Expo design process gets going (Santa Monica Daily Press)

Expo design process gets going
http://www.smdp.com/Articles-c-2011-05-10-71791.113116-Expo-design-process-gets-going.html

By Ashley Archibald

May 11, 2011

CIVIC CENTER — Exposition Construction Authority and design-builder Skanska/Rados representatives played to a packed crowd at the Civic Center Monday night to describe the project and elicit community input for the second phase of the Expo Light Rail line, which will terminate in Santa Monica.

It wasn't clear if they achieved their goal.

"I was going there expecting to hear more about what was being proposed, and not really getting that," said Planning Commissioner Gwynne Pugh, who attended the meeting as a civilian.

Expo CA advertising billed the meeting as a kick off to meet the contractor, Skanska/Rados, and learn about the design process and timeline.

The meeting began with a presentation that sketched a vague outline of the process moving forward, beginning with a design phase that's expected to take 18 months.

Construction will begin before the design is complete, said Mike Aparicio, project manager for Skanska Civil USA.

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Skanska is part of a joint venture with Steve P. Rados, Inc., which will build the project.

"We will be getting the design done as we work," Aparicio said.

The builder committed to regular meetings with the community to get feedback, as well as to forming two groups — the Urban Design Committee and Bikeway Advisory Committee — with representatives from the public to make sure residents' voices get heard throughout the process.

Elements of the project that community members can have meaningful impact on are few and far between, however.

The alignments of the project, physical aspects of the structures and station locations have all been mostly determined, Aparicio said.

"In the summer, there will be meetings for landscaping, the color palettes and finishes," Aparicio said. "As other issues demand attention, we'll be making sure the community and builders have a partnership."

City Hall, Expo CA and Skanska/Rados are still in negotiations about several elements of the route, said Kate Vernez, assistant to the city manager.

While city staff were able to secure a second entrance to the Fourth Street terminus, things like side platforms at Bergamot Station — which would allow passengers to cross through the station rather than walk around it past 26th Street — are still in discussion.

"We started meeting with them in late February, and they got the contract in March," Vernez said, referring to Skanska/Rados. "We've been meeting every Monday since that. Along the way, the city requests certain aspects of the design be looked at."

Then, the design team negotiates with City staff about the cost of the requested changes, and whether or not the alterations can be included in the base cost of the light rail line, or if City Hall needs to pony up the extra.

How much City Hall is willing to spend to secure its preferred designs hasn't been determined yet, Vernez said.

"First, we have to understand what the costs are," she said.

City Councilman Kevin McKeown attended the meeting, and expressed concern that some aspects of the design and process may not please Santa Monicans who are used to getting more involved in large projects.

"Santa Monicans are used to responsive local control over local issues, but with the construction of the Expo line, we're working with a regional entity whose mandate is budget and schedule," McKeown wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. "The stations and right-of-way that Expo proposes might not live up to local expectations, and I hope we schedule a full public hearing at the City Council soon to discuss improvements to the baseline plan, and how to fund them."

Also of concern were questions about the bike path that will run alongside the light rail line from 17th Street to Downtown Los Angeles.

Bicyclist Eric Weinstein noted that the supposed bikeway next to the Bergamot Station stop was now being billed as a "multi-use pathway," which accommodates both pedestrians and bicyclists.

"The multi-use pathway ceases to be an effective solution when you're going 20 to 25 miles an hour," Weinstein said. "We'd like the design to bring the bike path separate from pedestrians."

The light rail train is still expected to arrive in 2015. Utility work will begin in the fall, with major construction beginning somewhere around Feb. 1.

ashley@smdp.com

In Crenshaw, Overwhelming Enthusiasm for Leimert Park Station

In Crenshaw, Overwhelming Enthusiasm for Leimert Park Station

For Residents of the Crenshaw Corridor the issue has nothing to do with
Measure R Funds, they just want a station at Leimert Park. Photo: Waltarr/Flickr

by Damien Newton on May 5, 2011

A recent motion by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas calling for grade
separation for nearly the entire Crenshaw Corridor and a second station
at Leimert Park, has become one of the most controversial Metro
proposals in recent memories.  Transit advocates across the region worry
about the impact on other Measure R projects, especially because the
motion wants to look at moving funds for expansion of the Green Line or
Expo Line to fund the additional projects.  You can read more details
about the proposal, here.

But in news papers up and down the Crenshaw Corridor, there is
unanimous support for the ideas of both grade separating the line and
especially for the Leimert Park Station.

An editorial in the L.A. Sentinel
asks the question, “why isn’t there a station planned for Leimert
Park?”  The park and businesses surrounding it is viewed by many as the
cultural center of South Los Angeles, and seems to be a natural fit for a
rail station, above or below ground.  The editorial is full of
supportive quotes from politicians and advocates, but this comment by
the Michael Jones of the Crenshaw Chamber of Commerce captures the
argument for both Leimert Station and a grade-separated Crenshaw Line:

There are two things involved here. One is Metro is
saying they don’t want to do it because it cost too much money; so
that’s a concern that they have.

