Construction Updates

[James Fujita]

antonio said:

Yum. I can't wait for the day when I can take the Gold Line from Mt. Washington to La Serenata (Mariachi Plaza) or to get tamales at Liliana's (Indiana) or to eat at the original King Taco (Maravilla), not to mention my favorite spots in Little Tokyo and the host of other good places within walking distance. On a construction note, Angelenic has posted construction photos.

those are some excellent photos, I've been wondering how construction has been going and those tracks are a sight for sore eyes.

I'm sure a "Gold Line Restaurant Guide" or something would be appreciated by both future riders and by the local owners. after all of this construction, we owe it to them to try and make amends.

I know Little Tokyo quite well, but I have to admit my knowledge of anything east of there is limited.

[tonyw79sfv]

Metro already has a Gold Line Eastside eatery map; and yes, King Taco is in there.

[James Fujita]

tonyw79sfv said:

Metro already has a Gold Line Eastside eatery map; and yes, King Taco is in there.

heh. according to the MTA map, if I'm hungry for Japanese food, I should get off the train at Atlantic and eat at Happy Teriyaki ^_^

I'm sure that Senor Fish is good, and I like fish tacos as much as the next guy, but couldn't they have at least included Oomasa? or the Far East Cafe? both of those places are walking distance....

(I had the thought that the list was solely for places that needed extra business, but that obviously doesn't apply to a lot of places on the list)

[whitmanlam]

Well, I think a very important destination that should have been served by this Eastside Goldline is County USC Medical Center. The Medical campus has grown tremendously over the years, but is still not served by light rail. (I think they used to have a Metrolink station down there)

Just like the Green Line, our leaders forgot to include this vital section of our city, in their plans. Maybe build a future spur line that serves the Hospital and it's surrounding neighborhood.

[bobdavis]

County USC has never been served by Metrolink; there is an El Monte Busway stop near (relatively speaking) the hospital complex. Last rail service to the area was Pacific Electric's General Hospital Shuttle, which quit in the 1940's, and the Sierra Vista Local, which was abandoned in 1950 or 51.

[wakko11]

Does anyone know what is happening with the First Street Bridge widening? I see rails being prepped for installation but no actual widening of the bridge is taking place.

[Transit Coalition]

Good timing on your question about the East Los Angeles Gold Line.

The bridge will close for 30 days starting on January 20, 2008.
The track will be laid and the widening will be started in February 2008.
Here is a PowerPoint to learn all the fine points.

[bluelineshawn]

The bridge closure has been delayed 1 week so it will close January 27.

[wakko11]

It looks like the actual widening of the First Street Bridge by the City of L. A. won't be finished until 2009 - which is later than the original plan.

On another note, the progress is great, but the sooner they finish the alignment on First between Gless and Mission, the better. Kind to tired of seeing the K-rails on First every time I leave the house ;D

[bobdavis]

I was at Union Station Yesterday (mostly to get timetables) and checked out the area between the current Gold Line platform and the US 101 bridge. There's been a lot of concrete work done to provide a grade crossing on the ramp that will get the tracks up to bridge deck level. Will we ride the line in 2009?

[antonio]

We most certainly will ride the line by 2009. Heavy construction should be done by late October and systems testing will happen thereafter followed by pre-revenue train running in December. The line should be ready to go by next Feb or March but we will have to wait until summer to ride because of Metro's budgeting and bi-annual service changes. The costs of operation are only included in Fiscal Year '10 which starts July 1 2009 so even though it will be done we will have to wait before we can use it (unless we raise fares again between now and then which is of course highly unlikely).

Also, now that construction is at the stage where it becomes rapidly noticable that portions of the line are near complete I was wondering if any one had any construction photos that are more current than the ones posted on angelenic right after the start of the new year. I plan to take photos when I return home in about a month and will post them up but until then my appetite is not satisfied

edit: fiscal year information

[whitmanlam]

I wonder if Metro will better connect the Atlantic/Pomona station with East LA College. Maybe a frequent shuttle bus between the station to campus ?
If this were a big university with money to spare (and of course we don't have any of those schools) they could build an underground conveyor belt people mover.

