Streetsblog Los Angeles

(We’ll resume our Measure J op/ed series tomorrow. During our one-day break, enjoy this piece by DTLA Rising author Brigham Yen’s view on the vote on the Downtown Streetcar funding measure. You can still vote by mail before November 28. – DN)

The deadline to register to vote for the L.A. Streetcar in Downtown L.A. has passed. Now registered voters within Downtown will be mailing in their votes by mail – to ensure the ballots are received on time, they should be mailed in by November 28. What direction future developments will take in Downtown L.A. will depend on whether residents see the value of the streetcar circulating pedestrians around town — promoting a walking culture and decreasing our dependency on the automobile — or allowing the status quo to remain perversely slanted toward a car-oriented mentality. This is L.A. after all, right? Wrong. I believe that most Downtown residents embrace the idea of urbanism and its car-lite or even car-free tenets.

While voting “yes” for the streetcar is a no-brainer for the vast majority of Downtown residents, a small number have questioned why the private sector should have to pay anything for a public transit project. Let’s face it, and it bears repeating again: The average condo owner would fork out about $60 in tax assessments for an entire year. That’s about half the price of a Disneyland ticket where revelers can ride in, basically, a full-sized toy train looping around the theme park for one whole day. Why wouldn’t you want a real train that takes you to where you need to go for the other 364 days in the year — for half the cost?

Have we not already spent billions and billions more on supporting a car-oriented infrastructure that has gotten us into this mess to begin with? The unending traffic, the incessant lack of parking, the unhealthy dependency on our cars, etc. If you ask me, downtowners spending $62.5 million, in addition to bond issuance costs, of course, is an absolutely tiny price to pay for the tremendous amount of benefits this new streetcar would bring.

The knee jerk reaction I have heard from the few skeptics out there who still view the streetcar with unfounded wariness is “Why do we need a streetcar when we have buses servicing Downtown L.A.?” That’s a valid concern about service redundancy, but the reality is these are two very different beasts: buses on rubber wheels and the streetcar on fixed rail alignments. The pink elephant in the room refuses to leave no matter how hard we wish more people would just get on those buses.  Read more…

A standing room only audience descended on the Fashion Institute of Design on South Grand Street to listen to a presentation from the embattled Community Redevelopment Agency for a ground breaking and popular proposal to transform the South Figueroa Corridor.  When people discuss Los Angeles’ streets, they usually use terms such as “car-oriented” or “ugly.”  The new South Figueroa, aka My Figueroa, would be a truly beautiful street designed for people to walk, bike wait for transit or just enjoy life outside as well as a way to shuffle cars from one area to another.

The South Figueroa Corridor Project covers three miles of South Figueroa from 41st Street to Seventh Street as well as a half mile of 11st Street between Figueroa and Broadway, a half mile of Martin Luther King (MLK) Boulevard just south of Exposition Park, and a half mile of Bill Robertson Boulevard from into Exposition Park starting at MLK Boulevard.  While there are different proposals being studied for each part of the corridor, Oliver Schultze, from the world-renowned Gehl Architects in Copenhagen, promised that every part of the corridor would see some sort of improvement.

The project team offered three proposals for different sections of Figueroa, a “good,” “better,” and “best” options.  Whether a segment qualifies for good, better, or best depends on the amount of funding available and the current level of street life in the segment.  The good option consisted of an eight foot separated bike lane traveling the length of the corridor in each direction, an eighteen inch separator, car parking and bus bump outs, and a transit only lane for buses and streetcars.  In addition to creating a safe place for cyclists, removing them from car traffic and the sidewalk, it also created a 22 foot buffer between the sidewalk and the first regular vehicle travel lane.

As Joe Linton noted from the audience, “I love that protected bike lanes are the base proposal.”  Figueroa street would be the first street in Los Angeles to feature protected bike lanes.  In fact, no city in Los Angeles County has these special bike lanes, although Long Beach is adding some as we speak. Read more…

The demand for federal transit funding is so great in the U.S. that getting a project through the funding queue is a decades-long process. To give you an idea: 37 states have proposed 400 projects worth $250 billion, according to a recent report by the national nonprofit Reconnecting America, and at the current rate of federal investment building these projects would take 77 years.

