MetroRiderLA

Another day, another announcement about a Metro planning adventure. If you’ve enjoyed the meetings about the Crenshaw Corridor, the Wilshire Boulevard bus lanes, and the upcoming Regional Connector series, you’re sure to love the magnum opus of the next 30 years of public transit planning: the extension of the subway.

This time, Metro has changed the formats of the meeting. Now, instead of a general overview of the project, each meeting will focus on a minimal operating segment specific to the community. You’ll see what we mean, and as a refresher, the Census profiles for each segment will be included as something to keep in mind before heading to these hearings.

If you support the extension and are into the social networking thing, be a friend to the Metro Westside Subway Extension on Facebook.

All meetings are from 6 to 8 p.m.

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Crews install a bank of fare gates at the Los Angeles City College portal of the Vermont/Santa Monica Red Line station.
Photo by Yours Truly. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

Pro-turnstile news: Metro is continuing on its plan to install fare gates at all subway and sealed light rail stations. The latest installations are at the Vermont/Santa Monica Station. Crews quickly mounted this bank of turnstiles Tuesday afternoon. For riders who have not seen turnstiles yet, they will spin freely for another year.

Anti-turnstile news: Metro is making good on its threat to install fare gates at all subway and sealed light rail stations. The latest installations of this $100 million fiasco-in-the-making are at the Vermont/Santa Monica Station. Crews quickly mounted this bank of easily cheatable turnstiles Tuesday afternoon. For riders who have yet to be bewildered by any of the existing crop of gates, they will spin freely for another year.

Here you have it. MetroRiderLA has plumbed the depths of Census Bureau data to get a profile of stations for the proposed subway to the sea extensions of the Purple Line, and threw in the Pink Line as a bonus.

This effort all got started as a case to keep the Wilshire/Crenshaw station included, and then expanded to get a better outlook for all stations on the proposed subway extension. If this is your first opportunity reading this, look at the profiles for MOS-1 (to Fairfax Avenue), MOS-2 (to Century City), MOS-3 (to Westwood and Barrington Avenue) and MOS-4 (West Hollywood).

Each station has population density maps from census tracts to blocks, centered on the potential station site. Below that are tables showing indicators revealing factors closely tied to transit usage: transit share of commute trips, walking share of commute trips, renter-occupied dwellings, individuals below the poverty level and households with no or 1 vehicle.

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That is an actual map of a real transit corridor under consideration by Metro. It would be a subway line running from Hollywood to Beverly Hills primarily under Santa Monica Boulevard and San Vicente Boulevard. What makes this interesting is that in just a span of about two years, this service went from an internet meme to what may be the fourth leg of the Los Angeles subway system, ahead of actually getting it to the sea.

MetroRiderLA traced the evolution of the meme for what is colloquially referred to as the Pink Line. The downside: A subway is already an expensive proposition under Wilshire –  at $6 billion, or at least 10 percent of Measure R. The Pink Line would add $3 billion, and there’s no money committed to getting it built. The upside: This uncommitted line has fierce community support going for it, and West Hollywood residents are determined to see this project become a reality. It’s very interesting to see how this plays out, especially since Metro said it will be necessary to extend its MOS-3 beyond the 405 because of the expected crush load of passengers anticipated at Westwood.

What is the ridership climate like for West Hollywood? Very favorable to transit. There are frequent services available, and the line would serve high-ridership destinations. As for the other profiles in this series, 2000 Census Bureau data were used to pull data maps of population density as well as characteristics favorable to producing transit ridership (transit mode share, walking mode share, renter-occupied units, poverty rate and households with no or 1 car). Also, existing bus services are provided as a gauge of existing transit demand.

The profiles follow the jump after this refresher for new readers coming aboard:

• The Case for a Wilshire/Crenshaw station
• Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-1 stations
• Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-2 stations
• Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-3 stations

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Good news, MetroReaders! The computer is back in working order after its graphics card burned out. Now we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming. This is the fourth in a series of profiles of the future Metro Purple Line stations as the subway begins its long march to the sea.

If this is your first look at the series, catch up on the previous entries:

• The Case for a Wilshire/Crenshaw station
• Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-1 stations
• Census profiles for Purple Line MOS-2 stations

MOS-3 refers to the third extension, which follows extensions to Fairfax Avenue and then Century City. Metro announced during its summer scoping meetings that the third extension would have to be placed west of I-405 instead of just Westwood. Metro forecasted that rider traffic at Wilshire and Westwood boulevards would be too busy to handle at one station, so an extension is planned.

The map above is old and does not show the addition of two stations to this MOS: Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus and Wilshire/Barrington, which was added after community request.

This MOS-3 profile using Census Bureau data does not look at a VA station, since it is oriented for the hospital. Also, because the campus is so large, there isn’t very good Census data to gather. Chances are that the profile would be similar to Barrington Avenue, which is included below.

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They’ve finally done it.

My triumphant and exhausting return from Chicago yesterday morning was greeted with the new marvel of Metro—fare gates. Though second nature from the 1st and 3rd world it’s taken Los Angeles years to figure how to implement what would normally be an early step in the “we want a world class train system” process. Added to the years it took to finally employ TAP and we’re talking nearly a decade worth of failed planning, preparation, and implementation.

The fare gates in the dark and hastily taken image above are at the entrance to Union Station’s Metro Red/Purple Line. The girl in the photo is Elizabeth; the cop is Officer “Act a bit over dramatic and obnoxious to warrant the handling of a photo taking device all so I can look heroic to the girl who couldn’t care less she’s in the picture.” Thanks for signing off, Elizabeth, I couldn’t have had this grainy, barely recognizable photo without your laissez faire attitude towards free press.
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