Construction Updates

[tonyw79sfv]

Nick, you should post it in this section here:
transittalk.proboards37.com/index.cgi?board=pacificelectric

I also put a link to a YouTube video of the last days of the Pacific Electric Red Cars, but your linked video is more comprehensive.

[Mac]

Did anyone see rails already laid out and done? I have a feeling they might be done with the laying the rails in Little Tokyo, but they still doing some stuff in East L.A.

[bluelineshawn]

mac said:

Did anyone see rails already laid out and done? I have a feeling they might be done with the laying the rails in Little Tokyo, but they still doing some stuff in East L.A.

Have they done much of anything on the part from 1st to 3rd street on Indiana? Unless I'm looking in the wrong place it looks like that part is barely started.

[Elson]

bluelineshawn said:

mac said:

Did anyone see rails already laid out and done? I have a feeling they might be done with the laying the rails in Little Tokyo, but they still doing some stuff in East L.A.

Have they done much of anything on the part from 1st to 3rd street on Indiana? Unless I'm looking in the wrong place it looks like that part is barely started.

The ROW will be on off the street (like along Alameda). All the property along the street has been cleared out.


I took this the other night though - the portal on 1st Street facing Downtown:

[timquinn]

mac said:

Did anyone see rails already laid out and done? I have a feeling they might be done with the laying the rails in Little Tokyo, but they still doing some stuff in East L.A.

The track is roughly laid out on big wood blocks from just east of Alameda to nearly Vignes. They have been welding short sections together and grinding the welds flat for about a month. Looks like they are beginning to prepare for pouring concrete around the track. There is wire mesh below the wood blocks.

Almost everyone has moved out of the Citizen's Warehouse building just North of the bridge. Demolition was to begin in September. That appears to be on track. Some concrete has already been poured on the bridge, replacing the northernmost lane they had removed.

No track along Alameda yet. They have been working on the long ramp down from the elevated section to Temple. Placing prefab concrete retaining wall along the sidewalk and filling the resulting hollow with dirt. It has been slow but steady progress.

[Mac]

So hows Little Toyko doing then? The last time i saw it, it looked liked an abandoned station from 30 years ago. BTW, does anyone know about what "metro art" they are gonna put on the stations? Hopefully it would match the design of the communities. Whats gonna be at the Alantic Station? Hopefully not graffiti. I always get a little uneasy crossing the Monterey Park-East LA border.

[James Fujita]

if you go to the MTA's website they have some illustrations of the stations there.

www.mta.net/projects_programs/eastside/stations.htm

frankly, I'm not that impressed but with a limited budget, we're lucky to have any at all. at the least they could put up some Japanese signs at the Little Tokyo station.

[Elson]

jfujita said:

if you go to the MTA's website they have some illustrations of the stations there.

www.mta.net/projects_programs/eastside/stations.htm

frankly, I'm not that impressed but with a limited budget, we're lucky to have any at all. at the least they could put up some Japanese signs at the Little Tokyo station.

It looks like they will plant a row of cherry blossom trees next to the station. The station art probably hasn't been finalized yet, and if not can be easily added later, as in the case of many of the Blue and Green line stations.

[James Fujita]

I noticed those pink sakura blossoms in the illustration, and I have to admit that would be a nice touch, if they follow through with it. los angeles is horribly lacking in trees in general and you can't go wrong with decorative cherry.

of course, it would only look like that for a few weeks out of the year ;D


to be honest, I have mixed feelings about transit art. the Chinatown station is gaudy, oddly inauthentic and yet strangely appealling all at the same time, and any attempt at making the Little Tokyo station "Japanese" could easily backfire.

in any case, most Japanese train stations that I've ever encountered have been wonderfully minimalist, utilitarian, industrial and functional- but with some truly distinctive signage...

[whitmanlam]

That's one of the challenges of using "Durable" materials. No Wood can be used.
I myself would love a Koi pond, or some flowing water... but that's just too high maintenance. Probably settle for a Zen rock garden, and some bamboo.
But the pedestrian entrances need to be street friendly, and connect people to Little Tokyo and the Art's district. Not walk a funny angle to get up to the platform.

