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ChinesePurple Line vs. Pink Line time trials
[tags]los angeles, red line, purple line, west hollywood, beverly hills, santa monica[/tags]
Click on map for description.
The Pink Line meme grows again, ever so slightly. This time, here’s some seat-of-the-pants planning to determine what would be the end-to-end running times between Union Station and downtown Santa Monica.
The potential Purple Line route has already been calculated in the Metro Pink Line? thread. It will be reproduced here. This time, though, it would also include possible run times for the two possible Pink Line routes: one north via Fairfax Avenue, covering a bit more of West Hollywood; the other northwest via San Vicente Boulevard, which would touch a small part of WeHo but minimize inconvenience to Wilshire riders.
The back-of-the-envelope calculations used come from mileage data obtained from the Google Maps distance calculator, and times assume an operating speed of 20 mph. Operating speed means travel velocity including acceleration and station stops. This is lower than the speed limit, which can be as high as 70 mph.
The Purple Line, assuming a straight Wilshire Boulevard route with a deviation to serve Century City, would take 45 minutes end-to-end. Here is a list of likely stations, starting from Western Avenue, and the time in minutes to travel between them. Times include stopping at stations and are rounded up to the next minute.
| Western-Crenshaw | 2 |
| Crenshaw-La Brea | 3 |
| La Brea-Fairfax | 2 |
| Fairfax-La Cienega | 2 |
| La Cienega-Robertson | 1 |
| Robertson-Beverly | 2 |
| Beverly-Century City* | 4 |
| Century City-Westwood** | 4 |
| Westwood-Wilshire | 2 |
| Wilshire-Sepulveda | 1 |
| Sepulveda-Barrington | 2 |
| Barrington-Bundy | 1 |
| Bundy-26th | 2 |
| 26th-14th | 2 |
| 14th-Ocean | 2 |
| Total time | 32 |
Now, here are the times for the Fairfax Pink Line alignment. The advantages of this route are massive trip generators, which could bring as many as 50,000 additional boardings to the subway above Wilshire projections. This route would serve the shopping areas at Third Street, the Fairfax shopping corridor, Fairfax High School, and central-to-west West Hollywood. Also, the Beverly Hills station would be near the Civic Center, itself only a few blocks north of Wilshire.
To eliminate redundancies, only stops between Fairfax and Century City are listed.
| Fairfax-1st*** | 2 |
| 1st-Melrose | 1 |
| Melrose-Santa Monica**** | 1 |
| Santa Monica-La Cienega | 2 |
| La Cienega-Hilldale+ | 2 |
| Hilldale-Beverly++ | 3 |
| Beverly-Century City | 3 |
The Fairfax alignment showed an added time length of five minutes. This may be a bit too conservative, and might actually be about 10 minutes longer. Even so, a trip from Union Station to the sea would be 50-55 minutes via Fairfax and Santa Monica.
Now, the San Vicente option. The advantages of this route are a major trip generator at Third Street and La Cienega Boulevard, with two shopping centers and a medical center; also, San Vicente is wide enough for trench building, which can significantly reduce construction costs. This would add about 10,000-20,000 additional boardings over a straight Wilshire alignment. Again, to eliminate redundancies, only two stops are listed. The times are the same between Hilldale and Ocean.
| Fairfax-3rd | 2 | |
| 3rd-Hilldale | 2 |
This alignment shows only a four minute addition to a straight Wilshire Boulevard route. This could realistically be within 3 to 6 minutes. That would make Fairfax realistically about 10 minutes longer.
Anyway, the San Vicente alignment allows for WeHo access and a run time competitive with a straight Wilshire alignment. This alignment would allow a one-way trip which would be 44 to 50 minutes.
Notes:
*-Century City assumes a stop on Constellation Avenue between Century Park East and Century Park West.
**-Westwood Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard. Subway would run north on Westwood Boulevard to return to Wilshire and Westwood boulevards.
***-Station platform would be near First Street, with station entrances at Third Street and Beverly Boulevard.
****-Santa Monica Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.
+-Hilldale Avenue is between San Vicente and Robertson boulevards.
++-Beverly Drive, or somewhere near the Beverly Hills Civic Center.
