Purple line extension construction update thread

[joemagruder]

What we don't want to have happen is a situation like the lack of a direct connection between the existing BART/Muni Metro and the T (Chinatown) subway that is under construction in San Francisco. When BART was constructed there was no serious notion of a T line subway, thus no plans for allowing for a transfer station. The awareness of the possibility of a Crenshaw line should help Los Angeles avoid that mistake.

[matthewb]

Feb 14, 2012 17:31:33 GMT -8 bzcat said:

You can have the Purple line station between San Vicente and La Cienega (which I believe is the preferred design) and the Crenshaw line station at San Vicente, south of Wilshire. All you need is a connected walkway to link the stations. They don't need to be stacked on top of each other. The Crenshaw line San Vicente station could be above ground for that matter as it is definitely wide enough to support surface alignment here.

I would support an underground station here. I think this is a part of the city where we can expect increasing urbanism, and that already has a lot of development. I think there should be transit-only lanes in addition, but this corridor is serving an area rich in jobs and destinations. If we're going to invest in underground rail somewhere, this is a good place.

[James Fujita]

For the record, there is a link between the existing Powell Street Sta. and the new T Muni Line at Union Square.

It's not a straight up-and-down link like we are used to with 7th/ Metro, but it is underground.
The original BART designers had no way of knowing that there would ever be a Central Subway. Market has the unique problem of Muni Metro on top of BART. 4th Street (the most logical route from Caltrain) or Stockton (a logical route to Chinatown) don't link up directly with Powell, so probably a more direct link would have been impossible.

The thing is, rail transit is filled with links like these.

I do think the Crenshaw Line needs to be underground as it heads north. There's no doubt in my mind that crossing Wilshire needs to be done underground.

[metrocenter]

Yeah, I don't see any issues with adding a Crenshaw Line station after the fact. As long as Metro leaves breakout panels for future entrances/passageways, it should be ok.

Los Angeles' metro stations are currently very simple and small compared to other stations around world. Paris, London and New York all have stations with complex passageways. As long as the platforms are connected by passageways, people will still use it.

[joemagruder]

Yes, there will be an underground connection between the BART/Muni Metro Powell Street Station and the Central Subway. However it is not the convenient connection we are used to in the remainder of the system. The designers of the Central Subway have done as well as possible given that fact that those who designed the Powell Street Station had no way of knowing that a Central Subway would be constructed almost half a century later. However, the designers of the Purple Line know that a Crenshaw line probably will be constructed and should think about designing stations so as not to preclude easy transfer between the two lines. I assume that the "complex passageways" in Paris, London, New York, etc. are at least in part the result of lines being added in unexpected places.

[bzcat]

I think the point is that Crenshaw line station at San Vicente won't be a difficult connection to Purple line La Cienega station like the BART/Muni example mentioned above. There is plenty of room both above ground and below to fit the Crenshaw line station when it gets to Wilshire Blvd.

The difficult station connection in LA that I envision are Hollywood/Highland Crenshaw to Red line transfer, and the Vermont Ave subway station transfer to Red/Purple line. Those will require serious thought and creative solutions.

[rayinla]

SoundTransit has this nifty video illustrating how the TBM works:

[Frank Boothe]

Metro To Announce New “Westside Heavy Rail” Corridor in Beverly Hills

From Special Correspondent Damien Newton, Sunday, April 1, 2012


Metro illustrates what construction could look like at Beverly Hills High.
"We don't have to put one shovel in the ground or even think about
going under the high school."

BEVERLY HILLS, CA--A recent article published at Beverly Hills Weekly posed a question to Metro asking whether or not all of the activism against a Westside Subway route that tunnels under a small part of Beverly Hills High School Campus will matter? Is Metro considering changing the project route?

Streetsblog has learned that the answer, to be announced officially on The Source tomorrow, is an unequivocal yes. To avoid having to tunnel under the high school, Metro is now planning a completely at-grade route for the subway except for the portion that slopes up to 500 feet above ground before cutting through the high school campus.

“It looks like we won’t have to touch the buildings or put one shovel in the ground,” explains Metro spokesman David Meiger. “True, we have to completely demolish the track field and parking structure, but the above-grade giant cement wall dissecting the campus will insure that the train and students don’t mix.”

Some other changes to the design and route were added just to make Beverly Hills Residents happier with the project. “Adding eight stops in Beverly Hills, that was my idea,” Meiger beams. “To make certain the train has maximum visibility, we will be putting the stations along Robertson and Santa Monica Boulevards.” Renderings of the new route were completed by Broad Architects and are available after the jump.

Metro is also moving the Westside Heavy Rail rail yard to a residential part of Beverly Hills, “bringing solid middle income jobs to the community.” A last touch is that Metro vows to run the heavy rail “24 hours a day” between the Beverly Hills’ stops so that all residents can use the rail whenever they need.