The $100 million downtown LA streetcar is a newcomer to this game, and has to get in line and wait its turn – unless it attracts significant private investment, which can boot it to the front of the line and open up all kinds of funding streams. That makes last week’s fundraiser at LA Live a significant milestone.

The event at the Target Terrace was hosted by LA City Councilmember Jose Huizar, with Eli Broad, Rick Caruso and AEG CEO Tim Leiwecke, and attended by LA City Councilmember Jan Perry as well as a host of major property owners and reps from the downtown business improvement districts. Governor Schwarzenegger sent someone, as did Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, a longtime downtown streetcar champion. Enough money was raised to keep the nonprofit LA Steetcar Inc. in the business of moving the streetcar project forward during these lean years.

Modern streetcars in other cities have won significant private investment. Property owners along Seattle’s new South Lake Union Trolley (yes, she’s a SLUT) line paid for half the $52 million pricetag, massive development has continued along that line despite the recession, and the city has already planned more lines. Property owners in Portland, where the streetcar attracted $3.5 billion in private investment along the line, also raised significant funding – and almost 40 percent of the cost of the first segment came from increased parking fees – and have even traveled to other cities to preach the streetcar gospel. Read more…

During a visit to New Orleans, where city planners are seeking nearly $100 million in federal stimulus money for three new streetcar lines, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced plans to award $280 million in grants for streetcar and bus networks.

The grants, set to be awarded this spring, do not require new spending -- the money will come from unallocated funding lawmakers have already approved for transit New Starts and buses, according to a statement released by the U.S. DOT.

The streetcar and bus investments are being depicted as the first phase in the Obama administration's inter-agency sustainable communities partnership, headed by longtime transit advocate Shelley Poticha. The legislation officially starting that push, which would also authorize $4 billion for transit-oriented development projects, has yet to see action in Congress.

“Fostering the concept of livability in transportation projects will stimulate America’s neighborhoods to become safer, healthier and more vibrant," LaHood said in a statement on the grants.

The money is set to be divided into two parts. The first would award $130 million to streetcars and "urban circulators," with a focus on proposals that promote mixed-use development in local neighborhoods. No project can win more than $25 million from that pot, however, which would provide about 12 percent of the funding New Orleans needs for its ambitious streetcar expansion plan.

The second $150 million group of bus grants would go to proposals that "provide access to jobs, healthcare, and education, and/or contribute to the redevelopment of neighborhoods into pedestrian-friendly vibrant environments," the U.S. DOT said in its announcement.

As part of his trip to New Orleans, the first leg of a nationwide transportation tour, LaHood toured local transit stations that were hit by Hurricane Katrina. He stopped by the Union Passenger Terminal (home of the Amtrak Crescent line) and the Willow Street barn, wh

Activist and blogger Eric Richardson, and indeed the whole Blogdowntown team so some extent, have been heavily involved in advocating for bringing streetcars back to Los Angeles on Broadway and beyond.  Thus, it’s little surprise that Richardson has the scoop on L.A. Streetcar Inc.’s new website designed to solicit feedback on potential routes for Los Angeles’ streetcars of the 21st Century:

For many Downtowners, 2014 just can’t get here fast enough.

That’s the projected opening date for a Downtown streetcar planned
to link South Park, Bunker Hill and the Historic Core. L.A. Streetcar
Inc. (LASI) today launched a new website full of information about the project and its current status.

Most importantly, the site includes maps for three conceptual alignments currently under consideration.

The non-profit LASI was set up in 2008 to spearhead the streetcar project, following a model established in other cities like Portland. In January, the board named Dennis Allen its Executive Director and he’s been hard at work on streetcar issues ever since.

What follows is an interview with Allen that touches on the choices behind the roots and other issues.  If you’re not familar with Blogdowntown and have some thoughts on the streetcar, please feel free to leave comments there as well as here.  The folks at L.A.S.I. are familar with Blogdowntown and will be mining the site for feedback.