Discussion
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Operating speed or traveled miles per hour for fully grade separated rail with stations spaced every 1 mile is 29-32 mph.
My personal preference and what I will advocate for is two diversions:
The first is to serve Century City, which is universally understood as a requisite:
Wilshire/Beverly (Rodeo Drive)
Santa Monica/Ave of Stars (Century City)
Wilshire/Gayley (Westwood Village)
I’d only request that it be built in a way that wouldn’t preclude a future station at Santa Monica/Wilshire.
The second is to directly serve both The Grove and Cedars/Beverly Center:
Wilshire/Fairfax
3rd/Fairfax (Farmers Market & The Grove)
3rd/La Cienega (Cedars Sinai & Beverly Center)
Wilshire/Robertson
Essentially this pits Wilshire/La Cienega against The Grove-Cedars Sinai combo. I think ridership projections and land use development capabilities (as Jerard as been great to point out) make it a no-brainer even with the 2.5-4 minutes added to the overall Union Station to Westwood travel time.
While having this discussion try to remember this is bored tunnel construction. The extension can be built to travel under homes and buildings. It is not confined to streets. The station portal for Fairfax/Wilshire can be as far east as Orange Grove/Wilshire, but the actual station platform could be directly under Wilshire a few hundred feet further east or directly under the museum lot with trains already facing north-south.
That said trying to serve anything north of 3rd Street with the Purple line is a waste of money.
Until a more direct and separate rail line comes on board (see the Silver Line), the solution for WeHo is a trolley with stations spaced every 0.3-0.5. It should operate between Sepulveda and WeHo and ideally, if it can make it up the hill via La Cienega, San Vicente, Crescent Heights or all the above, that would help connect the Sunset Strip to Santa Monica Blvd.
To make it simpler here’s the list of stations as I seem them:
Wilshire/Western
Wilshire/Crenshaw
Wilshire/La Brea
Wilshire/Fairfax
3rd/Fairfax
3rd/La Cienega
Wilshire/Robertson
Wilshire/Beverly
Santa Monica/Ave of Stars
Wilshire/Westwood (Gayley)
Wilshire/Federal
Wilshire/Bundy
Wilshire/26th
Wilshire/14th
Wilshire/6th
Colorado/5th
15 stations over 13.5 miles so roughly 28 mph. That puts travel time at about 30 mins between Wilshire/Western and Santa Monica Promenade. So total travel time from Union Station to Santa Monica Pier is around 43 minutes.
And I forgot to mention UCLA should be served directly by an independent 405 line, and my guess is it eventually will.
Damien Goodmon wrote:
Operating speed or traveled miles per hour for fully grade separated rail with stations spaced every 1 mile is 29-32 mph.
Strange. I used a more conservative 20 mph, and we both came up with a runtime of 45 minutes.
Santa Monica/Ave of Stars (Century City)
I would loop the subway to Constellation Avenue. For one thing, there’s basically a wall on one side of Santa Monica. Second, Santa Monica is a really wide boulevard, and there’s very little pedestrian activity. Third, think of the bus connections. The best place to make them now is on Constellation. Once the subway opens, it would be a place to transfer for lines 4/704, 28/728, Culver City 3, and Santa Monica lines 5, 7 and Rapid 7. Most of these lines would deviate to serve this node, as this would be the downtown of the Westside.
I’d only request that it be built in a way that wouldn’t preclude a future station at Santa Monica/Wilshire.
This all depends on how the developments pan out. If property owners here insisted on a stop here, then it should be built. Otherwise, this intersection is a terrible place for a stop. What pedestrian activity that exists is confined to the bus stops, and Century City would be a vastly superior transfer point.
The second is to directly serve both The Grove and Cedars/Beverly Center:
Agreed with you here, but it would mean the loss of a Wilshire/Fairfax station. Trains don’t do hairpin turns. Even the arc of the Vermont turn forced the first stop to be at Beverly and not Third, which would have been a far superior station.
That said trying to serve anything north of 3rd Street with the Purple line is a waste of money.
The subway will lose money under any scenario, but Fairfax Pink Line would add as many as 50,000 boardings and serve proven ridership targets.
Until a more direct and separate rail line comes on board (see the Silver Line), the solution for WeHo is a trolley with stations spaced every 0.3-0.5.
