Well, I am sure he knows a lot of things I don't know about. In any case, last week CEO Phil Washington announced Metro's "Operation Shovel Ready." According to the January 27 board communication [PDF], this initiative will bring "projects to a 'shovel-ready' state" to allow Metro "to take advantage of potential opportunities that may develop." Getting these projects from the preliminary plan stage to the ready-to-build stage "does not necessarily mean that they will all move into the construction stage" but if there is another, perhaps, federal stimulus package, it's good to have ready-to-go projects lying around just in case. Perhaps Washington is anticipating that a new president or an ambitious governor could again turn to transportation investments to stimulate the economy. We'll see.
The initiative includes two project lists. The first is transit projects, which is predominantly rail, but also includes some Bus Rapid Transit and bikeway projects. There is also, unfortunately, a long list of highway projects, mostly widening existing freeways and interchanges. Projects are broken out based on whether they have some measure R funding or not.
Many of these projects will be familiar to transportation watchers; some of them will require quite a bit of work, including environmental clearance, which could take several years.
The full Operation Shovel Ready project lists appear after the jump.
There are seven L.A. County Reconnecting Communities grants totaling $162 million - about 90% of that goes to Metro's Removing Barriers project, which includes new bus lanes, first/last mile walk/bike facilities, bike-share, and more.
New bus lanes are coming to Broadway, Colorado Blvd., Crenshaw Blvd, Lincoln Blvd., Los Feliz Blvd., Santa Monica Blvd., Valley Blvd., Vermont Avenue, Westwood Blvd., Whittier Blvd. and many more city streets!