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ChineseDaily Transit Links Roundup
Contributed by Fred Camino on May 15th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Image courtesy of waltarrrr.
Note: Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I’ve been in the process of moving my operations to a new location. The dust is just starting to settle, and the new HQ should allow me to better balance posting on MetroRiderLA and my other work. Plus, now I have an actual commute, I will be biking to work!
- I don’t usually condone it when bicyclists are a-holes, but this is pretty incredible footage.
- Animated tunnel advertisements on the Red Line seem to amaze most, but have a few people upset.
- Bike lanes go up at the speed of knitting in LA, and bicyclists think that sucks.
- To our favorite troll, Ocean: New York City looking to LA’s Rapid buses for inspiration.
- Can mass transit hope to compete with the global oil industry?
- Despite rising gas prices and rising transit usage, the governor plans to divert $1.4 billion away from public transit and put it in the general fund.
- The Free Way Act, created by a small government conservative, aims to keep pricing off of federally funded freeways.
Discussion
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
As long as the ads don’t make sound I don’t care.
Gosh, if the ads on Metro make people upset, try going to Tokyo. Their entire city, transit included, is soaked in ads.
To be fair, I looked at the NYCTA rapid plan briefly, and it seems sensible. It’s centered on Queens, which asides from the Main Line El (the 7) and the Queens Blvd subway, has a lack of rapid transit, and is honestly pretty under-served. I could also see this being used on 5th/Madison Aves. for Downtown/Uptown service – Fifth Ave does not have a consistent subway route due to the plate of spaghetti that is the NYC subway map – if you want to go between locations on 5th Ave you usually need to make a subway transfer.
NYCTA is broker than broke right now, and it is a miracle that 2nd Ave is actually being built as I type this, as 2nd Avenue used to be the transit geek’s model for vaporware.
BRT isn’t inherently bad – it just isn’t a replacement for subway service.
Interesting article in Planetizen:
http://www.planetizen.com/node/31245
L.A.’s Subway Planners Thinking Bigger is Better
“Metro planners presented West Hollywood with good news on Monday night.
To their own surprise, the proposed subway expansion makes better sense to planners when a Santa Monica Boulevard route is added to the traditionally better-preferred Wilshire Boulevard route.
A crowd of 75 attendees listened in rapture while Long Range Transportation planners explained how a Santa Monica spur running from the current Hollywood/Highland Red Line Station hooking up with a Wilshire line south of West Hollywood would not only increase ridership significantly, but also provides enough in travel time improvements to give Congress reason to fund the subway expansion.
“What was surprising to us,” David Mieger, project manager said, “is that adding Santa Monica Boulevard to the Wilshire route, in compliment to one another, it works [from a feasibility, cost and ridership perspective].”
The representatives, who are shepherding through to completion a massive public comment process designed to flesh out Metro’s Draft 2008 Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP), noted that huge increases in new boardings at existing stations, plus projected new boardings in new stations dotting the area, saw the cost per user travel-hour leap to a level of efficiency that would convince the federal government to fund the larger part of a project supposed to cost over $8.5 billion.”
The full article is here: http://wehonews.com/z/wehonews/archive/page.php?articleID=2298
“WeHo’s Subway Inches Towards Reality”
Planetizen didn’t report the entirety of the facts. Not surprising, because the WeHo News is notorious for being a “report only what looks good to our city” paper.
The truth is that the combined alignment actually exceeds by a small amount the cost-effectiveness range in federal guidelines. Unless the final calculations bring the number down, adding the Santa Monica-La Cienega route segment would actually make the project look like it was too cost-effective to need federal funds. (Ironic, is it not?)
I should point out that, if that route is added to the Wilshire extension, there will be little (if any) future ability to go farther south on that alignment, so be careful what you ask for …
Kymberleigh, when you say “little (if any) further ability to go farther south on that alignment,” what do you mean? If you mean Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica runs pretty closely parallel to Wilshire once it enters Santa Monica anyhow?
Sorry, just not following as to what potential routes it would remove.
