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Post by Gokhan on Apr 30, 2014 13:33:13 GMT -8
I was at the Expo meeting in Palms / Cheviot Hills tonight. Most construction will be finished by the end of 2014. The line will be completed and handed over to Metro for prerevenue operations in April 2015. What was the attitude like at the meeting? I know it has been hostile in the past in Cheviot Hills. Was it acceptance at this point? Opposition hasn't shown up at these meeting for a very long time. Acceptance in general is good and people are enthusiastic.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 30, 2014 14:01:05 GMT -8
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f ron
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Posts: 222
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Post by f ron on Apr 30, 2014 14:13:45 GMT -8
Thanks for posting these images Gokhan! If I'm I reading those indications correctly, do they plan on installing a fence along the southern edge of the right-of-way through the Northvale trench? Wow, because if so, they sure haven't made it easy on themselves!
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 30, 2014 14:19:38 GMT -8
Thanks for posting these images Gokhan! If I'm I reading those indications correctly, do they plan on installing a fence along the southern edge of the right-of-way through the Northvale trench? Wow, because if so, they sure haven't made it easy on themselves! Yup, that's exactly what I asked and was told!
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f ron
Full Member
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Post by f ron on Apr 30, 2014 14:35:19 GMT -8
...do they plan on installing a fence along the southern edge of the right-of-way through the Northvale trench? Wow, because if so, they sure haven't made it easy on themselves! Yup, that's exactly what I asked and was told! Oh geez. Well that ought to make for an interesting installation. They better send the crew in single file. It's a mighty tight squeeze they've constructed for themselves. I imagine they'll be hoisiting material over the soundwall with a crane. Though I'm mighty curious to see if the fenceposts require poured concrete footings and if so how they're getting that back there! Woulda been a lot simpler if they installed the fence prior to the soundwall.
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Post by usmc1401 on Apr 30, 2014 19:32:06 GMT -8
Seeing that the rails for this Expo extension and probably others are set in concrete. What is the lifespan of these rails before they need to be replaced.
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Post by masonite on May 2, 2014 8:34:28 GMT -8
I was at the Expo meeting in Palms / Cheviot Hills tonight. Most construction will be finished by the end of 2014. The line will be completed and handed over to Metro for prerevenue operations in April 2015. To me this seems very unlikely. The project is barely half finished and they think they will be completely done in less than a year? The last half of construction is always harder than the first half. I hope I am wrong, but I think a summer 2015 handoff is more likely, which would still put us in good shape. I think another interesting question will be what is the ridership going to be. To be fair, I think measuring that one year after it opens is more accurate, because who knows how long they will have to piece together 12 minute service before they can go to 5 minute headways and it always takes time for the bus routes to properly sync with it. With that, I think I'll go with 55k ridership one year after Phase II opens. Of course, it really depends on the speed, which is a wild card. Phase I was slower than anyone thought it would be. Lets hope Phase II is not more of the same and they can work on the signaling and other issues to speed up Phase I.
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Post by TransportationZ on May 2, 2014 11:21:50 GMT -8
I was at the Expo meeting in Palms / Cheviot Hills tonight. Most construction will be finished by the end of 2014. The line will be completed and handed over to Metro for prerevenue operations in April 2015. To me this seems very unlikely. The project is barely half finished and they think they will be completely done in less than a year? The last half of construction is always harder than the first half. I hope I am wrong, but I think a summer 2015 handoff is more likely, which would still put us in good shape. I think another interesting question will be what is the ridership going to be. To be fair, I think measuring that one year after it opens is more accurate, because who knows how long they will have to piece together 12 minute service before they can go to 5 minute headways and it always takes time for the bus routes to properly sync with it. With that, I think I'll go with 55k ridership one year after Phase II opens. Of course, it really depends on the speed, which is a wild card. Phase I was slower than anyone thought it would be. Lets hope Phase II is not more of the same and they can work on the signaling and other issues to speed up Phase I. I am really praying that Santa Monica doesn't screw up this line. With money set aside for it to be grade separated in the beginning, which is rare, they better signal preempt the trains. If a full rush hour train has to wait at a signal even ONCE for Single occupancy vehicles, SMDOT traffic engineers will hear from me.
