Sepulveda Pass extension into the SFV

[LAofAnaheim]

How far is CSUN from Van Nuys / Nordhoff? Would a rail or bus line be able to make a quick detour to there?

[bzcat]

Dec 28, 2010 11:31:13 GMT -8 LAofAnaheim said:

How far is CSUN from Van Nuys / Nordhoff? Would a rail or bus line be able to make a quick detour to there?

It's about 4 miles. I think too far away to make a real impact on ridership decision. You will spend more time on the bus ride between CSUN and the Nordhoff station than the train ride from Sylmar or West LA (assuming it gets extended south below the hills) to Nordhoff station.

[LAofAnaheim]

I still struggle to believe that anything north of the Orange Line in San Fernando deserves rail. I see a bus only lane can achieve the same goal for the Valley. Yes, there would be lower ridership but the costs of a LRT do not justify the means for rail in this area. There's really no destination on this segment that would garner high ridership. Make the Van Nuys, or better yet, the Sepulveda Orange Line station the rail-bus transfer station (a la NoHo station). Anything north of Orange line on a major corridor should have rush hour bus only lanes with a bus jump signal.

Now, I'm sure the response from some of y'all will be "what about the Foothill Gold Line and Santa Ana corridor. 1st - half of the Foothill Gold Line stations are in downtowns and one at a college. After Azusa, I would say BRT is sufficient, but I think the politicians will haggle for a Gold Line extension to Ontario or bust. 2nd - the West Santa Ana branch has the potential to branch ( pun intended) towards downtown LA north of the Green Line and into some dense urban corridors, so I can understand rail there.

Again, south of Orange Line should be rail, but to the North, expanded bus service would be more cost efficient.

[bzcat]

But Metro won't break up the corridor this way. To them, Van Nuys Blvd is a single corridor so that's how it will be studied (which means it will most likely end up as BRT the entire length). What you are advocating is for Metro to treat Van Nuys south of Orange line as part of the Sepulveda/405 corridor (with enough ridership to justify light rail). Perfectly reasonable idea, but again, not how Metro does things unfortunately... I wish Metro would combine the Van Nuys corridor with Sepulveda/405 corridor study so it can come up with a comprehensive plan for SFV's north/south connection with West side. Wishful thinking...

[jdrcrasher]

^ We can change this. Why not flood the MTA website with letters?

[jeisenbe]

I agree that Van Nuys should be studied in concert with the Sepulveda / 405 route. Ideally a light rail tunnel under the mountains would provide very fast access to UCLA and Westwood from the Valley. The first segment would probably need to get at least to the Orange line in the north and Expo in the south, but continuing to LAX and also north thru the valley would be great.

By itself, Van Nuys would do well as a fully at-grade BRT, as long as the buses had their own exclusive lanes, preferably in the median, for the entire length of the route, but if we can get a light rail tunnel under the mountains, it would make a great deal of sense to extend the rails north. It only costs a little more to build rail than fully separated BRT.

However, if politically we get stuck with BRT on Van Nuys and Light Rail to the south, it would be possible to make a better solution than the current insanity at the Orange Line / Red Line terminus. Buses could be run as a timed connection, with 1 (or 2) waiting to met each train heading north, and arriving just 2 minutes early on the way south. Having the light rail station at grade would help, but it would be best to integrate the bus station with the rail platforms. The bus could stop just on the other side of the platform (with raised pavement to bring it up to the right level), and passengers would be able to take only a few steps to get to the bus.

With a properly designed, well run, cross-platform connection, only 1 or 2 minutes might be lost due to the transfer in each direction. However, it is doubtful that Metro would plan things so well without outside intervention. So I hope we can get light rail all the way.

(Light rail with our 3 car trains is capable of carrying up to 18,000 people per hour per direction at 2 minute headways, or just as many people as the 405 freeway can carry thru the pass with 5 lanes each way, so capacity should not be an issue with light rail)

[tobias087]

I don't think the timing would be that simple if the terminus of the light rail were at the Orange line, because you would also want some timing coordination between the Orange line and both of the other lines, which would make all of the schedules depend on the Red line schedule.

[jeisenbe]

Jan 9, 2011 17:41:03 GMT -8 tobias087 said:

I don't think the timing would be that simple if the terminus of the light rail were at the Orange line, because you would also want some timing coordination between the Orange line and both of the other lines, which would make all of the schedules depend on the Red line schedule.

I agree that it would be difficult to coordinate all 4 lines in both directions. It would require having one or both sets of buses or trains wait at the intersection of the Orange Line and Van Nuys.

But it is not difficult to coordinate the Orange Line with the Red Line (despite this not being done now) or a Van Nuys BRT with a Sepulveda LRT.

[Transit Coalition]

We've started a new board for this topic under "Valley-Westside Rail Tunnel," together with a poll asking whether Metro should study the Sepulveda Pass and Van Nuys Transit Corridors together or separately.

[regen]

Here's the link to the new board for this topic and the Van Nuys Corridor:

transittalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=valleywestsiderailtunnel

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