Black circles are the new station areas. The pentagram is the new rail yard.
The black lines are the outline of Beverly Hills High School.[/i]

Oddly, not all residents were happy with the news. Mayor Pro Tem John Mirisch seemed most distressed by the new proposal, despite his long-stated opposition to tunneling under the high school.

“For goodness sake, they put the new ‘rail yard’ right where my house used to be,” Mirisch exclaimed when showed the maps. “Can they even run a train 24-hours a day? Wouldn’t they have to do a sound-based environmental review?”

Metro has an answer to both Mirisch’s complaints. According to spokesperson April Feuel noted that “To make it up to him, we’ve added a station right across the street from his parent’s house.” Other stations are planned for each side of the Beverly Hills City Hall and a giant station surrounding the Beverly Hills Courier offices.

She also noted that a study of the “additional supplements to the regional noise” Metro will begin running fully-loaded freight trucks through the streets, both through streets and residences, of Beverly Hills starting tonight at midnight.

“We know there are some subway fans that are going to be disappointed that we abandoned the underground portion for this area,” Meiger adds. “If someone wants to support the old alignment, they should contact us at 1-800-go-metro. Please call between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.”

[jdrcrasher]

That looks like it was drawn by a retarded 2 year old... nice April Fools joke.

In all seriousness though, Metro has made large boneheaded mistakes in the past. Until we know for sure that its going to stop at Constellation, we need to continually look over our shoulder.

[skater]

Purple Line extension advisory group meeting, October 29,2013


thesource.metro.net/2013/10/15/next-purple-line-extension-advisory-group-meeting-scheduled-for-october-29/

[RMoses]

Seattle is tunneling a 2 mile, 57.5 FT diameter highway tunnel in 14 months. Tougher soil conditions and stations complicate our needs, but 2 miles in 14 months at that size?

www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/About/FollowBertha

[culvercitylocke]

That's why I think we could do a sepulveda tunnel from Wilshire/Veteran/Westwood to Ventura blvd with the money allocated for the sepulveda pass in measure r. It becomes too expensive if you add stations at UCLA or the orange line. Make a transition track when you're building the double deck station (you've got the space of the entire parking lot they're demolishing for the station to work with) that can move cars from the redline to the sepulveda line. That would work as a stop gap until they can get funds expand the sepulveda line north and south, once expansion is underway, a new maintenence yard for the line could be identified. If they could get more funds, two additional stations, the Orange line and UCLA could be added, but that's probably an additional 600 million (200 mil per station, right? and additional tunneling) so it would nearly double the budget.

I would not be surprised if Big Bertha showed up in LA in about two years to dig a similar tunnel for the 710.

[rajacobs]

Apparently actual construction will not begin until the beginning of 2015 with tunneling not to start until midway through 2016 (and last for two years). Does the schedule suggest that nothing will be open until the entire project is complete in 2023 (barring the unexpected)?

On October 31, a Construction Schedule was published on Metro's "The Source:"

[TransportationZ]

Darn I thought because we got full funding that it would open sooner than that. I thought 2023 was the timeline for the whole line. This means even if it was funded all the way to Santa Monica, it wouldn't open to Santa Monica until 2050 at the rate of this chart.

I saw the presentation on the source. 2 decades to get to UCLA? Really? I know tunnel construction is difficult but come on. It seems like every other country can build a 200 mile subway system in the span of a decade.

[rajacobs]

Hmmm, 2050 suggests that many of us will NOT be around to ride it, while others of us will be tentatively shuffling on to the train, hoping that someone gives up a senior seat they've taken! As for UCLA--it'll be long past needing to go to UCLA.

...Here's to "progress" and paying it way-forward.

[andert]

Metro is actively looking for ways to accelerate it, including the possibility of another ballot measure in 2014 or, more likely, 2016. If the acceleration happens, we're at the VA by 2023. I'm optimistic. We'll see. As Measure J showed (2/3rds threshold aside), a whole lot of people want it.

[rajacobs]

The VA by 2023 is what I had originally imagined would happen. This La Cienega by 2023 is slow. ...It still leaves in question when we'd reach the beach. Hard to imagine that speeding up the schedule would result in reaching Santa Monica before 2040.

[masonite]

Nov 4, 2013 17:38:00 GMT -8 rajacobs said:

The VA by 2023 is what I had originally imagined would happen. This La Cienega by 2023 is slow. ...It still leaves in question when we'd reach the beach. Hard to imagine that speeding up the schedule would result in reaching Santa Monica before 2040.