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Post by joshuanickel on May 2, 2014 11:36:08 GMT -8
I was at the Expo meeting in Palms / Cheviot Hills tonight. Most construction will be finished by the end of 2014. The line will be completed and handed over to Metro for prerevenue operations in April 2015. To me this seems very unlikely. The project is barely half finished and they think they will be completely done in less than a year? The last half of construction is always harder than the first half. I hope I am wrong, but I think a summer 2015 handoff is more likely, which would still put us in good shape. I think another interesting question will be what is the ridership going to be. To be fair, I think measuring that one year after it opens is more accurate, because who knows how long they will have to piece together 12 minute service before they can go to 5 minute headways and it always takes time for the bus routes to properly sync with it. With that, I think I'll go with 55k ridership one year after Phase II opens. Of course, it really depends on the speed, which is a wild card. Phase I was slower than anyone thought it would be. Lets hope Phase II is not more of the same and they can work on the signaling and other issues to speed up Phase I. April 2014 - Los Angeles Community Update Meeting Presentation Expo announced at the update meetings that construction is nearly 60% complete (see page 9 of the powerpoint) so I don't get it when you say construction is barely half finished. I think it is entirely possible for construction to be done in a year. All the bridges are done (falsework for Pico coming down in may), all station are started and will soon be getting canopies, they are laying tracks all along the alignment and they will shortly start the installation of the OCS. Regarding ridership, when the expo line opens, I am betting that you don't see anything longer than a 10 minute headway during peak hours when this line opens. The ridership projections for 2030 were 64,000 and if phase one is any indication where it met its ridership after a year, I am sure you will see something similar with this line. One of the things talked about at the May Expo Board meeting was an agreement with the City of SM on 5 minute headways. The agreement included train preemption or train priority depending on the intersection along Colorado so that the train would get green lights: Phase 2 MOU on 5 Minute Headways This should help keep the train moving and keeping the travel time at an acceptable level. I am also betting that we might see some record for weekend ridership on this line. There was a transit coalition meeting where Bruce Shelburne of Rail Operations even said that he thought the weekends would be one of the busiest times for this line. Living in Santa Monica, I can tell you just how much traffic is headed to downtown sm and the beach on the weekends on the 10 freeway.
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Post by joshuanickel on May 2, 2014 11:36:53 GMT -8
To me this seems very unlikely. The project is barely half finished and they think they will be completely done in less than a year? The last half of construction is always harder than the first half. I hope I am wrong, but I think a summer 2015 handoff is more likely, which would still put us in good shape. I think another interesting question will be what is the ridership going to be. To be fair, I think measuring that one year after it opens is more accurate, because who knows how long they will have to piece together 12 minute service before they can go to 5 minute headways and it always takes time for the bus routes to properly sync with it. With that, I think I'll go with 55k ridership one year after Phase II opens. Of course, it really depends on the speed, which is a wild card. Phase I was slower than anyone thought it would be. Lets hope Phase II is not more of the same and they can work on the signaling and other issues to speed up Phase I. I am really praying that Santa Monica doesn't screw up this line. With money set aside for it to be grade separated in the beginning, which is rare, they better signal preempt the trains. If a full rush hour train has to wait at a signal even ONCE for Single occupancy vehicles, SMDOT traffic engineers will hear from me. One of the things talked about at the May Expo Board meeting was an agreement with the City of SM on 5 minute headways. The agreement included train preemption or train priority depending on the intersection along Colorado so that the train would get green lights: Phase 2 MOU on 5 Minute Headways
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Post by masonite on May 2, 2014 13:37:37 GMT -8
To me this seems very unlikely. The project is barely half finished and they think they will be completely done in less than a year? The last half of construction is always harder than the first half. I hope I am wrong, but I think a summer 2015 handoff is more likely, which would still put us in good shape. I think another interesting question will be what is the ridership going to be. To be fair, I think measuring that one year after it opens is more accurate, because who knows how long they will have to piece together 12 minute service before they can go to 5 minute headways and it always takes time for the bus routes to properly sync with it. With that, I think I'll go with 55k ridership one year after Phase II opens. Of course, it really depends on the speed, which is a wild card. Phase I was slower than anyone thought it would be. Lets hope Phase II is not more of the same and they can work on the signaling and other issues to speed up Phase I. April 2014 - Los Angeles Community Update Meeting Presentation Expo announced at the update meetings that construction is nearly 60% complete (see page 9 of the powerpoint) so I don't get it when you say construction is barely half finished. I think it is entirely possible for construction to be done in a year. All the bridges are done (falsework for Pico coming down in may), all station are started and will soon be getting canopies, they are laying tracks all along the alignment and they will shortly start the installation of the OCS. Regarding ridership, when the expo line opens, I am betting that you don't see anything longer than a 10 minute headway during peak hours when this line opens. The ridership projections for 2030 were 64,000 and if phase one is any indication where it met its ridership after a year, I am sure you will see something similar with this line. One of the things talked about at the May Expo Board meeting was an agreement with the City of SM on 5 minute headways. The agreement included train preemption or train priority depending on the intersection along Colorado so that the train would get green lights: Phase 2 MOU on 5 Minute Headways This should help keep the train moving and keeping the travel time at an acceptable level. I am also betting that we might see some record for weekend ridership on this line. There was a transit coalition meeting where Bruce Shelburne of Rail Operations even said that he thought the weekends would be one of the busiest times for this line. Living in Santa Monica, I can tell you just how much traffic is headed to downtown sm and the beach on the weekends on the 10 freeway. Well not quite 60% in my book is barely half complete. Still a ton of work to do. Everything has to go right for it to be finished by April. Sure it can happen, it just doesn't seem likely. If it does open in 2015, they won't be able to run 5 minute headways and will have to keep it at 12 minutes sometime into 2016. The rail cars are not set to start arriving until Sept. at the soonest, except for the prototypes and once they get them they need to test them for 3 months before operating them. You can look at the previous lines at this point, everyone on here thought the Expo and Eastside lines would open well before they actually did. I wouldn't be shocked with 64k after a year, although I'd probably be a bit more conservative, but it really depends on the speed of the entire line at that point.
