German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
ChineseMetro Unveils Subway to the Sea: Plus Metro Pink Line, Special Edition!
Tonight at the lovely Santa Monica Library, Metro formally revealed the plan for the Subway to the Sea.
Of the alternatives examined in the previous round of scoping, Alternatives 1 and 11 survived. The BRT option was killed for lack of capacity, all non-subway options were killed for lack of capacity, cost, or lack of local support, and the diversion up to the Grove was killed because, in their analysis, the increase in travel time would create a decrease in ridership. I speak for myself alone when I say that I tend to agree, based on what they showed us. They’re correct in saying that a long train can’t turn on a dime, and the difficulties inherent in trying to make the sharp turns onto Fairfax, Beverly, and then back onto La Cienega, add time and cost an otherwise easy route. Follow below the flip for a lengthy report.
Note that they didn’t yet have handouts for the project, so I may be in error here, and will update tomorrow if so.
Alternative 1:
Alternative 11:
At any rate. Alternative 1 is the standard Wilshire route, with stops at all of the usual subjects - a potential stop at Crenshaw, definite stops at La Brea, Fairfax, La Cienega, Beverly Drive, Century City (exact location to be determined), Westwood or UCLA (exact location to be determined), Bundy, and then into Santa Monica to stop at 26th, 16th, and 4th. There’s a little bit of a Spaghetti Junction between La Cienega and Santa Monica, but this largely reflects both uncertainty where a Century City station would go and lingering questions as to whether or not the Westwood subway station is on Wilshire or at the base of UCLA. There is also a question about precisely how the route would be tunneled in this region, due to the fact that the route would lose the street grid between La Cienega and Westwood during the Century City diversion.
I asked Jody Litvak (name may be butchered, if so, I apologize) after the meeting about the Crenshaw stop, and she informed me that the issue at Wilshire/Crenshaw was low ridership, as well as the fact that the Crenshaw Corridor project will be BRT above Expo (translation - the rail line, if it ever exists, will exist solely between the Metro Green Line and Expo/Crenshaw, and the 710 will continue to serve Crenshaw above this). I think they are hesitant to put a Crenshaw stop in, and apparently the Crenshaw BRT project will extend either to La Brea or Western, so I think we can assume that the Crenshaw stop is not highly favored. Again, speaking solely for myself as a Koreatown resident, I tend to agree - I don’t think a Crenshaw stop is necessary, especially if they resolve the Crenshaw Corridor problem. Having said that, I think the Crenshaw project is ill-conceived and potentially stillborn - it may well end up as a back-burner BRT project. Knowing that it will only run as far north as Exposition Boulevard only reinforces this belief. I’m just not sure that the ridership numbers they run are going to justify the thing. Crenshaw is not far along in the study process and, to my knowledge, they have not yet run the ridership numbers.
The second alternative, which the vast majority of people spoke in favor of (at least, the people who both a) spoke and b) had full control over their mental faculties), was Alternative 11. Alternative 11 takes Alternative 1 and then tacks on a WeHo subway. It’s not quite the traditional “Santa Monica Pink Line” so I’m going to call it the WeHo line - calling it the Santa Monica subway would be a bit like calling the Red Line the Vermont subway.
The WeHo subway begins at Hollywood/Highland, at a platform either under or adjacent to the H&H platform - current plans call for a transfer inside the H&H station (will explain later). I also heard speculation about running the WeHo subway from the same platforms as the Hollywood Red Line, but I’m not seeing this as likely from what I saw today.
From H&H, the subway runs down Highland and cuts over to a station at Santa Monica/La Brea, and then Santa Monica/Fairfax. The next station will either be at Santa Monica and La Cienega or Santa Monica and San Vicente, but will then jog down to a “Beverly Center Area” station. The subway then heads down La Cienega, but then re-joins the Wilshire line just after La Cienega to stop next at Beverly - translation, La Cienega is not a transfer station, and will only be served by the Purple Line, not the WeHo subway.