I’m not quite following either. Could you clarify as to why?
I won’t speak for Kymberleigh, but we’ve been having a discussion about the a Santa Monica Blvd. & La Cienega alignment from Hollywood/Highland to Expo and farther points south. I believe she is referring to points farther south down La Cienega than Wilshire if Alternative #11 is chosen (or the Beverly Center if Alternative #16 is chosen.
There is no guarantee or certainty there will be another chance for a Santa Monica Blvd. alignment down the road if #11 or #16 is not chosen. Either #11 or #16 establishes it and builds the core of it. Surely it must be easier to build an extension to a core than it is to get a whole new project started from scratch. That the Project Manager stated “adding Santa Monica Boulevard to the Wilshire route, in compliment to one another, it works [from a feasibility, cost and ridership perspective]“ I find to be encouraging.
Eventually, if #11 or #16 is chosen, the Santa Monica Blvd. alignment could be extended southwest down Santa Monica Blvd. to Century City, and/or further south down La Cienega to the Expo Line or even to LAX, and/or potentially east of LaBrea on Santa Monica to Sunset Junction down Sunset into downtown.
Posted above are Alternative #11 and #16 up for consideration as finalists for the Westside Transit Corridor Extension Project. Either one has the potential for extensions on Santa Monica and La Cienega.
fred – main content area should have a fixed width, with overflow set to “hidden”
Actually, Dan, I’m afraid you got it backwards.
There is no likelihood at all that there will ever be a straight-shot Santa Monica Blvd. alignment (at least not sooner than several decades down the proverbial road). The numbers simply do not pencil out in terms of cost vs. ridership west of La Cienega.
If #11 or #16 is chosen, then you are also locked in to a connected alignment with Wilshire. That precludes an extension farther south on La Cienega, for the same reason that Scott Mercer’s proposed “extend down Vermont” line is precluded. Once you build a subway on a specific route, the engineering challenges to branch from that subway become much more difficult (that is a primary reason why every Westside alignment which called for a direct connection of the West Hollywood branch at Hollywood was eliminated … the cost of overcoming those challenges puts the alignment outside the range of cost-effectiveness mandated by the feds).
So the statement …
… is 180 degrees removed from reality. In this case, the connection of the core at Wilshire makes the extension exponentially less likely to ever happen.
Which is why I (and So.CA.TA) advocate a direct Wilshire line and a separate Santa Monica-La Cienega line.
Couldn’t the Wilshire/LaCienega stations be designed to allow for an possible extension down La Cienega in the future? Or the Century City station be designed to allow for that future extension to Hollywood?
Fair enough. I’d like to see the Santa Monica La Cienega line hook into the Expo Line to/from both directions on Expo.
Has So.CA.TA made a decision of their preference for the Wilshire alignment, either the direct line or the spur to the Grove & Beverly Center?
Look at the maps you posted, Dan. If the Santa Monica-La Cienega line is a branch of the Wilshire line, the station would no longer be at La Cienega, but at Robertson instead, to allow for the turn and track switch. So I would have to say that the decision has to be made now … branch line or separate?
As for Century City, while the station could be constructed for an extension, you will run into the same problem trying to connect to an existing line both there and at Santa Monica/La Cienega. So both stations need to be constructed bi-level and with switching (like Wilshire/Vermont) now, rather than later.
If the La Cienega alignment is part of the immediate future project, there is going to be a very long waiting period before an extension down Santa Monica becomes feasible, so I don’t see that you’re going to get those two stations pre-designed for it.
Basically, La Cienega would have to be shelved if a “pure” Santa Monica alignment is going to happen in our lifetimes.
As I said before, So.CA.TA has stated a preference for a direct Wilshire alignment.
I can see the arguments for both of the Wilshire routings. Kymberleigh, Would you be able to convey the reasoning behind the So.CA.TA. preference for a direct Wilshirealignment over a line which spurs into the Grove/BeverlyCenter (both alternatives having the obviously desired spur into Century City)?
