It would serve Beverly Hills right if the MTA had an alternative that carved an open trench along the ROW to run the HRT trains. And it would only be fitting if it blocked through traffic on the majority of their streets. I guess it is true: the whims of the wealthy outweigh the pragmatic needs of the poor.
I expect many of the people that would be taking the train around there would in fact be reasonably wealthy people who work in Century City and Westwood. And there would be a lovely view of the golf course from an aerial station.
I hope Metro doesn't screw this one up, but after seeing the VA station and the plans for the 405 line, I don't have much faith in them. Hopefully they're just doing what's necessary to avoid a lawsuit and they'll still be able to conclude that an underground station in the heart of Century City is the best option, which we all know it is.
The problem is there is this "spin machine" called centurycitysubway.org, which is paid $400K from BHUSD to prevent tunneling under BHHS. Centurycitysubway.org has gotten to the heads of scared parents by using fear/mistruths. That's the root of the problem. How do we combat this?
Joined: Mar 2011 Gender: Male Posts: 203 Location: Bell Gardens
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #51 on Apr 16, 2012, 4:36pm »
Isn't what they're doing libel? Can't they be sued for that; it's total misrepresentation. They're creating frenzy and chaos that could potentially lead to bullying, assault, trampling, etc.!
I don't see the wealthy habitually using the subway if at all. They can afford to continue filling the tanks of their cars/limos and not think twice about it. Their hopes and goals are probably more in line with taking non-resident cars and traffic off their streets so they can continue driving unobstructed. The Beverly Hills mind-set is not too far from that of Cheviot Hills, except Beverly Hills has lots of resources to boast of.
Yesterday I read, and it must be false, that Metro is considering an above ground station in the area...any truth to this rumor?
This cannot be true because wouldn't this require another EIR?
Maybe only a SEIR? Would that delay building to La Cienega? It might still be better than a bad decision in a lawsuit, and it's not like 30/10 has been signed into law.
This cannot be true because wouldn't this require another EIR?
Maybe only a SEIR? Would that delay building to La Cienega? It might still be better than a bad decision in a lawsuit, and it's not like 30/10 has been signed into law.
It may not even need that per say if this elevated design is built right on the fault line, then this could be (the experts need to figure this out) ruled out as being a non-starter by the seismologists.
On Friday night, I received two emails as an online subscriber to the Beverly Hills Courier concerning the Westside Subway. The first was a screed by the paper’s publisher urging Beverly Hills City Council members to vote for a proposal for the city to officially rescind its support for the subway project altogether. The second was far more interesting. The Courier announced that Metro “will now consider an elevated subway station at Santa Monica Boulevard and Century Park East.”
The announcement seemed odd. Hadn’t Metro considered above-grade stations in its 2008 Alternatives Analysis and dismissed it? Wouldn’t changing station design from subterranean to elevated rail require scrapping the entire environmental process and starting again? The report raised more questions than it answered, something the reporter, who’s name is not included in the report, seemed to recognize.
It turns out that the Courier got it wrong this time. Metro is considering an elevated heavy rail station as much as it considers any of the ideas proposed in reports issued on behalf of the city as it responds to these reports. An elevated station at Santa Monica and Century Park East, considered in the 2008 Alternatives Analysis, was again proposed in the report by Shannon and Wilson that poked holes in Metro’s methodology but also stated that tunneling under the high school could be completed without lasting damage to the students.
So how did the Courier get the story so wrong?
Last Friday, a private meeting was held between Metro staff and city staff and elected officials to discuss the agency’s response to the city’s reports. At the meeting were City Councilman (and former Mayor) Barry Brucker, City Manager Jeff Kolin, Public Works Director Dave Gustavson and Deputy Director of Transportation Aaron Kunz. The Courier sent a pair of reporters to the meeting, but were turned away as the meeting was a private briefing between the city and agency. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the agency’s response to the city’s reports. According to Metro staff, there was no discussion of changing the final environmental documents to include an aerial station.
When Brucker raised the question of an aerial station, Metro staff conceded that their response to the Shannon and Wilson report would include a detailed response. Somewhere in translation, that statement was turned into “Metro is considering an elevated station.” For one covering this issue for years, it seemed wildly unlikely that Metro would be going back in time to study elevated rail, but that didn’t stop one news outlet from rushing the story to print based on one source.
