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ChineseThe MTA has its own fantasy maps
An article in today’s LA Times discusses the various projects the MTA has planned to address congestion, and how it lacks funding sources for all of them.
Click here for the map. [If that didn't work, sorry! Try the LA Times site directyl]
Essentially, the MTA is pinning its hopes on getting Sacramento to raise the gas tax, or to allow congestion pricing, as in London and (maybe sooner or later) New York.
The article highlights a bunch of light rail projects the MTA would like. It’s nowhere near as extensive as some projects others have mentioned, but here are the highlights:
-A Vermont Ave light rail from the Red Line to the Green Line.
-Crenshaw Boulevard from Wilshire to the Green Line’s Aviation Boulevard/LAX, through Leimert Park
-A downtown Blue Line to Gold Line connector, making a 1-transfer trip from Long Beach to Pasadena
-Bob Hope Airport/Metrolink Extension of the Red Line
-Silver Line from Hollywood to Downtown to La Puente in the San Gabriel Valley
-Extension of the Gold Line from East LA to Whittier
-Extension of the Green Line both north and south along the Bay, from Santa Monica to Wilmington
-Yellow line along the 5 from NoHo to Downtown through Silverlake.
What do you guys think? How does it compare to other fantasy maps you’ve seen? Any of these you particularly like/dislike?
What about funding sources? What would be the most economical? Do any of the funding sources have a chance at passing within the next 3 years?
How do these plans hold up to the inevitable BRU accusations of transit-racism?
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
There’s a lot of good stuff there. The Purple Line has to go to, not just near, Century City or it will be a tragedy.
The most glaring omission is the “Pink Line”, the connector between Hollywood and Century City on Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood is unfortunately likely to get squeezed out of the Purple Line extension, but the bandied “Pink Line” offshoot of the Red Line would remedy that. It could also then be combined with the Silver Line.
The BRU are full of s**t and must ber stood up to by all transit riders who care about Los Angeles’ environmental and economic sustainability. The BRU has to use the emotional cry of “racism” to attract attention because their anti-rail agenda doesn’t stand up to the slightest rational scrutiny.
I think that a large number of these projects are specifically serving lower-income communities.
My personal favorites:
Airport connectors (always my favorite)
The two SGV extensions (an area underserved by nearly everything, especially transit)
Maybe also the hipster/yellow line.
I think the Blue to Gold connector won’t really add much bang for the buck. Ditto (but less so) for the Vermont line.
It’s good to see the MTA prioritizing rail projects over highway projects (except for the occasional carpool project). No more freeways!
Metro has always prioritized rail and will get these projects going if money can fall from heaven. Instead, they are facing budget cuts and disappearing state funding. At least we in LA County are more prudent at putting public transportation first unlike OCTA’s “build more freeway lanes til the whole county is a freeway” stance.
“I think the Blue to Gold connector won’t really add much bang for the buck. Ditto (but less so) for the Vermont line.”
Believe it or not the Vermont Corridor is the second busiest to Wilshire with close to 60,000 bus riders a day.
The Blue-to Gold “Downtown” Connector will actually improve ridership on those SGV Gold Line extentions with more direct trips into Downtown.
The Downtown Connector will do more to increase ridership on the system than any other 1.7 mile extension of the system.
We’d probably see at least a 10% increase in overall system ridership within a couple of years.
The reason the Downtown Connector is necessary is that, within the next few years, the Eastside Gold Line extension will begin operation and Metrolink will implement their service expansion.
That will funnel a lot more passengers into Union Station, and those people are very likely to create a new overcrowding problem on the Red/Purple Line.
Add in the first phase of the Expo line beginning operation, and if you don’t have a second connector for the Blue and Expo Lines to Union Station, you will have a colossal capacity issue on the subway between there and 7th St/Metro Center.
The Downtown Connector will make it easy for the Blue/Expo passengers to connect to/from Gold/Metrolink without a second transfer — in fact, it will be possible for Metro to operate through service on Gold/Blue and Gold/Expo — and prevent the Red/Purple from having to deal with those passengers.
This is that “at least 10% increase in ridership” that Damien mentions, and it will be a reality within five years.
I am really surprised that this connector is projected to make such a big improvement.
I can’t imagine that making a short transfer is a huge obstacle to people taking transit, compared to the complete lack of service in large parts of the city.
Raphael,
If you are that surprised, take into account the amount of Red/Purple Line ridership that already exists just to make the connection between Union Station and the Blue Line at 7th St/Metro Center.
Now add the Expo Line, the Gold Line eastside extension.
Now add the increased Metrolink service.
It’s not the “short transfer” that is the issue, it is the number of people making the trip between Union and 7th/Metro that will be increasing.
Those of us who know how to model ridership projections understand this all too well. And we are not in the least surprised.
But that’s exactly my point: This is serving people who are already taking the subway. Not that this means that the project is unworthy. But I don’t see how the connector will increase ridership compared to a brand-new line to Whittier, for example.
No, Raphael, you don’t see the point.
The downtown connector is not to serve people who already ride the subway, it is for the additional people coming from the Gold Line extension, the Expo Line, and the increased Metrolink service who will overload the subway if additional capacity is not created.
It does not, in and of itself, increase ridership. The new lines are the increase. The connector is to handle that increase.
And a new line to Whittier, “for example”, would likely bring an increase to the subway as well … so you would have the exact same problem.
Huge ridership numbers make a line down Vermont Avenue a no-brainer. I just hope that it would continue, at least for a while, down Vermont as a subway. Until South of Exposition Blvd., at least. Definitely between Wilshire and Washington, as Vermont is quite narrow and congested through there.
Then, the heavy rail could come up to the surface and continue down the center of Vermont on a slightly raised ROW. I believe there was a former Yellow Car route going down the center of the street from about 50th St. and South. Vermont is quite wide through South L.A. This route could terminate at the Green Line.
I was also quite heartened to see a proposed extension of the Red Line to Bob Hope Airport. To me, this would be a major bargain, hooking up one of LA’s airports with only a 4 mile subway extension. Though I’d prefer it to continue to the Burbank Metrolink station instead of terminating there at the Airport. But running the Red Line further up Lankershim I think would be a tragedy with Bob Hope Airport within reach.
Scott, I would agree that an extension to Bob Hope Airport has potential, but …
I also see, first-hand, the passenger loads to and from North Hollywood Station from the northwesterly direction. The bulk of those passengers are on Metro 224, which has to run 15-minute off-peak service to handle the loads up and down Lankershim. Half of those trips end at San Fernando Rd., where it connects with the limited stop 394 service to Sylmar Metrolink Station, and the other half of the trips continue in local service up San Fernando Rd. to Sylmar and Olive View Medical Center.
And those buses are standing room only on Lankershim all day, even on weekends, the closer you are to the Red Line. (It connects with the major east-west lines on Victory, Vanowen, Sherman Way and Roscoe.)
So there may well be a compelling argument for someday extending it up Lankershim and San Fernando. And that ridership is existing, not projected.
The one problem with a subway extension to Burbank Airport is that it’s a roundabout way of getting a downtown-to-airport service when the Metrolink service offers a more direct route.