At the recent Santa Monica public meeting, the preference for Wilshire was reported by observers to be for a direct line (as that would, of course, be faster Downtown.)
The BeverlyCenter/Cedar Sinai would still be served by a Santa Monica/LaCienega alignment even with a direct Wilshire run. I guess the real question about the Grove Spur is whether it is worth building the Purple Line to the Grove with the delay in travel time that it would cause.
So.CA.TA’s position is a combination of a couple of your presumptions as well as factors I have previously stated.
1. The Wilshire alignment has the highest stand-alone ridership, even without factoring in the existing ridership to and from Wilshire/Western Station.
2. The spur to serve the Grove does not substantially improve the ridership when measured against the potential loss of ridership from those who — logically or not — would not use the subway because of because of the delay in travel time to deviate.
3. To qualify for federal funds, whatever alignment is chosen for the EIR/EIS has to come in within the relatively narrow range of cost-effectiveness, and any deviation or branch increases the probability of it falling outside that range.
4. We supported the alignment back when it was to be called the Orange Line (before Waxman stuck his nose into it) and we have seen no reason to change that position.
That’s pretty much it, in a nutshell.
As dickish as this is gonna sound: if you can’t hack walking the half-mile from the Grove/Farmer’s Market or Television City to a Wilshire/Fairfax station, you’re just not cut out for public transportation anyway. During the first year of my PhD, I walked the same distance from my parking garage (PSB) to Lewis Hall every day.
Here’s a question: is a Wilshire/Fairfax-to-Century City alignment via Burton Way completely out of the picture for any reason? I don’t recall having seen that, most Wilshire/San Vicente diversion proposals instead using Beverly or 3rd. I ask only because Burton’s median is wide enough that the subway could even be built as cut-and-cover along that mile or so, and would capture some of the additional ridership of a northern diversion but would be easier to engineer and have less length.
The Grove makes for an attractive target because everybody knows about it, but there’s substantial business development at Wilshire and Fairfax. If the folks at the Grove decide they want on board (pun intended), they can arrange their own shuttle, faux streetcar, rickshaw, or teleportation device. Yes, the walk is a little too far to attract discretionary riders, but really, how many people are we talking about here? Eventually the 780 will get beefed up even further anyhow.
I personally think that Kymberleigh and SoCaTa are dead on. When we have enough trouble building one desperately needed line, why kill the project by building two?
Dan, this kind of of re-routing works in New York because there are large numbers of service connections, unused tunnels, etc. under NYC that allow for re-routing, at least so long as the IRT problem isn’t involved. But even in NYC it gets messy (look at the re-build of Canal St, the Fulton transfer station, or the chaos surrounding the Moynihan Station, it’s a nightmare). I get why you’re so gung-ho for so many lines, but money doesn’t grow on trees and this is still a city that has to fight for every inch of subway construction – there comes a point where it gets to be like the Other Damien and his quixotic Expo lawsuit. This isn’t like the Green Line – the Wilshire Line will be successful with or without a Santa Monica spur.
That I support a Santa Monica Blvd./La Cienega alignment does not make me “quixotic”. There are many other people who support this alignment as well. In fact, a significant number of people support BOTH a Wilshire and Santa Monica alignment as I do, and the size of that support is a major reason why two of the finalist alternatives have BOTH. So I hardly think advocating a line I believe in is quixotic. When I start advocating a Malibu subway under PCH, then you can call me quixotic.
I have no doubts that a Wilshire alignment would be successful on its own. I just don’t agree that it SHOULD be on its own. Reasonable people can disagree on this.
I disagree with your premise that advocating a Santa Monica Blvd. alignment will “kill” the Wilshire alignment. At best, we’ll get both. At worst, we’ve moved Santa Monica Blvd. up the priority scale.
I refer you again to what David Mieger, Project Manager stated, “What was surprising to us is that adding Santa Monica Boulevard to the Wilshire route, in compliment to one another, it works [from a feasibility, cost and ridership perspective].”