[bluelineshawn]

I was driving through East LA today. I never knew and never noticed how close the last three stations are to each other. Each of the last three are about 0.4 miles apart. The last two may even be closer to 0.3 miles. Then there's a 1.4 mile gap to the Indiana station and a similar gap to the Soto station. What's the reason behind having three stations in the last 3/4 mile?

[unico]

i have asked myself the same thing! why a stop at mednik, then the ELA court, then by kaiser? it makes no sense, and will slow down the commute. i think the big gap between the king taco stop and indiana is due to the fact that a large stretch from the freeway west is cemetary and not so populated. but i dot wonder...

[antonio]

You can blame Gloria Molina and LAFD for this one. In the 2002 Final EIR there were two options. Option A had the current Little Tokyo, 1st/Utah, 1st/Boyle, and 1st/Soto stations followed be a West Portal-like 1st/Lorena Station and a station at 3rd/Rowan and then Mednik and Beverly/Atlantic. At the last minute Gloria Molina introduced Option B which is the current option with a station at 3rd/Indiana instead of 1st/Lorena and 3rd/Ford instead of 3rd/Rowan. At her urging and thanks to a fire department report finding some issues with the 1st/Lorena portal station, Option B was chosen. This line is very uneven as a result and the station siting could really have been a lot better with Option A. 3rd/Indiana is 5 minute backtrack walking to El Mercado. Gloria Molina has had a long standing feud with the owner of El Mercado and this could be a reason why she pushed Option B so much. The one advantage of Option B though is that Option A would have run in the median of Indiana and made the turns more complicated and slowed the line down by a minute while Option B runs alongside Indiana in a newly created 3 block ROW and thus allows an Indiana station to be located without widening the street (though the property takes at Indiana for the brief ROW were contentions, i.e. Ramona High School).

Even considering this, the 3rd/Indiana station shoudl be at 1st/Indiana but i suspect county-city rivalry is at play here. The west side of Indiana is in the City of LA while the east is in unincorporated County of LA except for the southern most block in which the city limits jut out tot he other side of Indiana. In this way LA City keeps the same number of stations in the alignment as it would have under Option A. Also, stupidly, the further extension of the eastside line to whittier would have been easier if the station had been located at Beverly/Atlantic but this was cited as another reason to change to Option B, because the line had to cross Atlantic and this was considered unfeasible. Still, they could have ended the line on the near side of Atlantic and Beverly to solve that issue.

Also Unico, the Mednik and ELA Civic Center stops are the same thing and yes it is way too close to Atlantic but I think they felt it was necessary to serve both the ELA Civic Center and the heavy bus ridership on Atlantic. Ford, however is not really as necessary and would be better located at Rowan (though that is too close to the current Indiana stop, which should have been at Lorena) or Gage. Art's comments would also be helpful here.

[kenalpern]

As I see it, this is the result of Eastside political and grassroots apathy, where Sup. Molina to her credit doggedly got this project pushed through...but also had waaaaaaay too much singular control over such a complicated project.

No one person should have that much say on a project, and any City/county political rivalry should give way to a transportation pragmatism that recognizes that transit/transportation should be "without borders" and work on an entirely left-brained philosophy.

That said, there were no Friends4Expo organizations to get Eastside going, and I commend Gloria Molina again and again and again for getting this project existing at all.

I hope she'll help the Downtown Connector to be promoted and funded as a critical project that will fulfill the promise of the Eastside LRT project...and be necessarily underground as a
3-4 track project that will precede the Wilshire Subway for both an operational and political victory to the overneglected, transit-dependent and pro-transit Eastside and Downtown regions.

[art]

Thanks for the mention Antonio, now if you could only get your pops to dump that Hummer driving fool Jaime de la Vega and hire me instead!;p

You are generally right about your goldline history. Although I think the Indiana station wedged between 1st and 3rd was the best solution (you have access to both the Mercadito and 3rd corridor), as well as a hybrid station concept that was not in either plan A or B and was more of a pragmatic solution to the issues raised by the Lorena and Rowan stations and budget costs.