From here on west, the line is identical to Alternative 1.
The justification for the forced transfer at H&H is that if Metro tries to originate 3 lines from Union Station, then all 3 branches of the subway are going to take a hit in terms of headways. Right now, the subway runs every 5 minutes at rush hour through the Wilshire/Vermont to Union Station portion, splitting to provide service every 10 minutes on the branches. The concern is that headways on the outer portions would suffer if they have to route a third line through the Downtown subway. Speaking personally, I’m not sure that I disagree, and given the fact that Metro has mastered the Art of the Timed Transfer at Wilshire/Vermont, I’m not necessarily opposed to timed transfers at H&H, assuming that they are able to affect an entirely underground transfer for Valley-West LA traffic. But this is one issue where there is no right answer.
I am, however, concerned about the La Cienega issue when the WeHo subway is added in (which seems likely - Metro spoke very highly of the WeHo subway, and I think this is what they’re aiming for, although she also stressed that they need to try to way to get a more accurate measure of potential ridership and to find a way to lower costs in order to sell the WeHo subway to the FTA). I presently fail to understand why they couldn’t create a station essentially identical to Wilshire/Vermont, and use sweeping turns to bring both lines into the same La Cienega platform. Would these turns really be too expensive? The next station is at Beverly, which is slightly further than the distance between Wilshire/Vermont and Wilshire/Western.
Some comment on the public comment:
Most comments were supportive. We had a couple nutjobs. One of them, who got openly laughed at, claimed he was from NYC, then said that he no longer believed in subways because he was sold on personal rapid transit - people busted out laughing as he described cable cars whizzing over people’s houses. Just keep dreaming, dude, keep dreaming.
Another nutjob was this guy in a suit from the SGV (why he hauled all the way out to Santa Monica to make a fool of himself was beyond me.) He gets up and starts talking about how Metro put up a screen showing highly reduced travel times to Westwood from Covina, and then proceeds to mount his High Horse about how Metro “gave up” $320m in federal funding for the Gold Line extention. I have to admit that I chuckled/laughed/snorted, and people behind me started muttering “yeah right” and “bullshit.” He wasn’t well received. From his attire and demeanor, I tend to think that he was a lobbyist or minor SGV bureaucrat. And frankly, the more I hear from the SGV, the less I want to hear from them. Their harsh tactics are not winning friends or influence people at Metro or in the community. We did not have any BRU cultists in attendance.
Anyhow, that’s basically the plans as things now stand. It sure looks like this is moving forward, but time will tell. Funding is the huge issue, and if the Legislature solves the budget crisis by upping the sales tax, selling Measure R to LA County will become extremely difficult - politically, if the State uses a sales tax increase to end the current budget impasse, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Metro ask the Governor to veto the bill in order to re-group and reassess their options, of which there may not be many.
[Note: An earlier version of this post erroneously referenced a Wilshire/Robertson station due to an error in my notes. No such station exists in the current incarnation of Alternatives 1 or 11 - thank you, GreenLAGirl, for posting diagrams of the new plans so that I could correct this - the diagrams in this post are courtesy her great website.]
Discussion
You can leave a response, or trackback. You can also subscribe to the comments feed.
Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Thanks for the nice summary Aaron. If you, or anyone else, wants this presentation or any of the other study material, it’s available at the Study website at http://www.metro.net/westside.Everyone is also welcome to join us at any of the remaining 4 meetings tonight (Thursday), Saturday afternoon, Monday or Wednesday. They can also join us the “Metro Westside Extension” group on Facebook.
Jody Litvak
Metro Westside Extension Study Team
While on the whole I like this I’m not sure I’m happy about the “forced transfer” at the Hollywood/Highland station. I would think a better solution would be to do a “double Y” configuration; branch off of the Red Line between the Hollywood/Vine & Hollywood/Highland stations heading toward Santa Monica with another branching off between the Universal City & Hollywood/Highland stations also heading toward Santa Monica. That way you could run Red Line trains between Union Station & Santa Monica and also run, let’s call it Silver Line, trains between North Hollywood & Santa Monica. This gives increased flexibility and let’s you keep 5 minute rush hour headways on all of the lines. There would be an increase in tunneling costs for the extra tunnel but this could probably be offset by the elimination of the cost of “double-decking” the Hollywood/Highland Station.
