Infill Stations

[antonio]

I remember a discussion on the old board about knockout panels at 7th/Witmer (which would be useful in about 7-10 years when City West is truly developed but not too urgent) and that got me thinking about other infill stations. Obviously there shouldn't be too many because you need good station spacing (averaging about a 1 mile in between) to maintain a fast end-to-end travel time for the Valley people but there are two glaring gaps that would make up for slowing down the line by providing high ridership.

The first one is Vermont/3rd. This is the most dense intersection in the city and it has a rail line running under it but no station. It seems horribly inefficient to have thousands of people crowd on a 754 or 204 bus for 1/2 a mile to catch the Red Line and traffic moves through that area like molasses. It once took me 30 minutes on 3rd to go the mile from Western to Vermont. The ridership here would be one of the highest in the system as the area is both megadense and extremely transit-dependent. You could use the parking lot of the supermarket (I think its Food 4 Less) on the NW corner as a staging area for the station.

The other necessary station would be at the intersection of Lankershim, Vineland, and Camarillo in the Valley. The North Hollywood and Universal stations are WAY too far apart considering the density of that part of the Valley. There are close to one hundred apartment buildings clustered around the Vineland/Lankershim intersection but over 1 1/4 miles to Universal and almost a mile to NoHo. This station would not require cultivated TOD like the Arts District station because there is plently of population nearby and the Vineland bus runs every 15 minutes (not bad for the Valley).

[metrocenter]

I would add Wilshire/Hoover. It always felt to me that there should be a station there.

I also agree with 3rd/Vermont. Very dense area. (Honestly, I would have preferred that Beverly were skipped, in favor of stops at 3rd and Melrose.)

[bobdavis]

Sometimes stations have to be placed in less-than-ideal locations because of engineering considerations. Much as stations at the proposed locations would be well patronized, the disruption caused by construction makes them unlikely, no matter how much money is available. One of the anomalies of Southern Calif. rail transport is that the Montclair and Claremont Metrolink stations are closer together than some of the Red Line and light rail stations.

[JerardWright]

Exactly. I think there is a logistical problem to where the trains curve and turn at 3rd/Vermont to reach the Wilshire/Vermont station.

Also to consider is how we constructing the tunnels for our subway stations. In NYC they are mostly cut-cover so it's easier to add infill stations compared to bored tubes.

[crzwdjk]

And yet, NYC's one and only infill station (as far as I know) is in fact in a deep tunnel section, on the Lexington Ave express line at 59th/Lexington, built to provide a transfer to the 60th St tunnel line.

[whitmanlam]

Stations will be very expensive to add, and require a lot of digging and shoring. Plus, having more stops along the way will slow down the trains speed considerably. Leading to longer end to end trips.

In the case of major destinations that fall just short of the subway line: the Hollywood Bowl, City West, City Hall, and The Grove (westside extension).
Maybe they can build a pedestrian tunnel with a people mover or moving escalator to help people cover that 1/4 mile.
Doesn't have to be an entire new station, just a way of getting pedestrians to a close location. I see these walkway tunnels a lot in London.

[jejozwik]

Nov 19, 2008 0:30:38 GMT -8 whitmanlam said:

... I see these walkway tunnels a lot in London.

singapore and hong kong too,

specifically central [hong kong]
and dhoby ghaut [singapore]

[JerardWright]

Nov 17, 2008 21:06:10 GMT -8 crzwdjk said:

And yet, NYC's one and only infill station (as far as I know) is in fact in a deep tunnel section, on the Lexington Ave express line at 59th/Lexington, built to provide a transfer to the 60th St tunnel line.

Right, that Lexington Corridor was a cut-cover two level tunnel with the 59th St station already containing side platforms, it was easy to build underneath the platforms leaving the trains to by-pass the station under the platforms are complete. The transfer tunnel if I remember from my last NYC trip is underneath a Bloomingdales at one of the Mezzanine levels, there are two mezzanine levels for this station transfer because of the number of people using it and the number of riders transfering between trains. Which is why NYC is pressinghard on getting the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway built from 63rd to 125th to relieve the overcrowding in that area.

[metrocenter]

That's one of the puzzling things about L.A.'s subway: it's lack of pedestrian entrances and tunnels. We've spent billions to build a subway system, yet nearly every station has only one, very grand entrance.

Are tunnels and escalators that hard to build?

Stations like Wilshire/Vermont, Wilshire/Western, Hollywood/Vine, and Hollywood/Highland should have secondary entrances on the opposite side of the major boulevard.

