Streetsblog Los Angeles

Eddie Solis leaves the Metro Red Line, which serves as one part of his hour-long commute from his day job in Hollywood to his home in Boyle Heights. Much of the inspiration for his band It's Casual comes from his observations from being car-free, a bus and subway rider, and a skateboarder. Photo courtesy of Eddie Solis.

A few weeks ago, the hardcore band It’s Casual posted “The Red Line” music video on Youtube and quickly caught the attention of local and national blogs for it’s simple yet creative critique of Los Angeles freeways. A current resident of Boyle Heights, guitarist and vocalist Eddie Solis sat down with Eastside Streetsblog to talk about how his car-free lifestyle inspires his music and how he encounters on his morning walks the smell of Boyle Heights tortilla factories.

You do a lot of music that’s very transit oriented; can you explain why you went that route?

Sometimes I think there’s a lot of content out there that’s too, I want to say, too fiction. Kind of make believe. And I notice all my favorite music that hits home to me in my heart and that I kind of step back and see these bands still going  . . . are bands that write timeless music with timeless contact that basically come from the truth of actual events and someone’s perspective. So I said I really want to find an avenue and report on it. And I go, wait you know what, my daily commute. I see LA different because  . . . I take the bus and subway everywhere. And the freeways are just sitting there, and people are in their cars just frustrated about it, but I’m just like sightseeing everyday. So I took that concept and said, “You know what, I’m basically going to report on what I see and interpret it.”

What kind of message were you trying to evoke when you were making “The Red Line” and then making the video? Read more…

Although most of the service changes slated for implementation in December were suspended, two  were implemented without much fanfare this month.

One change at Metro can impact everything else. Photo:wn.com

The first is a new shuttle between East L.A. College and the Metro Gold Line Indiana Station along Atlantic Boulevard and 1st Street which began January 11th. This new line is in response to concerns expressed by eastside residents that I wrote about previously. John McCready in comments on The Source asks “Of ALL changes that have ever been made to MTA bus lines, how many were ever made by ACTUAL RIDERS that GOT IMPLEMENTED?” (capitalization in the original). Well, Mr. McCready here is an example of rider input resulting in new service.

Meanwhile it was political influence that led line 201 to be re-extended to serve Glenoaks Park as of January 9th. The whole history can be viewed on the Kymbereligh Richards’ Transit Insider website.  The ridership to Glenoaks Park was and continues to be pitiful. Richards notes the 201 when it served the Park through 2006 had a ridership of “9 per day to/from the final Glenoaks Park stop.” Read more…

When the Mayor and his staff in city hall say that nothing is off the table when it comes to accelerating project development and construction for the transit projects funded by the Measure R sales tax, they aren’t just talking.  While the Mayor promised that there was a “Plan B” if his efforts to change federal law to favor communities that tax themselves to build transit don’t go anywhere in D.C.

Borja Leon. Photo: Mayor's Office

Now, on the eve of announcement of a new federal transportation bill from leadership in the House of Representatives, the Mayor’s office is pursuing three different options to leverage the expected $40 billion in sales tax revenue over the 30 years between 2009 and 2039.  Besides the pursuit of federal dollars, there is also the possibility of asking L.A. County voters to tax themselves again and working with equity firms in China to finance the projects.

Last week, Streetsblog talked to Deputy Mayor for Transportation Borja Leon about the different options being pursued and where the city is in the process.

Plan A: America Fast Forward Née 30/10

Streetsblog will feature ads for the Regional Connector Final EIS/EIR throughout the next 30 days.

“Plan A” is still the 30/10 or America Fast Forward plan to change federal law to reward communities that choose to tax themsleves to expand transit.  If enacted, the Mayor’s proposal would create interest free loan programs that would allow projects to get started earlier and would re-prioritize federal grant programs.  When Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and Democratic leadership in the Senate announced proposals last year, both included major increases in the TIFIA loan program which is a major provision of America Fast Forward.

The Mayor’s Office appears confident that this increase will remain.  ”We have been working with the Federal Government and have a great partnership,” explains Leon.  ”A lot of things have been moving in the last week with America Fast Forward.”

We should find out if the confidence, and Mayor’s lobbying efforts, have paid off this week. Read more…

Fearless prediction: April. I'll bet Mitt Romney $10,000 Expo Phase I opens in April without Culver City Station. That will open in August. Note, these are just predictions!

Earlier this morning at the Metro Board Meeting, CEO Art Leahy announced that pre-revenue operation of the Expo Line Phase I will begin on Monday.  ”Pre-revenue operation” is usually the last phase of tests a new fixed rail transit line undergoes before the line opens to the public.  The agency will run trains on the line as though service has begun although there won’t be any passengers on the train other than the crew and any special guests.