Steve: that’s another few miles of tunnel, and would require closing the red line for quite awhile, which would depress ridership pretty badly, which would also hurt our chance of getting federal funds since we still need to either show higher ridership or lower costs than the current model suggests for the WeHo subway to happen at all. Some of that tunneling you describe would necessarily be under the Santa Monica Mountains, which I doubt anyone wants to re-visit, and I think the Valley would throw a fit if you closed their only subway line for a year or so.
A lot of people were kvetching that Metro had, back in the ’90s, canceled the non-revenue branch off H&H that would have allowed a westward extension of the Hollywood Bl. subway; it happened at a time when people thought that subway construction in LA was dead, due to Henry Waxman and the Hollywood Bl. sinkholes. Unfortunately, if you ask me, this probably foreclosed any solution that doesn’t involve a transfer. Although they had talked about the potential “double-decking” the Hollywood/Highland station, my feeling is that it’s more likely that they’re going to build two parallel platforms with a connection at the mezzanine level so that they can do this w/o closing down the subway or re-opening construction at H&H, which would see strong opposition from the community due to tourism etc. Nobody wants to do that, I don’t think.
I think it’s important to stress that the WeHo subway isn’t going to get off the ground unless they can find new efficiencies, so any kind of massive re-build in Hollywood is not going to find new efficiencies :(.
The Century City station should be located at the Metro bus layover yard located at the corner of Olympic and Century Park West. It’s between the Mall and MGM tower. It’s the perfect location for it… there is nothing on it right now (so you can do open air dig), and Metro already owns the land.
The Westwood station should be located just outside UCLA. It will be much easier to get the land and access from the State than private property owners. There is no room on Wilshire and Westwood Blvd for surface exits unless you start knocking down buildings. But if you put the Station underground at Westwood Village near the Medical School, there are lots of room above ground for access to the station.
aaron, please note. the opinions expressed by one nutjob and one county supervisor do not reflect the opinions of the entire san gabriel valley.
i love my home town, but i hate being clumped with the crazys in glendora
more on point im interested to see how they will tackle building a box station for the weho line at h+h. would they tear up the street there to build a station or would they try to build it entirely underground with minimal surface impact.
seems like this would be the biggest hurtle. well that is aside from finding money for it…
One needs only look to successful urban rail to know the right thing.
List of some Boston MBTA stops: Northeastern, Boston College, Harvard, Kendall/MIT, Boston College, JFK/UMass.
Get it?
bzcat: that’s an excellent point and idea. I hadn’t known that existed before, and now it makes me wonder why it’s even an open question as to where to put the Century City station. But I’m not too familiar with that area.
Jeremy: Oh don’t worry, when I said I didn’t want to hear from the SGV, I meant the reps in the Assembly who are screwing with this thing. It’s an entirely porkbarrel thing, and I doubted this guy was a resident - he was involved in SGV governance in some form or fashion.
Rob: You may not be familiar with this since you don’t live in LA, but there’s huge office buildings at Westwood and Wilshire that are starting to rival DTLA’s density, and most of UCLA’s student trips don’t go east or west - they go south into student apartments in Palms. Having said that, I imagine they’re going to consider some kind of splitting of the baby and the stop might be at, say, at that 5-point intersection at Kinross a la Davis Square in Somerville, which would allow easy access to both the business community along Wilshire as well as UCLA.
Plus, Rob, the T is not an entire success — all their rail lines go through downtown Boston and right now they’re talking of building an “urban ring” to make suburb-to-suburb trips easier. This is what Metro should not do — it should not route all their lines into DTLA.
