You guys already have LRT in Long Beach! What about branching off the Blue Line to the LB Airport and Long Beach State?

Leave the Harbor Subdivision as commuter rail. Why?
*There still is freight service on the line; for example, the Alcoa plant near Torrance
*Commuter rail does not need two-tracks as much as light-rail does, which means narrow rights-of-way do not have to be double-tracked
*Having LRT across the Harbor Subdivision would make for a really long ride, with slow speeds and lots of stops.

How about this compromise?
LRT extension of the Green Line to LAX and that South Bay Mall
LRT extension of the Blue Line, branching off to LB Airport and LBSU
Leave the Harbor Subdivision for “real” trains (Metrolink and some local freights)

These things are cyclical. I certainly don’t assume that this recession will last forever. And the powerful advocates I mentioned will use the drop in volume as justification for investment to increase capacity as a competitive issue so other ports don’t steal our traffic.

I have slowly been working through Prof Steven Erie’s book “Globalizing L.A.: Trade Infrastructure and Regional Development” on the port/airport complex and its history. Heavy going but an interesting peek at the insider game of L.A. infrastructure politics…

Here is the Gateway Cities COG page on it (looks like it is a bit out of date)

http://www.gatewaycog.org/i710.html

If you still are gung ho to fight the expansion, the folks to talk to are the Harbor Vision Task Force of the local Sierra Club, the contact is Tom Politeo (hvtf@politeo.net)

http://angeles.sierraclub.org/hvtf/site_map/index.html

Also Jesse Marquez of the Coalition For A Safe Environment (jnmarquez@prodigy.net)

http://www.coalitionfase.org/

CBE = Communities for a Better Environment
http://www.cbecal.org/

But what are they organizing? Whom should we contact to help out?

Hey, I said it was a dream :P

I’ve read a bit of the literature on the Harbor Subdivision, and it seems like Metro is angling more for the commuter rail option, or the no build option. I’m sure both of these options (especially the latter) are easier and faster to build, but at the same time I think LRT would be much more useful, especially if they can build it across Long Beach. Yeah, there are some gray areas in the industrial sections of Wilmington, but the route could potentially still be somewhat useful by stopping in west Long Beach at Santa Fe Ave, PCH and Alameda, and in Wilmington at Avalon.

But for me, it’s the connection to the South Bay that would make this worthwhile; as a current LB resident, that connection would make trips to the south bay by transit a helluva lot easier. I should say that what I really dream of is for the LB-LAX part of the harbor subdivision to be built LRT, then connect with a northward Sepulveda line that ties into whatever it is they’re planning to have cross the Sepulveda pass. IMO, that would be a significant asset to everyone along that route. But the practicalities of making that happen, I imagine, are too intense to list in this post.

But I also think that a crosstown-LB segment of any future line would be worthwhile. You’re right that it will be difficult to build, I think that 7th street is the most likely candidate for an alignment if it’s ever going to happen. But to get an LB Blvd-style street running segment in, you’d probably have to remove all parking on 7th, and we all know that most people would prefer eternal damnation to losing a parking spot. Still, the toughest section to build would probably be east of Recreation Park, where 7th goes through an upscale neighborhood, the nightmare intersection at PCH/Bellflower, and the fed-owned VA hospital. Well, at least I can dream.

The proposed project is also a disaster for the LA River, upon which it will encroach. A little on that here: http://lacreekfreak.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/710-freeway-expansions-threat-to-the-lower-la-river/

As I mention in that post, there’s a coalition formed opposing this – groups opposing the project include NRDC and CBE. To get involved, get in touch with them.

the Harbor Subdivision transit project? I dream of a rail line that goes from LAX to Downtown LB, then on to Long Beach State.

To clarify, the Harbor Subdivision is something completely different. Officially, the Harbor Sub is the train tracks paralleling Slauson Avenue from Huntington Park to Inglewood. It extends south into the South Bay. The Green Line has part of it almost covered.

The big obstacle in getting the tracks across the L.A. river again is that there is almost no productive ridership generation due to all those industrial buildings in that part of the South Bay and Harbor Area. Extending any of that rail line outside Torrance is a waste of money.

Your idea of extending rail across Long Beach does have merit, though. Most of Long Beach’s bus traffic comes from the east-west routes between downtown and east Long Beach. If you put the route somewhere between Fourth and Anaheim Streets, it would get decent ridership. The catch is, though, that the streets are very narrow and rail would require a subway, but the ridership is not dense enough to support that capital expense.

If we had tariffs based on GHG emissions in industrial production and shipment, it would make more sense to produce locally instead of getting everything from east Asia.

I would probably support a lane expansion if congestion pricing were included. I wouldn’t otherwise. The 710 is a great road to try this out on IMHO.