MetroRiderLA

Photo by concrete cornfields (who uses the old M logo as an avatar) via Flickr; used with a Creative Commons license

Metro is holding a series of open houses and workshops for the Crenshaw Corridor project. Metro is considering investing in bus rapid transit (an upgraded Line 710) or light rail between the Green Line, Inglewood and either the Expo Line or all the way to Wilshire Boulevard (bus only).

Each two-hour meeting features 45 minutes of an introduction period, a 15 minute project demonstration and an hour for comment.

The upcoming four sessions are going to be in Windsor Village, the Crenshaw and Leimert Park areas and Inglewood. All meetings except the Saturday session at Inglewood High School are from 6 to 8 p.m. Details follow.

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For $3 million per car, AnsaldoBreda throws in the duct tape at no charge.
Photo by Yours Truly via Flickr. It can be found in the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

The Metro board voted 8-3 Thursday to … [sigh] … boy this is a difficult one to write. Only because there isn’t boilerplate handy and there’s only so many times a tired angle can be spun. Yes, the Metro board has added to its pile of crap decisions that’s gotten so big that it’s time for L.A. to look for a sculptor whose medium is feces to make something that’ll get into the Guinness World Records and possibly help tourism.

OK, the facts. Metro has approved a $300 million contract to AnsaldoBreda for 100 more rail cars, the promise of almost 2,000 temporary and permanent jobs and a pocketful of magic beans, the Los Angeles Times and Daily News report. No doubt the key driver behind passage was the promise of guaranteed jobs — judging by the workmanship of the new light rail cars, the workers are going to stay busy for a long time.

Some congratulations are in order for the Italian firm. The Metro contract was quite a coup. Despite the recent train order coming in years late, showing quality and weight problems in extensive pre-revenue and soft in-service testing when the units arrived, and managing to get an eleventh hour “Hey, we’re good for it” financial guarantee from its parent company, AnsaldoBreda will usher in an era of stable “clean tech” jobs in Los Angeles.

Ever the upstanding corporate citizen, AnsaldoBreda says it can do this for just about anywhere it is seeking a contract. Back in March, Yonah Freemark reported in the Transport Politic about a pattern of a little wheeling and a lot of dealing:

The problem … is that the company has been trying to make this deal with cities all over. It told Miami and Madrid that it would build plants in those cities if they awarded rail contracts. Even more astonishing, AnsaloBreda moved … to Pittsburg … on the assumption that it would build Los Angeles’ rail cars – as well as those for San Francisco and San Jose – there. How many places can this company have production facilities? How frequently is it willing to move its headquarters? What would the move it’s now promising to Los Angeles mean to communities in Northern California that would likely lose their jobs in the process?

Commenters followed up with links to Breda-related problems on both U.S. coasts and across the Atlantic in Europe.

More of these late, overweight, far from great cars are coming, though Breda should not be in a big hurry to complete the job. A few of the silvery rail cars are running now on the Gold Line. They are distinguished by the narrow seat pairs and noisy HVAC units that began leaking just a few weeks into their breaking-in period. They are also noticeable by the blank gray wall and small operator’s cab window that’s in place where the large windows were on the Siemens cars. Somehow riding in a Breda feels like a scene from a Bergman movie.

Ahh, so goes life in Los Angeles. Maybe the elusive sculptor will find it inspiring here.

Photo by Yours Truly via Flickr. Add your photo to the MetroRiderLA Flickr Pool.

The Orange County Transportation Authority, like most of L.A. County’s suburban neighbors, must look at another round of service cuts as tax revenues have fallen off sharply during the recession. The worst is to come in March 2010.

OCTA has revealed is various scenarios to reduce more than 300,000 service hours from the system. The most drastic involves killing off a large swath of routes, while others involve adding more short lines and reducing span of service and/or frequencies. Read the PDF for the proposed route eliminations and service reduction in its PDF. Most of the cuts affect routes in northernmost and southern Orange County.

A good source of news and a voice for Orange County’s bus riders is Steven Chan and his TransitRiderOC blog. In his post on the service cuts, Chan doctors up existing OCTA system maps and shows what the route grid would look like when the proposed services are eliminated. It’s a sad sight to see.

He also points to a link to the Pacific Progressive blog, which has pulled out the doomsday scenarios to plain text:

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Photo by Metro

The Transit Coalition has invited Arthur Leahy, Metro’s chief executive officer, to its meeting at 6:45 tonight at Philippe, 1001 N. Alameda St., across from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. This is a chance for both transit supporters and haterz to meet L.A.’s transit chief face-to-face.

Leahy took over as Metro’s CEO earlier this year, succeeding Roger Snoble. Leahy’s transportation career began here in Los Angeles, as an RTD bus driver almost four decades ago. He later moved into operations management, and his major claim to fame came in 1984 when he helped coordinate bus service during the Olympic Games. His executive-level experience has been previously as CEO of the Orange County Transportation Authority, and before that, general manager of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Council transit system.

Stop by tonight and share your thoughts. I’d be spending about a half day putting up links for every transit service that runs near the Union Station area, but the easiest way to get there is on the subway or Gold Line. There are about two dozen bus lines within walking distance, too.

RSVP the Transit Coalition’s Bart Reed by e-mail or by calling (818) 367-1661 to confirm.

He’s No. 61! He’s No. 61!
Photo by jennsu via Flickr; used with a Creative Commons license

Planetizen is a widely read and broadly respected site among planners, architects, and urbanists both professional and amateur. It’s hard to understand why it would deign itself to such rabble-rousing as to promote a Top 100 list. Yet it did so, and it didn’t turn out too bad.

Planetizen asked its readers to compile a list of the Top 100 Urban Thinkers of All Time. Number 1 should come as a shock to no one: Jane Jacobs. Numbers 2 through 60 are other greats from the past and present. Then, placing in at No. 61 is James Rojas.

Rojas is one of thousands of Angelenos on the payroll of Metro. By day, he’s a transportation planner and a common sight at scopings and public hearings, showing a genuine interest in what riders think. Yet it wasn’t his transit work that led him to place on the 100-man and woman poll. He’s better known for founding the Latino Urban Forum and his visionary planning concepts. His Lego-brick re-envisioning of downtown Los Angeles and contemplating a car-free future has drawn a lot of attention.

MetroRiderLA gives James mad props for his showing.

Rojas is not the sole Southern Californian on this list. Other nominees: 15) Donald Shoup; 41) Mike Davis; 45) Stefanos Polyzoides; 59) Walt Disney; and 99) William Fulton.

Photo by Metro Library and Archive via Flickr; used with a Creative Commons license

Mark your calendars, MetroReaders. Culver CityBus is introducing Rapid Line 6 on January 4, 2010. The buses will run between UCLA and the Aviation/I-105 Green Line station, just like regular Line 6. However, unlike Metro, munis can run Rapid lines during rush hours only. Rapid Line 6 will operate between 5:50 a.m. and 10 a.m., then resume from 2:20 p.m. to 7:35 p.m.

Culver City is holding two public hearings at its City Hall, 9770 Culver Blvd., on Wednesday, Sept. 30. The afternoon session is from 2 to 4 p.m., and the evening session is from 6 to 8 p.m. Culver City is also proposing to reduce weekday service on local Line 6 to every 17-20 minutes. City Hall is accessible by Culver CityBus lines 1 and 7 and Metro Line 33. You may also submit comments by calling (310) 253-6569, by e-mail or by mail to:
Culver CityBus
ATTN: Proposed Line 6 service changes
4343 Duquesne Ave.
Culver City, Ca. 90232