Streetsblog Los Angeles

Note: If you choose to share your thoughts at the bottom of this article, I would also urge you to “make it count” and put it on the official public record by sending your comments directly to Metro by October 18^th 2010.  Instructions on how to comment can be found at the end of the article.

Relishing the fact that evening ocean breezes were taking back the air from the day’s stagnant heat, a packed audience filed into the downtown Santa Monica Public Library auditorium on Wednesday night to review the status of the planned Westside subway extension and to make official public comments on it.

Just two days ago, the prevailing aim of comments at Metro’s subway hearing in Beverly Hills was to slam a proposed route that would tunnel under a residential area, which would occur if a station were built in the heart of Century City at Constellation Boulevard.  By contrast, at Wednesday’s hearing each person who commented on the proposed Century City station supported locating it at Constellation Blvd., citing that location’s improved access to jobs and entertainment, as well as the higher projected ridership.

More broadly, the comments in favor of the Westside subway extension advocated building as much subway west of the 405 Freeway as soon as possible.  Under the current schedule, an extension of the subway would only reach Westwood or the VA in the next 30 years (assuming no 30/10 project acceleration).

Undeterred, several speakers urged Metro to push forward on subway Build Alternatives 3 and 5 (PDF: EIR Executive Summary, pp. 15-21).  Both of these would have the Purple Line continue down Wilshire from Westwood and terminate in downtown Santa Monica at 4^th Street.  Although Metro currently lacks the funding to build the line past a Westwood or VA station, adding a “segment to the sea” would boost ridership on the whole extension by 28 percent and likely add an four more stations.

In contrast to those who commented on how they want the subway to be built, six speakers from the Bus Riders Union voiced strong support for the two non-subway alternatives for transit on the Westside, the “no-build” and “Transportation Systems Management” options.  The former is literally what it sounds like, and the latter (TSM) entails increasing the frequency of existing bus service on the Wilshire Corridor. Read more…

There is one thing that is clear about the position of the residents of Beverly Hills when it comes to the future Westside Subway.  No matter how many guarantees they receive about the negligible impacts of tunneling ninety to one hundred fifty feet below the ground, they don’t want it to run underneath their residential area nor their schools of their city.

Last night in Beverly Hills, Metro hosted the fourth of its five public hearings on the Westside Subway Extension’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement.  After a fairly brief presentation, where the depth that subway drilling would occur at was mentioned an even dozen times; the staff turned the floor over to a parade of homeowners, renters, doctors, School Board Members, City Council Members, grade school students, business owners, homeowner’s associations, civic groups and even a Monsignor ready to condemn even the suggestion that the Westside Subway should run underneath the homes and schools of Beverly Hills.

For Metro, there are two issues that need to be addressed along this corridor.  The first is which corner of the intersection of La Cienega and Wilshire to put a rail station.  The second is whether it makes more sense to tunnel under Beverly Hills for a station at Avenue of the Stars and Constellation Avenue or Avenue of the Stars and Santa Monica Boulevard. Read more…

Earlier this month the L.A. Times headlined its coverage of the release by Metro of the draft environmental studies for the Purple Line westward extension “Proposed Westside subway will do little to relieve traffic congestion, report shows” as if this was a searing revelation. Just proof again of the sad decline of the Times these past few years.

The follow-up anti-subway drum beat started up immediately. Richard Lee Abrams is a lawyer who has been of late placing ranting opinion pieces on the CityWatchLA website denouncing mass transit as 19th century technology and a scam to aid and abet developers and their evil plans to densify the city. His article on the subway draft environmental report doesn’t merely carry the ominous title “Westside Subway Study is Defective” but has the subheading “The Manhattanization of LA”. His solution is telecommuting which he claims is on the cusp of being a real way to do most of your business from the convenience of home. He calls it Virtual Presence. I call it a pipedream.

Then the L.A. Weekly engaged in a hit piece on the subway, quoting well known anti-rail zealots James Moore and Wendell Cox along with a smattering of statistics bent to make it appear the project is an utter disaster in the making.