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Post by Gokhan on May 2, 2014 15:51:15 GMT -8
It's great that the last mile in Santa Monica will have signal preemption. This will bring the total time for the line to about 45 minutes.
How come the street-running section in LA feels like there is a troll at every crossing? What does it take to have LADOT give preemption?
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Post by Gokhan on May 2, 2014 15:55:34 GMT -8
Regarding the construction schedule, it's actually almost 65% at the moment.
I talked to a Skanska engineer who is constantly on the field, and he's absolutely confident that they will reach nearly 100% this December. They should easily be able to hand over the line to Metro for prerevenue operations by April 2015 after finishing the last few details in the first few months of 2015.
Can they borrow trains from the Green Line to open Phase 2 to revenue service in June 2015? They only need 9 additional cars to the existing 18 Phase 1 cars to run 12-minute headways from Santa Monica with 3-car trains. That would be awfully crowded but it's probably still doable.
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Post by masonite on May 2, 2014 16:26:52 GMT -8
Regarding the construction schedule, it's actually almost 65% at the moment. I talked to a Skanska engineer who is constantly on the field, and he's absolutely confident that they will reach nearly 100% this December. They should easily be able to hand over the line to Metro for prerevenue operations by April 2015 after finishing the last few details in the first few months of 2015. Can they borrow trains from the Green Line to open Phase 2 to revenue service in June 2015? They only need 9 additional cars to the existing 18 Phase 1 cars to run 12-minute headways from Santa Monica with 3-car trains. That would be awfully crowded but it's probably still doable. I don't think 3 car trains every 12 minutes would be too bad for the first 6-9 months. I mean Expo isn't all that crowded now with the same config. I don't see how the Green Line could afford to give up any cars, but I know they are looking at scenarios. I want to believe Skanska as they have done a good job. It just seems there is always one or two issues that blow up the schedule in the end. It does seem like a 2015 opening is becoming more likely though, which would be great.
