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Post by bzcat on Sept 19, 2014 16:02:38 GMT -8
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TrainBusGuy4000Million
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Post by TrainBusGuy4000Million on Sept 19, 2014 19:38:08 GMT -8
Sepulveda pass is WAY overdue. No easy way to get from Valley to Westside. Bummer that it's weekday only. Big shortcoming in general is off-peak coverage.
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Post by bzcat on Sept 29, 2014 15:15:19 GMT -8
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Post by North Valley on Sept 29, 2014 19:47:19 GMT -8
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Post by IRL on Sept 29, 2014 21:57:29 GMT -8
Great article. I agree that PPP seems like a long shot. 2016 ballot measure seems more plausible.
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Post by Transit Coalition on Sept 30, 2014 16:23:17 GMT -8
When building tunnels, you go straight as the crow flies, which is Van Nuys Blvd. to Westwood Blvd. You don't follow a surface highway route which is designed for motor vehicles. With the extra mileage following that path, you are talking $2 to $3 billion more in route mile costs. The terrain and the elevation are also prohibitive and there are no savings in the costs to follow the pass alignment. You can't think as a highway engineer here, as some people get stuck with impractical ideas. Measure R.2 if passed, is only going to yield about $8 billion for the San Fernando Valley. Since there are several other projects like Orange Line conversion to Light Rail, Sylmar to Van Nuys Light Rail and the Orange Line rail extension east to Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena, don't expect the money to stretch far enough for the Sepulveda / 405 alignment. Actually, a rail tunnel with a car toll road will pencil out. However, without the toll road, this alignment will probably remain on our wish list for more decades. Besides having a robust vehicle toll, expect that the rail fares will be more Metrolink or London Underground pricing. |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Sept 30, 2014 20:59:51 GMT -8
Unfortunately, the toll tunnels around the world most similar to the Sepulveda pass tunnel have had a tendency to go bankrupt. Metros 8 billion cost was based on tunnel following the 405 route, not a straight shot. Cost should be similar per mile (plus inflation) to the red line cahuenga pass tunnel, which somehow was not 4 billion to build, it was far far below that.
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Post by John Ryan on Sept 3, 2015 7:40:51 GMT -8
Assuming Measure R2 passes November 2016, realistically, what is the earliest this rail line could open between the Orange Line and Westwood / Purple Line?
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Post by masonite on Sept 3, 2015 13:19:12 GMT -8
Assuming Measure R2 passes November 2016, realistically, what is the earliest this rail line could open between the Orange Line and Westwood / Purple Line? Well, Measure R passed in 2008 and the Purple Line Extension is slated to open in 2023 so 15 years there. This line would be longer and more complicated, so I would say 2036 is probably more reasonable. |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Sept 3, 2015 13:47:13 GMT -8
Assuming Measure R2 passes November 2016, realistically, what is the earliest this rail line could open between the Orange Line and Westwood / Purple Line? It depends on how the money is made available yearly and if the America fast forward thing is ever passed to make it available faster. The purple line construction is five or six years slower than it needs to be because so little funding us available annually. And if you wanted to accelerate construction for an event like the olympics, since it's all underground you can run 24 hours a day with three shifts and make it go even faster if the funds are all available upfront to spend it fast with simultaneous construction along the entire length. |
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Post by bobdavis on Sept 3, 2015 23:10:12 GMT -8
Sounds like the contractor discussing a project with a client: "You can have it good, you can have it cheap or you can have it fast. Pick any two of the three."
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Post by masonite on Sept 3, 2015 23:57:51 GMT -8
Assuming Measure R2 passes November 2016, realistically, what is the earliest this rail line could open between the Orange Line and Westwood / Purple Line? It depends on how the money is made available yearly and if the America fast forward thing is ever passed to make it available faster. The purple line construction is five or six years slower than it needs to be because so little funding us available annually. And if you wanted to accelerate construction for an event like the olympics, since it's all underground you can run 24 hours a day with three shifts and make it go even faster if the funds are all available upfront to spend it fast with simultaneous construction along the entire length. The funding on the Purple Line is only an issue for the Century City and Westwood sections. The current section had funding from Measure R pretty much right at the beginning. Bottom line is an environmental report will take 4-5 years to start and complete and then another year or two to select a contractor, do prelim work and then begin actual construction. Then you are talking at least another 10 years to do actual construction. |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Sept 4, 2015 10:25:32 GMT -8
I thought the eir was already finished for purple to the va?