The latest to join the anti-subway dogpile is Mark Lacter,  who writes on business for LA Observed. As a long-standing critic of the project it is no surprise his commentary is titled “Cracks start to appear in subway boondoggle” while the piece itself includes such words and phrases as “nonsensical”, “this project is as good as dead”, “ supporters are desperately looking for cover” and “politically inspired flim-flam”. He even hints a Republican takeover of Congress resulting from the upcoming midterm elections would spell doom for the project.  I guess he doesn’t remember the original Red Line was able to get federal funding in the midst of the very anti mass transit Reagan administration. Given the cost effectiveness numbers prospects for federal funding are fairly good if and when the transportation trust fund situation is resolved (hopefully next year). Read more…

Traditionally, the Friday before a holiday weekend is considered the time to release news that you don’t want to get traction in the public.  Sure, the story could get picked up, but there’s less people watching the news that night or reading the newspaper the next morning than any other time.

Both the City and Metro went for a Friday info dump, although I’m sure neither agency would admit it, last week.  Metro released the draft environmental documents for the Westside Extension of the Purple Line.  Meanwhile, the city released the dates for the public meetings for the most recent draft of its Bike Plan.

For Metro, the reason was obvious, the Draft Report showed that automobile congestion will not see a significant reduction after the Purple Line is extended from Wilshire/Western to Westwood.  While this seems like a somewhat obvious “revelation” to people who follow transit issues; after Metro and politicians have spent years promising that transit would unlock Southern California’s streets to smooth flowing traffic, it might come as a shock to everyone else.  Remember the “Yes on Measure R” ad campaign that talked about freeways more than anything else?  Let’s just say transit officials and boosters didn’t sell Measure R based on creating a twenty five minute trip between Union Station and Westwood.

Metro’s fears were probably well founded.  The Los Angeles Times’ coverage led with the “bad news” that the subway won’t be the savior for Westsiders trapped in their cars.  Unless, said westsiders are one of the thousands of people who will use the subway everyday that is.  If you go through the entire Times article, it repeatedly discusses the subways benefits for “transit riders” before sadly telling us those benefits won’t be there for everyone else.  It’s almost as though the Times believes train riders are an entitled group of people that commute in a private freeway under the ground and don’t even have to drive, while everyone else is forced into their sad little cars and won’t see any benefits of this billion dollar boondoggle.

Read more…

On Monday, the Passenger Rail Symposium kicked off with an impressive display of train technology, most of it being used in Europe. But the problem of how to effectively implement train stations, European or otherwise, remains. Fortunately, Tuesday's speakers had plenty to say on the matter, both describing successful stations elsewhere or the prospects for better ones here.

Session 3: Rail’s Role in Connecting and Building Communities

The session began with Brent Riddle of German Marshall Fund, an organization devoted to finding how European policy approaches can be implemented in the United States, and (in a few cases) vice versa. He began by conceding that "Europe has problems too," pointing to the 2005 Paris Suburb Riots. Apparently, citizens in Le Blanc Mesnil rioted because trains on the town's RER line only came every 15 minutes, making it difficult for them to get to jobs in the Paris center. But Riddle had a positive example from Europe as well: the Stuttgart 21 project in southern Germany, which he praised as offering shorter travel times as well as being environmentally friendly. But the best part is the improvement in how the station will connect to the city; it will create new park space, connect more effectively to the city's transit, and improve the livability of the area around the station.

Read more...

(Drew Reed is usually our volunteer Long Beach writer.  However, he volunteered to cover the CTA’s rail transportation symposium in Long Beach that took place Monday and Tuesday.  Here is a review of Monday’s coverage.  Tuesday’s will come tomorrow.  With the exception of the above graphic, all images are by Drew Reed.)

Last Monday afternoon, at the same building which one month earlier bore
host to the Long Beach Grand Prix, an entirely different (and
thankfully quieter) event was about to take place: the Passenger Rail
Symposium. Hosted by the Community
Transportation Association of America as part of the larger EXPO
transit convention, this is the first year this event has been held.

Scott Bogren, Editor in Chief of CTAA’s Rail Magazine and one of the
main organizers of the event, said that he was pleased that this year’s
EXPO took notice of rail transportation; in previous years, the event
had primarily focused on buses. But attendees seemed enthusiastic to see
what the rail symposium was all about, most coming from transit
agencies across the country with a few local rail fans sprinkled in.

Read more…

As the LA area slowly inches toward having a viable rail network, we occasionally need to be reminded of the tremendous benefits passenger rail can have for our region. And we'll have a great opportunity to do so next week, when the 2010 Community Transportation EXPO comes to Long Beach. The conference is presented by the Community Transportation Association, a prestigious DC based transit advocacy group.