What would be foolish would be waiting until Wilshire was up and running to the beach before starting to advocate for a Santa Monica line. We’d be so far down the list by that time it would never happen. The MTA has gotten many people’s hopes up with the possibility of both a Santa Monica Blvd. and Wilshire alignment, I hope that they will pick Alternative #11, but I hope that even if they go with one of the Wilshire only proposals, they will see the need to keep a SantaMonica/LaCienega alignment alive as a separate project.
I shall continue to advocate for a Santa Monica Blvd./La Cienega alignment. Whether it comes now or comes later, it will come eventually.
Gandhi – “First they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
but I hope that even if they go with one of the Wilshire only proposals, they will see the need to keep a SantaMonica/LaCienega alignment alive as a separate project.
As to that, I agree, and I’m sorry if I came off too harshly – I just see how long it’s taken to get this far – it may work from a feasibility standpoint, but eventually we’re going to have to go to the voters and get money, and I worry that the price tag for a massive Wilshire/Santa Monica + maybe La Cienega alignment all at once may kill the whole project. It’s great that Metro is finally putting this forward, but I guess I’m too much of a municipal politics geek – we can plan it all day but eventually we’re going to have to go to voters across the County to get the money for this. But it’s also important for people to have the vision to see bigger ideas happen, I don’t want to undervalue that as well.
Another question: why couldn’t a Santa Monica Boulevard line merge into the Red Line west of Hollywood/Highland? It could follow an alignment very close to that of the old Sunset and Hollywood lines on the PERR: east along SMB past La Cienega to the Holloway junction, turning north at Crescent Heights and then east again at Sunset, then using the old “Hollywood Slash” from Gardner east past La Brea?
Engineering issues of having to close the station to build the connection needed to do that since after the Hollywood/Highland Station the Red Line curves northward.
The MTA is pretty clear it seems that H/H won’t be reconfigured to allow a direct Red Line extension down Santa Monica Blvd. from east-west.
I’m sort of surprised the MTA didn’t pick the portion of not-selected Alternative #9 that had a direct one-seat ride from North Hollywood to SMB to Century City, by-passing the H/H station. It makes a Sepulveda line even more of a necessity.
At some point, transit travel between the Valley and the Westside will have to be addressed, from top to bottom, both rail and bus.
IMHO bypassing H&H is a non-starter – it’s one of the busiest stations in the system, for tourists, for locals going to work, and for all of the housing that’s cropping up in the area. Even if they were able to provide adequate service to H&H, the sheer volume of confusion that would result would be monumental – look at how many illiterate birdbrains get on the Purple Line and then throw a temper tantrum at Wilshire/Normandie because they’re on the wrong line.
There’s no reason not to do a BART or Wilshire/Vermont-style timed transfer at H&H – Metro runs its subways with German levels of efficiency, they can hit timed transfers consistently. I live out on the Purple Line and I see a trip from here to Hollywood as basically one trip, the transfer happens so quickly – although it does take me away from my book or Nintendo for about 60 seconds ;p.
A Sepulveda line seems inevitable, and it seems independent of the other rail lines – this is also good because we don’t have to pick a mode right now – it will have perpendicular intersections with Purple, Expo, and Green, as well as and any other service that crops up in the middle, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be designed to inter-operated with either the LRT modes or the subway modes. They also leave themselves open to convert the Orange Line to LRT when that becomes necessary and making Sepulveda a spur off that route – or even turning the Orange Line LRT into a NoHo/Sepulveda line (an upside-down L shape) and running BRT west of Sepulveda.
In short, I think they’re going about it the best way they can, short of hitting every single state lottery on the same day. Keep in mind that once they start extending the line to the Westside, a whole lot of people are going to discover that LA has a subway and support for the system will grow.
If the transfers are timed and run efficiently, that will work.
Man, those German trains are efficient, coming in exactly on the dot. Makes me proud to be German.
Side note: I once took an overnight train from Paris to Berlin. That was quite the comfortable and fun ride.
