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ChineseDaily Transit Links Roundup
Contributed by Fred Camino on February 1st, 2008 at 10:20 am
Could this be the start of something great?
- Bloggers checked out the Westside Extension meeting last night: Street Heat and LAist
- Cell phones on the subway? That could be good. It could also be bad.
- The American Public Transit Association’s responds to the President’s State of the Union Address.
- Is the car-free diet the key to your spring break body?
- The Daily Breeze sez no to the subway-to-the-sea and yes to the maglev-to-ontario.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
I love that alternative featured on LAist because it totally skips hancock park. I just wish the we could get that one AND the extension of the Purple line.
Maglev. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
That Daily Breeze feature is infuriating. The idea that you’re gonna get a 27 billion dollar MagLev built solely with private investment seems totally ludicrous. Has this company proved they can raise that sort of money? What’s more, won’t it just end up with a Las Vegas Monorail situation where the company has to go so deep into debt to build the monorail that eventually the city has to either bail them out or let them die?
Even if the thing would be profitable, could it possibly be profitable enough, fast enough to pay off such a ludicrous debt? Not to mention the huge NIMBY issues with an elevated maglev monorail zipping across super high-value land.
I’m not saying Private-Public Partnerships aren’t worth pursuing, but people have to recognize that they’re not some type of magic trick. And they have to think about building a full transportation system, not fifty incompatible parts.
Yeah I lol’d at that one too. Someday, many many years from now, China and Japan are going to do enough with maglev to make it cost-efficient. I’ll probably be either dead or retired by then ;p. But where on earth do they think they’re going to recoup a $27b investment? It’s a shell game. Figure floating a 20-year debt, with interest and servicing they’d have to recoup, what, $2b a year? Yeah right. Maybe someday, a long long time from now.
Here is the Santa Monica Blvd. alignment with a direct link into the Valley.
http://www.metro.net/projects_programs/westside/2008_01-02_presentation.pdf
Of the proposed alignments, three are Wilshire only, five are Santa Monica only and several are “combined”, meaning both.
I am supporting Option 9 and am encouraging others to do so. (The MTA already seems to realize that Wilshire is considered the higher priority.)
I think a combined option is more saleable than a one-line option. In this Option, the Santa Monica Blvd. alignment has a direct link into the Valley. The LAist called this [b]NoHo to Century City in 14 minutes[/b]. I used to drive from North Hollywood to Century City every day and on a good day it took me 45 minutes and on an average day it took me an hour. This Santa Monica Blvd. alignment has potential not just east/west, but north/south. It creates a viable alternative for people commuting to/from the Valley and Westside instead of snaking through the canyons or passes. The Valley residents would be supportive of a combined project because they see their own interest in it.
I will be writing to Valley politicians asking them to support the combined proposal. I realize this isn’t a substitute for a Sepulveda Pass line, but some people will be travelling to/from the West Valley and some to/from the East Valley. “The Valley” is not a monolithic entitty to be served by one line.
I also like the “transit triangle” this would create. People would refer to living or working within the “triangle”.
In any event, the combined proposal #9 is the best I see on offer, AND I think it is the most politically marketable too.
I would prefer that any future subway to Santa Monica turn south to meet the Expo Line terminus at Colorado/4th. If so, a future SM-to-LAX light rail line along Lincoln could turn west at Colorado and share the Expo Line station, making for a true Santa Monica Transit Center within 5-minute walking distance of the two biggest activity centers in Santa Monica–the Pier and the Promenade.
I like that too, Peter.
It would create a Coney Island like terminal of multiple lines at the Pier.
I agree, Peter. It’s always seemed plainly obvious to me, and I wonder if I should shoot off a note to Metro. It’s borderline insane to terminate lines like that within 4 blocks of each other, and if the turning + proximity of the ocean required forgoing the Wilshire/4th station, I think that would be OK. Santa Monica is of such a mind about transit that they’d be more than happy to build and arrange for a transit center, which would make transferring among all of the BBB routes to the subway/Expo easy. Given how small SM is, the terminals of the two could be anywhere within the block of Wilshire/4th/Colorado/Ocean and still be in a rational place, so I’d be tempted defer to Santa Monica City Council as to where they wanted to exercise eminent domain. It’s a shame that the Santa Monica Place rebuild is happening now rather than later; that might have been a good place to do that kind of construction.
Having both a Wilshire and a Santa Monica line just sounds too great to pass up.
And though I know it would certainly not be the next project started (or even the fifth or sixth next), with both the Expo and Wilshire lines there you could theoretically do a North-South line connecting both lines and moving up through the guts of the valley, which would just about completely change the way we think about and live in this city. Well, as someone who grew up in the valley, it at least makes sense to me, but I’m sure there are reasons it might not make sense logistically (like whether it would just go meet a fictional Ventura Blvd line or all the way up to an Orange line).
Both the Santa Monica Blvd. and Wilshire alignments would be great for east/west. Turning the Orange Line into rail and extending it up Canoga on the Western end and to Burbank/Glendale/Pasadena on the eastern end is good. Extending the Red Line to the Burbank Airport.
Alternative #9 has good north/south benefits too with a direct link from Santa Monica Blvd. and the Valley.
I would extend the Crenshaw line north up LaBrea or Fairfax to Hollywood.
But a line from Metrolink down to LAX over/through the Sepulveda Pass connecting the Green Line, LAX, Expo, Purple (and Pink?), and Orange Lines would be transformative.