You wouldn’t want to follow up “waste of money” by throwing a bone to West Hollywood in the form of a trolley. A trolley would be a tethered bus that would run slower than a local 4 does now. You could theoretically save money if you coupled two or three cars for capacity and cut service to every 15 minutes, but otherwise a trolley would be an inferior form of rail with operating characteristics worse than a bus.
Better get that Silver Line scheme on the long range plan.
“The second is to directly serve both The Grove and Cedars/Beverly Center:
Agreed with you here, but it would mean the loss of a Wilshire/Fairfax station. Trains don’t do hairpin turns.”
Yes and No. It would simply move the Wilshire/Fairfax station a couple of blocks to the east to Spualding which is CLOSER to the Museum Campuses and Entertainment companies HQ and be closer to the on-street density and businesses there.
And before I get any responses this exact set-up was going to be used for the Original Metro Rail Subway that went down Wilshire to Fairfax and turned north on Fairfax to Hollywood and then made a “broken knee” up to the North Hollywood.
I don’t really have a strong opinion either way, although having a line snake all over the city grid seems a little impractical. There is a certain point where it seems like we could just benefit from another line. I think the most important issue regarding the subway (other then where are we getting the money) is that there needs to be double tracks in each direction so that we can have real express service.
In the old renderings, do you remember where was the station box is located Jerard?
My guess is they never ran a ridership simulation with the box closer to Ogden, which seems to be the mid-point and would allow portals as far west as Orange Grove.
If you don’t remember, don’t sweat it, I have to go down to the MTA library this week anyway.
Damien, It was between Spaulding and Curson.
Everyone talks about “50,000″ more boardings from this Pink Line alignment, but everyone seems to ignore the loss of ridership this out of the way line will have on people that want to go from Westwood or Santa Monica to downtown and vice versa. The Grove is 3-4 blocks away from Wilshire/Fairfax, and people will walk to it from the subway - studies show that people will routinely walk up to a mile to access rapid transit lines. Deviating the route to serve every little thing costs a lot of money and time, and ignores the fact that we can’t serve every destination from rail alone - we need buses as well. If people don’t want to walk or take a bus a 1/2 mile from Wilshire to 3rd then I say let them be stuck in gridlock.
As for the stations, I doubt we’ll have that many west of wilshire/westwood. Demand at places like wilshire/14th is way too small for a subway - let big blue bus handle it. I wouldn’t be surprised if community opposition killed off the stop at wilshire/crenshaw as well. There’s not really much there besides a lot of low density rich people.
Chris,
People are willing to walk. But most studies suggest it’s pushing it after 0.25-0.3 miles. The Grove/Farmers Market is 0.6-0.7 miles from Wilshire/Fairfax. Yes, a lot of people will walk it - I know I have in the past. But I’m a healthy 25-year old male.
Additionally, in most east coast rail systems, stations are spaced around every half mile in the urban core (in NYC where there are express trains, even less). We’re a bit more spread out and have economic centers that in other metro areas are in different states. To compensate our system needs to cover a larger distance really fast. So our stations are typically a lot further apart, except where the density is just astronomical (high density Koreatown and downtown).
It’s a delicate balance - and a science. But generally the data has to be pretty overwhelming to not directly serve what has to be one of the Southland’s top 10 tourist attractions.
Damien: NYC station spacing isn’t something to emulate. The new T line (2nd ave subway) is stepping back from the station spacing that the old IRT and BMT lines, and there were some weird quirks about the old station spacing that MTA NYC wishes didn’t exist to start with. For instance, trains on the East Side IRT used to stop at both 18th and 14th Streets, 14th being the modern Union Square. They went to great effort to connect the two stations, and now 18th St is simply a northern exit to the Union Square subway.
NYC’s subway also, honestly, isn’t particularly fast. It doesn’t need to be the Starship Enterprise, NYC itself isn’t particularly large. But you haven’t felt fear until you’ve been on a East Side IRT express rattling its way from 125th St to 86th St. Around the Cathedral Parkway you begin to worry that bolts are going to come flying off the ceiling.
