact studies they’ll need to qualify the subway project for federal transportation money. If all goes well, construction could begin in a year and a half. The proposed subway extension would run from Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to UCLA, and possibly beyond.
L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas announced he will host a community forum Friday to solicit ideas for new funding criteria for rail systems. He said that the Federal Transportation Agency’s (FTA) criteria for prioritizing federal funding leaves the county at a disadvantage.
"The Los Angeles region has lagged far behind other jurisdictions, due in part to the FTA’s historical focus on cost-effectiveness and a lack of alternative measures for prioritizing federal investments,” Ridely-Thomas said.
The FTA is reviewing its funding criteria for public rail transit projects, by considering economic and environmental criteria, as well as cost-effectiveness in its transportation funding decisions.
The meeting will be held at the Wallis Annenberg Building at the California Science Center, 700 Exposition Park Drive. Registration begins at 8:00 a.m.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/07/14/la-metro-holds-public-lunchtime-meeting-progress-w/
"That last leg from Western and Wilshire where we have to take the bus, it’s just impossible. And it would make it so much easier if we had the connection all the way to Fairfax at least. So I’m astonished that they’re actually making some progress."
Metro staff is drafting environmental impact studies they’ll need to qualify the subway project for federal transportation money. If all goes well, construction could begin in a year and a half. The proposed subway extension would run from Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to UCLA, and possibly beyond.
L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas announced he will host a community forum Friday to solicit ideas for new funding criteria for rail systems. He said that the Federal Transportation Agency’s (FTA) criteria for prioritizing federal funding leaves the county at a disadvantage.
"The Los Angeles region has lagged far behind other jurisdictions, due in part to the FTA’s historical focus on cost-effectiveness and a lack of alternative measures for prioritizing federal investments,” Ridely-Thomas said.
The FTA is reviewing its funding criteria for public rail transit projects, by considering economic and environmental criteria, as well as cost-effectiveness in its transportation funding decisions.
The meeting will be held at the Wallis Annenberg Building at the California Science Center, 700 Exposition Park Drive. Registration begins at 8:00 a.m.
Blue Ribbon Committee: Metro Should Focus on the Lines People Use (Source: la.streetsblog.org)
Blue Ribbon Committee: Metro Should Focus on the Lines People Use
Supporting dense neighborhoods and rail lines were two things that the panel wants Metro to focus on. Photo: Salaam Allah Westcoast Transit Photography KING!/FlickrSix months ago, Metro officials convened a Blue Ribbon Committee to provide a strategy for the transit agency to keep its operating budget under control as escalating costs, declining revenue and cuts in subsidies continue to play havoc with their projections. This Thursday, the Metro Board's Operations Committee (it's item #4) will vote on whether or not to send the recommendations to the Metro Board of Directors to guide Metro's policies moving forward.
So what does the Blue Ribbon Committee recommend? Basically, that Metro should focus on the service that people use the most. Daily and weekend service along major corridors and dense areas should be the primary focus, with a secondary focus on late night service. Owl service is put way on the back burner.
The committee also refers to rail as the future backbone of the transit system and encourages a greater level of connectivity between the bus system and the expanding rail system. More localized service is placed on the back burner as the committee urges Metro to focus on more frequent service every half-mile to a mile.
A lot of this might seen like common sense to Metro watchers, but the recommendations are sure to rankle the Bus Rider's Union and their supporters who will object to cuts to non-commuter hour trips and the emphasis on rail. Combined with a Long Range Plan that calls for a predictable schedule for fare increases, this outline is sort of a worst-case scenario for an organization focused on cheap and plentiful bus service. The BRU would argue that while Metro may have to tighten its organizational belt in the future, they should be cutting back on rail service not making it the backbone of the transit system,
There are also many suggestions that won't be controversial, such as ones to better coordinate with local municipal service and another to optimize use of the TAP system. If you have a chance, check out the entire report on the Operations Committee Agenda. If adopted by the full Board next week, it could guide Metro as it grows, shrinks and adapts in the coming years.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Crews test soil for light rail (Source: Santa Monica Daily Press)
Link: http://www.smdp.com/Articles-c-2010-07-12-69954.113116_Crews_test_soil_for_light_rail.html#222
Crews test soil for light rail
July 13, 2010
CITYWIDE — As part of Phase 2 of constructing the Exposition Light Rail Transit Line, workers will be conducting field investigations of the soil along the line’s route through July 20.
