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ChineseMorning Commute: Transit Links Roundup
Contributed by Fred Camino on November 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 am
- The cost of building the Expo Line is going up! Phase 1 might not even make it to Culver City.
- A Santa Monica opinion on the progress of Expo Phase 2. Refreshing!
- Weho Represents! Over 120 passionate people show up to Westside Expansion Meeting in support of a subway under Santa Monica Blvd.
- History Lesson: How rail brought life to the Inland Empire.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
per the 3rd article, which is great cuz it shows such huge support for rail construction under SM, there is of course one jackass.
where’s waxman to stroke this guy when you need him.
First, the crime bit is total BS. I don’t even know why people bother.
Okay, that out of the way my favorite line: “Councilwoman Pam O’Connor, who chairs the MTA board, abruptly left the Expo board meeting. As she raced to her car outside the county Hall of Administration, O’Connor said she had a prior engagement out of town and had to get to the airport.”
Rushing via auto to an airplane. Check. Chair of the MTA. Check. Irony. Priceless.
This is where all bow before thee who hath doth predicted thine cost overruns. Actually, let’s be clear. These are just the bid overruns. The cost overruns are to be determined. Hopefully Kym saved the exact terms of our various bets and/or predictions. Maybe we can arrange payment on board the Talgo to Las Vegas train as we rush past the endangered tortises.
Santa Monica Bl really needs its own line:
http://www.lerctr.org/~transit/westside1.png
http://www.lerctr.org/~transit/westside1.png
Thanks, CPH for this! I’m going to make it my wallpaper on my computer for inspiration.
I think the Pink Line and the Purple Line can run on the same tracks west of Century City.
And, I’d love to create a 405-line going from LA north to UCLA and over the hill into the Valley.
The map is beautiful and brings the east of West Hollywood portions of Santa Monica Blvd. and Sunset, (Silverlake and Echo Park) into the system too.
Well done.
In the second article, the guy writes off grade separation for the Santa Monica end of the Expo line, essentially because it’s not pretty enough. While I could go on for a while about this, I would be most interested to know why tunneling hasn’t been considered by the MTA or Santa Monica NIMBYs. I have no idea as to the relative cost of tunneling versus aerial lines, other than that Get LA Moving claims that prices for aerial construction are going up and prices for underground tunnels are going down. Does anyone out there in MRLA land know? If the MTA is prepared to build a 35 ft elevated line, would an underground segment still be out of the question?
the second i read that article, rob dawg you were the first thing to pop in my head. though you said over a billion correct? not saying a billion isn’t plausible at this point, just curious.
Okay, serious. I did say over a billion but I also said that included all the expenditures prior to the 2005-06 approval/start date. MTA and predecessors have been spending on this corridor for a very long time. Notice also that I’m not soapboxing about the waste and abuse and all that. All I am saying in what I hope sounds like a calm and non-judgmental voice is that we need true cost analysis for ALL transportation projects. I happen to be really good at identifying transit infrastructure cost underestimates. I’m only okay (at best) costing accurately big roads projects.
This isn’t ego massage or epicariacy. I take no pleasure at seeing LA shortchanged. The most selfish aspect perhaps is that i wish more people would consider my views if only because they’ve been proven reliable for more than a decade.
Expo will be built. I don’t know what more to add at this point.
Something would be odd if there weren’t at least one jackass. The fact that some random old fart is worried about “those people” coming to his neighborhood is significant in how few people there were that thought and spoke like him at the various forums. Twenty years ago, we may have seen whole groups of people like him.
I find encouragement that only 1 of the speakers at that forum had those views speaking at the forum. He was probably aghast to see how few people at the forum agreed with his fear of “crime” (i.e. people of color) view of the world.
Let’s face it. Waxman changed his tune not because drilling got any safer, but because the number of people who thought like that speaker went from being powerful to gadfly.
I’ve got news for that guy too. Criminals have been traveling via automobile for decades in Los Angeles. Lacking a subway to get to the Westside didn’t keep them out.