MetroRiderLA

Today I will be posting as a special guest editor over at LAist.  Check out my Metro oriented posts as well as posts from the rest of the LAist crew throughout the day.  There’s even an interview with yours truly!  Thanks to Zach Behrens for inviting me on for the day!

[tags]los angeles, red line, purple line, west hollywood, boi from troy[/tags]

Click on map for description.

The momentum behind extending the Metro Purple Line to the sea is moving slowly but surely — just like the new “Rapid Express” Line on Wilshire Boulevard.

But Boi from Troi doesn’t want a Wilshire subway to be straight — in more ways than one. The blogger points out that West Hollywood would be the only Westside city to not lay any track. Hopefully, that’s not “code”. Instead, taking directly from the post:

… [W]hy not consider taking to subway to places people want to go? How about building the Subway to the Grove, then to Cedars Sinai/Beverly Center/West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, UCLA, Brentwood then Santa Monica, linking in with the new Exposition line?

The plan is not as ridiculous as it sounds. In fact, it just may be a better plan than a direct route under Wilshire. Such a route would be about 10 minutes longer, but that would be offset by as many as 20,000 to 50,000 additional boardings on such a corridor.

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[tags]los angeles, mta, red line, purple line, laist, mike antonovich[/tags]

The Metro Purple Line extension to the sea, while not official, has been gaining in popularity despite no federal or state funding available and no local taxes being allowed to build it. One county supervisor, whose district will not even come close to any subway access, wants to protect the rest of the county from the tunneled scourge.

Yet a local blogger makes the case of how the future subway can have aggregate benefits to residents of the Antelope Valley. Zach Behrens of LAist writes in Wilshire Subway Watch: How it Helps Palmdale:

So can the Purple Line subway for Wilshire Blvd. improve a commute from Palmdale to Los Angeles? I’m no traffic expert, but when you relieve the busiest corridor in this country it might affect the perpendicular 405, thus butterfly affecting the 5, thus the 14. But maybe someone can school me in the comments section or maybe someone can agree.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich does not like the idea of spending all this money on the subway, citing … because only “three cities” would benefit from the Purple Line that takes people from Downtown LA to the beach in Santa Monica. For example, money could instead go to the county’s 5th district which, shocking surprise, Antonovich represents.

Behrens is on to something. Plus, while Behrens is untested politically, his .000 governance average is better than striking out on every county governance issue that was pitched before Antonovich and his comrades. Metro is 180 degrees what it was a decade ago, largely in part to effective administrators and eight other board members to dilute the taint of the supes.

Another benefit to residents of Antonovich’s fiefdom district is that north Los Angeles County residents — at least during rush hours — would be one transfer away from the subway. Santa Clarita Transit and Antelope Valley Transit Authority run commuter buses to the Westside, and the former runs them both ways! These riders would be most appreciative for having a subway to the sea, too.

[tags]downtown, los angeles, art walk, dash, dlanc, blogdowntown, gallery[/tags]

There’s a new public transportation option in Downtown Los Angeles courtesy of blogdowntown’s Eric Richardson and the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (DLANC). Downtown Art Walk is a self-guided gallery tour held on the second Thursday of every month. Most of the galleries are centered around 5th and Main, but a number can be found a few blocks away along Spring and Main and people have been reluctant to walk to some of these more distant galleries. This is where the new Art Walk DASH circulator comes into play, offering free rides on a loop around Gallery Row until 10pm. Eric hopes that this will make getting around a bit easier and up the attendance to some of the galleries on the fringes.

The next Downtown Art Walk, and the first to feature the new DASH service is coming up on June 14th. Take the Red Line to Perhsing Square and your basically there. The only Art Walking you’ll have to do is to the 4th/Main DASH stop, and from then on it’s an Art Ride!

[tags]la times, get la moving, subway, rail, los angeles, public transit, maps[/tags]

Damien Goodmon working on his plan. Photo courtesy of Lawrence K. Ho/L.A. Times.

Damien Goodmon recently launched his long awaited Get L.A. Moving web presence and the L.A. Times was there to report it. Both Goodmon and Numan Parada of the Transit Coalition (see his map here) are profiled in the article which sheds some light on these transit visionaries and hints towards the growing transit advocacy movement that drives them. And of course, there’s an element of skepticism in the article, with a derogatory quote from a professor at the traditionaly backwards thinking USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development deriding rail as “19th century technology” in our “21st century city”.

Cynicism aside, it’s great so see these guys get some attention, they deserve it for their hard work and bold visions of the future. We need more visonaires like them in our city!

[tags]metro movies, car free, uncar, copenhagen, urban planning, contested streets[/tags]

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9067416427722807670&hl=en[/googlevideo]

Los Angeles bicycle blogger Brayj Against The Machine brought this clip from the film “Contested Streets” to my attention. The clip offers a fascinating and inspiring look into the reimagining of streets in Copanhagen from the traditional automobile oriented streets to streets focused on the bicyclist and the pedestrian. What’s so interesting to me, is that according to the clip, Copanhagen wasn’t always this way, but they fought against the trend, political dispute, and naysayers to bring a about a better city. It gives hope that perhaps such a transformation could happen in car-centric American cities.