I agree that the closeness between the last 3 stations seems irrational, as well as a lot of other mistakes I have assumed were becuase of MTA ineptitude and folks fitting whatever down that corridor they could because the money was there. And Ken, plenty of grassroots organizing and voicing from the area occurred in the scoping meetings and throughout the process. The problem is that Supervisor Molina was able to get and stay in her position as a Latina by being VERY abrasive and hard nosed on issues, and now that the curtains of white male domination are somewhat unfurled we are now stuck with an abrasive hard nosed Latina who is rarely humble enough to change her positions or listen to reason once her mind is set (I hate to be politically subjective but that is the truth). The woman has had to fight for everything in her career, and has fought so much she has little left for kindness humility or rationality in many cases. The East LA community also holds very few (if any) doctors or proffessionals with the knowledge and resources to devote to organizing behalf of transit, as do most poorer areas, because people are working 60 hour weeks for low wages. I am currently writing a long list of why the whittier blvd alignment for the ESGoldline phase 2 is shortsighted and not the most beneficial use of money for transit needs on the eastside, so there is some grassroots advocacy.
I have also consulted with Sup. Molina's camp, but want more comprehensive info and packaging of my points and concepts before I pull out the dog and pony for them. You can blame my senior project professor for stifling this process by railroading my ES whittier redline extension alignment design into some darn sketchup model of a single DTLA station.

Anyways, the fact that there are 3 stations so close together is indicative of the extension's problems as well as another reason why the heck an ESgoldline extension is illogical and an inferior transit mode for such a high density corridor like Whittier Blvd, and why phase 2 should go thru the central SGV to areas farther east (the long stationless cross thru Whittier Narrows mitigates the slowness of the ELA alignment for better trip times from the SGV east of the 605, allowing the MTA to make a train that actually competes with commute times in a clogged corridor).

Mind you, I am not pulling a Damien Goomon with the ESgoldline (no offense to DG) phase 2, which is why I am voicing my educated opinion on this matter now. There are numerous problems with the current ES goldline alignment, many are from budget shortfalls and our policy makers and agencies putting whatever the heck they can down into East LA. Let me list them and note that they all also pertain to the reality that the Eastside goldline LRT is not a good fit to service the Whittier Blvd corridor (one of the highest ridership bus routes in the city as well as one of the most clogged auto corridors), here they are:

- If you look southward from the Union station goldline platform you will notice the clear path southward from the station, and how the train alignment being constructed diverts from that path in an S shaped curve to Alameda that cost more to build and reduces train speeds. I still have not heard one good reason from any MTA engineer why the alignment could not have gone straight down towards 1st street, the MTA/city owns the property between the Freeway and 1st street, it would negate a slower trip with the S curve, there wouldve been no need to mess with Alameda or take property, and the train couldve been totally grade seperated as the area this alignment crosses has little traffic. This direct southward alignment wouldve also made a much easier transition to whatever grade the Downtown connecter would be at, for now the LT station is so close to Alameda/1st that any turn or portal (to subway, which the DTC should be) is physically impossible. With the alignment i noted, the train would have had an extra couple dozen yards to make the transition from at grade to subway before it hits alameda. Dumb transit planning #1

- Since the alignment is deep bore tunnel, it seems illogical why it has to directly follow 1st street (not even considering utilities) the whole time. Near Soto station, the alignment would only have to veer a bit northward to have a station that also has direct access to Boyle Heights' biggest activity center Brooklyn/Chavez Avenue as well as 1st street. More dumb planning and inside the box thinking by the MTA

