MetroRiderLA

[tags]los angeles, downtown los angeles, long beach, paul shigley[/tags]

Downtown Los Angeles skyline
Credit: latca via Flickr (Creative Commons license)

Metro’s librarian, who also maintains Los Angeles Transportation Headlines, found a July 18 blog entry from Paul Shigley, editor of the California Policy & Development Report. He ranked California’s best and worst big-city downtowns, on the entry of the same name. Most Angelenos would click on the link and expect to find Los Angeles ranked somewhere high on the worst side. But, no! Los Angeles ranked fourth-best. Two other Southern California cities beat L.A. out. San Diego tied for first, and Long Beach is third.

Regarding Los Angeles, Shigley said, “Yes, downtown L.A. has been on the comeback for, oh, 50 years. It’s still very much a work in progress and it’s not necessarily an inviting place after hours. But while the redevelopment work continues, a lively, incredibly international community has taken over much of downtown.” And for Long Beach, Shigley said, “For decades, downtown Long Beach was simply a place with potential. … But much of this has started to change in recent years. … There may be no West Coast downtown that is a more enjoyable place to be a pedestrian.”

Only one big city, defined by Shigley as having a population of 300,000 or more, made the worst list: Fresno. Shigley said, “It’s really not even close. Bakersfield, Oakland and Anaheim all have less-than-ideal downtowns, but none of those districts is as desperate, depressing and even threatening as downtown Fresno. The hideous 1970s office buildings are the least of the problems in Fresno’s core.”

After the jump, click on a city to take a Flickr tour of what these downtowns look like.

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

Construction continues on the Metro Gold Line extension to East Los Angeles. The Gold Line will cross the First Street bridge. Photo is looking west toward downtown L.A.
Credit: Alan Weeks, submitted to Curbed L.A.

Alan Weeks submitted a dozen photos of how Eastside Gold Line construction is proceeding, to Curbed L.A. Photos start from the bridge and continue to the end of the line at Atlantic Boulevard.

Clicking on the photo goes directly to “What a Half-Baked Rail Line Looks Like.” Curbed’s title, not ours.

[tags]los angeles, metrolink, commuter rail, citizens transportation coalition, overhead wire[/tags]

Panoramic photo of Metrolink locomotive and trainset at Union Station.
Credit: The Bucky Hermit via Flickr (Creative Commons license)

Curbed LA picked up an interesting item from The Overhead Wire, an interesting rail and transit-oriented-development blog, linking to the Citizens’ Transportation Coalition’s “8 habits of highly successful commuter rail lines.” Whew. That took quite a bit to trace the origins of the post.

Curbed’s take localized the commuter rail angle to Southern California’s Metrolink service. Curbed points out that Metrolink cost $2 billion to deliver 388 miles of train service, carrying 39,500 trips. Christof Spieler, of the Houston-based CTC, penned “8 habits” and clarified in the Curbed post that he did not intentionally confuse our commuter rail system with Houston Metro’s light rail line. The intent of “8 habits” was to see if metropolitan Houston would be appropriate for its own commuter rail service.

But, how would L.A.’s service stack up if we used Spieler’s criteria? Let’s break each down and use letter grades for each one. These are purely subjective, and are meant more than anything to provoke heated arguments.

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[tags]los angeles, rail, google maps, laist[/tags]

A Dodger Blue subway loop? With Google Maps, you can. Shot snagged from LAist.

LAist — yes, we are well aware that we have incessantly shilled the site in the past few days since Fred was guest editor for a day — points to a Google Map of suggested transit services, this one by a Chris Gerstle.

Gerstle is an unknown name among the Los Angeles transit geek community, but drawing a map qualifies him for admission. Welcome, Chris.

[tags]los angeles, downtown los angeles, streetcar, angelenic[/tags]

A proposed streetcar route, in cyan, approaches many important destinations in downtown Los Angeles.

Angelenic has been busy creating a streetcar proposal in downtown Los Angeles … in three parts. In Part I, the author establishes the background and need for such a system. Part II is where things really get interesting. Five concepts are offered. Clicking on a map brings it up in Flash. The opus reaches a crescendo in Part III, which features the figure-8 route above. It also pops up in Flash.

Stop by and give Angelenic’s plans a looksie. Comments are also taken on each post.

[tags]los angeles, red line, purple line, west hollywood, laist[/tags]

There’s been a lot of MetroRiderLA/LAist synergy lately. A lot of it, of course, was Fred’s stint as editor for a day. But, the site also had two subway-related polls, likely spurred on by the Pink Line meme. Fair warning: these polls are nonscientific, and are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. But, on the Pink Line question, 469 LAist readers responded (as of 10 p.m.) and favored:

Two Seperate [sic] Lines: Purple Line & Pink Line:  62% (290 votes)
Zig-Zag: Needs to Serve WeHo and other high usage spots, even if it adds an extra 10-minutes. 26% (124 votes)
Straight Shot: Strictly Along Wilshire Blvd. 12% (55 votes)
Other 2% (9 votes)

The two categories favoring rail service to West Hollywood make up 88 percent of the vote. Most, though, want both a Purple Line and a Pink Line — presumably with West Hollywood connected to Hollywood rather than Wilshire.

Another LAist guest editor, Zuma Dogg, had his own subway question. Even with the loaded option of, “Yes, reach right in my pocket and take out the cash, right now, for something that may not happen,” 131 of 154 votes, or 85 percent, voted for that option.

The evolution of the Pink Line meme follows the jump.

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