Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #25 on Oct 19, 2011, 4:08pm »
As a follow-up, I have to say that I'm happy to see that the seismic results turned out to point to choosing the Constellation Station. That was by far the best choice all along. One step closer to construction start
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #26 on Oct 19, 2011, 4:11pm »
Ha! Maybe now some BH residents can sue the school district for construction and development without proper due diligence...after all, BHUSD surely studied this before proceeding, right?
Well, here is the first shot. Before they even try to spin it that the experts don't know what they are doing, they are trying to spin it that Metro sat on the study results too long, since the conclusion is that the whole area is in grave danger. Maybe they will try and use the study to stop all construction in the area, not just the subway...
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) President Lisa Korbatov today issued the following statement in response to media inquiries related to a seismic report presented by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro):
With its seismic data presentation, Metro has opened a veritable Pandora's Box that potentially impacts many dozens of existing buildings and future projects in the region, including Beverly Hills High School, future station locations for the Westside Subway Extension as well as currently entitled development projects. It is unfathomable that Metro has had this important seismic data available for such a long time without providing it to the BHUSD or other interested parties in the purported earthquake zone.
Much of the data presented today has been available for almost a year. The fact that Metro held it for so long poses many questions that Metro cannot answer. If the fault is so dangerous, the information should have been more forthcoming. We urge Metro to fully disclose all of the data as soon as possible. Our independent experts will immediately begin evaluating the findings and will weigh in as this process moves forward.
SOURCE Beverly Hills Unified School District
Oh Lisa...you lost this court case regarding disclosure of information while in pending review:
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,110 Location: Cal Heights, Long Beach, CA
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #29 on Oct 20, 2011, 8:45am »
Given the locations of the faults (including one directly under the school), it seems there is really just one sensible thing for BHUSD to do: relocate the high school.
It is clear from the study: the earthquake faults pose far more of a threat to the school than a static, reinforced subway tunnel does.
Given the locations of the faults (including one directly under the school), it seems there is really just one sensible thing for BHUSD to do: relocate the high school.
It is clear from the study: the earthquake faults pose far more of a threat to the school than a static, reinforced subway tunnel does.
Ironically, there was a lot of speculation about 15-20 years ago or so that they would relocate the high school in order to sell the land for possible high rise development (in essence an extension of Century City) and then use the enormous proceeds to build a high school somewhere else. However, not sure where that somewhere else was supposed to be, because there aren't many (any?) large empty tracks of land in Beverly Hills where this would be possible.
Given the locations of the faults (including one directly under the school), it seems there is really just one sensible thing for BHUSD to do: relocate the high school.
It is clear from the study: the earthquake faults pose far more of a threat to the school than a static, reinforced subway tunnel does.
I wish there was dramatic sound effects to go with this post...
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #32 on Oct 20, 2011, 11:40am »
Not to be glib about the situation, but you would think that going forward the BHUSD will have a lot more to worry about than a subway tunnel 70 feet under their property. On th epositive side, if the school ends up having to be relocated, the students might just have a very short subway ride to school
A good analogy would be your rich neighbor sues you for building a fence that sits one inch over onto his property line. The matter goes to court, and a title search uncovers the fact that the neighbor really doesn't even own the property he is living on and has to move. A perfect example of the law of "unintended consequences"
Joined: Mar 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 3,998 Location: Palms, LA, CA
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #33 on Oct 20, 2011, 1:27pm »
This is an expected and pleasing win against the Beverly Hills NIMBYs, but I won't say that NIMBYism in Beverly Hills have been defeated until I see that they build light-rail on Santa Monica Boulevard on the old Pacific Electric right-of-way one day in the future.
This was a nonissue from the start. Opposition against a deep-underground subway? Who are you kidding? I understand opposition against light-rail but this was a joke from the start. It just shows how ignorant these people are, living in their tiny shells, isolated from the civilization.
