Streetsblog Los Angeles

The Crenshaw Subway community group is kicking its planning for a legal challenge to the Crenshaw Line in to high gear, announcing an “emergency meeting” tonight to brief their members on their preparations.  Originally, the meeting was scheduled because of Metro’s plans to certify the environmental documents at their August 4th Board Meeting, despite the fact that the documents have not been made available for public review.  However, I just received word that Metro will delay the vote on the documents until their September 22nd meeting or later.  Plans to vote on Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ motion on the community benefits package remain on the table for next month’s early board meeting.

Residents near the Crenshaw Corridor came out in force to try and get a station at Leimert Park and a subway for the entire route. We

Regardless of the timing of the vote on the final plan for the light rail line, the emergency letter that has been widely distributed to community groups, Metro staff, and Metro Board staff shines light into the planning of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition’s strategy.

An email signed by former City Council Candidate Forescee Hogan-Rowles (viewable here, although Hogan-Rowles signature is missing) is asking community members to come to a meeting tonight to discuss the plans to potentially approve the Crenshaw Line this month and that members should bring a checkbook so the Coalition can afford the legal help it would need to mount a challenge to the plan arguing that the agency is in violation of state environmental laws, specifically the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

In the community letter, Crenshaw Subway Coalition doesn’t spell out the specifics of their challenge, but they do believe that a flawed environmental study has led to the exclusion of a below-grade alternative between 48th and 59th streets and the station for Leimert Park. Read more…

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority is co-sponsoring workshops with the cities in the 12.6-mile corridor between Azusa and Montclair along which the Authority hopes to extend the Gold Line. The subject of the meetings are proposed station sites in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona, Claremont and Montclair. The meetings begin this coming Monday.

Meeting details can be found in a flyer posted on the Authority’s website.

Some folks are gung-ho for this extension. Others of us much less so. But I will acknowledge the Authority has been quite pro-active in its public outreach, which these workshops are an example of.

In the coming months, the Authority will host tours of the Metro Gold Line light rail line between Pasadena and Los Angeles. Streetsblog is going to sign up for one of those tours, and we want you to come along.  Contact Damien at damien@streetsblog.org if you’re interested in riding the rails with a group of Streetsbloggers.  The Authority claims that the tours will provide an opportunity to experience how light rail interacts within communities, the design of stations and street crossings and the various train sounds.

The Orange Line is the proposed light rail line to be built instead of the 710 Connector Project. The other lines are the same color as their name. Image by Carlos Vazquez

The never-ending debate over whether or not to “complete” SR-710 so that it connects with the 210 provides a  great opportunity to create a sustainable option for the 710 Tunnel.  Instead of a tunnel designed to move trucks and cars, we need to create a light rail alternative that connects the region’s biggest job centers with the poorest, transit dependent communities.  Yes, let’s build a light rail alternative between Long Beach and Pasadena!

This public transportation line will connect Pasadena, Alhambra, Monterey Park, East Los Angeles, City of Commerce, Maywood, Bell, South Gate, and Long Beach. This is a much needed North-South connector that can rival the Long Beach Blue line, one on the heaviest used light rail lines in the nation. This rail line will connect the Blue Line, Green Line, and East Los Angeles and Pasadena Gold Lines.  Moving around the region via transit would be much easier and more people would be attracted to our transit system. Read more…

Yesterday was a rare treat for me, as Streetsblog had two writers at the press event in the Crenshaw District’s Leimart Park celebrating the $545 million loan from the federal government to accelerate construction of the Crenshaw Line. Since Carter Rubin did the yeoman’s work of writing the story, I had a chance to capture as much video footage of various political figures praising the USDOT, Crenshaw Community, transit and most of all, each other.

While Antonio Villaraigosa served as master of ceremonies, it was Senator Barbara Boxer who seemed to be the focus of attention. Her speech to the audience is above. Speeches by Villaraigosa, Congress Woman Jane Harman, Maxine Waters and Diane Watson, USDOT Undersecretary of Transportation Roy Klienetz, and Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas can all be found after the jump.

Before the event, Damien Goodmon joked with me that the Leimart Park was an ironic place to hold a press conference celebrating the funding of the Crenshaw Line because the Leimart Park Station is “optional” in the current environmental studies. If you watch closely, it seems like most of those speaking yesterday weren’t aware of that. However, it’s always great to hear so many political leaders talk about the transformative power of transit and clean transportation options. Read more…

The future Legado Crossing in Culver City got mixed reviews because of its low height.