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Post by masonite on Sept 4, 2015 11:07:17 GMT -8
I thought the eir was already finished for purple to the va? It is for the Purple Line, but I am talking about the 405 Line. They still have to do the full EIR process, which will take 4-5 years, select a contractor which will be another year and then many many more years for construction. We won't see this thing until the mid 2030's at the earliest. |
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Post by Philip on Sept 4, 2015 11:48:39 GMT -8
The 405 line really has become one of those 'I should live so long' projects.
Yes, it has funding from Measure R and yes it's on the list of priority projects, but at the current rate of planning/funding, it's doomed to be a paper concept for at least another ten years.
On the other hand, it also doesn't make much sense to build it without a completed Purple Line (to at least Westwood Blvd.) to connect to.
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Post by fissure on Sept 4, 2015 19:47:57 GMT -8
It makes more sense without the Purple Line being finished than it does without a connection to the Expo Line. The office buildings along Olympic west of the 405 are a huge commute destination. NoHo -> Century City via Red/Purple will be what, 45 minutes? That's not too bad.
Given the timelines involved, though, it can't finish much faster than phase 3 of Purple. At least we can build the Wilshire/Westwood station to accommodate both lines from the start if engineering is happening on both simultaneously, something we're going to miss out on with Crenshaw North.
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Post by masonite on Sept 4, 2015 19:56:51 GMT -8
It makes more sense without the Purple Line being finished than it does without a connection to the Expo Line. The office buildings along Olympic west of the 405 are a huge commute destination. NoHo -> Century City via Red/Purple will be what, 45 minutes? That's not too bad. Given the timelines involved, though, it can't finish much faster than phase 3 of Purple. At least we can build the Wilshire/Westwood station to accommodate both lines from the start if engineering is happening on both simultaneously, something we're going to miss out on with Crenshaw North. Assuming a 5 minute transfer it would be about 40 minutes, although I think by this time they will be running 5 minute headways on both the Red and Purple Lines so you could say a little less than 40 minutes |
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Post by Quixote on Sept 5, 2015 14:12:33 GMT -8
It depends on how the money is made available yearly and if the America fast forward thing is ever passed to make it available faster. The purple line construction is five or six years slower than it needs to be because so little funding us available annually. And if you wanted to accelerate construction for an event like the olympics, since it's all underground you can run 24 hours a day with three shifts and make it go even faster if the funds are all available upfront to spend it fast with simultaneous construction along the entire length. The funding on the Purple Line is only an issue for the Century City and Westwood sections. The current section had funding from Measure R pretty much right at the beginning. Bottom line is an environmental report will take 4-5 years to start and complete and then another year or two to select a contractor, do prelim work and then begin actual construction. Then you are talking at least another 10 years to do actual construction. Section 2 to Century City is expected to receive its FFGA from the FTA this December and begin operations in April 2025: www.fta.dot.gov/documents/CA__Los_Angeles_Westside_Purple_Line_Extension_Section_2_Profile_FY16.pdfGiven Metro's 7-year construction schedule for Section 2, I'm not sure why it can't break ground next year and commence service at the same time as Section 1. Pre-construction activities for Section 1 won't wrap up until 2016, yet that project broke ground in late 2014. I think the goal should be to get the Purple Line to Santa Monica by 2030, which means having the entire line under construction by 2022. Section 2 getting a New Starts grant will help tremendously, as half of the funds that were to pay for Section 2 can now be used for Section 3. My only concern is that the Wilshire/VA Hospital station might kill the project's cost-effectiveness rating. |
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Post by fissure on Sept 9, 2015 9:08:37 GMT -8
VA to Promenade is 3.5 miles, which based on the phase 1 costs will be $3b+. Crenshaw to Hollywood/Highland and (maybe) phase 2 of this project down to LAX are higher priorities than this, and the rest of the county won't go for so many projects in the westside/central area. Finding the money to get it to Bundy for phase 3 instead of the VA might be doable (and makes sense---there's not nearly as much traffic further west), but it doesn't make sense to try to get it to Santa Monica that soon.