One of the main focuses of the event is the Passenger Rail Symposium, being held next Monday through Tuesday at the Long Beach Convention Center. The event is grouped into four main sessions: Setting the National Rail Agenda, Passenger Rail: A Corridor-Based Future, Rail's Role in Connecting and Building Communities, and Regionalism: Passenger Rail's Emerging Role (see the event's web page for more information). Registration is $50, which includes access to all sessions and a free luncheon on Tuesday (note: this fee does not cover other events at the expo). To register, check out the expo's registration page. This is a great opportunity to see first hand how people nationwide are working to build better trains for our cities.

The expo also has a number of other events going on all week. On Sunday, the expo kicks off with its annual "Roadeo", a nationwide transit operator competition which has gained the reputation of being something of a World Series for bus drivers. Continuing through Thursday, the conference includes panels, workshops, and training sessions related to rail, buses, and other forms of transportation.

The best part? The conference takes place two blocks from a train station. Eager Angelenos can save a trip down the 710 by riding the Blue Line to Transit Mall, then walking over to the convention center.

As it works to finalize a National Rail Plan that could prove pivotal
in securing dedicated long-term funding for high-speed rail, the U.S.
DOT is soliciting public feedback at five meetings in the coming weeks.

The
first public meeting will be held Wednesday in Kansas City, followed by
a Thursday meeting in Atlanta, according to a release sent today by the
Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Rail officials will stop in New
York City on May 26, Salt Lake City on June 3, and Portland on June 4.
More information, including locations for each meeting, is available on the agency’s website.

Transit networks around the world beefed up
security measures in the wake of last month’s fatal bombing of a Moscow
subway car, but the relevance of circumstances and tactics used in
overseas terrorist attacks to U.S. rail and bus security remains
unclear, according to a new report partly funded by the U.S. DOT.

The
report was released in March by the Mineta Transportation Institute
(MTI) at San Jose State University, which gets funding from the U.S.
DOT and the California state legislature. The MTI, named for the
Bush-era Transportation Secretary,
is in the process of assembling the first database of terrorist attacks
specific to U.S. surface transport modes, supplementing existing
government statistics with its own research.

The MTI’s latest report on its database analyzed more than 1,600
terrorist attacks on or threats to surface transportation — only 15 of
which occurred in North America. Of those, four were directed at public
buses, three at bridges, and eight at trains.

Transit’s lack
of prevalence as a terrorist target in the United States, according to
the MTI, is due in part to the more widespread public use of rail and
buses in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. From the report:

Most of the attacks take place in countries in which train or bus transportation is either
the primary means of public transportation (e.g., in Israel) or, along with trains, a large
part of it, and in rural areas, the only public transportation.

This
is far from the situation in the United States, where aviation is the
primary method of long-haul transportation, and with the exception of
high-density urban centers such as New York, Boston, and San Francisco,
the automobile is the primary method of local transportation. Where
train or bus transportation is extremely important, it becomes an
obvious terrorist target. Conversely, where it is not so important, it
may be a less likely target.

Even so, the MTI noted that transit remains in the sights of terrorist
groups seeking "soft targets," buildings or elements of infrastructure
that may not be as tightly guarded as government property but would
carry a risk of significant casualties. Recent attacks on transit in London, Madrid, and Mumbai "were considered major terrorist successes," the report’s authors warned. "Past success makes future attempts more likely."

After a year marked by discord between the House and Senate
over the timing of the next federal transportation bill, another split
emerged yesterday over the timetable for taking up the Obama
administration’s plan for federal involvement in transit safety oversight.

Speaking
to the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) annual
conference, aides to both House infrastructure committee chairman Jim
Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. John Mica (FL), the panel’s top Republican,
said they aim to make the White House’s proposed transit safety
legislation part of the broader debate over restructuring federal
transport programs — an issue that may not come before Congress until next year.

But
an adviser to the Senate Banking Committee’s senior Republican, Richard
Shelby (AL), said he wants the transit safety bill to be "a
free-standing piece of legislation and not wait until" lawmakers can
agree on a long-term federal transport bill.

In remarks
that touched on the continuing impasse over that six-year transport
bill, Oberstar aide Amy Scarton asked APTA members to provide input on
the White House transit safety proposal, which has gotten mixed reviews
from transit officials. The safety legislation is set to move through
the House "as part of the long-term surface transportation bill," she
said.

Meanwhile, Mica remains opposed to the Obama team’s
strategy of asking state transit overseers (known as SSOs) to submit to
federal supervision if their programs are deemed out of compliance with
minimal safety standards, according to aide Joyce Rose. The Floridian
would prefer to bolster individual SSOs with grant money to avoid
"creating a new federal bureaucracy," she said.

Read more…