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #34 on Oct 20, 2011, 1:39pm »
The funny thing about Ms. Korbatov's press release is that her precious "withheld" seismic data has been available from the USGS since about 2006 as a downloadable Google Earth overlay. Here's an example - the thin orange line running from the northwest to southeast is a representation of the West Beverly Hills Lineament:
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,110 Location: Cal Heights, Long Beach, CA
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #35 on Oct 20, 2011, 1:58pm »
Just a reminder, there is a media battle going on out there: the Beverly NIMBillys are trying desperately to discredit the Metro report of scientific findings. If you have the time, please take some time to post your comments on any or all of the following news stories:
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,110 Location: Cal Heights, Long Beach, CA
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #37 on Oct 21, 2011, 7:59am »
Yesterday I joked about relocating the high school. Now we have this interesting bit of information, courtesy of the Beverly Hills Courier (a highly-slanted opinion piece, BTW):
"However, in a stunning blow to [Beverly Hills Mayor] Brucker’s email “message” of last night, in which he promised to extract large sums from MTA to rebuild the high school, the MTA report concluded that the high school campus is so impaired by earthquake faults that the property should be deemed worthless. If the MTA tunnels under Beverly High, it would have to pay for the route based on the value of the land. With this finding, MTA would owe Beverly Hills Unified School District nearly nothing."
Joined: Feb 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 426 Location: Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, CA
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #38 on Jan 3, 2012, 1:30am »
Apparently, tunneling is not too daunting a task for the Brits, unlike tunneling under Beverly Hills or completing the Purple Line to the Bay, or boring a tunnel beneath the Sepulveda Pass. In two years, the UK is going to increase the rail capacity to London by 10% and bring an additional 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of downtown.
The project is called "Crossrail" and for $23 billion, 10,000 workmen are creating 73 miles of underground rail that will descend up to 130 ft in only 2 years! They are using 8 TBMs, each 460 feet long and weighing over 1,100 tons and costing $15.5 million each. The TBMs will work 24 hrs a day and tunnel 328 feet a week. As the machine proceeds down a tunnel it "automatically" lines each tunnel wth concrete panels, each weighing about 4 tons, 8 required for the circumference.
Apparently, tunneling is not too daunting a task for the Brits, unlike tunneling under Beverly Hills or completing the Purple Line to the Bay, or boring a tunnel beneath the Sepulveda Pass. In two years, the UK is going to increase the rail capacity to London by 10% and bring an additional 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of downtown.
The project is called "Crossrail" and for $23 billion, 10,000 workmen are creating 73 miles of underground rail that will descend up to 130 ft in only 2 years! They are using 8 TBMs, each 460 feet long and weighing over 1,100 tons and costing $15.5 million each. The TBMs will work 24 hrs a day and tunnel 328 feet a week. As the machine proceeds down a tunnel it "automatically" lines each tunnel wth concrete panels, each weighing about 4 tons, 8 required for the circumference.
It's entirely possible to do a lot better if the political will is there. It's not like Los Angeles couldn't afford to do the same thing in principle. The economy of Los Angeles is much larger than that of London: 792 billion vs. 565 billion (source) which mainly comes down to having more people. In fact, we spend a fortune on freeways. If we spent some reasonable fraction of that on transit, we would have a very impressive system indeed. If we were a little more intelligent about our transportation spending, we would also have more money for other investments in physical infrastructure, like sidewalks, parks, schools, libraries, etc. Of course, I don't know about the relative complications of building a new metro line in "London clay" vs. Los Angeles, but both are certainly complicated and expensive. Anyway, Crossrail promises to improve London transportation like a mini version of the Paris RER network. I think it's a great investment.
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #40 on Jan 16, 2012, 2:00pm »
it helps that the United Kingdom, like a lot of nations, has a higher gas tax/ "petrol duty" than we do, which contributes to a higher gas price.
This higher price makes driving much less advantageous over using transit. Of course, people still drive despite the higher cost, but at least the higher tax contributes a greater amount to transportation funding.
It's not quite as simple as "move funds from highways to rail," although that would also help.
it helps that the United Kingdom, like a lot of nations, has a higher gas tax/ "petrol duty" than we do, which contributes to a higher gas price.
This higher price makes driving much less advantageous over using transit. Of course, people still drive despite the higher cost, but at least the higher tax contributes a greater amount to transportation funding.
It's not quite as simple as "move funds from highways to rail," although that would also help.