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Post by coasterfreak18 on Oct 11, 2015 1:56:44 GMT -8
*Bump.* Any Sepulveda Pass Rail Line updates? It would be great to be able to travel from Sherman Oaks to LAX on one train.
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Post by culvercitylocke on Aug 3, 2017 12:41:08 GMT -8
I was theorizing about where the north south HRT sepulveda station could be for Wilshire Westwood, and I came up with the following. I used the station box from Wilshire/Fairfax as a template because that is the smallest one they are building for the purple line. You could either fit it underneath the purple line, which is tricky with Gayley's geometry. and also have to excavate right between the two 20+ story buildings on the south east and south west corners of Wilshire Gayley. Tunnel goes north south pretty directly out of each end of the stations, but it will have to S curve over the Santa Monica / Sepulveda station Or you could build it diagonally underneath Parking Lot 36 (which I believe is going to be the staging yard for Wilshire Westwood, the tunnel to the south would then go under veteran and then towards Santa Monica/Sepulveda for a station there, and the tunnel to the North would EITHER go under Gayley and follow it before putting a station on the west side of Pauley Pavilion under what are currently tennis courts, OR it would tunnel under all the buildings in westwood before meeting up with westwood Blvd and following westwood blvd north til you got to a station on the east side of Pauley Pavilion. I didn't put a station box under Westwood because the street geometry is really funky for Westwood, narrowing substantially south of Wilshire, and only 790 ft north of wilshire before veering off in odd directions. Station boxes are at minimum 863 feet on the purple line, so westwood seems like it simply wouldn't work, or would be incredibly more expensive than the lot 36 or Gayley options.  North of UCLA would be two stations at Ventura / Van Nuys and at Orange Line / Van Nuys South of Westwood would be two stations at Sepulveda / Santa Monica and at Sepulveda Expo (serves Pico too) To get to LAX you would continue with a station at Sepulveda / Washington Pl (serves Venice Blvd, Washington Blvd, and Culver Blvd, all within 1/4 mile) next would be a stop not at Sepulveda /Slauson but further east at Slauson / Hannum. This serves fox Hills mall and the massive array of office parks east of Fox Hills Mall. This also lets us make a south west turn cutting under fox hills park roughly following green valley circle rd to avoid tunneling under the cemetary. This also allows us to tunnel under the 405 where it is elevated earth, as the 405 is mostly piled supported at the sepulveda intersection. We continue tunneling until a station at aviation / 96th to make it to LAX. Perhaps we could get a PPP with Kroenke to have it turn east from aviation 96 and terminate at the new stadium area. |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Aug 3, 2017 14:06:09 GMT -8
One thing to consider for the Sepulveda HRT line is this. Do not build station boxes! They represent over half of the budget and take up more than half of construction time. Barcelona Line 9 did not build station boxes. Instead it built a tunnel with an inner diameter of 11.6 Meters and built the station platforms inside the tunnel the platforms are always on the left. The tracks are on the right. North bound on the upper level of the tunnel, southbound on the lower level of the tunnel. In between stations there is room on the left side of the tunnel for changeovers and pocket tracks. To access the station platforms you merely drill portals for elevators and escalators from surface entrances down to the tunnel and cut into the tunnel. So rather than spending 3 years excavating deep stations boxes, you merely drill access shafts. rather than station boxes costing $500,000,000+ each, stations cost less 20% of that. here's alon levy with the details pedestrianobservations.com/2013/07/11/large-diameter-tbms/ |
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Post by thanks4goingmetro on Aug 4, 2017 9:31:59 GMT -8
One thing to consider for the Sepulveda HRT line is this. Do not build station boxes! They represent over half of the budget and take up more than half of construction time. Barcelona Line 9 did not build station boxes. Instead it built a tunnel with an inner diameter of 11.6 Meters and built the station platforms inside the tunnel the platforms are always on the left. The tracks are on the right. North bound on the upper level of the tunnel, southbound on the lower level of the tunnel. In between stations there is room on the left side of the tunnel for changeovers and pocket tracks. To access the station platforms you merely drill portals for elevators and escalators from surface entrances down to the tunnel and cut into the tunnel. So rather than spending 3 years excavating deep stations boxes, you merely drill access shafts. rather than station boxes costing $500,000,000+ each, stations cost less 20% of that. here's alon levy with the details pedestrianobservations.com/2013/07/11/large-diameter-tbms/I've wondered much the same myself why larger diameter boring machines are not used instead of station boxes to expedite construction and lower costs. Is it that American contractors are too inexperienced to use this technique or is it institutional inertia in Metro and American MTAs or labor intensive related costs their priority? |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Aug 4, 2017 10:15:13 GMT -8