I don’t understand how my residence affects my analysis. Nevertheless it is worse than hubris to imply address equals either expertise or any presumed right to post. As a participant in and subject to the whims of SCAG I demand to know why I am less entitled.
After you correct this specific abuse maybe we can discuss the rest of your errors. Pardon if I don’t hold my breath.
Rob: I was providing you with information as background to Metro’s plans. It’s a serious statement - a lot of the density and new development in Westwood has been a fairly recent thing, and I don’t have the data necessary to know how many UCLA student-generated trips are east-west. The structure of the Big Blue Bus’s UCLA service (which Metro has largely ceded to BBB and Culver CityBus) sure suggests to me that many trips are north/south into and out of Culver City and Palms - you can see from the Big Blue Bus map here. But I think everybody here agrees that service to UCLA can’t be to the exclusion of Wilshire and vice versa.
There’s some low density retail between Kinross and Le Conte that will probably be looked at for negotiated purchase or eminent domain. The shops along Westwood may see benefits to negotiating an agreement regarding giving Metro access to part of their parking lot at Westwood between Weyburn and Le Conte in order to make sure that arriving passengers end up smack in the middle of all of their retail, but that’s still close enough to both UCLA and Wilshire so as to provide service to both distinct needs - if I ran that mall, I’d sure love to have subway passengers come up an escalator or elevator and run smack into a Starbucks and Robek’s.
I think he is just merely pointing out the possibility that you “may not be familiar”, not accusing you of not being familiar.
In my opinion, I would agree with Aaron that it would be too difficult to put in station entrances at Wilshire & Westwood. But it wouldn’t be impossible to move it one block over to Lindbrook and Gayley, just north of Wilshire, where there is already an open parcel.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Westwood+Blvd,+Los+Angeles&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=56.899383,89.648437&ie=UTF8&ll=34.060575,-118.443679&spn=0.003684,0.005472&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=34.05878,-118.44392&panoid=B8QhDyVDqLR7Buud0Yufvw
Then again, a station at Le Conte/Westwood would be much closer to campus, but it will then miss the high rises on Wilshire Blvd. Would it not be feasible to put one station near Wilshire/Westwood, then one at the south end of UCLA?
I’d say put one closest to Wilshire/Westwood, and run a frequent circulator type service to campus. I’m thinking the DC Circulator & 30’s buses between GWU/Foggy Bottom and Georgetown.
Actually, what I was thinking of would be to branch off of the existing Red Line fairly close to the H&H station, not at the midpoint between the stations. The total length of all four tunnels would probably be less that 2 miles. And while certain sections of track might need to be temporarily closed, you would probably be talking about minimal disruption during the actual tunnel breakthrough and laying of new switches. These would necessitate single track operation between Hollywood/Vine and North Hollywood but with proper scheduling and preparation could probably be accomplished in a very short time frame (a week or two for each section). I’m pretty sure a temporary ridership dip due to system construction wouldn’t effect any federal funds and the long term possibilities would more than outweigh any short term inconveniences.
Steve: thats a long way to only operate with one track
it takes an easy 5-10 min for that run in the redline. that means cutting back a whole trans worth of people in each direction
No, Steven. Aaron was being condescending and dismissive. I’ve lived in the area in question and also have gotten off every MBTA station I mentioned. Anyone else? Okay, now that it is absolutely and unquestionably confirmed that I am the ONLY person qualified by Aaron’s own criteria I shall proceed to lecture… No I won’t. That’s stupid. Almost as stupid as trying to dismiss my observation by claiming my residence disqualifies me from commenting.
Colleges and Universities are critically important places to put rail transit.
Rob Dawg: In the midst of your feigned indignation, you didn’t notice that I agreed with your underlying concept.
The distance from Wilshire/Westwood to Westwood/Le Conte is 0.3mi. As long as the stop doesn’t require passengers to cross Wilshire, the problem is really overblown and more of an issue of where Metro can find real estate. The UCLA campus is so big that UCLA provides shuttles anyhow, both between points south and Campus, as well as through Campus up the hill.