Yesterday, the New York Times published a piece on the coming Expo Line and what it's going to mean for development in South L.A. and West L.A.  In truth, you should find time to read the entire article, but here's a quick summary in the mean time.

1. Developers are a lot more excited, and the development plans are a lot farther along, for Phase II projects along the Westside than for projects within Phase I in South L.A.
2. A focus of the article is how transit and T.O.D. (even though the article avoids that term) will change Los Angeles from a sprawling car-town to a dense transit-town.  However, there's a lot of places that want to avoid density, especially amongst the people who complain most traffic on the Westside.
3. Supervisor Ridley-Thomas believes development along Expo and the future Crenshaw Line are crucial to the development of South L.A.
   
4. The development that will run adjacent to the Expo in Culver City is five stories high which makes the residents happy; but many development experts, including those at Metro, think it's too small.
5. Westsiders want bike parking.
   

Starting last night and continuing tomorrow, Metro began a series of outreach meetings for the "scoping" of the potential Green Line Extension to Torrance. Before we get into the details of the study, let’s put down some basics on the project. No, this is not a competing project with the Green Line extension to LAX. Yes, this is a Measure R and "30/10" project, with $272 million in Measure R dollars already set aside for the project.

While Metro already identified a preferred alternative for the Green Line Extension, extending the current Green Line light rail along the route to Torrance that appears on the right was selected as the "Locally Preferred Alternative" in the Alternatives Analysis (AA) study; the meetings that are currently underway are a chance for the public to help Metro identify the issues and concerns that need to be examined throughout the environmental process. Metro also has to weigh other alternatives to the preferred one, which include a "no build" option, an option of improving the streets instead of the rail, and using an abandoned freight right-of-way and new tracks to get from LAX/El Segundo down to Torrance.

The goal of the extension is to provide an alternative to driving on the I-405 in this area. The proposed alignment to Torrance seems a good alternative, as it runs parallel to the I-405. The extension isn’t just to provide access to the Green Line, but by the time construction is underway it will be easy to connect the Green Line to the completed Expo Line and provide access from Torrance all the way to Downtown Santa Monica or Los Angeles. For transportation planners that have been waiting for decades for a truly connected rail system for L.A. County, this is an exciting step.

So what issues might arise during the scoping and planning for this project? While there’s no entrenched opposition to the extension, there are always some areas that are ripe for debate. Fore example. the current design calls for a train similar to the North County Transit District’s Sprinter trains, which might have trouble ingegrating with the existing Green Line Service.

Both The Source and Daily Breeze have written articles on the hearings. Feel free to check them out, or for more information on the meetings, read on after the jump.

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The Expo right of way just off of Exposition and Sepulveda. Photo: LA Streetsblog/Flickr

After years of debates, threats of lawsuits, contentious community meetings and even heated discussion on Streetsblog message boards; there was a feeling that yesterday's meeting of the Expo Board to debate the certification of the environmental documents for Phase II would be a momentous meeting.  Predictions of a 4-3 vote either for or against certification seemed a safe bet; with the exception of the Transit Coalition's Bart Reed who predicted a "blowout," everyone I talked to thought it would be close.

After nearly five hours of public comment and debate, the Board voted and the final tally was six in favor, zero against, and one abstention.  The abstention wasn't even made by a fully-vested Board Member, but a staff member from the office of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas who was empowered to vote in place of the Supervisor.  There was a vote on a Ridley-Thomas motion to delay, not reject, certification for three months that failed by the somewhat closer vote of 2-5, with Rosendahl joining Ridley-Thomas in support.

Instead of a close vote, the most controversial thing that occurred was a procedural move by Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks who blocked fellow Councilman Paul Koretz from voting on the measure.  Technically, until Phase I is completed, Parks and Council Woman Jan Perry sit on the Expo Board.  However it was widely believed that Parks and Perry would yield to their successors, Councilmen Koretz and Bill Rosendahl who's districts would be most directly impacted by the construction and operation of Phase II. 

While Perry yielded to Rosendahl, Parks decided to hold on to his seat for the meeting to, in his words, defend the grade crossing policy at Metro that was under attack from opponents to Phase II and Ridley-Thomas.  Whether that was the real reason for Parks' maneuver, or  a more political one such as wanting to prevent the expected "no" vote from Koretz or even to spite his formal rival Ridley-Thomas is unknown.  What is known is that Koretz was one unhappy Councilman.

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