LA has built a high-quality system that can handle high speeds, save for that wacky turn at Wilshire/Vermont. They’re going to want to continue that. One major red line draw from the Valley is vast amount of time you save coming under the mountain; that makes up for the speed you lose further on down the line.
The issue with the Grove is, to me, at best a bad choice and at worst an unsolvable problem. Wilshire/Fairfax is a huge draw for the museums and for the transfers up and down Fairfax, and I don’t think there’s any good solutions. The best idea I’ve seen is putting the station at Wilshire/5th and thus basically screwing everyone equally. But the simple fact is that a grid system does not lend itself readily to being re-focused around a single rail spine, and there’s going to be winners and losers in the planning process. We can’t be putting in hairpin turns every mile and expect to get a pile of discretionary riders, not unless the tickets are going to come with chiropractor referrals on the back.
The sad truth is that some locations that deserve rail service aren’t going to get it. The Purple Line can’t be everything to everyone.
Aaron, There are things called engineered bank turns like the one between Hollywood/Western and Sunset/Vermont and another between Pershing Square and 7th Street Metro that allows the trains to accelerate through the turn and stay a pretty good speed between them, it keep noise down and passenger comfort up during the turn it’s like the suspension in a car.
And you’re right that it can’t be everything to everybody but it should be most things to most people and this is where the arguement lies just west of Fairfax because it goes from this definite linear axis to one where the centers are moved from the axis and placed just shy of it, but not within comfortable walking distance.
That’s why I’ve argued that if it goes the straight line down Wilshire than there needs to have a heightened sense of how the rider will move through to reach the destinations off of that station. From better pedestrian/sidewalk/bus transfer treatments to adding bus-only lanes one mile north and south of the proposed line to allow more users to these benefits.
But another comment in relation to this that I want to harp on that has been mentioned in some posts is regard to transit shaping “future destinations”. It can to some extent, but an antithesis example is that of the Blue Line, it’s operating for close to 20 years and while it’s transformed Long Beach and filled a void around the Convention Center with South Park and Staples Center the heart along the corridor line there’s little impact to these “future destinations”, what is the problem there?
The problem is there’s lack of proper zoning, land-use and planning. So for these future destinations to work, we should take a page from Curtiba Brazil, (no we’re not going to paint our buses Orange, Red and Silver, oops that’s already occuring) we need a better more hierarchal pattern of growth and land-use along these corridors, where ever they may be. So like a hand in glove it’ll fit. They did this before they started builidng their bus tubes and painted their buses in various colors. Let’s face it along Wilshire around Hancock Park there’s not much chance it will become this dense utopia that some of clamored for and the same can be true around Wilshire/La Cienega now and in the future.
But from this discussion three things need to happen so this can work out;
1) an actual plan by SCAG or something started by the City of LA{kind of what Bradley did} that defines a Long Range vision of the City’s transit or landuse network and map of which corridors they will run on (which by that would extend into the other cities, whose consensus you’d need to build such things anyway)
2) This Long Range Plan needs to be adopted and stick with the SCAG/Metro/COG’s so that there is a plan.
3) Co-ordinate future land uses along that map within the 1/2 mile radius from the proposed lines.
As a side note, If they built more of those banks on the curvy Gold Line they could go faster and operate the trains with less wheel squeal.
Everyone left out one important additional consideration.
Since we’re starting from scratch this time, we can do it right and build a four-track route with EXPRESS trains west of Western. Wilshire is probably the only potential subway route where express trains would be justified and welcome.
The EXPRESS Purple Line would be a lot quicker than 45 minutes end-to-end, probably 20-25 minutes from the Ocean to Western Avenue. This could mean a trip from Santa Monica to downtown could take as little as 30 minutes. Beats the 10 Freeway except at 3 a.m.
I’m recommending Express stops at the (mostly) same places where the 920 Metro Rapid Express stops:
Fairfax, Beverly Drive, Century City, Westwood, VA Hospital, 26th Street and Ocean.
7 stops instead of 15 or 16.
I think the City of Beverly Hills did not want a stop at Robertson, though I do think it’s a very good idea for bus connections.
Oh yeah, and I forgot, we not divert the Purple Line, except to Century City. We should construct a streetcar system to connect the Red and Purple Lines.
Use the former PE ROW running up Santa Monica Blvd., then turn up Highland to Hollywood and Highland.