Maybe a bit too ambitious bit it seems kind of weird to me to be simultaneously studying a north/south route that goes from Highland into the Mid-City/Fairfax District and then another north/south route that goes from the Airport into the Mid-City/Crenshaw District without considering making them into one line. The transfer situation at H/H definitely makes that a bit trickier (no one wants a forced double transfer), but why not a line that goes from North Hollywood to the Airport with transfers available to the Red Line at H/H, the Purple Line at Fairfax or La Brea and the Expo Line at La Brea or Crenshaw?
Stephen:
Open parcel is not required for subway station. It’s only nice to have as it is the easiest way for construction (open air dig). Since Westwood is pretty much built up and Metro doesn’t own any land in the village, I’m pretty sure the station will end up under the streets right in the middle of Westwood Village (right under the intersection of Westwood and Kinross… at least that’s where I would put it). They’ll need access from UCLA’s campus during construction but that’s about it.
If Metro is thinking big here, they would try to develop the entire block of Westwood between UCLA and Wilshire as an underground shopping arcade - anyone who has used the subway system in Hong Kong, Taipei, or Singapore would know what I’m talking about… You would exit the subway and ride the escalator up one level to the shopping arcade, which will then take you to surface exits all along Westwood Blvd. The long term lease for the shopping area can then be used towards subway operation. I’m actually quite surprised that Metro hasn’t try this at 7th/Fig or Hollywood/Highland.
Malcolm:
The Crenshaw line is really mis-named now that it terminates at Expo. I’m not sure how long it’s going to be on Crenshaw since it doesn’t really take the length of Crenshaw, but it’s going to run down a rail ROW in Inglewood to LAX. So it’s not going to go particularly close to the Purple Line or WeHo Subway.
A description of the Crenshaw Line:
1) Shares a platform with Blue and Expo at Metro Center, continues on the Expo ROW until Expo and Crenshaw, until it turns south onto Crenshaw.
2) Continues south along Crenshaw until turning west onto Florence.
3) Continues west/southwest along Florence until Florence turns south to turn into Aviation Blvd.
4) Continues south along Aviation until the Green Line station.
The closest that the “WeHo Subway” will get to the Crenshaw Corridor is at La Cienega/Wilshire, which is about 5-6 miles away.
To put all of that into one sentence? The Crenshaw Corridor is really a fancy word for “branching a rail line south of Expo to create a 1-seat ride from DTLA to LAX.” This assumes that the thing ever exists, which I get the feeling the folks at Metro are doubting, but they seem to be going through the motions. Maybe the “1-seat ride from DTLA to LAX” saves it, who knows. I doubt that there could ever be enough ridership to continue heavy rail from Hollywood to LAX via Inglewood, and surface LRT north of Exposition is a planner’s nightmare due to density and the fact that Crenshaw narrows, it’s why the Crenshaw light rail line no longer goes to Wilshire. So they’re effectively two different projects for two different regions, which I think is appropriate.
Eventually, there’s going to be some kind of rail line down Sepulveda from the Valley to LAX, and that’s going to solve all of this, but that’s going to be an investment on the scale of the Subway to the Sea, so we may all be playing shuffleboard in Santa Barbara by then.
Aaron: Mmmm, I’m not so sure. If you look at the Crenshaw plans, the only reason that they’ve left north of Expo off the table for now is that they got a lot of input in the community process that people are more interested in a terminus at La Brea and Wilshire as opposed to Western and Wilshire. Yes, there’s issues with the narrow right of way, but those are no worse than the issues in the Leimert Park area.
Subways and light rail are not mutually exclusive terms, as evidenced by the 7th Street tunnel downtown and the proposed downtown connector. For that matter, neither are heavy rail and at-grade.
I would think it quite silly to spend a billion-plus on an entirely new line from DTLA to LAX if that’s the only purpose, when there’s already a line very close by that can be connected with a people mover going to all of the terminals. Maybe you’re right that the Crenshaw line is a pipe dream that will never happen. I wouldn’t be surprised.
