Post by JerardWright on Aug 2, 2011 17:27:51 GMT -8
The biggest issue I have with the Westwood/Overland alignment is that serving this section would all but undercut Expo ridership as it mirrors this very area you're serving from Pico to Venice Blvd, so it may appear better from a ridership perspective if this was a stand alone line WITHOUT Expo, however the connection with Expo at Sepulveda would serve the very areas this expensive subway would duplicate
I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that this will undercut Expo ridership. Any Expo-405 line transfer will take place just the same whether it is at Sepulveda or Westwood. How would moving transfer station east by 0.5 mile affect ridership to the extend you envision? Please elaborate.
If this line goes to serve the same destinations as Expo Line would eliminating the transfer and making the connection and extra service redundant because Expo would be serving the same destinations (Westside Pavilion with the Westwood Stop, Palms neighborhood with Palms/National, Culver City and Sony Studios from Venice/Robertson station)
By having these two lines with not even in a major business district essential duplicate each other so soon will essentially balkanize ridership for both lines.
Its one of the same reasons why if we build the Wilshire Subway we won't go ahead and built another heavy rail subway on 3rd Street or Olympic for a long time unless the original subway is over capacity because you're essentially thining out the catchment to serve the line
Oh I totally disagree. Sony Studios and West Culver Business District are both potentially major ridership generators south of Venice Blvd. Certainly more so than Sepulveda between Venice and Fox Hills Mall... which is devoid of anything of interest aside from a Pacos Tacos
The Sony studios and West CulverBD are mostly on Venice Blvd for conversation purposes so that would still leave a huge void of ridership between there and Fox Hills.
I have already laid out the arguments on speed... the Westwood-Overland alignment is more straight and slightly shorter and will likely offer faster travel time. The Sepulveda alignment requires an awkward 2x 90 degree turns out of Westwood Village to Sepulveda, which means the trains will have to slow down to a crawl. Westwood-Overland alignment does not have any 90 degree turns and is a straight shot to LAX with a few gentle curves. And if you eliminate the West LA college station, both alignment have the same number of stations
How does it transition from Westwood to Overland then? If trains are going to slow to crawl supposedly from Westwood to Sepulveda, how do you explain from Westwood to Overland.
If you can engineer gentle curves to transition between Westwood and Overland, these gentle curves can exist to transition from Westwood to Sepulveda and any other transition for a far less cost than this proposed alignment.
sides are:
- higher ridership (no doubt about it)
- faster speed (most likely)
- more pedestrian friendly environment (by a country mile)
Google Map of both alignment for click-thru fun: maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=200920330746408617074.0004a98b4d45434e69cd5&msa=0&ll=34.00742,-118.415108&spn=0.188122,0.363579
- higher ridership (no doubt about it)
- faster speed (most likely)
- more pedestrian friendly environment (by a country mile)
Google Map of both alignment for click-thru fun: maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=200920330746408617074.0004a98b4d45434e69cd5&msa=0&ll=34.00742,-118.415108&spn=0.188122,0.363579
And it was when I went on Google maps for a bird's eye view this
morning lead me to respond to this, the ridership is not as high as you're anticipating nor the walkability will be a factor when most of the scale of the stations would not justify the ridership needed for a Subway station and that stop spacing between stations.