Still, the report created some hope amongst those opposing the current routing of the Westside Subway that Metro was moving from their original position that tunneling under the high school away from faults under Santa Monica Blvd. was the safest alternative. The Beverly Hills Unified School District responded to a query on whether the elevated station was a worthwhile compromise by writing, The BHUSD encourages the Metro board to examine all reasonable alternatives for the Century City Subway station. There are a number of options available that do not require tunneling under Beverly Hills High School.”
In the coming eight days, starting with a meeting of Metro’s Planning and Programming Committee this afternoon the Metro Board of Directors is scheduled to vote on the Final Environmental Impact Report on the Westside Subway, which includes a plan to tunnel underneath a portion of Beverly Hills High School. Emotions will probably be high on both sides of the issue as each side has over 1,000 responses to petitions urging Metro to move forward and urging Metro to stop and study more. Streetsblog will due its best to report on the issues raised both accurately and dispassionately, and calls on other outlets to do the same.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 69 Location: Venice
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #58 on Apr 19, 2012, 7:45am »
Metro Board committee sends Westside Subway Extension final study to full Board
The Metro Board of Directors Planning Committee today recommended that the full Board next week certify the Final Environmental Imapct Statement/Report for the Westside Subway Extension, a key Measure R-funded project.
The vote was 3 to 1 with Board Members Diane DuBois, Richard Katz and Zev Yaroslavsky voting for and Mike Antonovich against. Board Member Pam O’Connor abstained, saying she first wanted to read Metro’s response to a second study commissioned by Beverly Hills.
The Metro staff recommendation is for a 9-mile alignment mostly along Wilshire Boulevard with stations at La Brea, Fairfax, La Cienega, Rodeo, Constellation/Avenue of the Stars, Wilshire/Westwood and at the VA Hospital.
The recommendation of the Constellation/Avenue of the Stars station has brought much criticism from Beverly Hills officials who are angry that station would require Metro to tunnel under parts of the Beverly Hills High School campus — which Beverly Hills officials say would threaten the safety of students and hinder future development on a campus they say is too small for a city with one high school.
Metro studies have concluded that it is safe to tunnel under the campus and that it is not safe to build a station along Santa Monica Boulevard because of active earthquake fault zones in the area.
“This is not a nimby, naysayer issue,” testified Lisa Korbatov, a member of the Board of Education of the Beverly Hills Unified School District. “You people don’t want to hear the truth.”
Board Member Yaroslavsky made several pointed remarks in response to the criticism from Beverly Hills officials, who alleged that subway tunnels under schools in California is unprecedented (Metro disagrees) and asked for the full Board to delay their vote in order to see seismic studies that Beverly Hills plans to soon release based on trenching on the campus.
“This project has already been delayed for a long time,” Yaroslavsky said. “If I thought that a 30 day delay would solve the problem I would consider it,” he said, adding that the differences between Beverly Hills and Metro were intractable.
“We have had meetings with stakeholders to try to find middle ground. The instruction we got back from Beverly Hills was to talk to our lawyers,” Yaroslavsky said.
Yaroslavsky said that in essence Metro has two choices: either tunnel south of Santa Monica Boulevard to avoid faults or completely avoid Century City and just have the subway run down Wilshire Boulevard — which he believes would be a big mistake that he likened to the Green Line not being built to LAX or the Red Line not including a Hollywood Bowl station.
Yaroslavsky also took issue with complaints from Beverly Hills school officials saying that subway tunnels would prevent future development. He pointed out that even the most recent report by an engineering firm hired by Beverly Hills said that the tunnels would allow for development at least 40 feet underground and that it was unlikely the school would want to construct anything that deep below ground level.
There was one change to the staff recommendations for the project with staff now saying that the station entrance for the Fairfax station should be at Wilshire and Orange Grove, which is directly across Wilshire from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Staff had originally proposed an entrance on the northwest corner of Wilshire and Fairfax but noted that increased attendance at the museum plus the commitment of LACMA to raise money for a second portal on the north side of Wilshire made that entrance more desireable.
Joined: Mar 2011 Gender: Male Posts: 203 Location: Bell Gardens
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #61 on Apr 20, 2012, 11:17pm »
I'm so over these pouty, entitled, capricious people acting like victims and sore losers. The only thing I can believe is that Beverly Hills High School's agenda is to get a free underground parking facility while the city of Beverly Hills' agenda is to disenfranchise Century City.