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Post by darrell on May 2, 2014 17:14:25 GMT -8
To me this seems very unlikely. The project is barely half finished and they think they will be completely done in less than a year? The last half of construction is always harder than the first half. I hope I am wrong, but I think a summer 2015 handoff is more likely, which would still put us in good shape. I think another interesting question will be what is the ridership going to be. To be fair, I think measuring that one year after it opens is more accurate, because who knows how long they will have to piece together 12 minute service before they can go to 5 minute headways and it always takes time for the bus routes to properly sync with it. With that, I think I'll go with 55k ridership one year after Phase II opens. Of course, it really depends on the speed, which is a wild card. Phase I was slower than anyone thought it would be. Lets hope Phase II is not more of the same and they can work on the signaling and other issues to speed up Phase I. April 2014 - Los Angeles Community Update Meeting Presentation Expo announced at the update meetings that construction is nearly 60% complete (see page 9 of the powerpoint) so I don't get it when you say construction is barely half finished. I think it is entirely possible for construction to be done in a year. All the bridges are done (falsework for Pico coming down in may), all station are started and will soon be getting canopies, they are laying tracks all along the alignment and they will shortly start the installation of the OCS. Regarding ridership, when the expo line opens, I am betting that you don't see anything longer than a 10 minute headway during peak hours when this line opens. The ridership projections for 2030 were 64,000 and if phase one is any indication where it met its ridership after a year, I am sure you will see something similar with this line. One of the things talked about at the May Expo Board meeting was an agreement with the City of SM on 5 minute headways. The agreement included train preemption or train priority depending on the intersection along Colorado so that the train would get green lights: Phase 2 MOU on 5 Minute Headways This should help keep the train moving and keeping the travel time at an acceptable level. I am also betting that we might see some record for weekend ridership on this line. There was a transit coalition meeting where Bruce Shelburne of Rail Operations even said that he thought the weekends would be one of the busiest times for this line. Living in Santa Monica, I can tell you just how much traffic is headed to downtown sm and the beach on the weekends on the 10 freeway. Here are some milestone dates from Phase 1: - First track laid between intersections - 11/20/09
- First catenary poles installed - 3/17/10
- First catenary wire installed - 6/10/10
- Final rail connection at Washington junction - 10/4/10
- First train towed along track - 4/4/11
- First test train under power - 4/8/11
- Public opening day - 4/28/12
So Phase 2 is after the first track between intersections but before the first catenary poles, but Phase 1 had a whole year between the first train under power and public opening, largely due to issues with the Washington junction. A year and a bit from now to first train under power would be second quarter 2015, plus six months testing could still make opening in latte 2015. We'll see. And good news about the MOU with Santa Monica. They'll need 5-minute headways when the Regional Connector opens.
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Post by Gokhan on May 3, 2014 9:58:58 GMT -8
Don't forget that Skanska is much faster than Flatiron and Phase 1 ran into serious problems with the track geometry in the junction and ATP in general, which delayed the opening by many months.
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Post by Gokhan on May 3, 2014 10:12:47 GMT -8
Good news from Dwight Sturtevant (aka expolinefan), who got the rolling-stock inventory: Blue and Expo Lines have 23 extra cars in the yard and the Green Line has 7 extra cars in the yard. However, this doesn't account for the broken cars or spares. Since keeping the 12-minute headways requires only 9 more cars for Expo Phase 2, opening the line in Summer 2015 with three-car trains running 12-minute headways should be no problem with the existing rolling stock! Metro can open the line as soon as two months of prerevenue operations after Skanska hands the line over to them, which means April 2015 + two months = June 2015. Testing should start in January 2015; so, this comes to about 5 months of testing. PS: Blue Line requires 15 trains between Willow and LA and 3 trains between Willow and LB during peak hours. Expo Line Phase 1 requires 6 trains. Expo Line Phase 1&2 requires 9 trains. Green Line requires 10 2-car trains. Current inventory: Blue + Expo = 95 cars, Green = 27 cars.
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Post by roadtrainer on May 3, 2014 10:19:03 GMT -8
A lot of excitement about the train cars....Did you take into account the Goldline too?
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Post by Gokhan on May 3, 2014 10:34:23 GMT -8
I actually overestimated the cars needed for Expo Phase 2 a little. They will be OK with even 8 trains for 12-minute headways. This means only 6 more cars (2 more trains) to be able to run Expo Phase 2, as they already run 6 trains for Expo Phase 1!
For 10-minute headways, they need 10 trains, which is 12 more cars (4 more trains). Even 10-minute headways to Santa Monica should be possible with the existing rolling stock!
PS: roadtrainer, no, I didn't do any calculation for the Gold Line nor I know its Breda-rolling-stock inventory.
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Post by TransportationZ on May 5, 2014 11:06:39 GMT -8
So basically, we can run the line with current cars, but Metro is going to have to pay some serious overtime to keep the maintenance staff on their A-Game.
Each car is going to have to be in tip top shape before the next morning, and any issues with the cars have to be fixed by rush hour.
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f ron
Full Member
Posts: 222
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Post by f ron on May 5, 2014 11:44:04 GMT -8
Metro would be content with 12 minute headways? --or even 10 for the opening of the full line? They have only one chance to make a first impression. The reputation for Expo already that it's slow. Something like this could burnish that reputation for many.
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Post by Gokhan on May 5, 2014 11:53:10 GMT -8
Metro would be content with 12 minute headways? --or even 10 for the opening of the full line? They have only one chance to make a first impression. The reputation for Expo already that it's slow. Something like this could burnish that reputation for many. 10-minute headways is very frequent. I am not worried about the waiting time. The only concern is overcrowding but 10-minute headways should be OK with about 50,000 riders. If they want to go 6-minute headways, that can't be done until Spring - Summer 2016. It's very expensive not to open a finished line and you also run a lot of risk of vandalism. Bot the Expo and Gold Lines should be opened as soon as they are finished (after a couple of months of prerevenue operations).