The beginning of pre-revenue while construction of the station in Culver City is ongoing means that if no other problems pop up, Phase I will open sometime this Spring but end at the station located at La Cienega and Jefferson Blvd.  An opening for the completed line will come a couple of months after the station is completed in Culver City.

While this is good news for supporters of the Expo Line, the question most people still have is, “when will Phase I open?”  Pre-revenue operations usually run somewhere between six and eight weeks, so an opening in April isn’t out of the question.  According to The Source, the agency is playing it close to the vest and hasn’t announced an opening date yet.

Tomorrow’s Metro Board Agenda doesn’t appear to be packed with controversy, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of important decisions to be made.  Here’s some of the highlights, and we’ll have more coverage of the Board meeting live tomorrow on Twitter and here on the website tomorrow:

Consent Agenda (most items approved in a block vote at start of meeting):

Advertisement: click on the image to visit the Regional Connector EIS/EIR website.

• Agenda Item 5 – Planning for stations that aren’t funding, it’s not just for Crenshaw anymore.  A motion by City Councilman Jose Huizar allocates $500,000 for a station design for the Regional Connector’s Broadway Station that has entrances on both Broadway and Spring St.  Funding for the larger station has not been allocated.
• Agenda Item 7 – Metro finally seems ready to move on the Expo Phase II Bike Path.  The agency is ready to accept over $11 million of federal and local dollars to take the lead on the project and is authorizing engineering work to begin.
• Agenda Item 14 – Apparently there’s no such thing as too much money to spend on a highway project that is reviled around the country as one of the biggest environmental catastrophes in the country.  Metro is authorizing $4 million to a public relations firm and allocating another $125,000 internally to manage the public affairs for the I-710 Big Dig Project.
• Agenda Item 17 – Bike Share!
• Agenda Item 55 – Metro wants to buy 100 clean fuel buses to upgrade its fleet in the 2013 fiscal year.

Non-Consent (there is guaranteed to be some debate):

• Amendment to Agenda Item 10 – Would require Metro to develop the technical travel demand modeling capability to estimate travel demand by bicycle and, if possible, in conjunction with other active transportation travel such as walking in areas around transit stops and areas where new development will occur on Metro property.  This could be an important motion because it would give Metro’s planners a boost in doing planning for transit users (and all residents) that aren’t reliant on their car.
• Agenda Item 40 – Is the Construction Careers Policy we discussed yesterday.
• Agenda Item 70 – Metro would take an official position in favor of Asm. Mike Feuer’s legislation to give the same expedited legal review under CEQA lawsuits to transit projects as stadium projects and other mega-projects.

Robert Zardaneta, executive director of La Causa Youth Build. discusses how Metro's Construction Careers program would change the lives of thousands of youth workers who don't currently have access to middle class jobs. Photo: Sahra Sulaiman

In September of last year, the Metro Board of Directors ordered staff to create a program to insure that Los Angeles’ most disadvantaged workers and disadvantaged communities benefit economically from the Measure R construction projects.  In response, Metro negotiated an agreement with the Building Trades Council that will apply to all Metro construction projects.

The agreement sounds simple.  Forty percent of all workers on the projects have to be from areas where the median household income is below $27,500 and another 10% from communities where the median household income is below $40,000.

The motion, championed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas was partially the result of community pressure brought by communities surrounding the future Crenshaw Light Rail project.

The motion will be heard at Thursday’s meeting of the Metro Board of Directors.

A coalition of community and labor organizations have thrown their support behind the proposed Construction Careers Policy including the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, Transportation for America (T4A), La Causa Youth Build, and Strategic Concepts in Organizing Policy & Education.  Last week at a press conference in front of Metro Headquarters organized by LAANE, a parade of workers testified how the program could change their lives by offering them an opportunity for a middle class job that might otherwise be impossible. Read more…

The scene at Beverly Hills High School. Photo: Joel Epstein

Local news outlets in Beverly Hills reported last week that with 80% of the trenching completed on the Beverly Hills Campus that thus far the trenching has found no active faults anywhere on the Beverly Hills campus. The remaining trenching will be completed on the northern part of campus along Heath Avenue.

Before a final report can be read and analyzed it’s too soon to say anything definitive about the current study, but that hasn’t stopped supporters and opponents of the Westside Subway alignment under the high school from weighing in.

For proponents of the route under the high school, they see victory in the preliminary findings. After all, if there are no faults under ground surrounding the high school, and there are faults along the alternate route on Santa Monica Boulevard, then there’s only one sensible place to put the subway…right under the high school.