I think stations should be made simplistic. With display areas to put intermittent sculptures and paintings. Ever changing art displays, not permanent fixtures.

BTW.... The Gold Line Overpass over the 101 freeway. I hope they don't have the same structural flaws that the Chinatown elevated curve had. Chunks of concrete falling on the 101 can be dangerous...

[hooligan]

Has anyone mentioned the best thing about this line. It stops at King Taco in east LA . Fantastic!!;D

[James Fujita]

heh. I hadn't even thought about the problems that wood would have. but anyways, a Japanese garden would be a bit too much. although there are some stations where they would certainly have enough room for more greenery in the plaza or the park and ride area.

I agree about the whole "keep it simple, stupid" thing. like I said, a true Japanese station would be utilitarian.

it does seem like the station platform is a tad farther from the corner of 1st/Alameda than it has to be. I can't remember if that had anything to do with the curve or not.


EDIT: here's the art I'd want at Little Tokyo ^_^

install something like this near the entrance

or place one of these classic exit signs

or even something like this?

[whitmanlam]

Perhaps a torii over a small reflecting pond. Tourists would love that. It could symbolize a gateway between Downtown and the outer cities.

For too long the area has been bounded economically and socially by the river and the freeways. I think light rail can do something the roads and freeways haven't done. Create a closer connection to the communities like East L.A. Boyle Heights to Downtown.
So close yet so far.

Also need to improve the sidewalk scape on Alameda from Union station to Little Tokyo station. The sidewalks are there, but there is no life in between. Just the DWP, Federal, and empty lots. When the sun goes down, that stretch of sidewalk is so deserted. Need to add some retail or something.
And expand Metro bus service on Alameda to serve the growing Arts loft developments there.

[James Fujita]

a torii gate? Whitman, I admire your creativity, even if I haven't the foggiest idea where we would put it! ^_^

torii gates are typically symbolic markers of temples, shrines and other sacred places and I'm not sure a train station would fit the description.... we may adore trains, but I'm not ready to declare it my religion ^^;;;

of course, there is that Buddhist temple down the road on First Street. maybe we can have the Daimon gate arch over First Street. of course the next step would be to close off the street to automobile traffic. set up some tacky souvenir shops and ramen noodle stands. hmmmm..... ;D

EDIT: in my silliness, I temporarily forgot that there are in fact, several temples in the Little Tokyo area. building a torii gate on the road to the one that you can see from the Gold Line station (to the east) would block traffic on a main route out of East L.A. my favorite is hidden down an alley on First Street (to the west, near the museum). it doesn't really need a big, grand torii gate to advertise it's humble existance, but I suppose you could put one on First Street facing west ^^

anyhoo, I agree about Alameda being an unfortunate barrier of dead space. I've walked down from Union Station to Little Tokyo many times, in the heat, sucking car exhaust, nothing to do but ponder the goings-on at the medieval federal castle complex. even when you get down to MOCA and the Japanese American National Museum, there's still nothing to look at because everything faces the wrong direction!
the west side of Alameda is a lost cause and the east side isn't much better, unless they build store fronts; and to be honest, I'd rather the time and effort go into revitalizing the existing sections of Little Tokyo, the parts between First and Third Streets and San Pedro- which frankly, seems to be doing better now than a few years ago. crazy haoles and gaijin are coming in and despite the Nisei naysayers ("we're losing our culture"), the newcomers seem to be appreciating and embracing the area's uniqueness.

pardon the side track, but the Little Tokyo train station can't arrive a minute too soon!

[whitmanlam]

The key to bringing pedestrian life to Alameda St. ( And the rest of L.A. for that matter ) is to get rid of the huge surface parking lots. Build some parks, residential, retail... whatever.
But get rid of the gigantic asphalt wasteland, and you'll see immediate improvement. Of course this would enrage local businesses, and most people with cars.

But in the long run it will make the city much more attractive.