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Post by bobdavis on May 6, 2014 0:20:40 GMT -8
The Gold Line has 50 Breda LRVs, and about 48 of them were running on Saturday for the big event at LA Union Station. Despite all the negative comments about them from some quarters of the electric railway fandom, they did the job and apparently didn't overload the power system. Here's a question for those closer to Expo country--how is the Expo yard in (or near) Santa Monica coming along? The Gold Line Operations Campus is has track in place, overhead support structures and span wires in place, and even has overhead cranes installed in the shop building.
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Post by joshuanickel on May 6, 2014 9:03:35 GMT -8
The Gold Line has 50 Breda LRVs, and about 48 of them were running on Saturday for the big event at LA Union Station. Despite all the negative comments about them from some quarters of the electric railway fandom, they did the job and apparently didn't overload the power system. Here's a question for those closer to Expo country--how is the Expo yard in (or near) Santa Monica coming along? The Gold Line Operations Campus is has track in place, overhead support structures and span wires in place, and even has overhead cranes installed in the shop building. View AttachmentThe expo facility is not as far along as the gold line facility. They are in the process of installing underground utilities, pouring building foundations, and installing the steal eams for the main building. There are no tracks or wires in place yet nor is the area ready for them yet as they are using the area to stage the steal beams and underground utility vaults. Here are some photos from early April that showed the progress back then. From SMConstructs Facebook Page: EXPO - Maintenance Facility Main Building Steel ErectionFrom EXPO Facebook Page: Operations & Maintenance Facility Progress
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Post by Gokhan on May 6, 2014 9:08:27 GMT -8
The Santa Monica facility isn't critical to the initial opening of the line, as the existing rolling stock could be operated from the Blue Line yard.
It should be finished early 2015, despite some delay due to the ATP option added later.
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Post by darrell on May 6, 2014 11:08:21 GMT -8
The Gold Line has 50 Breda LRVs, and about 48 of them were running on Saturday for the big event at LA Union Station. Despite all the negative comments about them from some quarters of the electric railway fandom, they did the job and apparently didn't overload the power system. Here's a question for those closer to Expo country--how is the Expo yard in (or near) Santa Monica coming along? The Gold Line Operations Campus is has track in place, overhead support structures and span wires in place, and even has overhead cranes installed in the shop building. The expo facility is not as far along as the gold line facility. They are in the process of installing underground utilities, pouring building foundations, and installing the steal eams for the main building. There are no tracks or wires in place yet nor is the area ready for them yet as they are using the area to stage the steal beams and underground utility vaults. Here are some photos from early April that showed the progress back then. From SMConstructs Facebook Page: EXPO - Maintenance Facility Main Building Steel ErectionFrom EXPO Facebook Page: Operations & Maintenance Facility ProgressFraming of the main building is coming along well, per these photos from yesterday afternoon, but none of the tracks or catenary that the Foothill Gold Line has. Also see this Santa Monica Mirror article about the park that will be south of the maintenance building from last week, " Santa Monica's New Buffer Park Design Receives Green Light".
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Post by darrell on May 6, 2014 11:16:06 GMT -8
And photos along Colorado yesterday afternoon: At Lincoln with traffic flowing again Embedded track is being installed east of 11th (but not across 14th yet), and note the catenary pole footings Station platform at 17th (but no tracks yet) The grade crossing at 17th, with a spool of the rubber boot used to wrap the rails for electrical isolation And the current status at 20th, looking east, with dog walker
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Post by bobdavis on May 6, 2014 17:56:17 GMT -8
That first photo reminded me that nearly all of the first section of Expo is powered by LADWP, but when Phase 2 starts running it will give Edison some "traction loading".
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Post by Gokhan on May 8, 2014 11:39:48 GMT -8
Answer to the question if the major construction will be finished for the Expo Line in December 2014 as scheduled. Palms Station, May 8, 2014:
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Post by joshuanickel on May 8, 2014 12:48:12 GMT -8
Answer to the question if the major construction will be finished for the Expo Line in December 2014 as scheduled. Palms Station, May 8, 2014: It is great to see some actual elements of the stations start appearing. One of the best signs of progress is actually being able to see what the stations are suppose to look like when finished and installing canopies and elevators are examples of that. At the community meeting in Santa Monica last month, they said the canopy should start going up at 26th street station within the next 3 months.
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