Streetsblog Los Angeles

One of the longest-running Streetsblog stories is nearing it’s end: the ongoing legal battle over Expo Line environmental documents. The California Supreme Court just announced that it has scheduled a hearing of the Neighbors for Smart Rail v Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority on May 7, 2013.

Two lower courts have already ruled that the Expo Construction Authority (Expo) acted properly basing their traffic studies on future conditions instead of current conditions. However, attorneys for NFSR point to two cases Madera Oversight Coalition, Inc. v. County of Madera (5th District Court of Appeals, 2011) and Sunnyvale West Neighborhood Assn. v. City of Sunnyvale City Council (6th District Court of Appeals, 2010) where state appellate courts ruled that agencies cannot use future conditions as a baseline when evaluating the environmental impacts of proposed projects.

Faced with conflicting opinions, it’s natural for the Supreme Court to want to have the final say in this case and establish case law for similar legal conflicts in the future. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of NFSR, it could require the traffic study for the entire Expo Phase II to be done over.

Of course, this isn’t television and a ruling won’t be handed down for months after both sides present their cases. One way or another, we’re one step closer to the end of Expo’s legal odyssey that began on Phase I.

Whether or not to put the bikeway in this trench for a portion of the path is still up for debate...but we now know the legal hurdles have been removed. Photo: Damien Newton/LA Streetsblog

Coming fresh on the heels of news that the California Supreme Court won’t halt construction while they consider an appeal filed against the Expo Line Phase II, comes news that a different Expo legal challenge has been resolved.

Last May, a group of Cheviot Hills homeowners filed sut against the portion of the Expo Bikeway last May arguing that the environmental documents prepared for the bikeway were insufficient. Word leaked earlier this week that a settlement was reached between LADOT and the litigants. While details of the settlement are not publicly available, Streetsblog has confirmed that design and construction of the bikeway through this area can proceed without further litigation.

The lawsuit only protested the portion of the bike route in the City of Los Angeles, and not the part in the City of Santa Monica or Culver City.  The 3.85 miles of bikeway will run mostly along the Exposition right-of-way except for a portion on the street in Cheviot Hills. In exchange for dropping their lawsuit, LADOT will make provisions in the design to mitigate impact on the local homeowners such as extra lighting and a privacy wall.

It seems rail transit can perform just fine in Los Angeles, despite what folks at the pretend-Libertarian Reason Foundation would tell you.

The Expo Line is on track to shatter ridership expectations, illustrating the folly of analyzing a rail line's usefulness based on ridership on its first week of operation.

Back in April, the Foundation sent a pair of riders to ride the mostly-opened Expo Line and declared it a disaster. In its first weeks of operation, the line barely attracted a third of the ridership expected for the line by 2020. When other outlets, including Angie Schmitt for Streetsblog, argued that judging a rail line’s overall worth in its first week of existence is a form of journalism malpractice, Reason doubled, then tripled down that having two grown men ride a train for a day in its first week of operation counting the people they see is a credible way to determine if a rail line is a failure.

Phase I of the Expo Line connects downtown Los Angeles to downtown Culver City and rolls past major attractions including USC, Staples Center/LA Live, Exposition Park and the Science Center. Phase II is scheduled to open in 2015 or 2016 and will extend the line from Culver City to Santa Monica. The ridership estimates in 2020 are only for Phase I.

It must be with some horror that Reason Foundation writer Scott Shackford watches the ridership numbers steadily climb. In fact, the rail line attracted nearly 20,000 riders every weekday (actually 19,776) in August according to statistics provided by Metro.  When designing the Expo Line, Metro estimated the line would attract 27,000 daily weekday riders on Phase I by 2020. Ridership on Phase I doubled since the line’s April opening from 9,000 riders to 20,000 riders. While clearly the current growth rate is not sustainable, the line will not be doubling its ridership every four months, the rapid growth points to Expo shattering ridership projections. Read more…

Fans at the USC-Hawai'i game on Sept. 1. photo credit: PRK / PR Photos

The link to the original photo is here.

Did you ride the Expo Line to the USC game this past weekend? If so, you were one of what Metro estimates to be the approximately 8,000 fans who chose to train their way to the game.