The route, called the Exposition Right-of-Way, constitutes the following locations: 50 feet west of Cloverfield Boulevard, 50 feet west of Centinela Avenue, 50 feet west of Bundy Drive, 50 feet east of Pico Boulevard and 50 feet west of Sepulveda Boulevard. Work in Santa Monica will occur between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
The Exposition Construction Authority Board of Directors certified the Final Environmental Impact Report on Feb. 4, allowing for construction of Phase 2 of the Expo Line project to begin. Phase 1 of construction will bring the Expo Line from Downtown Los Angeles to Culver City and is expected to be completed later this year.
Phase 2 will extend the line from Culver City to Santa Monica. The field tests are the first step in construction. Revenue service is expected to begin in 2015.
The field tests are being done by the consultant Leighton Consulting Inc. on behalf of the Metro Board of Directors with the purpose of collecting soil samples and documenting subsurface conditions.
Soil will be collected by a truck-mounted drill rig, which makes noise comparable to a garbage truck. The noise will not be continuous.
The drilling is not expected to produce dust, but the air will be continuously monitored. The soil will be sealed in containers and taken away from the site each day.
Because of the work, businesses and tenants along the route had to coordinate access to their buildings prior to the work beginning.
For questions regarding the field work, contact Gaby Collins at (213) 243-5535 or gcollins@exporail.net.
news@smdp.com
What about a new Transportation Policy President Obama?
Link: http://www.railpac.org/2010/07/12/what-about-a-new-transportation-policy-president-obama/
What about a new Transportation Policy President Obama? July 12th, 2010
Editorial by Noel T. Braymer
In the aftermath of the BP Oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, now in its 3rd month the President is talking about a new Energy Policy. President Obama is calling for less dependence on oil. But every President since 1974 starting with President Nixon has called for energy independence and decried this country’s dependence on oil. What is needed to make this time different? When you talk about oil, you have to talk about transportation. This county consumes 25% of the world’s oil production. Two thirds of the oil consumed in this Country is used for transportation and of that 45 percent alone is for gasoline.
The most energy efficient form of transportation on land is rail. Siemens advertises that their 220 mile an hour passenger trains get the equivalent of 700 miles to the gallon per passenger. According to CSX one freight train can pull 280 trucks off of our congested highways. Trains are 3 times more energy efficient than trucks and carry a ton of freight 436 miles on a gallon of fuel. One nicer thing about trains is that you don’t have to run them on oil. The BNSF is cooperating with Passenger High Speed Rail projects in part to improve their tracks and run their railroad more efficiently .Clearly BNSF wouldn’t be interested in improved passenger service if they didn’t see a possible economic advantage for them. BNSF’s policies must have impressed Billionaire investor Warren Buffet because he bought the railroad.
There is another problem this county needs to deal with: jobs. Over 70 percent of the economy is consumer spending. People can’t spend money if they don’t have jobs and to sustain jobs work has to be productive. Spending money to improve the railroads to carry more passengers and freight is a good investment in the future and will create jobs in this county now and in the future. We also need to expand and run good rail services so that passengers and shippers will use the rails. High Speed Rail projects are clearly exciting. There are many places where we can run trains very fast in the open country where construction costs will be reasonable. High Speed Trains can be used to connect major airports and replace most of the often uneconomical short haul air traffic while improving air service to many smaller cities. But we need to concentrate spending money to build as many miles of improved trackage as possible first. Just a few expensive projects can suck up most available funding. Just in Southern California there is a long backlog of projects that have been “shovel ready “for years. Some good examples of this is the need to double track most of the railroad in San Diego County, build four tracks between Fullerton and Los Angeles, triple track between Los Angeles and Burbank and double track most the railroad between Burbank and Oxnard.
