MetroRiderLA

From the LA Times:

The Federal Transit Administration announced today that it would award $23.3 million over the next two years to help fund bus lanes on a portion of Wilshire Boulevard through the heavily congested Westside.

The lanes will be used during the morning and evening rush hours and would stretch from the Santa Monica-Los Angeles boundary to Valencia Street, which is just west of downtown Los Angeles.

At which point our resident anti-rail ideologue promptly starts cheering. But wait, my dear ideologue friend…

The project does not include the part of Wilshire that traverses the city of Beverly Hills.

That funny noise you may hear is me banging my head on my desk. As basically anyone who has taken the 720 or 920 down Wilshire can tell you (and probably at a fairly high decibel level), at least as between the Pacific and Vermont, the part through Beverly Hills is by far the worst, by far the slowest, and, along with the 405, the source of the delays along Wilshire. Whether or not it’s the fault of BH or Century City is open for debate but irrelevant. The worst traffic along Wilshire is in BH, and if you don’t have them along for this project, then you’re wasting money. Bus-only lanes won’t solve the 405 on-ramp problem, and the lanes don’t go through BH, which is the 20-series’s choke point.

Metro, take your $3.7m, put it in the piggy bank, politely return Washington’s funds and either (a) shelve the project and build the subway, or (b) wait until you have Mayor Delshad along for the bus ride.

So, per Dan’s suggestion in the earlier post, I bring you - the LAX-specific post! Use to discuss any bright ideas for making getting to LAX slightly less painful.

Personally, I’d like to see teleportation devices put in the Theme Building. I mean, it looks like a spaceship anyhow.

In order to keep some basic order here, I’m suggesting that we relocate the discussion from below regarding the feasability and desireability of a Green Line extension, which appears to be the hot topic of the month, and to do so, I’m basically re-posting my last comment from below to kick-start things. (more…)

For Koreatown residents, the last few months have just been a Disaster. Yes, a Disaster. Capital D.

This Disaster comes about because of the bizarre amount of track work that needs to be done between MacArthur Park and Vermont/Beverly. On most weekday nights, a “diversion is in effect” on the Purple Line, one which diverts the Purple Line out of existence and turns it into a very heavy DASH shuttle. The usual Disaster involves running Red Line service like usual, while running The Subway Formerly Known as the Purple Line as a shuttle between Western and Vermont, stopping at the wrong platforms on the westbound segment.

The confusion this Disaster creates is somewhere between “unbelievable” and “insurmountable.” Sometimes, Metro announces the Disaster over the intercom. Sometimes, you can even understand the announcement. Sometimes, the Disaster is announced via the worthless LED screens. Sometimes, said announcement is even accurate - it regularly states that the Disaster will only occur on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, yet the Disaster occurs with regularity on Wednesday nights, including last night.

Inquiries as to what, precisely, brought this about have led nowhere. Metro appears disinclined to explain precisely what needs to be done in the Downtown segments of the subway which requires such a routing. Quite honestly, in the time that the Disaster has been going on, they could have built an underground five-star hotel between Westlake and Vermont.

Usually, not everybody understands what’s going on. Announcements are usually only in English, and often there are people who are, for example, not regular riders, or from out of town, and they invariably don’t understand the scale of the Disaster. Most nights I’ve been caught in the unflinching jaws of the Disaster, I’ve had to give detailed explanations to at least one person, and because it seems that Metro rank-and-file are not being told, precisely, what precipitated the Disaster, train drivers are themselves understandably becoming irritated, and their patience with questions has worn thin in recent weeks.

So, the question I therefore put to you. Does anyone have the slightest clue as to what’s going on?

My concern is that Metro is doing this because ridership east of Vermont may be low due to the relative lack of late-night attractions in Downtown. This may well be the case, and this may be a logical solution to the problem. However, they’re going to have to indicate a permanent diversion such as this on all maps, and they’re going to have to start using the correct platforms for westbound trains, because signage is only worth using if it is always accurate.

Can anyone shine some light on this issue? And for the love of God, can Metro start putting this on metro.net so that people can figure it out before they leave for the day? I’ve put in comments to Metro about this before, to have them apologize and assert that they will start putting the announcement on the website. Well, if anyone in the Taj Mahal is reading, I don’t see anything about the Disaster on the Rail Service Alerts page yet.

So the LA Times is now reporting (whether by skillful reporting or by error is beyond me - can someone who has the time to attend these meetings tell me?) that instead of the “Purple Line,” LA is considering building the “Pink Line” first. (Pink line being shorthand for our prior discussions about a route that branched at H&H, went down to Santa Monica Boulevard by some fashion, and continued straight to Santa Monica).

Again, this is just my personal opinion, but I have to say, this is a pretty fantastically bad idea.

I very much like the idea of a “pink line” and think that it will help complete the circuit in the Westside; Expo, Purple, and Pink would, with the possible addition of a Sepulveda LRT, create a comprehensive rail system throughout Downtown and the Westside.

But I’m not at all convinced at the concept of building the “Pink Line” first. it’ll basically create a sideways “S” across the Westside; I’m not at all convinced that someone would want to go from Union Station, to Wilshire/Vermont, up into Los Feliz, over to Hollywood/Highland, only to cut back southwest again to Santa Monica. Anyone smarter than me want to calculate how long that would take? I would have to think over an hour. Starts to make the #920 or the Santa Monica #10 look attractive, and to people who drive now, won’t get many people out of their cars, aside from folks in WeHo, who clearly benefit.

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[tags]expo line, metro, los angeles, light rail[/tags]

Note: This post in no way reflects the views of all contributors, and certainly not the entire MetroRiderLA community. Aim all flames at me personally.

I have a great amount of respect for all of the other transit ideas and advocacy that Damien has. But I’m sorry to say - this Farmdale Avenue “issue” couldn’t be presented in a worse fashion or at a worse time.

Having said that, this isn’t even an issue. But let’s talk procedurally first and then substantively.

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