Moreover, Metro calculates that at least half of those fans took other Metro buses or trains to connect with the Expo Line. Steve Hymon writes at The Source, “there were about 22,000 boardings on Metro on Saturday related to the game.”

If those figures are accurate, then about 8.5 percent of the 93,607 game attendees arrived via the Expo Line.

On a day when we’ve thrown a few eggs at Metro, it is nice to have some good news. Read more…

After a delay that had left many Expo Line Bicycle Advisory Committee members uncomfortable, given the pace that major elements of bridge construction are, the committee final met again this Tuesday with Expo project representatives. Damien covered some of the concerns going into this meeting in a post last week. Given the significance of this project and the narrowing scope of possibilities with every passing week and month as railway design and construction lock in constraints, it’s important to keep the dialogue going about the Expo bikeway.

Our Santa Monica column is made possible due to the support of Bike Center. The nation's largest bike parking center. Click on the image to learn more about their services and events.

There are a number of specific and detailed issues that have been raised as problematic by myself and other members of the Expo BAC (who are: Aaron Rosenfield, Damien Newton, Jennifer Klausner, Barbara Filet, Jim Shanman, Shannon Burns, and myself), particularly regarding at-grade intersections at major crossings along the route. The most recent meeting was in my opinion a step in the right direction toward being more productive, but we’re still a long ways off from being assured the bikeway will be a first class facility serving the rail corridor.

The top image and the one below, demonstrate the complexity of the current proposal for dealing with the Pico Boulevard intersection. This intersection is a perfect illustration of what we face in attempting to do this bikeway right. As presently proposed, bicyclists heading eastbound must first leave the path, and cross a crosswalk to a tiny triangular island. Then they must cross a second time along a very broad crossing this time, to get to an extended bulb out sidewalk bikeway space. They then make one final crossing at an unsignalized intersection where drivers would be making sweeping turn movements, before finally getting back to a fully separated bikeway. Adding one final insult, the design calls for a narrowed substandard width choke point at a bridge column after the final intersection crossing. Read more…

Waiting. The Red/Purple Line stop at the 7th St. Metro Center. (photo: sahra)

Ridership on the Expo Line continues to be “on a roll,” touts Zev Yaroslavsky in his blog.

With the opening of the Culver City and Farmdale stations in late June and the reconfiguration of some bus lines to make connections easier, ridership jumped by more than 175,000 passengers, an increase of 55%, between May and July.

Specifically, he writes, ridership went from 320,627 boardings in May to 497,449 in July:

Ridership on the line rose across the board—on Saturdays, Sundays and weekdays. Weekday ridership was up more than 60%, with 18,181 boardings last month, compared to 11,347 in May.

The Reason Foundation published two articles on Expo’s ridership shortly after the line opened. The Libertarian think-tank has argued against rail expansion in Los Angeles and crowed when early ridership figures showed 11,000 riders per weekday. Metro estimates that 27,000 people will ride Expo Phase I on an average weekday, and the new ridership numbers show a strong move in that direction.

Some of the jump is apparently also due to the popularity of the new line with Valley commuters who are looking to avoid the 405, according to the Daily News. While the commuters were not able to get to their destinations any faster than they could via car, they did appreciate that their daily trek was less stressful. Minus the general annoyance at the “crawl” the Expo Line does through parts of downtown, that is. Read more…

A mosaic designed by Willie Middlebrook for the Crenshaw stop of the Expo Line. photo: sahra

Have you ever stood in front of a piece of public art and thought your experience would be all the awesomer if you had some context for the work? Or maybe you passed by a public artwork every day and it didn’t register with you until someone engaged you on questions of its value and meaning?

With those questions in mind, members of the Ride South L.A. team (Francois Bar, Tafarai Bayne, George Villanueva, and Benjamin Stokes), Ben Caldwell (of the Kaos Network in Leimert Park), and I thought it might be interesting to see how people were experiencing some of the work at the new stops along the Expo Line.

We decided to make a site-specific recording that offered an insider’s perspective on the art and the artist. We figured that once the recording was completed, we could then leave strategically-placed stickers with a brief blurb about the project and a phone number at the site for people to call. Callers would not only be able to hear the recording, but they would also have the option to record their own impressions of and responses to the work.

