Yeah, I ride my bike to MTA headquarters and start wagging my tail on a weekly basis so I can hold the title of transit advocate. Sarcasm. Most of us are interested in transit issues precisely because we don’t like the way things are, and apply pressure toward change.

Doesn’t Damien himself profess to be a transit advocate, just one who happens to oppose nearly every transit project in the city regardless of individual merits of particular projects. He opposed the West Side Extension, not because he thinks it is a bad idea, but because he wants one for his community instead. This fails to grasp the economic reality of subways are expensive to build, and as such any subway project needs to be on the highest traffic corridors possible to get the most ridership for your dollar. Federal matching dollars don’t come flowing for expensive transit projects that don’t hit very high standards for ridership and commute time savings.

Communities all over America have trains and street cars running at grade, most without the numbers of accidents we have in LA even though some have even less safety precautions. Most of the problem is people walking on tracks, people committing suicide, and vehicles trying to beat the train to save a few seconds. Shouldn’t we be fostering safety education of people living in or commuting through communities with trains rather then focusing attention exclusively on keeping trains from being built. Cars kill and injure far more many people, are far less predictable, and drive everywhere in our communities, not just along fixed routes on regular schedules. We need rail development to provide alternatives to the far more dangerous automobile dependency that exists in this city, and our country.

anyways, i’m sure you guys are all smarter than me. i’m not here to add anything new. i’m just supporting damien because i’ve seen the crappy, dangerous clusterfck conditions that surround certain blue line stations and don’t want the expo line to end up with the same crappy, dangerous clusterf*cks some 10-15 years in the future.

that other issue you talked about, dana, can be addressed in another post.

The title is, “Every once in a while David lands a good one on Goliath.”

How unsurprised I am to see the same characters (Alan Fishel and Dana Gabbard) out in full force true to form with their personal character attacks/innuendo.

There’s a trade off to the amount of material and space those ramps need.

For Farmdale it is easier and more cost effective to use an elevator because we would have to acquire additional space needed for the footprint of the ramps. In addition with a minimum 1:12 slope ratio and landings about every 3-5 feet in height elevation that is a lot of concrete and rebar needed to make this ramp work and there’s a needed space for ADA landings at the base of each ramp that has to be put in perspective.

For the Harvard crossing, I believe since there’s an existing grade separation in place (ped. tunnel that is operated by LAUSD) that there should be a compromise to modernize it for ADA compliance and allow the funds to staff it during a longer operational window since space could be made available compared to Farmdale.

Students are in more danger of being hit by an auto than by a LRT train. Through Damien’s actions he is costing all of us the money to build the bridges and the time lost to the opening just so he can get political recognition as a shaker in the neighborhood. If this plan comes to pass and Farmdale is closed it will be much more difficult for school busses and autos to drop off and pick up students. Being forced to navigate the bridge is something that I do not think that any of the students will look at as an improvement.

Building a bridge for the LRT at Farmdale or Havard because Damien wants political recognition is wrong. The bridges at La Brea, La Cienega or Culver City have hundreds of thousands of cars passing daily but Firndale only has a few hundred cars pass daily and the intersection does not even warrant a traffic signal.

The Expo Line will carry thousands of people a day that are now driving and it needs to be completed ASAP. Any delays are not appropriate or acceptable.

If bridges have to be built which are not all that bad of an idea they can have “ramps” for ADA access and will not need elevators as with the pedestrian bridges on the Metro Blue Line and around the city. The cost will not need to be anything close to 18 million dollars. Also the EIR/EIS need not delay the lines construction since the bridges will be built separately from the line.

There will be some politics involved in all this. The various California transit agencies have been unhappy at the growing perceived intrusive manner of that PUC (as happened with the Gold Line Phaser I and the Sprinter). You can bet pressure will be brought on the Commission since this ruling is not in line with grade crossing practice heretofore and many light rail projects across the state would be hobbled if this is the standard from now on. The transit agencies have just as much right as Damien and his crusaders to express views, etc. This is a public process.