But the Beverly Hills Unified School District has smartly abandoned the argument that the train should run under Santa Monica Boulevard, recognizing that Metro’s report on faults along the Boulevard have insured that Metro won’t be tunneling in that area. Rather than arguing for a route away from the High School, the plan is now to either kill the subway or get Metro to pay the school richly for the tunnel. Read more…

As more and more environmental documents are published and review periods begin, Streetsblog is going to write an impartial F.A.Q. to update our readers to what’s going on, why they should care, and how to get involved. Given the medium in which we write, we’ll be updating the comments section regularly, so if we don’t answer your question in the FAQ, leave it in the comments section and we’ll get to it.

Today begins the public comment period on the Regional Corridor Environmental Impact Statement.  You can read the final environmental documents, by clicking here.

Streetsblog will feature ads for the Regional Connector Final EIS/EIR throughout the next 30 days.

Wait a second, I thought the environmental documents were released last week?

They were. The documents were released last Friday, but the public comment period didn’t begin until today. They didn’t want to begin the comment period right before a three day weekend, so the extra week gave people interested in commenting a little more time.

Comments may be submitted via email to regionalconnector@metro.net. Alternately, comments can be sent by U.S. mail to: Dolores Roybal-Saltarelli, Project Manager, One Gateway Plaza, 99-22-2 Los Angeles, CA, 90012. The public may also comment on Metro’s website by clicking on “Contact us.”  Comments are due by February 20.

What does this mean for the project timeline?

Once public comment on the document is completed, staff will have a chance to respond to comments before the Metro Board of Directors certifies the documents.  Assuming there is no legal challenge, Metro could be ready to start hiring design contractors by the spring of this year.  The Board is expected to vote on the documents at their February 23rd Board Meeting, but could easily delay the final decision.

What does the documents say about routing and stations?

The route is entirely underground and will have five stations, three of them are new.  The route begins in the Little Tokyo Arts District, runs down to second street and heads west.  It cuts south on Flower Street before ending at Metro Center.  There is still some talk of adding a station at 5th and Flower, but no funding has been identified for this station.

I Don’t Live Near the Downtown or Little Tokyo.  Why should I care?

As its name implies, the connector will connect all of Metro’s rail lines.  The connector is the difference between having a lot of rail lines and having a rail system.

Is there any opposition to the Regional Connector?

It’s a rail project in Los Angeles.  Of course there’s opposition!  In this case, the opposition comes from businesses in the Little Tokyo area that are worried that construction will cause too much noise and chaos for the businesses to remain open.  Metro created a committee to work with impacted businesses and provide some sort of compensation for business lost.

This is one long document, I need help finding what I want to read!

Email your questions to regionalconnector@metro.net

If you have another question, leave it in the comments section.  We’ll do our best to get you an answer, so check back throughout the day.

Coming soon to a street near you? B-Cycle (pictured), Bixi and Bike Nation present in front of Metro headquarters. Photo: Dave Sotero/Metro

Will Los Angeles County have an integrated bike share system in the next five years?  Metro is taking the first steps to become a coordinator for bike share efforts already underway so that L.A. County could have one integrated bike share program instead of many local bike share systems.

Earlier today, Metro’s Planning and Programming Committee approved a bike share strategy for the agency that would create a mechanism for municipalities and cities to work together and create a county-wide bike share plan.   Metro’s bike share strategy needs to be approved by the full board before it becomes policy.

Cities that have bike share programs funded and on the way, such as Santa Monica, and that are hopeful to bring bike share at some date in the future, such as South Pasadena, attended the hearing to voice support for the motion.

Before the hearing, B-Cycle, Bixi, and Bike Nation put on a demonstration of what bike share is and how it works.  Through a bike share program, people can rent bikes at a docking station and ride it to another station located somewhere else.  Systems can be publicly or privately owned and sometimes require renters to be members of the bike share program.

Bike sharing systems have been installed in many of the most progressive cities around the country.  Modeled after Velib in Paris, France Washington D.C. is widely credited for having the first bike share program in America.  New York City will launch a large bike share program of its own later this year including a GPS program that will be used to inform transportation planning decisions. Read more…

 Loading ...

The day after video surfaced of an L.A. County Sheriff punching a woman in the face while his partner restrained her on a Metro Bus, the story had been told around the world.  Strong arm of the law: Video shows shocking moment cop punches woman, screamed the headline of the Daily Mail in England.  LA County Sheriff’s Deputy Elbows Woman in the Face [SHOCKING VIDEO] exclaimes the headline at the International Business Journal’s Website.

Closer to home, the Los Angeles Times managed a full seven paragraphs on the attack in its print edition, five of which were excuse making from the Sheriff’s Department (LASD), despite the story being featured on every local English and Spanish language news show in Los Angeles.  Even though the assault occured on a Metro Bus, The Souce hasn’t seen fit to even mention the incident.

To its credit, the paper of record has been following the story in its blog section LA_Now.  Despite it’s rather lame headlines, these four stories give enough background to get a clear picture of the story. Read more…