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Post by John Ryan on Apr 11, 2011 0:05:19 GMT -8
Last time we covered the North Valley alignment, now it's time to head to the South Bay Alignment.
Looking Beyond Measure R, should the line continue past LAX?
If so, should it go on the Green Line alignment along a low-density corridor, or should it follow the historic Pacific Red Car alignment on Valley/Ardmore, or do a straight cut and cover alignment on PCH?
The beach neighborhoods have much higher density than the Green Line, so a case could be made that regardless of HRT or LRT, the Metro Tan Line (!) would be running longer trainsets, perhaps 6 cars, than the current Green Line system's platform capacity.
What do you think?
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Post by bzcat on Apr 11, 2011 10:28:16 GMT -8
I think having this line continue beyond LAX is going to be really redundant. The South Bay line will already be running from Expo to Torrance so extending the "405" line beyond LAX on the same track will probably not be necessary. Just make the Century/Aviation station big enough to handle transfers - i.e. it needs 3 platforms, one for each train.
Platform one: West bound Green line (Norwalk to Santa Monica via Lincoln Blvd) + North bound Crenshaw line (Torrance to Mid City) Platform two: 405 line terminus layover Platform three: East bound Green line (Santa Monica to Norwalk) + South bound Crenshaw line (Mid City to Torrance)
And all other options to extend the 405 line beyond LAX are all too low-density to make it worthwhile.
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Post by jdrcrasher on Apr 11, 2011 19:23:56 GMT -8
Ardmore ROW is probably not doable, since it is already a heavily used park. Same with the Whittier Greenway and the Gold Line. I think having this line continue beyond LAX is going to be really redundant. The South Bay line will already be running from Expo to Torrance so extending the "405" line beyond LAX on the same track will probably not be necessary. Just make the Century/Aviation station big enough to handle transfers - i.e. it needs 3 platforms, one for each train. Platform one: West bound Green line (Norwalk to Santa Monica via Lincoln Blvd) + North bound Crenshaw line (Torrance to Mid City) Platform two: 405 line terminus layover Platform three: East bound Green line (Santa Monica to Norwalk) + South bound Crenshaw line (Mid City to Torrance) And all other options to extend the 405 line beyond LAX are all too low-density to make it worthwhile. Yeah, but by the time the LAX extension is built, heading to South Bay might be more viable.
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Post by tobias087 on Apr 11, 2011 22:35:51 GMT -8
I don't know this area very well, so I won't comment on the exact alignment, but I staunchly disagree with having LAX as the terminus, because it creates a big logistical problem:
Century/Aviation will soon be a major meeting point for 3 rail branches: The Crenshaw line towards Exposition, the Green line towards Norwalk, and the Green line towards the South Bay.
Sometime later, it will probably be joined by two more rail branches: a Sepulveda line towards UCLA/Van Nuys/etc, and a Lincoln Line towards Santa Monica.
This gives LAX 5 rail branches. This would be great if it were an even number, though. With 4, you can pair off two opposite lines, like the Norwalk to UCLA, and the South Bay towards Crenshaw, to create 2 long rail lines that pass through Century/Aviation. But with 5 branches, we have a problem as to where that 5th branch is going to go.
Option 1 is terminate the trains at LAX. This will probably be very difficult though. Since there will already be two full rail lines running through, trains will be pretty frequent, which might make turning around trains impossible to time.
Option 2 is much better. Continue the 5th branch, to create 3 full rail lines, which all share tracks through LAX. Headways will probably be very short through Century/Aviation, but that's probably a good thing.
That all being said, I can't really comment on the alignment, other than saying it should be a new alignment in addition to existing/planned ones, ie, not the current green line alignment. That's my 2-cents. Maybe I'll through in a few more after some tours of the area
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Post by jeisenbe on Apr 12, 2011 6:20:36 GMT -8
Century/Aviation will soon be a major meeting point for 3 rail branches: The Crenshaw line towards Exposition, the Green line towards Norwalk, and the Green line towards the South Bay. Sometime later, it will probably be joined by two more rail branches: a Sepulveda line towards UCLA/Van Nuys/etc, and a Lincoln Line towards Santa Monica. This gives LAX 5 rail branches. This would be great if it were an even number, though. The "Lincoln" route is still unstudied and unfunded. Until it is built, the Crenshaw line can continue to the South Bay, and the Sepulveda line can connect to the Green Line to Norwalk. Passengers will be able to transfer easily at the Aviation/Century station. If rail is built on Lincoln, things could get more complicated, but in that case perhaps there would also be funding for a line down PCH or the old right-of-way to the beach cities.
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regen
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Post by regen on Apr 12, 2011 9:08:11 GMT -8
Ardmore ROW is probably not doable, since it is already a heavily used park. Same with the Whittier Greenway and the Gold Line. The key is to keep some of the park-like aspects of the ROW by having a jogging trail, trees, etc., similar to Expo and the Orange Line. Two major advantages of the Pacific Electric Red Car ROW are that it runs through the densest areas and that it is fairly level topographically. By contrast, PCH is very hilly in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, so cut-and-cover would require some areas to have deep tunnels and stations in order to keep a level grade. This would substantially increase the cost of the project, perhaps 3x-4x as much, which could delay the connection from the South Bay to Long Beach.