- I absolutely HATE the Lorena portal/"we have to cram whatever we can down there no matter how irrational" configuration. 1st street is WAY too narrow and busy to have a train run down it there, and it already has done irrepairable damage to the area business, patrons and aesthetic/functional quality of the area. Anyone with a brain would note that even if we have to make the train rise to ground level east of Lorena (and if we can find a couple dozen million $$ to make a USC station we couldve found money to keep the train in a C&Cover trench until Indiana) that the train should not run down the middle of 1st. In this section the train shouldve run on the south side of 1st east of the Lorena portal along an area that houses outdated uses and behind the row of old brick buildings on the southwest corner of 1st and Indiana, thereby mitigating the problems of putting a train down a major activity center that is quite narrow as well as the need to tear down an old historic brick building as well as stop any access to Indiana (a mojor N/S connector street) north of 1st. Even if there was no $$ for keeping it subway to the Indiana station, put the darn ROW behind the brick building on the southwest and you mitigate it running around tons of activity of the Mercadito/Calle Primera and isolate the grade crossing to only Indiana (where it can be controlled better), but that would be good planning....

-The 3rd street corridor is too dense for anything other than a trench or el, but I digress...

-The alignment in general was meant to cut costs and allow for an at-grade alignment wherever possible because of shortfalls, this meant bypassing the biggest ELA/BH activity centers and cutting thru the only areas of little activity, of course this is the antithesis of transportation planning, but we gotta put something down there.....

-The ford station should be west of ford and long enough to serve the neighborhoods west of the 710

Ill continue in a while, I gotta go...

[art]

rant continued:

- Much of the activity and businesses on 3rd street between Indiana and the 60 overcrossing will be gone because they squeezed in an LRT line that is too big for the street, becuase of the old layout of the strip most of the businesses here depend solely on on-street parking, which they now have lost. More bad planning

- The historically-marginalized-by-bad-planning community of El Hoyo in East LA is now cut off from Eastbound 3rd street traffic by the goldline, furthering the record of this community being isolated by transportation projects that do not serve them directly (no nearby stations). I notice the MTA was a bit more bullish on impeding travel patterns in east LA then they they were in south pas. or the valley, allowing many major streets to be permanently closed or blocked off from one direction of traffic, now from what precedence again does Damien note transit apartheid?

-They really shouldve put in a lot more quad gate crossings in certain areas of the alignment. If they are serious about phase 2 having any semblence of quick travel time they wouldve put quad gates at all major crossings not next to a station.

- Since the last stations are so close, they should have placed the atlantic station on the east side of the boulevard. This wouldve made the stations abit farther apart as well as create a larger service area for the station. Since we're at it, any alignment route southbound on atlantic is now impossible as the station sits right against an intersection that is super congested almost all day during the week.

-The lackluster route of the esgoldline basically does not serve BH/ELA's major activity centers (which was intentional for money purposes), do we really want to make the next major eastside transit investment off of this project, nonetheless to serve ELA's (and the county east of DTLA) busiest most dense corridor with the highest ridership. Whittier Blvd's bus ridership alone is higher than every MTA LRT line except the blueline. Anything less than an HRT redline extension down whittier blvd from 7th street station is a lackluster alternative to what the area needs, plain and simple.

[kenalpern]

Always great to hear from you, Art! I'm sorry there's not a singular entity (think BRU, F4ET, SoCATA, etc. that could command some media attention) of folks like yourself to debate and promote the big transit-related issues on the Eastside.

I don't know if this is good or bad based on your writings, but I suspect any Eastside LRT extension is a looooooong way away. After the planned extensions of the Expo, Foothill Gold, Green and Purple Lines, it's gonna be over a decade before we see anything extended onto Whittier Blvd. (be it LRT, HRT, or anything else).

What is going to be in your purview (and that of the Eastside) is the Downtown Connector, which in many ways is as vital a part of the current Eastside LRT as anything to be built in the future to Whittier or other points east.