[Elson]

whitmanlam said:

The key to bringing pedestrian life to Alameda St. ( And the rest of L.A. for that matter ) is to get rid of the huge surface parking lots.

Um, where have you been? This has already been happening for the past few years...nearly every new condo/loft development is built or will be built over a former surface parking lot. LA Freaking Live was a parking lot!

[latte]

hooligan said:

Has anyone mentioned the best thing about this line. It stops at King Taco in east LA . Fantastic!!;D

I live in East L.A off of Third st and Arizona and I see the progress everyday. The first stop is Atlantic Blvd, and the second stop I take will be in front of the sheriffis station? where will people park their cars in order to take the train? there is an empty lot across the street from the sheriffs station I take it they will convert that into a parking lot and then how about the stop at King Taco? Will King taco give up their parking across the street for the commuters?

[whitmanlam]

Maybe if the commuters can buy 3 tacos they can park there the whole day ?

But seriously, we need to consider how we can build stations that don't center around parking lots or parking structures. Aren't we building train stations to be pedestrian friendly ?

We need to encourage walking, bicycling, and mass transit instead of driving cars. I think a good example of this is the Redline Subway station at Westlake/MacArthur park. There is virtually no parking around there, but it is a hub of activity in that neighborhood.

[LAofAnaheim]

Parking lots are not a destination at Metro stations....build an office bldg or a residential bldg. That will do more benefit. Please, no more parking at metro stations, it's an absolute waste. If you are not within reasonable distance, use a bus to the Metro station.

[Tony Fernandez]

The further out stations should have parking lots where buses may not be a viable option, such as if the Foothill Extension is built, all of those stations should have park and rides.

[whitmanlam]

Think about it:

1 parking space 9' x 16' consumes almost 250 sq. ft. (including driveways)
100,000 sq. ft. for 400 parking spaces = 400 daily riders = 800 passenger trips

Is this a good use of taxpayer money and scarce real estate ? Maybe way out in the desert Metrolink stations but not in L.A. County.1

[JerardWright]

whitmanlam said:

Maybe if the commuters can buy 3 tacos they can park there the whole day ?

But seriously, we need to consider how we can build stations that don't center around parking lots or parking structures. Aren't we building train stations to be pedestrian friendly ?

We need to encourage walking, bicycling, and mass transit instead of driving cars. I think a good example of this is the Redline Subway station at Westlake/MacArthur park. There is virtually no parking around there, but it is a hub of activity in that neighborhood.

Well part of the dilemna is in order to make the area itself Pedestrian Friendly, the streets/pathways need to be pedestrian friendly. That requires the city to do it's due dillegence.

For some who think building a parking structure is a waste of space have to understand that the structure can be a benefit to the surrounding areas AND encourage more activity and density when it's properly sited and provides mitigation for a developer to not spend $$$ on extra parking spots but instead build more housing on his lot and pay the city or whoever is in charge of the Parking structure a fee for each space. The problem is not the parking structure, it's the programming of things surronding it, ie PLANNING and ZONING.

In addition to that with appropriate validation if a transit user were to spend $$$ at the facility as a Park-ride user and be a regular user to transit makes it easier to lure new riders to the system or at the very least encourage new carpool and ride type of services with residents in these new apartments father away from the stations parking at the stations riding the subway to work and then on the arrival back, pick up groceries, run errands before taking those items to the car and continuing home.

[dasubergeek]

sodha said:

Parking lots are not a destination at Metro stations....build an office bldg or a residential bldg. That will do more benefit. Please, no more parking at metro stations, it's an absolute waste. If you are not within reasonable distance, use a bus to the Metro station.

You're not going to get people out of their cars by saying "you need to take a bus or two to get to the train". You can get people to leave their cars for trains, with work, but not for buses.

You can build parking without having it be the focal point.

This is my problem -- while I would love a walkable, transit-oriented city like New York, London or Paris (or parts of San Francisco), that's not the city we have here. Distances are too great... and even if you get walkable parts of LA, you're still going to need to have parking lots in the outer places (we're not talking about San Dimas here, we're talking about Van Nuys).