You realize that the schedule is set per the money that comes in from Measure R. Sure they could speed it up, but the funds from Measure R don't come in all at once and instead come in over the next 25 years. Also, someone said they had full funding. This is not true. The federal government still has not signed off on the Full Funding Agreement through New Starts. That won't happen for some time and construction can't really get going until they have that. In fact the application hasn't been sent yet. The Connector's app was just sent in a couple of weeks ago.

[TransportationZ]

Nov 4, 2013 17:47:32 GMT -8 masonite said:

Nov 4, 2013 17:38:00 GMT -8 rajacobs said:

The VA by 2023 is what I had originally imagined would happen. This La Cienega by 2023 is slow. ...It still leaves in question when we'd reach the beach. Hard to imagine that speeding up the schedule would result in reaching Santa Monica before 2040.

You realize that the schedule is set per the money that comes in from Measure R. Sure they could speed it up, but the funds from Measure R don't come in all at once and instead come in over the next 25 years. Also, someone said they had full funding. This is not true. The federal government still has not signed off on the Full Funding Agreement through New Starts. That won't happen for some time and construction can't really get going until they have that. In fact the application hasn't been sent yet. The Connector's app was just sent in a couple of weeks ago.

Actually, it is fully funded. Just because we don't have entire lump sum now, doesn't mean it isn't fully funded. The project wouldn't be going forward if there was no money.(Especially a project of this size and cost) It's fully funded, even if it just at a ridiculously slow speed. It's not like if we got full federal funding we would get a check for $6 billion right off the bat.

However, this is starting to get confusing. One second I'm hearing how we finally got federal funding while the next I'm hearing we don't. This has been happening for the past couple of years now. I would like to know when we actually get the check.

I really don't want to be a middle-aged man for the Subway just to reach UCLA. By that time, the station box under 4th st in Santa Monica should at least be under construction.

[bzcat]

Some clarification...

The project is fully funded with Measure R and some existing Federal transportation money. We have all the money we need to start and finish construction to La Cienega and that is what the time schedule is showing - under current funding requirements.

Under Metro's construction acceleration plan, there would be concurrent construction starting from Beverly Hills towards the VA taking place at the same time as the Western to La Cienega construction.

The first option we had to accelerate construction was the Federal acceleration loans that Villaraigosa tried to secure (30/10). That was killed by Republicans in the House of Representative.

The second option we had to accelerate construction was Measure J, which would extend Measure R and allow us to borrow against the entire future tax revenue to speed construction. That failed by a ridiculous 0.02% despite 66.64% of voters approving.

If we had the 30/10 loans OR the Measure J money, the line would get to Century City by 2020 and VA by 2023. Federal loans are pretty much out of question now that Congressional Republicans have degenerated into a bunch of know-nothing idiots.

This is why Measure J 2.0 is very important and is likely the only way we will see subway reach VA before we all are dead.

[skater]

So with measure J, loans would still have been necessary, because that is just extending the tax, so who would have lent the money? There would have been more funds total, so they could pay to work faster, and more at one time? It is too bad cut and cover won't be used on some of the dead straight portions, it could be a lot cheaper and faster, and the stations wouldn't be as deep, so less escalator/elevator costs. Really for the last bit into Santa Monica, they should just build it cut and cover, especially since Santa Monica is pretty pro-transit, maybe they will allow it.

[masonite]

Nov 18, 2013 15:54:00 GMT -8 skater said:

So with measure J, loans would still have been necessary, because that is just extending the tax, so who would have lent the money? There would have been more funds total, so they could pay to work faster, and more at one time? It is too bad cut and cover won't be used on some of the dead straight portions, it could be a lot cheaper and faster, and the stations wouldn't be as deep, so less escalator/elevator costs. Really for the last bit into Santa Monica, they should just build it cut and cover, especially since Santa Monica is pretty pro-transit, maybe they will allow it.

Measure J essentially would have allowed Metro to complete the America Fast Forward initiative with borrowing from internal sources instead of the federal government as originally envisioned. I think they will pursue something similar in 2016. It will be interesting to see what they propose. I think they need to somehow propose some new specific projects like a 405 Line, connecting Crenshaw to the Purple Line, extending the Purple Line to Bundy, funding the Santa Ana Row properly and finishing the Gold Line to Claremont for it to have a chance.

[culvercitylocke]

you know I read the description in the sample ballot on measure J twice, had my wife (a lawyer) read it as well, and we both thought it sounded like Measure J was intended to siphon measure R money away from rail projects to highway projects, and as a result we both voted against it. It sounded shady to both of us and since there was no publicity on it whatsoever we thought it was a sneaky way to undermine rail in LA.

[culvercitylocke]

The Source provided a construction update:

La Brea Station:
147 days of work so far on Utility relocation
Utility Relocation is at 55% complete.
This utility relocation is only water and electrical line, and doesn't include other utilities (presumably those will take ten years to do as well, right?)
The DWP will start dragging its feet and overcharging recharging, then recharging again, and charging a fourth time for work starting in february. Judging by DWPs history, they'll probably miss their completion date by two years or so.