Subways in London, NYC, Paris, etc. are so much more accessible and convenient, while being infinitely more efficient with their space.

[JerardWright]

Hollywood/Highland oddly enough has a floating mezzanine on the other end of the station on Las Palmas and the current mezzanine has a knockout panel for a future entrance on the SW corner of Hollywood/Highland.

So there are provisions for it there compared to Hollywood/Vine, the only reason I know about this one is through a motion on the Governance council about the Park-Ride possibilities of taking the lightly utilized and expensive parking structure underneath Hollywood/Highland development for potential future riders who live in the Hollywood Hills and bus service would be very difficult due to steep grades and narrow street corridors.







Wilshire/Western that is a tricky one because you have the landmark Wiltern theater across Wilshire and across Western there's a high-rise building that would probably generate the ridership needed for the line, it's essentially in a built out condition compared to the older London or Paris subway lines.

Hollywood/Vine is one that puzzles me too however I can see with this site the one central location but multiple entry points is a good solution to the area. They are too many landmark pieces minus the NW corner on this intersection to include multiple entrances and you want to build the stations with as little disruption to the existing local business and local fabric as possible. Is that a trade off? Yes.
Is it worthy trade off? That is where you'll get the loads of different answers remember that eninment domain isn't as strong as it once was when building the Freeway system. Was the area at full buildout or had to many landmark restrictions that eliminated any potential? Which leads me to my the final one that should have had more provisions added to it because it had the greater opportunity for it because the surrounding area was at partial buildout.

Wilshire/Vermont was one they should have inculded a pedestrian tunnel going across to hit the other end and knockout that Gas Station on the NW corner or even the current used car lot not even touching the gas station, especially considering that before the development it was a large sunken plaza about 10-12 feet below street level that could have been easily done to make that connection by cutting a 15' wide section and decking over Vermont. However as I'm writing this I think eninment domain laws prevented this because why would we need the Gas station lot for construction when all of it was done on the large city block bounded by 6th, Vermont, Wilshire and Shatto?

[Jason Saunders]

"That's one of the puzzling things about L.A.'s subway: it's lack of pedestrian entrances and tunnels. We've spent billions to build a subway system, yet nearly every station has only one, very grand entrance."

It cost drastically more to build these additional portals. There are ADA requirements, space requirements and budget requirements. You have to remember MTA was getting a lot of heat about going over budget during the construction of the Red Line. They were getting heavy critism from the press and politicians alike. So much so that the "MTA accountability Act" authored by Zev Yaroslavsky passed easily.

Assuming it would only cost a modest amount more, Where would you put the second portal in the examples you site?

Wilshire Western: The sidewalks aren't wide enough and I don't forsee tearing down any of the adjacent buildings, nor constructing long tunnels, with the weather so mild and nice up top people can just walk at ground level.

Hollywood and Vine: I guess you could do some land acquisition but then again the cross walk is only fifteen feet away.

Wilshire Vermont: I guess you could have a portal in that gas station across the street. The other portals would have to be located inside of buildings. Don't you think this would be very expensive?

I just don't see the cost benefits penciling out.

In regards to infill stations. I think the spacing is pretty good.

Vermont/3rd and Wilshire/Hoover are only four blocks on either side of Vermont Wilshire. Are we really that lazy that we can't walk four blocks to the subway station? Exercise is good for us, Really good. That's one of the benefits of public transportation.

Lankershim/Vineland/Cammarillo: I agree that this is a good candidate for infill. The distance between the closest stations is a bit great but I do think the density is a little less dense out there and I understand the logic of forgoing a station to get a little further into the valley. At the time of construction the subway was being billed as the "subway to nowhere" so they were were really trying to get somewhere: The Valley. Most of the cost for subway is in the stations.

My two cents.

[JerardWright]

I don't think it would have been expensive due to method of how it could be built and the lot itself wouldn't need escalators it could use a series of ramps. Also remember that this was a large open sunken plaza for the first 10 years of this station's life leading to the mezzanine. I'm assuming not taking the Gas Station lot but instead the used car lot and alley next to the gas station way which would connect to New Hampshire and the bus riders travelling south.

However it was probably infeasible because of the eninment domain laws unless there is a specific reason that lot is needed for construction, it can't be done. The multiple entrance stations I can think of is 7th Street Metro Center because it is in a built out area where they punched in sections of the existing buildings for entrances.