That's a good point. At the risk of getting too wonky on the point about taxes making driving less advantageous, I'll add this: The tax tends to discourage people from making driving trips that have low value to them or trips that could easily be replaced with some other mode (biking, walking, transit). So the tax isn't necessarily economically destructive; it just encourages people to conserve and not waste gas on trips that aren't very productive or are easily replaced.
it helps that the United Kingdom, like a lot of nations, has a higher gas tax/ "petrol duty" than we do, which contributes to a higher gas price.
This higher price makes driving much less advantageous over using transit. Of course, people still drive despite the higher cost, but at least the higher tax contributes a greater amount to transportation funding.
It's not quite as simple as "move funds from highways to rail," although that would also help.
That's a good point. At the risk of getting too wonky on the point about taxes making driving less advantageous, I'll add this: The tax tends to discourage people from making driving trips that have low value to them or trips that could easily be replaced with some other mode (biking, walking, transit). So the tax isn't necessarily economically destructive; it just encourages people to conserve and not waste gas on trips that aren't very productive or are easily replaced.
Fair enough, but I'm pretty sure that if we had given more balanced funding to rail and roads we could have a pretty awesome metro system now, and that fewer freeways going out into the boonies would result in more dense development in the city core further reducing the cost per taxpayer both for the metro and roads. I think it could have been feasible even without increased taxes, though I fully support increasing the gas tax... by a lot.
Under the original plan, the initial segment would have included only two stations (at La Brea and Fairfax). The proposed plan would build three stations in the initial segment, bringing the Purple Line subway as far west as the edge of Beverly Hills.
The reason is simple. When an interim terminal station facility has to be constructed, the area around the interim station experiences more construction activity and greater impacts. Metro staff would like to avoid having these additional impacts at Fairfax/Wilshire, which is in the middle of a "gassy area" and which also has fossils. Moving the terminus to La Cienega would reduce the impacts at Fairfax.
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #44 on Feb 13, 2012, 11:35am »
Also makes the first segment of the extension that much more useful. Although I'm sure that means opening date for the first segment will push back by about 2 years.
Also makes the first segment of the extension that much more useful. Although I'm sure that means opening date for the first segment will push back by about 2 years.
I don't know if I'd assume that at all. It is still a short segment, although any time you do anything longer there is more chance of an issue coming up. It shouldn't take much longer to run the TBM machine an extra .75 miles though.
This seems like a no brainer. Back a few months ago, Metro announced they had received a TIFIA loan (in essence kind of a mini 30/10 loan) for the Westside subway, I had assumed they could move the first segment to La Cienega with that money, but this memo makes no mention of that money.
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #46 on Feb 13, 2012, 12:32pm »
Actually, this is VERY VERY good. Once its at the edge of Beverly Hills, the quiet majority of people who support the subway in Beverly Hills and would have no problem going under BHHS will start to drown out the BHHS administration and pandering of the Patch/John Mirisch. It's like the Pasadena/NIMBY situation, now that they see the benefits of the Gold Line, the naysayers are drowned out.
La Cienega is great!...Rodeo would be better!...and more to come after that!
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,110 Location: Cal Heights, Long Beach, CA
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #47 on Feb 13, 2012, 2:05pm »
And, if some idiot like 1990s Henry Waxman puts a halt to the subway, at least the subway will have reached Restaurant Row, with easy access to the Beverly Center and West Hollywood.
Re: Purple line extension construction update thre « Reply #48 on Feb 13, 2012, 4:20pm »
I can't see any problems with going to LaCienega, especially if it means less construction at Fairfax.
I'm hoping less construction at Fairfax means less construction at LACMA, although I fully support the LACMA West station idea.
One way or another, there will be construction disruption there (as there has been construction there for the new buildings), but I would imagine LACMA art patrons would be happy to know there will be less construction than there would have been.
And, if some idiot like 1990s Henry Waxman puts a halt to the subway, at least the subway will have reached Restaurant Row, with easy access to the Beverly Center and West Hollywood.
Not to mention that we will have ALL the possible connection options for a northern Crenshaw Line extension (La Brea, Fairfax, and La Cienega via San Vicente).
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