However, when you look at Leimert coming up … the Vision Theater,
the renovated shops and the businesses that will follow, for that train
NOT to stop at Vernon and Crenshaw, will be a travesty to the
community. The other part is that the train must run underground
between 48th Street and 59th Street. Why? Because the time it will take
to build two train tracks in the middle of Crenshaw, the businesses
will be affected in a very, very bad way.

Our Weekly has published Opinion pieces in each of its last two editions by a pair of Ph.D.’s promoting the Station and grade-separation.  Last week, Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad makes the same point slightly more succinctly.

Urban centers are designed around two things: schools and
mass transit. Business comes where the transit stops, and homeowners
come where the schools are. The money then follows both.

Until our community understands that mis-designing mass transit is a

detriment to the economic development prospects of our community, we
will never see the change we desire.

When we get it, they get it.

This week,
David Horne calls for the Corridor’s black community to come out and
support the Ridley-Thomas motion at this month’s meeting of the Metro
Board of Directors.  He notes that the early morning schedule for the
meeting makes attendence difficult, but this may be the community’s only
chance to get the station, and separation, they want.

But the board will have to be convinced to do so. In
order for that proposal to be successful, we all need some real booties
in the balcony. Black folk need to be seen in the aisles, halls and in
the seats to demonstrate our sustained interest in the supervisor’s
proposal. No people, no pressure, and no positive vote. That’s how it
works. So get there.

Last, but never least, Damien Goodmon writes in The Wave that building the Leimert Station isn’t just good for the Crenshaw community, but the entire city:

The plight of the Crenshaw business community should
concern us all. If Los Angeles is a salad bowl filled with a mixture of
cultures from throughout the world, Crenshaw must be the dressing. Our
region should no more welcome the destruction of the Crenshaw business
community than it should Little Tokyo or Chinatown. Crenshaw is as
much a part of our unique identity as a multicultural city, as any
other ethnic center. We must both preserve it and enhance it with the
Crenshaw-LAX Light Rail Line.

One thing that doesn’t appear in any of these opinion pieces is a
broader discussion of Metro finances or an analysis of whether the
Crenshaw Line is more or less important than the Expo Line or Green
Line.  The issue isn’t about the larger Measure R picture, its just
about an effort to get the rail line that they feel makes the most sense
for the community.

A Royal Event for the Expo Line

Joel Epstein

Communications and public affairs professional, urbanist

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

Communications and public affairs professional, urbanist

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

Mixed-Use Downtown Development Puts Standard Malls’ Tax Yield to Shame

MARY NEWSOM / JUL 09 2010

 

 

As local politicians across the country get scorched by voter anger over recession-induced budget cuts — laying off teachers, closing schools and libraries and slashing services — perhaps they’ll be more receptive than usual to some powerful and surprising tax revenue numbers.

So what follows is about fiscal prudence as much as it is about smart city planning.

Conventional wisdom, of course, says that to prop up the property tax base, a high-end shopping mall is just the ticket. But when Sarasota County, Fla., looked at where the county government gets the biggest bang for its property tax buck, it found some numbers that may surprise a lot of people.

Sarasota County Director of Smart Growth Peter Katz, speaking to a meeting of Citistates Associates in Minnesota late last month, described a recent analysis of the county’s property tax revenue per acre. He pointed first to residential areas. Not surprisingly, when you work the numbers on a per-acre basis, residential property inside the county’s municipalities offered the biggest revenue per acre — a little more than $8,200 per acre for single family houses within the city of Sarasota. This makes sense, as in-town land values tend to be higher.
 
Next, Katz showed the results from retail properties. Here comes surprise No. 1.: Big box stores such as WalMart and Sam’s Club, when analyzed for county property tax revenue per acre, produce barely more than a single family house; maybe $150 to $200 more a year, Katz said. (Think of all those acres of parking lots.) “That hardly seems worth all the heat that elected officials take when they approve such development,” he noted in a related, written presentation.

Among retail properties, the biggest per-acre property tax revenue in his county, almost $22,000 per acre, comes from Southgate Mall, the county’s highest-end commercial property with Macy’s, Dillards and Saks Fifth Avenue department stores. That’s not so surprising.

But here’s the shocker: On a horizontal bar chart Katz showed, you see that zooming to the far right side, outpacing all the retail offerings, even the regional shopping mall, is the revenue from a high-rise mixed-use project in downtown Sarasota. It sits on less than an acre and contributes a hefty $800,000 in tax per acre. (Add in city property taxes and it’s $1.2 million.) “It takes a lot of WalMarts to equal the contribution of that one mixed-use building,” Katz noted.

Indeed, that three-quarters of an acre of in-town urban-style (14- to 16-story) development is worth more property tax revenue than a combination of the 21-acre WalMart Supercenter and the 32-acre Southgate Mall.