[James Fujita]

art said:

If you look southward from the Union station goldline platform you will notice the clear path southward from the station, and how the train alignment being constructed diverts from that path in an S shaped curve to Alameda that cost more to build and reduces train speeds. I still have not heard one good reason from any MTA engineer why the alignment could not have gone straight down towards 1st street, the MTA/city owns the property between the Freeway and 1st street, it would negate a slower trip with the S curve, there wouldve been no need to mess with Alameda or take property, and the train couldve been totally grade seperated as the area this alignment crosses has little traffic. This direct southward alignment wouldve also made a much easier transition to whatever grade the Downtown connecter would be at, for now the LT station is so close to Alameda/1st that any turn or portal (to subway, which the DTC should be) is physically impossible. With the alignment i noted, the train would have had an extra couple dozen yards to make the transition from at grade to subway before it hits alameda. Dumb transit planning #1

one man's dumb transit planning = another man's better station location, I suppose. I am absolutely estatic to think that Little Tokyo will not be ignored for once.

that's a station that I'll actually be using, so maybe I'm a little biased, but Little Tokyo is growing into a community that needs and deserves its fair share of rail transit.

[art]

Actually james, I agree with you on the importance of the Little Tokyo station, which I will use too. My problem (which is more with the alignment curving rather than heading straight) is that the LT station should be a couple dozen yards to the east of Alameda bisecting that empty lot the city owned, rather than along Alameda. By doing this they wouldve shortened the trip, saved money by using city property rather than a congested street edge, allowed enough room east of the Alameda/1st intersection to enable a smoother and more feasable connection to the Downtown connector, and mitigated the funky traffic issue that will arise with trains crossing the 1st street/Alameda intersection. Plus, considering the DTC city hall station, this idea adds a littel bit more space between stations (not much though).

Since, in the alignment reconfiguration i note here, the station is only a few dozen yards East of its current location, the LT community would still be extremely accessable. So Im not advocating the removal of the LT station, Im just saying it coulve been done better.

And it is always a pleasure to hear from the good Dr. Alpern as well. I started a full time job, the younger one is in his terrible twos (older one in kindergarten), and Im about 2 weeks from completing my BA in urban planning; so my posts have been sparse as I have little free time. Plus, you know i like to be comprehensive and invest a lot of time and research into my ideas and posts. And yes, any esgoldline extension is a FAR way off, which is why i still think a whittier boulevard redline extension is still feasable to throw on the table. BTW, I have to commend you as the green line extension is coming on the radar a heck of a lot more nowadays, that is quite inspirational. Maybe I'll make it a meeting sooner or later, I like talking to Bart and the rest of the gang.

[damiengoodmon]

Since I first saw this quote over a year ago, I ALWAYS remember it when discussing Eastside LRT:

Gloria Molina in October 2006:

I’m very proud of the Eastside Gold Line. Of course, we’ve been waiting for it for 15 years. I had just joined the City Council when we got the full funding for the extension to the Eastside only to find out a few years later that it was taken away from us. And it was originally a subway, and now it’s partially a tunnel and then it comes out above ground.

I’m upset with some of our board members who put the measure together to prevent L.A. County from having a subway system and making sure that Congress could not give us money for any of those things—remember them? But we’re building our above-ground line on the Eastside and now that it’s going to the Westside, they’ve changed their minds. It’s very unfair. And every so often I’m going to sting them as much as I can because I do hold a grudge!

People will remember that when I began putting together "the map" (in this forum nonetheless) I started by attempting to determine where at-grade could fit, where elevated could fit, and where subway was the only option. Then I came across that quote, and evaluted:

1) Metro Transit Service Policy Planning Warrants (50K/day = 100% grade separated)

2) the construction impacts of each alignment realizing that TIME and CONSTRUCTION SPEED was a primary goal of G.L.A.M., and thereby placed a high priority on community buy-in (avoidance of delays from community opposition/lawsuits, and region-wide support for large bond measures)

3) and most fundamentally EQUITY. Before I even thought of researching more into Expo, I realized how it just would not be possible to say, "This community's traffic will be negatively impacted, while this one's won't;" "This community will experience the blight and noise of elevated, while this one's won't." I saw a HUGE political problem with that, even before I knew environmental justice laws existed.