One thing to consider for the Sepulveda HRT line is this. Do not build station boxes! They represent over half of the budget and take up more than half of construction time. Barcelona Line 9 did not build station boxes. Instead it built a tunnel with an inner diameter of 11.6 Meters and built the station platforms inside the tunnel the platforms are always on the left. The tracks are on the right. North bound on the upper level of the tunnel, southbound on the lower level of the tunnel. In between stations there is room on the left side of the tunnel for changeovers and pocket tracks. To access the station platforms you merely drill portals for elevators and escalators from surface entrances down to the tunnel and cut into the tunnel. So rather than spending 3 years excavating deep stations boxes, you merely drill access shafts. rather than station boxes costing $500,000,000+ each, stations cost less 20% of that. here's alon levy with the details pedestrianobservations.com/2013/07/11/large-diameter-tbms/I've wondered much the same myself why larger diameter boring machines are not used instead of station boxes to expedite construction and lower costs. Is it that American contractors are too inexperienced to use this technique or is it institutional inertia in Metro and American MTAs or labor intensive related costs their priority? Never underestimate path dependency nor institutional inertia! There are a couple problems, one, it's a very good solution for longer lines, line 9 is 45 KM . The proposed orange line to lax hrt is 30 KM. For shorter lines, you're talking fewer stations and less savings overall. So it is diminishing returns. Second, it is massively more excavated material than twin single bores, so there is the added time and expense of removing the excavated material. I also think that'll needs to be deeper, as getting a larger TBM under the water table. Additionally, after doing some further research it seems as though there is pit excavation for stations, but it isn't a 60-90 foot deep, 60 foot wide, 880-1300 ft long box, that makes station box construction so expensive and lengthy. it's a much more vertical pit, like 60x60x60, closer in size to a typical building footprint, inside of which elevators and escalators and emergency egress can be constructed. You don't have to construct a pit the length of the platform, just access the platform. So it's not a policy slam dunk, but it is probably uniquely well suited to the sepulveda line, particularly as infill stations are possible. It's partly a very good solution because Los Angeles does not have a north south arterial comparable to Wilshire. Wilshire being so wide and straight going east west makes it perfectly suited to installing long station boxes for hrt, a north south hrt on the sepulveda corridor will constantly struggle to position station boxes and will have tons of sub optimal station locations as a result. |
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Post by bzzzt on Aug 6, 2017 23:57:44 GMT -8
If we can get it done cheaper by going deep bore, I'm for it. Just make sure there are escalators - I never want to get stuck in a long elevator ride with any kooky person. If it's a long escalator ride like Wilshire/Vermont... eh, I'll deal with it.
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Post by jeisenbe on Oct 20, 2017 0:12:20 GMT -8
I recently was thinking about longer-term plans again due to Alon Levy's post on future Los Angeles transit. He suggested spending $90 to provide extensive subway/elevated service throughout the valley, including 4 northern branches from a 4-track Sepulveda tunnel. I think the 4 branches are excessive, but perhaps there will be sufficient demand for transit over the pass to reach capacity on one light-rail line. pedestrianobservations.com/2017/09/15/future-los-angeles-metro-investments/Here's a portion of Alon's fantasy map I disagree with his routing one line over to Santa Monica, though it is clever to have direct service to Century city. I would suggest one line up Sepulveda, to complement the planned line on Van Nuys, if the first reaches capacity, and I'd have it run east on Pico to Downtown LA: 
Joseph's fantasy map |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Oct 20, 2017 14:45:34 GMT -8
The biggest problem with alons north south sepulveda trunk line (not your map) is he diverts it to wander through Culver City for sub optimal connections and generally poor ridership placements of the sepulveda line.
He also does way to many stations.
Politically he suggests the extremely racist solution of elevated heavy rail in historically black very dense communities, a sure recipe to doom the entire plan to failure. He also puts out low ridership circuits along foothill blvd through la Crescenta and sun land, very expensive geographic constraints make these a bad idea. In a way his designs remind me of disneys original epcot. Overbuilding transit relative to demand and need.
