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ChineseMetroMovies: Exploring the Los Angeles Metro II
[googlevideo]3575979681192692130&q[/googlevideo]
TMIV is back with another episode in his Google Earth-ified video series, “Exploring the Los Angeles Metro Rail System”. This time he looks at the near future of the rail system, exploring the Purple Line, the Gold Line Extension, and the yet-to-be-colored Expo Line. One great thing about this series is that TMIV includes Google Earth KML files that you can load into Google Earth and have the pretty colored lines of our Metro Rail system (with big fat Metro M’s representing each station) on Google’s nifty 3D earth. Note that TMIV has decided to make the Expo Line aqua in color, and it looks damn good.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
So what’s the controversy surrounding the USC station(s)? I’ve never really fully understood why the map has the two stations so close together with one of them only as a possible station.
Astonishingly enough, USC itself has been opposed to the Expo Line station. Worries about pedestrian safety and “dividing the campus from Expo park” are some of the stated reasons. (source) It just seems absurd to me that there might not be a USC stop. USC has an undergrad student body of almost 17,000 and is also THE largest private employer in Los Angeles, providing jobs for more than 26,000 people! (source) The fact that they would oppose an alternative and viable transportation option for their students and employees is stupifying to me.
What fantastic stupidity… the school I go to, Northeastern University, is split down the middle by a 19th century streetcar line (Green line “E” branch, opened in 1857 as a horse-car line, to be precise) and it *helps* the campus, not hurts it; a major draw of this school is how it is totally integrated into Boston, unlike Harvard or BU.
The pedestrian safety issue will, I hate to put it this way, resolve itself in 10-15 years, when you have a SoCal generation grow up in San Diego and LA who are used to streetcars. The stuff I see about the metro blue line in the LA Times makes me think of a city that still isn’t quite comfortable with rail; that will fade away as people learn the difference between freight tracks and light rail tracks (frequency of trains, timing of warnings, etc). It’s horrific that people have to die until people learn, but in Boston it’s extraordinarily rare for our streetcars to hit people or cars, I think because people who drive in Greater Boston grew up with the trolleys so they know what to expect. My law school is within hearing range of the tracks and a medium-traffic intersection, and I only remember hearing one collision since I’ve been here.
They’re going to regret it if the station doesn’t get built, and in 10-15 years will probably be howling for a “new” station anyhow. I think it should be built even with USC opposition; allow the students access to the campus without relying on busses like the massive congested mess coming into UCLA’s terminals, and allow employees access from homes on the Westside to get faculty and staff off of the 10.
I’ve truly never heard of something so ridiculous before. They really should seriously send someone up to Northeastern Univ. before they start squawking again. And I’m sure there are other schools in the US divided by streetcar lines (BU is kinda-sorta divided, but most of the school is north of Comm Ave); a streetcar isn’t, say, at-grade heavy rail, which can create a veritable Berlin Wall, which it does do at the south end of NU’s campus (the orange line, which runs in a massive right-of-way that was going to be I-95 before the freeway revolt; now it’s probably 6-8 tracks of rail; commuter rail, amtrak, orange line, and maybe even the occasional freight train to Gillette’s headquarters or the Post Office).
One other factor in USC’s opposition is the pull of the Reason Foundation School of Public Policy and Planning on the campus.
There’s a coterie of nationally prominent, froth-at-the-mouth anti-rail professors including James E. Moore and Peter Gordon.
Gordon famously predicted that the Blue Line would be a spectacular failure, and to this day, still tries to justify his original theory by committing acts to logic and research that would make the Marquis de Sade blush.
Gordon’s and like minded folks aside, a stop at USC is necessary especially if LA is seriously trying to make a bid for the olympics. which, though a huge burden and becoming more of a hindrance and cost blackhole for the cities that host, it could work well for public transit advocates because without improvements to the rails LA will def get turned down. along with the usc stop being a necesity to connect to exposition park and usc’s facilities, both indoor and outdoor, the purple line must finish in santa monica and the airport problem must be resolved. and i know alot of that is off subject, it’s just something to think about for the powers that be trying to bring in something as big as the olympics then doing something as stupid as denying a USC stop on the expo (aqua) line.