People ask if I have problems with ES LRT, and my answer remains: philosophically, it's difficult for me to understand how how at-grade rail make sense south of the SFV mountains, west of Atlantic, north of the 105 FWY and east of the ocean. But I don't know that community and how it will seriously be impacted - I don't live there and I don't visit anywhere near enough. I could never get down to the specificity that Art and others have of the area to tell you the real impacts of the product. I didn't even know there were any 4-quad gates on the line.

But I never hesitate to mention that the line was originally supposed to be a subway, but was built primarily at-grade, because as soon as discussion of the line heading east of the river came, money became a concern. And now that it's nearly done and the Purple line is heading west, money is not a concern.

[James Fujita]

art said:

Actually james, I agree with you on the importance of the Little Tokyo station, which I will use too. My problem (which is more with the alignment curving rather than heading straight) is that the LT station should be a couple dozen yards to the east of Alameda bisecting that empty lot the city owned, rather than along Alameda. By doing this they wouldve shortened the trip, saved money by using city property rather than a congested street edge, allowed enough room east of the Alameda/1st intersection to enable a smoother and more feasable connection to the Downtown connector, and mitigated the funky traffic issue that will arise with trains crossing the 1st street/Alameda intersection. Plus, considering the DTC city hall station, this idea adds a littel bit more space between stations (not much though).

Since, in the alignment reconfiguration i note here, the station is only a few dozen yards East of its current location, the LT community would still be extremely accessable. So Im not advocating the removal of the LT station, Im just saying it coulve been done better.

well, it's a moot point since the Little Tokyo station is going to be built where it is going to be built, and I'm perfectly happy with where it's going to be built, thanks ;D

although I'm wondering about that "few dozen yards east" business. two dozen yards would be enough to get you to the Nishi Hongwanji temple, and three dozen would bring you to the other side of Vignes. while that may not seem like a lot, you have to keep in mind that most of Little Tokyo is west of 1st/Alameda. so, if your final destination is Nijiya Market, add a couple of dozen yards to your total walking. that's a reasonable distance for somebody my age, a good walk for my mother, a little too far for my obachan. and this is Los Angeles, where people HATE to walk.

as for the DTC, there's still plenty of time to get those issues worked out. I'm supporting alternative six partially because it'll be mostly underground, but also because the new San Pedro Street station location might actually be better for Little Tokyo than the current one. (just down the block from an awesome manga store? yes, please!)

[darrell]

Some new Eastside Gold Line photos:


East LA New High School #1 under construction at 1st & Mission


Temporary concrete decking at 1st & Boyle / Mariachi Plaza subway station


3rd Street, looking east past the 60 freeway and New Calvary Cemetary on the far right


3rd Street median tracks detail


Station under construction, 3rd & Ford (just east of King Taco)


Pedestrians in front of Griffith Middle School, 3rd & Mednick

[darrell]

damiengoodmon said:

But I never hesitate to mention that the line was originally supposed to be a subway, but was built primarily at-grade, because as soon as discussion of the line heading east of the river came, money became a concern. And now that it's nearly done and the Purple line is heading west, money is not a concern.

I used to say Zev Yaroslavsky's 1998 Propostion A killed 2-1/2 bad subway projects:

1. A Red Line extension under the existing Chandler Blvd. right-of-way. There was no justification for the cost of subway there.

2. A Red Line extension not under Wilshire, but to Pico-San Vicente. Simply the wrong route. Now we'll get it in the right place.

2.5 The Eastside Red Line, counted as one-half. Subway is appropriate for the density of Boyle Heights, but the planned route would have snaked south to near 4th & Santa Fe, then back north past 1st & Boyle / Mariachi Plaza to Cesar Chavez & Soto, then south again to Atlantic. In two phases, not one.

The final Eastside Gold Line design includes subway where necessary due to the narrow streets in Boyle Heights, and gets all the way to Atlantic in one phase.

[bluelineshawn]

Thanks for the photo update. I noticed how quickly the new high school was going up when I was in the area last weekend.

Interesting that the LAUSD has raised some concern over the Farmdale at grade crossing yet has been silent on the gold line. They even decided to put the high school there after the gold line was planned. IIRC there's already an elementary school there as well.