[antonio]

Saunders, I don't know that it costs "drastically more" to install these portals. Most of the high cost of subway stations in particular as opposed to elevated or at grade is the excavation of the station box (correct me if I'm wrong, Jerard). The portal is probably no more than 5-10% of the station cost since most of what you are paying for is escalators, stairs and elevators. As for ADA requirements, every subway station is already ADA compliant so the additional entrances wouldnt necessarily need to have elevators (since the other entrances have them), especially if they are stairs in a tight space.

[JerardWright]

Stations are the most expensive part. Since most of the mezzanines usually fall in the same location as the station box it this cost of the mezzanines can be as much as 20-30% of the cost of the station construction with the remaining portion being the platform itself due to more linear of foot of platform.

With ADA requirements, they are dependent upon location and demand. If you have a grandfathered station, it's usally easier to add more entrances without needing the elevators. However the size of the elevator that is existing needs to be big enough to support it. Don't forget the land in which the station entrance rests on. If it was an existing building and you need to use that site for a portal, you'll have to tear it down and that adds to the cost of the station. If it's stairs in the sidewalk, you'd still have ADA, insurance/legal and building code issues, because they relate to the minimum that is from the street curb for someone who is elderly as well as a mininum width of stair for the amount of passengers expected in the station, the mininum on that is from 7'6" to 10'0", depending on how many entrances you have. That 7'6" doesn't inlcude the width of the sidewalls and any curb retainage which means that's adds 2' to the dimension.

[Jason Saunders]

Nov 20, 2008 13:40:47 GMT -8 antonio said:

Saunders, I don't know that it costs "drastically more" to install these portals. Most of the high cost of subway stations in particular as opposed to elevated or at grade is the excavation of the station box ....

To build a portal across Lankershim to the Universal City station the price tag was estimated to be 22.9 million dollars in 2003.

articles.latimes.com/2003/feb/17/local/me-tunnel17

This is with no property acquisition and Universal's blessing. I concede this is after subway construction but still we're talking big dollars.

[Jason Saunders]

Nov 20, 2008 11:05:21 GMT -8 JerardWright said:

I don't think it would have been expensive due to method of how it could be built and the lot itself wouldn't need escalators it could use a series of ramps. Also remember that this was a large open sunken plaza for the first 10 years of this station's life leading to the mezzanine. I'm assuming not taking the Gas Station lot but instead the used car lot and alley next to the gas station way which would connect to New Hampshire and the bus riders travelling south.

The Wilshire Vermont station is the deepest in the entire rail network, extending 120 feet below ground.

www.dyna-la.com/services/projects/proj13_mrs.html

It has an escalator that is the longest in the State of California. I have been told it is longest west of the Mississippi.

Exactly, how many times would this ramp zig zag before reaching the mezzanine while still staying in ADA compliance in terms of slope?

(On Second thought, the mezzanine is not as deep as the entire three level station. From across the street, a ramp wouldn't have to descend the whole hundred and twenty feet but it would have to avoid the foundation of the building above. This means a tunnel.

I still think it would be expensive and I remain unconvinced of the cost/benefit ratio.)

[crzwdjk]

Somewhat off topic, but I want to set things straight. The 59th St station on the Lexington line is actually a fairly complex construction, with three. The top level is indeed a cut and cover tunnel with side platforms, which were built when the line was opened in 1918. The next level down is the BMT subway, opened in 1920, with an island platform, which is I believe on the transition from cut and cover to bored construction. I believe that there's a mezzanine level below this, and below that, the lowest level, is the IRT express, in a bored tunnel. The station there wasn't opened until 1962, and features two side platforms, with the tunnel roof and inter-track wall remaining original and support columns replacing the outer tunnel walls. It must have been quite a challenge to build it, and I rather doubt that they would shut down the service for any significant length of time longer than a weekend, as by that point, the IRT was the only subway line left on the East Side.

Anyway, if I were building an infill station on the Red Line, I'd do it the same way regular stations are built: dig a box down, with temporary supports across it, down to the level of the tunnels. Then dismantle the now-exposed tunnels, and put the tracks down into the newly-poured tunnel floor, and build up the station as usual, probably with temporary protective boxes around the trackways so service can continue to run.

[JerardWright]

Nov 20, 2008 18:17:10 GMT -8 Jason Saunders said:

(On Second thought, the mezzanine is not as deep as the entire three level station. From across the street, a ramp wouldn't have to descend the whole hundred and twenty feet but it would have to avoid the foundation of the building above. This means a tunnel.