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #63 on Apr 21, 2012, 7:59am »
Here's a link below. Great piece, though I doubt it will change anything tomorrow in Hysteria Land, especially with people like John Mirisch and Lilli Bosse running the show.
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #64 on Apr 21, 2012, 12:33pm »
If anyone can help, CenturyCitysubway.org, the paid PR firm (Sitrick and Co.) of BH is getting quite combative spreading their lies in the comment threads of Patch stories. If anyone wants to help take them down a notch:
Joined: Mar 2011 Gender: Male Posts: 203 Location: Bell Gardens
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #65 on Apr 21, 2012, 10:11pm »
I read all those comments; that was really disgusting. I told them so, then followed up with a bunch of other stuff. I'm not the most qualified to come to anyone's rescue, but I tried.
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #66 on Apr 22, 2012, 7:48pm »
According to the subway's Facebook page, BH unsurprisingly passed a motion to request a hearing before Metro (unanimous, of course). So, the FEIR will NOT be certified this month. Hopefully, Metro can schedule this thing quickly.
According to the subway's Facebook page, BH unsurprisingly passed a motion to request a hearing before Metro (unanimous, of course). So, the FEIR will NOT be certified this month. Hopefully, Metro can schedule this thing quickly.
Don't get ahead of yourself Simon...remember when the Courier talked about how "Metro is now studying an overground station at SaMo boulevard"? They issued that last week, well Streetsblog totally rebuffed them (http://la.streetsblog.org/2012/04/18/no-metro-is-not-really-considering-an-aerial-station-for-santa-monicacentury-park- east/). So, until Metro officially removes it from their agenda on Thursday, I would take it as a grain of salt. Metro hasn't even offered their response yet.
Joined: Jun 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 413 Location: Silverlake
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #68 on Apr 23, 2012, 6:12am »
Their delay tactics will backfire on them. What about the 2 schools that currently have the subway running under their property? The message to them is clear, Beverly Hills feels it is better than everyone else.
Joined: Mar 2011 Gender: Male Posts: 203 Location: Bell Gardens
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #69 on Apr 23, 2012, 6:22pm »
It wouldn't be so bad if these people were accepting the hyperbole being fed to them as fact. What makes it bad is that Beverly Hills commissioned a study that concurs with the Metro study and they've chosen to disregard it because it doesn't say what they were hoping it would say. When everything is laid out, hopefully the people will be able to weight the facts against the hyperbole and demand clarification from their trusted local politicians. That's when heads will roll.
Joined: Jun 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 413 Location: Silverlake
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #70 on Apr 23, 2012, 7:14pm »
With this weeks opening of the Expo line, maybe Angelenos will see why the systems expansion is so important, and why we need the Purple line extended. Beverly Hill's continued unscientific political attack on Metro is pure political NIMBYism.
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #71 on Apr 24, 2012, 6:50am »
The Expo Line opening will get more fans wanting to see a greater Metro rail expansion in the westside. It's the same as in Pasadena, they were against the Gold Line, until they saw it and now campaign harder for Gold Line expansions than freeway expansions. So yes, the opening of this line will be very symbolic and will help get some Metro rail boosters!
Joined: Mar 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 861 Location: Los Angeles
Re: Final EIR released for Purple Line. « Reply #72 on Apr 25, 2012, 1:37pm »
So now LACMA is offering to pay for a portal to the Purple Line on its campus at Orange Grove. Does anyone know why that would preclude an entrance at Fairfax next to Jonnies as they are now planning on the other entrance being on the other side of Wilshire?
So now LACMA is offering to pay for a portal to the Purple Line on its campus at Orange Grove. Does anyone know why that would preclude an entrance at Fairfax next to Jonnies as they are now planning on the other entrance being on the other side of Wilshire?
I think Metro is saying that it LACMA pays for the entrance at Fairfax, they would take the money allocated to the north side portal (at Johnies) and move the money somewhere else in the project.
LACMA didn't ask Metro to cancel the Johnie's portal but it seems likely that will happen if they took LACMA's money.
Here is the actual wording in the propose change in EIR
- MTA-funded Orange Grove subway entrance: South side of Wilshire [note: previously, the EIR say no to south side Orange Grove portal and yes to north side Johnies portal] directly opposite LACMA - LACMA-funded entrance: North side of Wilshire between LACMA West and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum - Both would be a short distance from the Wilshire/Fairfax intersection
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