[damiengoodmon]

darrell said:

[
I used to say Zev Yaroslavsky's 1998 Propostion A killed 2-1/2 bad subway projects:

1. A Red Line extension under the existing Chandler Blvd. right-of-way. There was no justification for the cost of subway there.

You know you're really using classic NIMBY arguments here, Darrell.

I don't like Chandler ROW when compared to Ventura either, but MTA was considering open trench and cut-and-cover tunnels and open-cut stations down the ROW in addition to (the then much more expensive) bored tunnel and cut-and-cover stations. My point of course is that there were lots of ways of making the Chandler ROW "cost-effective" by even the most stringent definition. In addition to those already mentioned above there's the option to reduce the number stations, which would have sped up the line, which given the corridor would have likely increased the number of riders (much like the Green Line).

But speaking of cost-effective, how many cars travel from the west San Fernando Valley down the 101 to Downtown and east to Warner Center daily? You really can't see anyway an extension down the Chandler ROW would be worth 65-100K riders per day, and have major benefits to air quality, planning and traffic circulation?

No rail transit project is cost-effective when viewing it in 10 or 20 year terms. But these are 100 year infrastructure products, and in the case of this one it would have been parallel to a major freeway and travel corridor.

3 billion for this corridor may not be "cost effective" by the most stringent definition. (And let's see how that definition is altered 20 years from now, and comparatively how much would just two HOV lanes on the 101 cost to construct?)

1.5-2B for 15 miles and 65-100K riders: hard to see how it's not worth every penny.

2. A Red Line extension not under Wilshire, but to Pico-San Vicente. Simply the wrong route. Now we'll get it in the right place.

I don't disagree with you here. But the most fascinating part of the politics that went into that diversion of course was that after the methane ban was passed, discussion of bringing the Red Line out of the tunnel and onto aerial tracks lasted a total of 5 minutes before it was taken off the table, due to residential and business community resistance (blight of aerial).

Everything I read indicates that the anti-subway sentiment then was largely due to severe surface disruption of subway construction (no where near as large a problem any more) and MTA incompetence: cost-overruns, shady work, and corrupt contractors.

2.5 The Eastside Red Line, counted as one-half. Subway is appropriate for the density of Boyle Heights, but the planned route would have snaked south to near 4th & Santa Fe, then back north past 1st & Boyle / Mariachi Plaza to Cesar Chavez & Soto, then south again to Atlantic. In two phases, not one.

In part because the tracks/Red Line yard was already built. And looking at 4th/Santa Fe today (edge of the Artist District and doorstep to the LA River Renaissance) that snake looks rather forward thinking.

The final Eastside Gold Line design includes subway where necessary due to the narrow streets in Boyle Heights, and gets all the way to Atlantic in one phase.

1st and 3rd aren't narrow? Art just specified his concerns with some portions.

I think it was Zev, who said during the Expo Board discussion where the Expo Authority staff - get this - said Venice Blvd was too narrow to fit light rail tracks at grade that he thought it was peculiar that MTA could squeeze them on 1st and 3rd, but Expo didn't think it was possible to fit them down Venice.

[JerardWright]

damiengoodmon said:

In part because the tracks/Red Line yard was already built. And looking at 4th/Santa Fe today (edge of the Artist District and doorstep to the LA River Renaissance) that snake looks rather forward thinking.

I would agree with you if the station design was built within the yard. But it wasn't they would have built a brand new subway station right next to an existing rail yard facility which it would be easier, and more effective use of land to build a station. Mind you this was before fears of "terrorism" loomed in the minds of transit operations.

[damiengoodmon]

I think it was an at-grade station, built part of the yard. But it's been some time since I looked at the old Red Line EIRs.

[JerardWright]

damiengoodmon said:

I think it was an at-grade station, built part of the yard. But it's been some time since I looked at the old Red Line EIRs.

Let me save you time and a trip to the Metro Library. It wasn't at-grade but it was a new subway station on the corner of 3rd/Santa Fe.