They already do down here – except for one small gap around 7:30pm, when the schedules change to evening service rather than rush hour, the Red/Purple transfer at W/V happens seamlessly. A timed transfer on a street-running LRT line is unrealistic, but a Santa Monica line will be grade-separated. The Green Line, fully grade separated, is another they’ll be able to do timed transfers with – it runs with the same level of efficiency. So while a transfer at H&H isn’t ideal, it’s doable, and it’s better than the alternative, which is to say skipping the station – it’s just too important to the system.
I think it’s just a question of how far after the station a Y-junction could be installed. course, this all depends on whether there are buildings overhead, yada yada. Nothing’s impossible here–it’s just a question of whether it’s worth the cost of the engineering work.
I have no sense of direction underground, so let me ask: how far westward along Hollywood does the Hollywood/Highland station platform extend? The northward turn doesn’t begin until west of La Brea.
EDIT: Actually, no, never mind, Kymberleigh answered my question:
The other reason, which has gotten lost in the discussion, why a branch at Hollywood/Highland won’t work is that you split the service frequency twice.
Already, half the service goes north as the Red Line and half the service goes west as the Purple Line from Wilshire/Vermont Station. If you introduce another branch at Hollywood/Highland, you end up with 25% on each branch. That would end up underserving both West Hollywood and the Valley, and as a result would never pass muster with the feds in terms of cost-effectiveness.
Kymberleigh: Excellent point – it’s a lose/lose. Either service would be cut or we’d be risking a Metro Meltdown, like when San Francisco discovered that the Market subway could only handle 5 lines running at rush hour headways when it tried to put a 6th (T-Third) through the subway last year. That was quite the mess – they never fully recovered, they’ve interlined the K-Ingleside and T-Third, probably permanently, or at least until the Central Subway under Stockton removes T-Third from Market service.
Well, a second heavy rail service between DTLA and the Westside isn’t really all that important, when you get down to it; the finished Purple Line and Expo Phase II would provide an awful lot of service. Perhaps an SMB subway through WeHo should actually stay on Santa Monica Boulevard all the way to Sunset Junction, then continue down Sunset to Union Station and perhaps even to the County Hospital/USC Health Sciences Campus. I doubt we’d see that until 2030, though.
Now, what should get some attention is how to extend heavy rail service down Vermont, all the way to I-105. I suspect the Wilshire/Vermont station problem will only be resolvable by building a second Wilshire/Vermont station, perhaps at the southeast corner, and building a tunnel for transfers. The existing subway tunnel between Vermont/Beverly and Vermont/Wilshire would have to be rebuilt to widen to four tracks with the center tracks diving down to a second tunnel, which would be a major PITA to engineer but nowhere near as difficult or disruptive as completely rebuilding the existing Wilshire/Vermont station to accommodate trains going three different directions.
Peter McFerrin:
That’s kind of my thinking, except I’d rather see a SMB subway go northeast after Sunset Junction, eventually running underneath Brand Blvd and serving the dense residential and office population of Glendale.
Robb, that’s kinda my thinking too–but with an additional tunnel allowing direct Glendale-to-Union Station service. Essentially, a big three-way interchange somewhere along Sunset between the Junction and Glendale Boulevard.
When you get down to it, vision for Los Angeles’ heavy rail network looks something like the urban (i.e., the District + Arlington) portions of the Washington Metro, with two lines running on most tunnels in the system.
Well, the first stage of either of those ideas is building the Santa Monica / La Cienega line built between Hollywood/Highland and the Purple Line (or Expo). I agree that the LaBrea/SantaMonica station should be built in such a way to allow for a possibly eastbound. extension.
I’ve heard the Brand extension from Sunset Junction also discussed as part of a West end extension of the Silver Line project from Downtown.
It’s easy to forget that this is all pie-in-the-sky stuff for now.
Well, hey, Metro invited us to “Imagine…”
It’s a better mental activity than counting all the potholes that throw me out of my seat on the Rapid 720.
http://takethemetro.blogspot.com
Check out John’s “Ditch the Car, Take the Metro” blog. He’s done some really interesting imagining of recreating the L.A. transit system.