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Post by bzcat on Apr 12, 2011 9:37:09 GMT -8
I don't know this area very well, so I won't comment on the exact alignment, but I staunchly disagree with having LAX as the terminus, because it creates a big logistical problem: Century/Aviation will soon be a major meeting point for 3 rail branches: The Crenshaw line towards Exposition, the Green line towards Norwalk, and the Green line towards the South Bay. Sometime later, it will probably be joined by two more rail branches: a Sepulveda line towards UCLA/Van Nuys/etc, and a Lincoln Line towards Santa Monica. This gives LAX 5 rail branches. This would be great if it were an even number, though. With 4, you can pair off two opposite lines, like the Norwalk to UCLA, and the South Bay towards Crenshaw, to create 2 long rail lines that pass through Century/Aviation. But with 5 branches, we have a problem as to where that 5th branch is going to go. Option 1 is terminate the trains at LAX. This will probably be very difficult though. Since there will already be two full rail lines running through, trains will be pretty frequent, which might make turning around trains impossible to time. Option 2 is much better. Continue the 5th branch, to create 3 full rail lines, which all share tracks through LAX. Headways will probably be very short through Century/Aviation, but that's probably a good thing. That all being said, I can't really comment on the alignment, other than saying it should be a new alignment in addition to existing/planned ones, ie, not the current green line alignment. That's my 2-cents. Maybe I'll through in a few more after some tours of the area Having too many branches at LAX is a luxury, not a problem ;D Realistically, we will never have that problem at the rate we are building these rail lines. The Lincoln line I mentioned is not even on the drawing board so that is far far off in the future. In the medium to long term, if the "405" line reaches LAX, we can pair it with the Norwalk branch to run the train from Sylmar to Norwalk. This is probably the most logical solution/outcome. Another "out of the box" solution to solving your hypothetical uneven branches problem... add another branch so you have 6! The Harbor Subdivision right of way north of Inglewood, and east of Crenshaw Blvd is not being planned for any transit use right now. We could build another line that runs from Downtown LA to LAX... and pair up the Lincoln Blvd branch with this branch so that we have one train that runs from Union Station to Santa Monica via LAX, which I like to call "LAX connection".
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Post by jdrcrasher on Apr 12, 2011 19:22:33 GMT -8
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Post by ieko on Apr 12, 2011 21:25:46 GMT -8
I think realistically, you need to stay on the Harbor Subdivison because that's where the infrastructure is being planned for the next 30 years. After that, then we can talk.
However it should be mentioned that right now, despite PCH being a dense corridor the ridership doesn't warrant extremely frequent service or large vehicles (currently 30-60 minute headways on average with 10 minute morning peak with low capacity 40ft buses). So the value for putting a line down this corridor has to be questioned from a "bang for buck" perspective.
The Harbor Subdivision has a lot of potential if the bus network gets restructured (something I'm working on). Pacific Coast Hwy on the other hand has many services feeding into it but probably could do better if they were cooridnated better. I think PCH right now could warrant owl service and higher capacity 40ft buses (but only with a reduction of peak headway), but not articulated 60ft buses. So right now at best, it has a lot of potential as a bus corridor but nothing more.
The other reason I prefer the Harbor Subdivison is this, the highest demand for travel in the region is east to west and north to south in the morning west to east followed by north to south in the evening, any rail service the can provide that mobility is a win assuming the bus network is there to provide the connection. Remember, the Crenshaw Line is the line that's going to go down this corridor, not the Green Line. Being able to do this cheaply because Metro owns the Harbor Subdivison and doesn't need to buy land to put tracks down is a huge win. Redondo Beach and Torrance are building transit centers before the rail lines even get there, which means there is political support as well. Pacific Coast Hwy would demand heavy capital costs that Metro wasn't willing to do for many of its projects with higher demand, street running is out of the question because this is a major roadway with only two lanes in each direction and sometimes no median at all for large sections.
The overall picture is this, the bus network now is poor and therefore has poor ridership, as the route network becomes better ridership will increase, but slowly. I'd predict it'd take about 5 years (short time frame because there is heavy east-west bus network demand now) after the Harbor Subdivision comes to Torrance [30/10 schedule] that you'll see enough demand to extend it to Long Beach. I think the Harbor Subdivison will take a lot of stress off of the buses on the PCH corridor because riders there are generally long distance riders, further reducing the incentive to build a rail line on PCH.
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Post by jdrcrasher on Apr 13, 2011 20:47:27 GMT -8
Two major advantages of the Pacific Electric Red Car ROW are that it runs through the densest areas and that it is fairly level topographically. Actually, a large stretch of the PE ROW is on a slight incline slope. Yeah, and if PCH was chosen, a huge section of it is inevitably gonna have to be below-grade. At least from Anita Street to Palos Verdes Blvd. That's well over 2 miles.
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