Ben Caldwell, left, recording his thoughts on the significance of Willie Middlebrook's art featured at the Crenshaw stop of the Expo Line. photo: sahra

Read more…

All pictures taken on my cell phone. Sorry.

No, this isn’t about my first impressions.  It’s about his.

It was with some amazement that I realized that Sammy has never ridden Metro rail.  In his nearly three years, we’ve ridden airport connectors and the New York Subway together, but never Metro rail.  What better day to break that streak than the opening of the Culver City Station for the Expo Line.

I thought the line was pretty great.  It took us less than 25 minutes to get from Culver City to Metro Center (at 7th and Figueroa in Downtown Los Angeles).  The ride was smooth.  The train efficient.  I wasn’t the only one to have the idea of taking a kid out for his first rail trip.  A group of three adults and five children were also taking Metro from Culver City to Downtown for the kids first ride.  They happened to be from Cheviot Hills.  I could tell because one joked that “all his neighbors have signs about how bad this train is.”

If I thought it was great, Sammy thought it was amazing.  He stared out the window for most of the trip pointing to various things and calling out their names.  ”House!” he exclaimed when we hit the section of townhouses past La Cienega.  ”Bear!” he shouted at the Felix the Cat sign.  Our black cat’s name is Bear.

Even Sammy noticed that trains beat cars.  ”Bye car,” several dozen times as the train sped past traffic that was either waiting or moving. The only disappointment was that Farmdale Station didn’t have balloons as the one in Culver City did.  I know the community is hardly as excited as Culver City, but do you really mean to tell me that Councilman Bernard Parks’ office couldn’t swing for some balloons? Read more…

Touring the Expo Line with the "ethnic media." photo: sahra

Beginning tomorrow at noon, you can board the Expo Line for free at the newly opened Farmdale and Culver City Stations. You’ll be handed a voucher for a free return trip at that time.

The Farmdale Station has been the subject of some controversy, given its proximity to Dorsey High School and the lingering questions about the safety of the at-grade crossing for students and residents. Those questions likely can’t be answered fully until school is back in session in the fall.

If you would prefer not to think about questions of safety, you are in luck. The inauguration of the Culver City stop coincides nicely with their “Summer Solstice” event, where you will be plied with lots of free stuff, including booze. Just make sure you are back on the train by 9 p m — that’s when the free pass expires.

For more information on the opening and connections to other transit options, click here.

Photo: LA Streetsblog/Flickr

The question of how far Neighbors for Smart Rail, a coalition of homeowners and community groups fighting the expansion of the Expo Line into West Los Angeles, were willing to take their legal challenges to the line is now answered.  They’re willing to take it all the way.

Last week, NFSR appealed to the California Supreme Court to overturn a decision of the 2nd Appellate Division of the California Superior Courts to uphold the environmental documents supporting the construction of Phase II of the Expo Line.  Phase II of the Expo Line will pick up where Phase I ends in Culver City and extend the line to Downtown Santa Monica.  The Supreme Court has not announced whether it will hear arguments or issue a ruling in the case.

While NFSR has many complaints with the Expo Line and how the line was approved; court watchers are pointing to one specific complaint that has likely caught the Supreme Court’s attention: “The Baseline Issue.”  NFSR has argued in two court rooms that the Expo Authority used an improper baseline for analyzing the impacts of the Expo Line on automobile traffic, air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.  The Expo Construction Authority evaluated the impacts on conditions it projected to exist in 2030. NFSR argues that instead of future conditions the Authority needed to look at current conditions as its baseline, not ones from an uncertain future.

NFSR’s legal team points to two cases Madera Oversight Coalition, Inc. v. County of Madera (5th District Court of Appeals, 2011) and Sunnyvale West Neighborhood Assn. v. City of Sunnyvale City Council (6th District Court of Appeals, 2010) where state appellate courts ruled that agencies cannot use future conditions as a baseline when evaluating the environmental impacts of proposed projects.

The Second Appellate Court didn’t just reject the argument affirmed by the other courts, it emphatically rejected it. Read more…