The Sky Line

[bennyp81]

This is the Sky Line I delude myself into thinking it might happen. For those not familiar, it's a subway and above ground heavy rail that serves as a local service between Union Station and LAX. It would also act as an upgrade of the current El Monte Busway, where the Sky Line would continue onto it.

I do believe that the LAX Express idea would work well with this line. One can be a local line and the other can be an express with direct connections to the Union Station train platforms. I'm not sure how wide the Harbor Sub is between La Tijera and Chesterfield Square, but there must be a way the two can coexist. The Sky Line and LAX Express should be grade separated, but that would certainly drive up the more practical Express line's costs. Either way, the point is to make this crucial connection with the greatest speed and the least amount of trouble. Enjoy!



www.geocities.com/bennyp81/SkyLine.gif

EDIT: I first named "Zocalo" and "Garibaldi" the stations now named "South Park" and "Fashion District," which spawned the discussion below.

[Elson]

Garibaldi? Zocalo? What the....?

I would replace those names with "Fashion District" and "South Park."

[bennyp81]

Elson said:

Garibaldi? Zocalo? What the....?

I would replace those names with "Fashion District" and "South Park."

"Fashion District" and "South Park" are not names; they're contrievances. This is one of my greatest pet peeves about L.A.'s current revitalization efforts. Many of our growing and flourishing communities are given trite monikers that can be replicated elsewhere. A community should have a unique name without tags like "village" or "district" to give it a real identity that is readily recognized by locals and visitors alike. To find such names, we should delve deeper into the city's history (e.g. old maps, especially old P.E. maps) to find the appropriate names of those areas. Failing that, give them entirely new names. For places that never had one and have no precedence, it won't hurt.

Worse yet, only map fanatics, hard-core Downtowners and the folks at L.A. Downtown News call those areas like that. Ever heard of someone calling Santee Alley the "Fashion District?"

(With regards to the names I picked, they both come from stations on Mexico City's subway system. Garibaldi serves the plaza of the same name, where you can hear numerous acts from Mexico's various musical traditions. Zócalo is a general name for a square in any Mexican town, which has something to do with the shoes of a statue in the center of such a square, though it is almost exclusively used for Mexico City's central square.)

[Elson]

Um, you have a really strange logic on naming stations. Just like the MTA...though well-intentioned (Rosa Parks Station is a prime example), it's simply bad logic ("Uh. where is the Rosa Park? I don't see a park anywhere near here.")

So by your skewed logic, we shouldn't have named the Gold Line "Heritage Square/Arroyo" station, but instead named it after some spot on the Mexico City subway system? Whaaaa?

At least these alleged "contrievances" that you speak of are at least familiar to some people, rather than just one person who would wish to arbitarily name stops on a transit system. "Fashion District" is at least a clue to people that clothes are known to be sold in that area. Call it "Garibaldi" and I'm sure some clothing store owners, who likely would have had to suffer through months/years of construction woes, would want your head on a platter once the line opens and no one uses that station...

A "garibaldi" around these here parts is a beautiful (but not a particularly tasty) bright-orange fish found in the waters off the coast of Catalina Island. I just...oh never mind.

I'm just glad this is a "fantasy" thread, in any real world application, we might be really in trouble.

[bennyp81]

I think "Fashion District" or "South Park" are terrible names. However, you think that the two names I gave don't identify the area at all.

Very well. You're right, because "Fashion District" and "South Park", however barren they sound, are the cards we're dealt with. As far as I have researched, there are no historic names of those areas to replace them. And I suppose using those are more appropriate than picking names out of the Mexico City Subway.

I still rabidly believe that quite a few of these community names (and by extension, rail station names) are thoughtless and don't do justice to these areas. Most of their names follow predictable and uninspired formulas:

--Street Name + (Insert tag such as "Village", "Plaza", "Square", "Park") (e.g. "Vermont Village").

--Vague geographic feature + (Insert tag such as "Village", "Plaza", "Square", "Park") (e.g. "Valley Plaza")

--Street Name "/" Other Street Name. (Pretty much every Red Line station).

--Names that already represent something else (Isn't "South Park" the place where, until a few years ago, Kenny is killed on a regular basis?).

Now that rail is making a resurgence in L.A., new rail stations will give the communities they serve a great opportunity to stand out. A rail station's name should identify the community by reflecting its past. If a proper name is not given, then the community will be identified by the rail station's name, and I don't want that to happen if they're named after lengthy streets or their corners. What if the Gold Line still had names like "Avenue 57" or "1st/Boyle?" Riders would very well have called those areas such. What about "Anaheim" or "San Pedro" on the Blue Line, or "Long Beach" or "Avalon" on the Green Line? These stations are nowhere near any of those places, even if their names merely refer to the cross street they serve. A well-intentioned tourist would be irritated with our transit system if he learned that "Avalon" station does not serve an island with boats.

I would like to think that as transit advocates, with our ideas for rail lines, we could set precedence in naming stations through our concept maps. Nevertheless, in the future when I update my maps, I'll make an even more strenuous effort on finding their historic names where given.

In any case, so that there's no bad blood between us, I'll change the map to give the more accurate names. Bad names that identify trump good names that don't.

[bennyp81]

The following is an alternate take on the Sky Line, which would run on part of the Red Line from Union Station to Pershing Square, then veer straight on Hill Street and continue to LAX as before. I can only imagine what engineering feats would have to be pulled so that the two lines connect seamlessly between 7th/Metro and Pershing Square.



www.geocities.com/bennyp81/SkyLineAlt.GIF