The idea of using the sepulveda corridor with branched service is a good one based on valley transit needs, it is sort of inevitable. but I don't think that branching to downtown is necessary.
This is primarily because west of la brea the Los Angeles basin has a massive transportation problem, this central problem is the core cause of both surface street and 405 congestion and is a problem shared by cars and mass transit.
A lack of north south arterial routes.
The sepulveda line is an especially attractive transit project because it creates a new and much needed north south arterial. There is probably more latent demand for an new arterial than any other transit project in all of Los Angeles
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Post by jeisenbe on Oct 21, 2017 20:46:26 GMT -8
It’s unfair to call Alon’s proposal racist due to suggesting elevating the Vermont subway south of Gage, where the median is very wide. He also suggests elevating at of the Metrolink lines (when needed for grade separation), the north-southe lines in the valley, and I suspect for the Lincoln Blvd and PCH lines. He’s really just in favor of grade separating all the lines, and that means elevation in suburban or residential areas, no matter who lives there. Metro wanted to elevate the Expo Line thru Santa Monica initially too. I hope we are willing to consider elevated grade separations, as used on the Blue and Expo lines already.
I think you are correct that a north-south transit route near Sepulveda will be very busy between the valley and Culver City, and pretty busy down to LAX and El Segundo. But I do think that if a second line is contemplated, it may do better to turn east. I suspect about half of the riders from the valley will have destinations east of Sepulveda, especially at Century City, Mid-wilshire, and Downtown LA. If we think a HRT line on Sepulveda will reach capacity, then the Purple line will also be me too crowded, hence the need for another east-west line thru central LA, such as along Pico.
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Post by culvercitylocke on Apr 17, 2018 9:28:09 GMT -8
If ya want a single seat ride from Sylmar to LAX, everyone needs to start clamoring for the BART single bore option to be brought to the combined Van Nuys and Sepulveda Lines.  If we had a single 45 km tunnel from LAX to Sylmar, it should be built with four TBMs working simultaneously. you would launch one TBM south from parking lot 36 in Westwood towards LAX (possible extraction pit, end of line in Inglewood at the new stadium complex) you would launch a second TBM north from parking lot 36 in Westwood towards the Orange Line/Maintanence facility proposed for the Van Nuys line. you would launch a third TBM north from the Orange Line Mainenance facility you would launch a fourth TBM north from Roscoe Van Nuys towards Sylmar. Why have four TBMs? Because TBMs are not very expensive but they are slow. For a route 45,000 meters long it would take 3000 days for one TBM to tunnel. That's 8.4 years, more like 11-12 years with 5 day work weeks, holidays and maintenance stops). with four working simultaneously it would be cut down to closer to 750 tunneling days, 3 years of tunneling. The biggest downside to large bore TBMs is the greater amount of material to excavate. Twin 7 meter tunnels excavate about 75 cubic meters of soil per meter of tunneling one 12 meter tunnel excavates about 115 cubic meters of soil per meter of tunneling. on the other hand, two twin 7 meter tunnels have a combined exterior tunnel circumferance of 44 meters, while a single bore 12 meter tunnel has an exterior tunnel circumferance of 37 meters. So it uses about the same amount of concrete, or slightly less. (iirc I think a single bore tunnel has to be a bit thicker than twin bore tunnels) For the 7 kilometer three station BART extension (the last station at the airport is aboveground), BART has figured that the single bore method is going to save them about 70 million versus doing double bore. The big savings are not having to do utility relocation and build station boxes. Station boxes wind up costing 500 million each to build, and utility relocation for each station box involves about 3 years of labor and extensive non stop street disruption. with a single bore tunnel you eliminate all those downsides. |
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Post by bzzzt on Apr 18, 2018 17:33:05 GMT -8
Well I'm a'clamoring then. TBH, I don't think anyone cares if something's single or double bore. I do think that people (including myself) would have a problem with an elevator-only station, though. Yeah... it might smell. Other things, too. Last place I want to be stuck, for sure. Build something like a Barcelona sub station... but have escalators go down the whole way. Yes, it's long. Probably a little longer than the lower level of Wilshire/Vermont. But you can't get stuck in a smelly elevator, at least. |
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