This can be owned/run/operated/built by the cities of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. They could most likely to afford to build such a line, which would cost about $10-$20 million per mile, and it would run about 5-6 miles I believe.
Scott, two problems:
1. Adding two additional tracks more than doubles the cost of building a subway. It’s bad enough the line is going to cost $6 billion altogether if we started building it now. Express tracks are going to push the project from $12 billion to $15 billion, at the very least. That’s too high of a price for express services.
2. I pointed out the problem of the streetcar above. You want to throw West Hollywood in the form of a streetcar; IOW, a tethered bus.
It’s best to incorporate a West Hollywood connection in conjunction with a Wilshire line now. Either that, or West Hollywood can wait 50 years before we revisit the issue.
Wad,
Those numbers are way inflated. They’re not inline with most recent tunneling projects even by Metro.
The bulk of the cost in tunneling is actually the stations. With a large bore tunnel, able to have two levels - as is currently being done in several European rail expansion projects they fit both tracks and stations. (See the plans from a citizen financed plan done for the D.C. rail expansion plan: Link)
If we go with large bore, depending on the variance we can probably fit the express tracks on the lower level. It would slightly increase the cost of the tunnel (additional track works, etc.) and it would increase the cost of the stations (instead of being in the tunnel like in the rendering they’d need to be separate cut-and-cover stations). It wouldn’t come close to doubling the cost though.
Okay, I like this idea but I had a couple of alternatives, albeit they’d be costly and no one is really considering them. I envision three main crosstown lines. There would be undoubtedly a Wilshire Subway (the Purple Line). I say run it the entire length of Wilshire and forgo any deviation to Century City. Build a Santa Monica Boulevard Line to connect Hollywood and the Westside and bring in West Hollywood and Century City in the process. That line would connect to the north/south 405 line. It could then run to West LA Civic Center then curve up Barrington to Brentwood and then either run out San Vicente to the beach or run up to Barrington Circle and end (or connect back with a 405 line). Now a third subway line could run down Beverly Boulevard. It would have stops at Cedar’s Sinai, the Beverly Center, Doheny (which doesn’t seem important but that’s a very dense area) and the Grove. It would start downtown and could theoretically run from Union Station (or run through the old Hollywood Subway) up to Beverly and it would ultimately join with the Santa Monica line. It would deviate though at a 405 line and join with that line to the Valley. I think that way you could have a direct downtown to Century City line and a Century City to the San Fernando Valley line without forcing any transfers (as will happen if just a 405 line and the Purple line are built). This idea would be very costly though and so given the fact that they’re unlikely to be built, I’d go with the West Hollywood loop. Those areas are dense and have major traffic problems but diverting the Purple Line to them will create major inconveniences.
Max, that would create a lot more transfers then needed which would deter riders.
Damien, I don’t think there would be that many stations between Westwood and Santa Monica. Your list has almost as many as there would be between Westwood and Wilshire/Western!
As for the “Pink Line”, using the “West Hollywood is going to be squeezed out” is precisely the argument that should not be used. With limited funds (at least in the foreseeable future) Metro needs to build the projects that have the most potential ridership.
The Purple Line extension has the second highest projected ridership of any project. And every study that has been done indicates that deviating it from Wilshire (other than the Century City station) would lower the attraction for people to ride it instead of driving.
There is no reason why there could not be an additional “connector” between Hollywood/Highland and Century City in the future, but it should not be a distraction from getting the key line built ASAP.
Kym,
In the recent study conducted by the City of Beverly Hills it went as far as to indicate that a diversion to Beverly Center/Cedars Sinai would be well utilized and help improve ridership for the line overall while only adding 2-3 minutes to the route and provides more activity and increased/density development potential.
But have you wondered why the City of Beverly Hills didn’t suggest or advocate it? Here’s your answer because it’s not in the City of Beverly Hills, it’s in the city limits of LA.
Funny how these things work themselves out (of the conversation), isn’t it.
Yeah. True very true. But that’s not to say it shouldn’t be done.
If the City of LA does it’s own subway corridor study and highlights this fact then it creates some possiblities.
Besides Beverly Hills in it’s city limits were being very proactive in their study and for that they should be applauded.