I still think it would be expensive and I remain unconvinced of the cost/benefit ratio.)

That's fine. I have been using my example of Wilshire/Vermont pre-development, when the mezzanine was the sunken plaza. Even post-development including the parking structure under the development, this might not be as difficult. However we can wait until we build a subway down Vermont as the means to find out simple or how difficult this maybe.

[gibiscus]

The infill stations should be added with a NYC-style local/express system. City West, Lafayette Park and Normandie would only be served by the local train, but MacArthur Park, Vermont and Western would be served by both local and express. At Fairfax, the local can branch off to Farmers Market/The Grove, then west to Beverly Center/Cedars Sinai and north again to Santa Monica Blvd and the Sunset Strip. East of 7th/Metro, it could alsocontinue east from 7th/Metro to Broadway, Fashion District, Terminal Market/Greyhound, Whittier/Soto and Sears (Olympic/Soto). This would prevent a Whittier Blvd line from having to dip down to Olympic by having the express line come down the river from Union Station then turn east on Whittier. On the Vermont Corridor, I would have a local line that starts south of Wilshire and stops at 3rd and Melrose in addition to the existing stations, and extends north of Sunset for a Los Feliz station and a Greek Theatre station (with a funicular up to the Griffith Observatory).

[crzwdjk]

It's too late for a proper NYC-style local/express system, you need to have that built in from the beginning in order to have cross-platform transfers. You'd basically be building a second subway parallel to the existing Red Line, and it would be a lot of work to integrate the two systems cleanly. But an interesting very-long-term possibility for express service is turning Metrolink into something like the Paris RER, with electric trains running in a new express subway under Wilshire with stops every 3 miles or so, going to Westwood. I have no idea how much demand there would be for a service like that, or whether the Purple Line extension will be fast enough and have enough capacity for it to not matter.

[bluelineshawn]

Express stations are a bad idea. They make sense for NYC because of the way the system was developed (stations often too close together, converging lines, etc.) but we absolutely do not need express trains. Even NYCT will not have express stations on the new Second Avenue Subway currently under construction. On that same note the more that we can minimize running multiple lines on the same tracks the better we'll be in the future in terms of coverage, speed, reliability, and efficiency.

[whitmanlam]

I think Express stations are a good idea in neighborhoods with high density. Such as Downtown LA, the Wilshire corridor and Century City. I can't count how many times I've tried to make my way to Wilshire and Hoover or City West and had to board a bus to complete the connection. The average commuter doesn't want to waste another minute traveling underground to Santa Monica.

Another candidate for Express service should be the Blue Line, even a 3rd track would help greatly as it takes a loooong time to get to Downtown Long Beach.

[Jason Saunders]

Whitman: Doesn't it make more sense to bypass the stations with lower density?

In regards to the blue Line: What stations would you bypass? Would you have four tracks, an express in each direction?

[bobdavis]

Chicago had A/B service on some lines, with less-used stations being designated A or B and busier stations AB (sounds like blood types!). Half the trains would stop at A stations, half would stop at B's, and all would stop at AB's. This system prevailed for many years, but I understand it's no longer used.

[bluelineshawn]

Nov 6, 2008 12:56:31 GMT -8 antonio said:

I remember a discussion on the old board about knockout panels at 7th/Witmer (which would be useful in about 7-10 years when City West is truly developed but not too urgent) and that got me thinking about other infill stations.

As crzwdjk alludes, infill stations aren't possible in the tubes without destroying the tubes and rebuilding them. And I looked at the tubes in City West and didn't see any sort of knockout panels nor can I imagine what purpose they would serve given tha there isn't a station there. Are you discussing something real or a bad idea from the old board?

[Justin Walker]

Jan 26, 2010 14:00:09 GMT -8 bluelineshawn said:

As crzwdjk alludes, infill stations aren't possible in the tubes without destroying the tubes and rebuilding them.

Very true. A valuable resource on infill subway stations is BART's 30th/Mission Infill Station Study.

They identified two general methods of building an infill subway station:
1) Off-line, i.e. building station tunnels in new parallel subway tunnels and diverting trains to the new tunnels when construction is complete
2) On-line, i.e. building a station box around the existing subway tunnels



Here's a diagram showing the general procedure of building an on-line station around the existing BART tunnels:


(In the above diagram, the tracks are eventually relocated in the square boxes located in the bottom corners of the station box. The existing tunnels are then completely removed and the platform is built in their place.)