Now there is the question: how do we pay for this? More and more pundits talk about how we are so deep in debt we have to pay our off debt first. The problem with that argument is it ignores the fact that you can’t pay bills unless you are working. We have to make more money first before we can pay off old debts. Throughout history most nations get into ruinous debt from military spending, particularly from wars. The United States has been in debt for most of its history since the Revolutionary War. The United States had a much larger debt relative to the Gross Domestic Product after World War II than today. The United States also had much higher tax rates during and after World War II than today. Yet this period between 1941 and 1970 had the fastest growing economy than any period in American history. If we spend more money on improved rail service we can have a better economy. If we reduce our dependence on oil our National Security will be stronger than spending money to keep over 900 bases overseas.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Light Rail for L.A.’s Westside (Source: thecityfix.com)
Light Rail for L.A.’s Westside
Submitted by Victoria Broadus on July 7, 2010
West Los Angeles has become infamous for its traffic.
Now, the Westside is finally getting a new light rail,
which will connect downtown L.A. to the Pacific Ocean. Photo by jwalker64.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about California’s promising Senate Bill 375 (SB 375), which encourages transit-oriented development by requiring metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) “to create and implement land use plans that use compact, coordinated, and efficient development patterns to reduce auto dependency.”
The main goal of SB 375 is to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in California, and thus reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.
Now, the state is a step closer to ensuring that SB 375 lives up to its promise: Los Angeles is getting a new light rail.
NO MORE “SOUL-CRUSHING” TRIPS TO THE BEACH
As the New York Times reported yesterday, construction on the 8.6-mile first phase of the Westside’s Exposition Line is nearly complete, connecting the University of Southern California with Culver City.
By 2015, the completed 15.6-mile Expo Line will finally connect two major employment centers: downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica. For the first time, people will be able to glide by the Westside’s notorious gridlock and get dropped off just blocks from the Pacific Ocean. (Along the tracks of some of the mid-twentieth century yellow cars and red cars).
Presently, Angelenos have described any attempt to reach the Westside via public transit as a “soul-crushing experience.”
Officials estimate that 64,000 people will get out of their cars and start riding the rail by 2030. The city’s current light rail system — made up of the Metro’s Blue Line, Green Line, and Gold Line — is the third-busiest of its kind in the United States.
The Westside light rail project had been in the works since 1980, but was continually stalled by residentsworried that the train’s street-level design would damage their communities and hoping to keep urban density in check.
DEVELOPMENT AROUND THE LIGHT RAIL
Still under construction, the new rail is already showing how ongoing improvements in public transit are a great — and necessary — complement to the regulations set by SB 375. Transit investment is essential to making SB 375-style development a reality across California.
Compact, mixed-use infill development is already taking off along the Expo Rail route. A project including 500 housing units and a 300-room hotel was just completed at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. And Santa Monica’s city planning director, Eileen P. Fogarty, says there’s now a booming demand for any real estate within a quarter-mile of a station. The city has received proposals from development giants like Houston-based Hines and Los Angeles’ Casden Properties, a leader in multi-family property development. Samitaur, a Los Angeles developer of innovative buildings, already gained approval — and $11 million in subsidies — to construct a 12-story office building near an Expo station just outside of Culver City.
Still, neighborhood communities clinging to the Westside’s low-rise character continue to battle with developers, promoting height restrictions — such as s five-story limit at a 4.5-acre site by a Culver City station — that some planners say are unrealistic for private developers. A similar conflict has arisen by the Sepulveda Boulevard station, where Casden Property wants to replace a cement plant with what would be one of the Westside’s biggest developments: a complex of four 8-story buildings with 538 residential units and about 266,800 square feet of retail space. In response to residents’ concerns, Casden Chief Executive Alan I. Casden told the New York Times, “Los Angeles is going to go vertical. That’s the only way you can go.”
IMPROVING ACCESSIBILITY
The project also has important implications for equity in the Los Angeles’ public transit system.
The new rail line will cut through the largely African-American and Latino Crenshaw district of Boyz n the Hood fame. Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Los Angeles County supervisor, said the rail line will have “huge economic development implications” for the district — bringing much-needed jobs and services to the neighborhood, and improving accessibility for its residents. And another light rail is planned to run south along Crenshaw Boulevard to the Los Angeles International Airport.
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