MetroRiderLA

[tags]los angeles, gold line, light rail, east los angeles, curbed la, militant angeleno[/tags]

And they mean it!
Credit: Militant Angeleno

Curbed L.A. has more pictures of the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension — this time, with some shots of the underground stations. Come for the pictures, stay for Curbed’s trademark high-quality commentary. Two days before this article appeared, Curbed had a query about construction progress.

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite militant Angeleno, umm … Militant Angeleno, tells about a recent trip to The Real Eastside. He also has an eyewitness account of Gold Line construction, encounters an apparent epidemic of duck molestation in an East L.A. park, and tries a Mexican addition to his list of Southern California’s ethnic iced desserts.

See also:

• MetroRiderLA: Eastside Gold Line nude pix (safe for work)

[tags]california, urban planning, paul shigley, california planning & development report[/tags]

Paul Shigley, editor of California Planning & Development Report, is going for the trifecta. He brought you California’s best big-city downtowns, and followed it up wth California’s best downtowns for mid-sized cities. In what is sure to be urban planners’ equivalent of the Star Wars Trilogy, Shigley closes the series with California’s best small-town downtowns.

Small towns, over 377 in the Golden State per Shigley, are populations of 75,000 or less.  Shigley welcomes comments on his blog, and reader comments are weighted to the list that will be released next month. Go over there and give him your what-for. Posting here would be nice, too.

See also MetroRiderLA’s award-nominated coverage of the Best Downtowns trilogy:

• A big steaming piece of Shig
• Shig happens
• How we stand in California
• We’re number four!

[tags]los angeles, red line, transit oriented development, nbc, universal city, north hollywood[/tags]

Rendering of MetroStudio@Lankershim, the proposed headquarters of NBC/Universal. Clicking on the picture goes to the project web site.

North Hollywood was in the news for L.A.’s biggest, boldest development at the junction of the Metro Red and Orange lines. Even that $1 billion investment is now dwarfed, in less than two weeks, by an even bigger, bolder plan by a big, bold media company. NBC/Universal is consolidating its operations, and the Peacock is leaving Burbank for Campo de Cahuenga, right above the Universal City station! And this one promises to be about $3 billion!

Google News has several news stories on the NBC move. Also, the developer has launched a site for the project, titled MetroStudio@Lankershim. Curbed LA has been all abuzz with several NBC-move posts, including this statement left in its inbox:

UNIVERSAL CITY - The NBC relocation atop a Red Line station has inspired several of you to wax poetic about the realization of the LA subway as a viable system. “Would it make sense for either Google or Yahoo to have a presence there rather than in Santa Monica… Also a good time to rethink about the extensions of the Red Line subway north, as well as the Purple Line to Santa Monica to allow the suits on the west side an opportunity to get to the offices in Universal. Now LA is starting to understand how [transit oriented developments] can really be beneficial.

(more…)

[tags]green la girl, los angeles times, emerald city, christopher hawthorne[/tags]

You go, girl!

Siel is now the Green L.A. Times Girl. Her hard work and insight on her own site, Green L.A. Girl, led her to become the Times’s enviro-blogger on Emerald City. This is a tremendous opportunity for a well-respected and popular blogger. Siel is very active with all things eco-friendly, and her enthusiasm is incredible. Siel has worked with MetroRiderLA on the Silver Streak ride report and the PSFK conference.

MetroReaders, let’s offer congrats to Siel for her new high-profile blog. And from MetroRiderLA, a rose:

—<-@

The items on L.A. Times are consolidated on one post, so while we got the positive out of the way first, the tone becomes much darker for the following two items. One pertains to architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, and the other does not dignify a response other than to note that it is — without hyperbole — a compositional Chernobyl and a crime against journalism, the English language and thought.

(more…)

[tags]los angeles, mta, red line, orange line, san fernando valley, north hollywood, transit oriented development[/tags]

This part of land is not going to remain so empty when a billion-dollar development goes into NoHo.
Credit: FredCamino via Flickr

North Hollywood is about to get one of L.A.’s largest and most expensive transit oriented developments.

Metro approved the NoHo Art Wave, a $1 billion plan by Lowe Enterprises last week that would bring 562 new housing units, nearly 1.75 million square feet of retail and 6,200 parking spaces around the terminals of the Red and Orange lines.

L.A. political blogger Mayor Sam said the project was railroaded through — no pun intended — with minimal input from the community.

See the following links:

• Tribune properties
  • Los Angeles Times: Large transit-oriented development OKd for North Hollywood
  • KTLA-Channel 5: $1 Billion Development Proposed for North Hollywood
  • Times’s Bottleneck Blog: North Hollywood: transit hub
• Los Angeles Business Journal: Lowe Lands NoHo Art Wave Project
• San Fernando Valley Business Journal: MTA Picks Developer Lowe For NoHo Project
• Los Angeles Daily News: Mixed-use project near transit hub moves ahead
• Bloomberg.com: Lowe Selected to Develop Los Angeles Subway Project
• Curbed LA: $1 Billion North Hollywood Project Approved

[tags]santa monica, big blue bus, green la girl, leed[/tags]

Credit: Green L.A. Girl. Clicking on the image goes to “Big Blue Bus breaks ground on green maintenance facility.”

Siel, the Green L.A. Girl went to Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus’s celebration for expanding its bus yard, and making it more environmentally friendly.

The downtown Santa Monica yard is expanding to 66,000 square feet, as the agency is planning to buy more — and possibly larger articulated — buses. Santa Monica city council members and employees of the muni grabbed big blue shovels — no, really — and dug into the big brown dirt to kick off construction for a big green bus yard.

Siel says:

Green components range from using recycling construction materials to water-efficient landscaping with a gray water and storm water management system to using light-colored concrete and roofing to keep things cooler. Plus, recycled carpets and other items’ll be used in the offices, which’ll have dual glazed, low-e glazing and no [volatile organic compounds] off-gassing materials.

The city hopes to get the yard LEED certified — a set of standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council for a construction project to use energy-efficient and environmentally friendly materials and methods — by the completion of construction in 2010.

Interestingly, Santa Monica is not in the lead with LEED. Santa Clarita Transit has the first LEED-certified bus yard in Southern California, completed in 2005.