But I do think there’s a compelling case for a north/south rail line that would connect the Valley, Hollywood, the Fairfax District, West Adams, Crenshaw, Inglewood and LAX. It would go directly underneath many of LA’s most high-density and walkable areas, and it would provide transfer points to three different east/west rail lines, and by extension, many of LA’s densest employment centers.
I don’t see a Sepulveda rail line ever happening. First, Sepulveda’s already congested so it can’t be on the surface. Active neighbors all along that route would kill anything overhead in a NY minute. That leaves a subway, and there’s hardly anyplace along the route dense enough to support subway. I’d put good money on a bet that that corridor will eventually be served by express buses in dedicated lanes on the 405 with construction allowing for stations and egress/ingress ease.
Malcolm: I’ve heard from Metro, including Jody Litvak on Tuesday night, that rail above Expo is just plain dead. Deader than a doornail. It was sure news to me because, like you, I thought they were simply re-routing it into La Brea or Western, so I confirmed it with her in person after the meeting. It’s completely dead (I sure hope I’m not misreporting this, this is my first time doing ‘news’ here instead of just commentary ;p). That may change, after all we’ve got Waxman supporting the subway, whoever thought that would happen? But right now, it’s dead.
I would think it quite silly to spend a billion-plus on an entirely new line from DTLA to LAX if that’s the only purpose, when there’s already a line very close by that can be connected with a people mover going to all of the terminals.
I totally and completely agree, and I think my inference here is that most people at Metro see the writing on the wall, which is why they’re not trying to co-ordinate the WeHo subway to transfer well with a line that will never exist. They’re going to do a ridership study that will probably show that this is a stupid idea, which will allow them to walk away from it with at least a plausible defense against the inevitable “environmental racism” charges that will be soon to follow.
As for Sepulveda, it’s too early to tell, but it’s just so important to have a connection from the Valley to the Westside. It seems it’s going to happen someday in some form or fashion, and yes, it will have zero stops between Ventura Bl. and UCLA, which may make it cheaper since it’s a straight tunnel for many miles. But Sepulveda from UCLA and points south is extremely dense (UCLA, Westwood businesses, retail at the Japanese community in Sawtelle, Culver City, etc.) not to mention connections to the Purple, Expo, and Green Lines, and the Valley connection would be a major commuter terminal.
I could definitely see a need for heavy rail subway line connecting the Westside and West Valley. The routing should be something like this:
LAX - Howard Hughes Center - Culver City/Fox Hills (Sepulveda/Slauson) - Palms (Venice/Overland) - Westside Pavilion/Expo line - West LA (Sawtelle/Olympic) - UCLA/Purple line - Sherman Oaks (Ventura/Sepulveda) - Van Nuys/Orange line
This will also leave open the possiblity that the line can extend to Northridge and South Bay at some point. Of course this is just a pipe dream… a subway line like this will cost just as much (if not more) than the Purple line extension to the sea.
What they should do is a one seat line from NoHo to the westside even if it takes a different tunnel and put the highly needed stop at the hollywood bowl.
Malcom: I don’t see a Sepulveda rail line ever happening.
What if the Sepulveda line were to be built next to the 405 on the extra piece of land that sits next to almost all freewas. Is this possible? Let say some LRT that runs above grade like the Gold line between Union Station and China town. Lets say from the Orange line to LAX.
Ideally you’d have the Santa Monica line split off from the Purple Line at Wilshire/Santa Monica, then continue along Santa Monica all the way downtown. I know, $$$$
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to branch off the existing Wilshire subway via Crenshaw, then continue along Crenshaw to Inglewood, then into the current
LAX transit center (96th and Sepulveda). However, that would be three
branches on the subway route (LA-North Hollywood, LA-Santa Monica, and LA-LAX). Assuming that the maximum headway on the subway is every 5 minutes, we would be “stuck” with 15-minute service on each branch…
Service to UCLA? Remember, UCLA is a big place, so, wherever you put the station, someone’s going to end up walking, or taking a shuttle bus….For the average student/faculty, placing the station near the Medical Center isn’t that much of an improvement from siting it at Wilshire/Westwood or thereabouts….also, the medical/science people
might start worrying about how the vibrations from the subway would
affect their experiments, etc…
This is all pretty interesting stuff.