Even a mid rise (up to about seven stories) mixed use building brings in $560,000, and the low rise (up to three stories with residential over retail) brings in over $70,000 per acre — more than three times the return of Southgate Mall.

Katz quipped, “From a fiscal standpoint, this really puts hair on your chest.”

But Katz and the group that worked with him on the tax analysis, Public Interest Projects, Inc., in Asheville (http://www.pubintproj.com/index.php), N.C., went further than just the revenue analysis. It looked at the payback time, in tax revenue, for the infrastructure costs of various types of residential developments. The payback time for a mixed-use condominium building in the heart of downtown was three years. Want to guess the payback time for the residential portion of a multi-use development out at a highway interchange? It was a whopping 42 years.

Nothing involving tax revenues is simple, of course. For instance, what about sales taxes? Obviously that big WalMart and the shopping mall bring in more revenue than just property taxes. But Joe Minicozzi of Public Interest Projects notes, “Generally speaking, there isn’t a heck of a lot of return to the municipality with sales tax — at least compared to the return from property tax.”

And Katz noted that while sales tax revenue can be important to the specific city or town that snags a big retail development, “At the county level such ‘fiscal zoning’ makes little sense.”

Yes, Sarasota County could probably “steal” some commercial development from neighbor counties. “But we’d ultimately do far better to create value through property taxes in smart growth ‘districts,’” he said:

“With a receptive mindset among citizens and elected officials, such places should be infinitely replicable; doing so may actually be easier than trying to squeeze a little more spending out of our citizens’ mostly fixed disposable income.”

Potential tax revenue shouldn’t be the only factor in determining appropriate development for any community, of course — especially not flawed assumptions about which type of development brings in the healthiest tax revenue. And as Katz pointed out, there’s a limited market in most communities for intensive, mixed use development, even if NIMBY opposition were to evaporate, which isn’t likely.

Still, evidence is piling up of the benefits of compact, in-town development compared with auto-centric greenfield development. With a smaller carbon footprint, it’s kinder on the environment. It’s kinder on residents’ waistlines, too, as they’re likely to walk more and drive less. And now there’s evidence it’s kinder to government coffers, as well. And that’s an attribute worth some serious attention.

---

Peter Katz is Director, Smart Growth/Urban Planning for Sarasota County, Florida, amd was founding executive director of the Congress for the New Urbanism.  For visuals on the Sarasota County study cited in the article, click here.

 

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Mary Newsom is an associate editor and opinion writer at the Charlotte Observer, where she writes a weekly column, writes The Naked City blog atwww.marynewsom.blogspot.com, and Tweets @marynewsom.

Link: http://laist.com/2010/07/14/metros_blue_line_turns_20_today.php

Metro's Blue Line Turns 20 Today

 

Photo by Open Air Control Testing Ground via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

 

20 years ago today, Metro's Blue Line opened, marking the return of public transit by rail to the city, and signaling the start of decades of change ahead to grow and develop the system's network of lines and trains.

Los Angeles in 1990 was a different place indeed, and the Blue Line--and Metro itself--was different, too. TheMilitant Angeleno remembers vividly being one of the few who gathered in Downtown to herald the opening of the line on this day 20 years ago:

On Blue Line opening day, the line was only 19.5 miles long - only the section between the Pico and Anaheim stations was in operation (The Long Beach loop would open in September '90 and the underground section to 7th/Metro Center opened in Feb '91). The fares were free for the first two weeks, and afterward were only $1.10 (A 40-cent increase in 20 years? Compare that to the increase of gas prices since then - $1.16/gal vs. $3.07/gal today. Not bad when you think about it, so quit yer bitching, BRU drones). The area around Pico Station was a bleak industrial zone. No Staples Center, the Convention Center had not been expanded yet, and certainly no condos, restaurants or LA Live. In fact, tell someone 20 years ago about that and you'd get laughed at!

Since then we've seen the city change, and we're on the verge of digging down to put in more rail that links the center to the sea. Happy Birthday, Blue Line!

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

4:49 p.m. | Brian Watt | KPCC

 Download

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

• Westside residents to hear Metro tunneling plans
• LA transit board OKs $1.5B Expo rail line extension to Santa Monica
• How do we get Angelenos aboard public transit?

"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)

 Link: http://la.streetsblog.org/2010/07/13/blue-ribbon-committee-metro-should-focus-on-the-lines-people-use/

Blue Ribbon Committee: Metro Should Focus on the Lines People Use

by Damien Newton on July 13, 2010

Supporting dense neighborhoods and rail lines were two things that the panel wants Metro to focus on. Photo: Salaam Allah Westcoast Transit Photography KING!/Flickr

Six 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.

 

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

by Daily Press Staff

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.

Light Rail for L.A.’s Westside (Source: thecityfix.com)

Link: http://thecityfix.com/light-rail-for-l-a-s-westside/

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.