We need to design for the city we have, instead of the city we wish we had built back when the choice was open. Any addition to transit is a good addition... let's not shut people out by refusing to build parking.

[Mac]

The 1 major problem in L.A. is that L.A. county covers much more land than many of these places. Look at San Fransico, even though its got a lot of steep hills, u can almost take public transportation or walk anyware, its so compact. Where was in L.A., u have from San Fernado valley to Pomona, and in between we have hills, valleys, mountain ranges, and to the south we have Long Beach and San Pedro. But just because we have such a big land mass should not be the reason that we can't build our rail lines, or drive a car. Look at Pacific Electric. 1000+ miles of track, all the way from San Bernadino, to Stanta Ana, to Stanta Monica, and to the Valley. P.E. basicly tied all of L.A. together, and back then most people didn't use a car, but the trolleys. If u see of picture of the trolleys from 1900-1930(P.E.'s peak), you won't see many cars.

[Elson]

mac said:

The 1 major problem in L.A. is that L.A. county covers much more land than many of these places. Look at San Fransico, even though its got a lot of steep hills, u can almost take public transportation or walk anyware, its so compact. Where was in L.A., u have from San Fernado valley to Pomona, and in between we have hills, valleys, mountain ranges, and to the south we have Long Beach and San Pedro. B

WHOA HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!!! You're reiterating a bad fallacy there. NEVER compare Los Angeles county with the city of SF!!!! SF proper may be dense, but the entire Bay Area is even more sprawled, spread out than Southern CA! I mean you got that big mass of water in the middle of everything. Driving from Anaheim to Van Nuys takes much less time than driving from Palo Alto to Vallejo. So compare region with region, not region with city.

[kenalpern]

I must side here with Jerard and dasubergeek and mac in that I favor parking structures at or near Metro stations because of the farflung distances people must drive to access the relatively scarce rail stations we have.

My philosophy has always been to utilize parking structures to get cars OFF the road. Anyone who doggedly insists that people take buses or bicycles or walk to the train is not being realistic when addressing transit riders who must travel long distances to get to the train, or who have children or elderly or disabled occupants in their cars, etc.

When we have a wonderful, huge Metrolink/MetroRail network that can make it easier to not use one's car to get to the train, then that would be sweet, and I do insist on enhancing pedestrian, bicycle and bus access to any train station. But to insist that people not use their cars to get to the train is at the least unrealistic and at the most social engineering...and one way or the other it'll lead to decreased ridership.

Whether it's to eliminate wasteful streetside parking, enhance a pedestrian-friendly environment, encourage transit access or the like, we need MORE parking structures to get cars OFF the road. Accompanying that concept, though, is the necessary corollary concept of not allowing developers and businesses to weasel their way out of providing parking for new and existing properties so that increased parking does NOT lead merely to more development.

Had we held developers to appropriate standards for traffic and parking mitigation for the last 20-30 years, we would have had a whole lot more transit and a whole lot less traffic a long time ago.

[LAofAnaheim]

kenalpern said:

1 - But to insist that people not use their cars to get to the train is at the least unrealistic and at the most social engineering


2 - Whether it's to eliminate wasteful streetside parking, enhance a pedestrian-friendly environment, encourage transit access or the like, we need MORE parking structures to get cars OFF the road.

You hit on 2 huge points:

1 - "social engineering" - wasn't it social engineering in the 1950s & 1960s to build freeways and demolish transit lines? If we did it in the past, at a much larger and grand scale, what's wrong with doing it today at a more slower pace? It's not like all our parking lots are being taken over by developments. We still have parking for everybody, just the future options are getting more diminished. Hopefully we see a reduction in parking requirements by the City Council, especially for the downtown area.