The Hollywood/Highland transfer sounds fine, the La Cienega thing sounds kind of demented.
Obviously LA is a fairly unique city, but most other city’s subway systems make basic sense when seen from a map view. That La Cienega stop just doesn’t. It looks like a mistake on the map.
I think it bespeaks a more fundamental problem that just can’t be dealt with right now. Other cities like DC and San Francisco have long lines going all the way from one end of town to the other and then intersecting in the middle. They also don’t switch between heavy and light rail much. Instead, what’s happening here is building barely compatible fragments of lines. That WeHo line is weird looking. It looks like it should be intersecting the purple line and then continuing on to somewhere, but instead it’s just this little fraction.
I hope they find a way to do it because our subway system is desperate for more prime locations and stops, but I do wish the whole thing looked better planned, less compromised.
I haven’t kept myself updated on what’s been going on with the subway to the sea, so forgive me, but: has there any talks about making separate express tracks within the new subway lines?
Double tracking is probably a pipe dream in Los Angeles anytime in the near future. Metro has enough trouble getting the funding to build what they do, and double tracking would increase the cost significantly (although it probably will cost more/cause more problems in the future, but…).
Regarding UCLA vs. Wilshire/Westwood:
I think this ought to be a no-brainer. The vast majority of the people coming to Westwood are going to UCLA. We’re not just talking about the 36,000 enrolled students (grad and undergrad), we’re talking about the ~40,000 UCLA employees. The UCLA transportation office has stated that about 75,000 people come to and leave from UCLA campus every single day.
(for more on this statistic, there’s a video about transit to and from UCLA at Huell Howser’s website. Just click the streaming link below the picture of Huell at the link provided. The transportation office states the 75,000 person figure about 2/3 of the way through the video, when they are talking about partnerships with MTA.)
http://www.commutesmart.info/mycommute/huell.asp
Also, UCLA is one of the top 5 employers in Los Angeles County. http://www.laalmanac.com/employment/em21e.htm
At Wilshire and Westwood there are, what, 3 or 4 business-high-rises? Compare that to the dozens of similar sized department buildings on UCLA campus. We should put the subway station under Ackerman Union, near the center of campus. But Westwood/LeConte would still make more sense than Wilshire/Westwood.
Now, I agree that a good chunk of student traffic coming into UCLA is north-south, not east west, but they are not the only ones coming to campus, and there is also a good chunk of students living in the Santa Monica area to the west.
For Sepulveda, what they *should* do is steal the inner lanes of the freeway, and run a mostly-grade-level freeway median rail line. This could be done with Red Line or Blue Line technology, but Red Line tech is probably better in this case, for passenger volumes. On the north end, it would need to fly out of the freeway median on elevated structure for two stops: one near the Ventura Freeway, and one above the Orange Line stop. Large parking garages for park-and-rides would be necessary, probably at both locations.
On the south end, drop into tunnel and meet the Subway to the Sea, ideally merging both west and eastbound. I suggest meeting it between the UCLA and Bundy stations, and “through-running” the east half with the WeHo line. This could give five-minute frequency almost everywhere: alternate trains from Santa Monica would go to downtown and the Valley, alternate trains from the Valley would go to Santa Monica and West Hollywood, alternate trains from downtown would go to North Hollywood and Santa Monica.
Freeway median lines are not normally that great, but the problem with them is freeway median *stations*. This would have no freeway median stations; it would simply use the freeway median for the long, fast, station-free section. The freeway route would let the trains get quite fast without tunnelling; it’s straight enough and the grades are easily negotiable.