At the Fairfax station
they've drilled the exploratory shaft, and anticipate finishing in march, 175 construction days have happened.
utility relocation anticipated to start in April for this station.

At the La Cienega station
they've completed investigation for the tie backs
they're now beginning a years long and tiresome process of the city of beverly hills dragging their feet, jerking them around and generally giving the good-old-fashioned runaround of non-progress.

I hope everyone's looking forward to five years of decking on Wilshire. nothing like a minor construction inconvenience of a mere five years.

thesource.metro.net/

[erict]

Jan 31, 2014 14:41:02 GMT -8 culvercitylocke said:

The Source provided a construction update:


I hope everyone's looking forward to five years of decking on Wilshire. nothing like a minor construction inconvenience of a mere five years.

thesource.metro.net/

I do look forward to decking. No matter what the pain will be, it is worth it.

[TransportationZ]

Unless that ballot measure passes in 2016, this is going to be the slowest subway construction the world has ever seen. Literally.

And who cares about decking? I will smile every time I see it. It means progress actually under way.

[culvercitylocke]

the pain will be worth it, but it is breathtaking how insanely slow this construction time frame is.

[masonite]

Jan 31, 2014 18:04:48 GMT -8 TransportationZ said:

Unless that ballot measure passes in 2016, this is going to be the slowest subway construction the world has ever seen. Literally.

And who cares about decking? I will smile every time I see it. It means progress actually under way.

Not quite. The 2nd Avenue Subway in New York started in some form in 1929 and is still under construction as of now and not expected to be completed for a few more years.

For the Purple Line, we'll probably have a groundbreaking in about a year. However, this is just for the section to La Cienaga. Saying anything after that is under construction is erroneous. I know Metro put out a map saying the Purple Line to the VA was under construction, but that is really false. Nothing will happen past La Cienaga likely for years.

[TransportationZ]

Feb 3, 2014 18:02:40 GMT -8 masonite said:

Jan 31, 2014 18:04:48 GMT -8 TransportationZ said:

Unless that ballot measure passes in 2016, this is going to be the slowest subway construction the world has ever seen. Literally.

And who cares about decking? I will smile every time I see it. It means progress actually under way.

Not quite. The 2nd Avenue Subway in New York started in some form in 1929 and is still under construction as of now and not expected to be completed for a few more years.

Doesn't really count. There is no way if crews were continually working on the subway would it take 80 years to complete. Unlike the Purple Line, which is 10 years of straight subway construction for just 3 stations. That is dreadfully slow.

Other countries could build decent subway system from scratch in the time span it takes for us to build 3 stations. [cough]Delhi Metro[/cough]

[bzcat]

Feb 3, 2014 18:19:18 GMT -8 TransportationZ said:

Feb 3, 2014 18:02:40 GMT -8 masonite said:

Not quite. The 2nd Avenue Subway in New York started in some form in 1929 and is still under construction as of now and not expected to be completed for a few more years.

Doesn't really count. There is no way if crews were continually working on the subway would it take 80 years to complete. Unlike the Purple Line, which is 10 years of straight subway construction for just 3 stations. That is dreadfully slow.

Other countries could build decent subway system from scratch in the time span it takes for us to build 3 stations. [cough]Delhi Metro[/cough]

Delhi probably didn't have to deal with the complexity of tunneling next to geological site (tar pits), existing underground structures, or underground utilities like Wilshire Blvd. Have you ever noticed that unlike other streets in LA, there are no overhead electric and cable wires on Wilshire? Delhi also doesn't have any sewer system to deal with and I'm sure they have no underground cable TV conduits or natural gas lines. It's an apples to oranges comparison.


Here are some apples to apples comparison of subway projects with similar stage length as the first phase (3.9 miles, 3 stations) of Purple line extension:

NYC Subway 2nd Avenue - first segment approximately 3.5 miles, 3 stations - estimated time from EIR to operation: 12 year 6 months
The current iteration of 2nd Ave subway EIR was approved in April 2004 and the first segment of the line from 96th street to 63rd street - with wait for it... THREE stations!) will open in December 2016 - more than 12 years after EIR approval.

The EIR on Purple line was approved in March 2012 so opening to La Cienega by 2023 as planned, we will beat the NYC 2nd Ave subway by about 24 months.

Taipei MRT Red line eastern extension phase 1 - 4 miles 7 stations - actual time from start of construction to operation: 11 years
EIR was approved in 1997 but start of construction was delayed due to cost concerns. Construction began in November 2002 and the extension opened for revenue service in November 2013.