2 - "wasteful street parking" - this is not wasteful at all. Street parking contributes to the street culture. Plus, it prevents our streets from becoming highways. Look at anti-gridlock zoning, more people have reliance on local roads as being highways during rushhours. Why would storefront companies want to continue business on a mini-highway? They may as well go to a mall, where there's plenty of parking garages. And, about parking garages, b/c of our accessibility, availability, and convenience of parking structures, why should we take transit? It's too easy to find parking, ridiculously easy. If there was no structure, I'd have to take transit. Too many people I know drive to downtown (and some live in hollywood) during the work hours b/c parking is available, albeit expensive. Now, if those parking lots/garages aren't there (like SF, NY, etc...), people would be more inclined to take transit. And downtown LA is fantastic for this as buses and trains all pass through downtown. Other parts of the city, still are years off. But, if we continue building parking garages we have more car reliance, more demand for anti-gridlock zoning, the loss of street life and storefronts, more traffic, and more demand for auto-friendly policies. A vicious cycle.

[Tony Fernandez]

sodha said:

And, about parking garages, b/c of our accessibility, availability, and convenience of parking structures, why should we take transit? It's too easy to find parking, ridiculously easy. If there was no structure, I'd have to take transit. Too many people I know drive to downtown (and some live in hollywood) during the work hours b/c parking is available, albeit expensive. Now, if those parking lots/garages aren't there (like SF, NY, etc...), people would be more inclined to take transit. And downtown LA is fantastic for this as buses and trains all pass through downtown. Other parts of the city, still are years off. But, if we continue building parking garages we have more car reliance, more demand for anti-gridlock zoning, the loss of street life and storefronts, more traffic, and more demand for auto-friendly policies. A vicious cycle.

If we take away all the parking spaces at once, we would lose a lot of business. We have to do this gradually, otherwise we risk too much. We should eliminate street parking near our transit lines or put very expensive parking meters there. Actually, I like that idea more. Wherever there is easy accessibility by rapid transit (either Metro Rail or Metro Rapid Bus) we should make parking meters at something like $1.00 for every 15 minutes. That's still cheaper than many parking lots I've seen.

[LAofAnaheim]

phattonez said:

We should eliminate street parking near our transit lines or put very expensive parking meters there. Actually, I like that idea more. Wherever there is easy accessibility by rapid transit (either Metro Rail or Metro Rapid Bus) we should make parking meters at something like $1.00 for every 15 minutes. That's still cheaper than many parking lots I've seen.

No, No, No. We should not eliminate street parking. That's what I'm saying. Elimination of street parking = creation of parking garages. How much more of a car dominated society we want? If you go to other great cities, they have street parking to supplement the lack of parking garages. It creates vibrant streets with people walking all the time. A parking garage prevents somebody from having to walk onto the street. They go into the garage, take the elevator into their store/mall, and never see them on the street. I'm taking this from the urban development p.o.v. It's horrible seeing that 16 story parking garage at Grand Avenue & the 10 freeway. How many more of these monstrositious do we need? Simple thing, start opening up more street parking, and we can slowly get rid of parking garages. You would definitly see more vibrant streets with PEDESTRIANS if people have to walk the streets.

[LAofAnaheim]

The worst thing about placing parking lots around Metro stations, it prevents people who do have great transit access to going to their destination. I'll give you a prime example. I live in downtown and travel to Santa Clarita for work. Downtown has great transportation..whereas Santa Clarita does not. However, if the Santa Clarita Town Center development was within 1/4 mile of the Santa Clarita Metrolink station, I would gladly take Metrolink over driving anyday. But, b/c people need parking at Santa Clarita Metrolink, it prevents people with great transit access to using it (i.e. people from downtown). The Santa Clarita Town Center is 3 - 5 miles from the Metrolink station. Unfortunate location. B/c if they built the Town Center next to the station (i.e. a TOD), the thousands of people living in the "urban" units at Santa Clarita could walk to Metrolink...and you'd have people like me do th reverse commute. Downtown should not be the only place with destinations, we should make housing/businesses around other metro stations to create more reasons to take Metro.

I do somewhat agree a parking lot should be near a far away station, but something more manageable like 50 - 100 spaces. The rest of the space should be built for TODs. I fear more parking garages = more car demand = more auto-centric policies.