Expo / Blue Line Interface

[Jason Saunders]

It occurs to me that the Pico Station is going to be one of the busier transfer stations:

- Expo to Blue (Long Beach Riders Heading West
- Blue to Expo
- two Rapid Buses 728 and 730
- Harbor Transit Way connection
- It is the station for Staples center, the Convention Center and L.A. Live.
- and when the downtown connector comes through it will also have passengers who transfer Gold to Blue.

And yet, Pico Station will have the smallest footprint of any of the other existing transfer stations. I know they are remodeling this station but I wonder if they will be enlarging it to accommodate additional passenger load.

I remember the FEIR having preliminary station plans but I can't seem to find it online this evening.

Do you know anything about the Pico Station remodel?

[JerardWright]

transittalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=blueline&action=display&thread=47

This is something TTC has written in our letter regarding the Regional Connector:

Of utilizing the east sidewalk, raising it to make it the second platform for LRT at the Pico station. So that you have one platform for one direction and another platform for another direction.

The idea of this is from something I saw in Calgary's LRT when I was in college of how they integrated a new convention center, sidewalk and at-grade platform on the side of building. And since the sidewalk on Eastside of Flower Street is virtually unused space. Some cyclist and a few peds use it but not that many of them.

This is the Centre Street station on their 7th Avenue Transit Mall. These pics were taken from www.lightrail.com

[bluelineshawn]

Oct 27, 2009 22:33:12 GMT -8 Jason Saunders said:

It occurs to me that the Pico Station is going to be one of the busier transfer stations:

- Expo to Blue (Long Beach Riders Heading West
- Blue to Expo
- two Rapid Buses 728 and 730
- Harbor Transit Way connection
- It is the station for Staples center, the Convention Center and L.A. Live.
- and when the downtown connector comes through it will also have passengers who transfer Gold to Blue.

And yet, Pico Station will have the smallest footprint of any of the other existing transfer stations. I know they are remodeling this station but I wonder if they will be enlarging it to accommodate additional passenger load.

I remember the FEIR having preliminary station plans but I can't seem to find it online this evening.

Do you know anything about the Pico Station remodel?

I posted something similar a couple of years ago, but AFAIK there aren't any remodel plans for Pico. I don't know that it's a major transfer for the harbor fwy lines, but other than that I expect that it will get really busy. It's gotten much busier just in the last couple of years.

I can see something like what Jerard suggests working, but it probably wouldn't happen for a while. Maybe it would coincide with the connector being built.

[metrocenter]

The issue to solve at Pico is the issue of capacity. Namely, what station design would enable smooth and safe boardings of large crowds at peak usage?

The idea of splitting the platforms solves certain problems, but creates new ones. The nice thing about the split platform, especially as Jerard suggests it (ramped up with the sidewalk), is that fewer pedestrians would have to cross the tracks to get to the train platform. Thus, the design would be inherently safer. It would also integrate the station into the neighborhood much better. So to be clear, I don't oppose the idea.

However, as for the issue at hand (handling peak crowds), I think splitting the platforms actually makes matters worse. You would now need two platforms, each as wide as the original center platform, to accommodate the same crowds as before. This is because peak crowds tend to be mostly going in one direction.

Also, unlike the transit mall in Calgary, L.A.'s Metro stations have a 'paid fare' area. So at this station, there would have to be a physically separation (fence) between the 'paid fare' area and the unpaid area (regular sidewalk). In other words, the areas would not be combined, as they are in Calgary. Both areas would be subject to width requirements as mandated by ADA.

So, to make Pico Station a split platform station, you would need significantly more land to do it right. This would have to come either by taking street lanes from Flower Street, or by taking some of the adjacent property.

Ultimately, the best solution at Pico is an underground station. Unfortunately, that will require lots of money, and I can't see that happening for a long time.

[JerardWright]

Oct 29, 2009 8:13:59 GMT -8 metrocenter said:

... So to be clear, I don't oppose the idea.

However, as for the issue at hand (handling peak crowds), I think splitting the platforms actually makes matters worse. You would now need two platforms, each as wide as the original center platform, to accommodate the same crowds as before. This is because peak crowds tend to be mostly going in one direction.

That is with the current Blue Line with Expo and in future Regional Connector the loads will occur in both directions so the need for such an additional platform is warranted.

Also, unlike the transit mall in Calgary, L.A.'s Metro stations have a 'paid fare' area. So at this station, there would have to be a physically separation (fence) between the 'paid fare' area and the unpaid area (regular sidewalk). In other words, the areas would not be combined, as they are in Calgary. Both areas would be subject to width requirements as mandated by ADA.

So, to make Pico Station a split platform station, you would need significantly more land to do it right. This would have to come either by taking street lanes from Flower Street, or by taking some of the adjacent property.

Ultimately, the best solution at Pico is an underground station. Unfortunately, that will require lots of money, and I can't see that happening for a long time.

Very sound points, metrocenter



I took this picture at the 2008 Laker Season opener

Here's the adjacent property.



It's the blue boxes in the image. Currently it is parking on the 12th Street side. The same can be made for the NE corner of Pico/Flower. The yellow zone is the second platform location. All Metro would need is a chunk of it as a Fare-control plaza. As there are large loads during and after games using the TVM's it maybe needed to have a larger zone like this to handle that demand.

[Jason Saunders]

Jerard I appreciate your thinking out of the box but one of your fare control plaza's appears to be taking up both Flower and Pico sidewalks. How will pedestrians get around? Secondly both fare control plaza are seperate from the boarding platform. People's inclinations would be to go to the platform. If there was a large crowd how would you keep people from "cutting" in front of those waiting in the fair control plaza?

In regards to a new east platform the sidewalk doesn't appear to be very wide there. A new east side platform would block access to businesses as the platform is raised two or three feet, and like MC's stats above pedestrian through traffic would be blocked as well? Would a new west side platform eliminating one traffic lane be more feasible?

Additionally, Is there room to extend the platform. North bound trains stopping at one end and south bound trains stopping at the other?

[JerardWright]

Oct 30, 2009 7:30:54 GMT -8 Jason Saunders said:

Jerard I appreciate your thinking out of the box but one of your fare control plaza's appears to be taking up both Flower and Pico sidewalks. How will pedestrians get around? Secondly both fare control plaza are seperate from the boarding platform. People's inclinations would be to go to the platform. If there was a large crowd how would you keep people from "cutting" in front of those waiting in the fair control plaza?

Good signage and this is a case where the faregates actually could come in handy to remind those patrons to purchase their fares.

Or the platform could be a mirrored set-up to the current Pico platform where there's a row of 2-3 TVM's lined along the platform edge and a sign over the area saying "Pay fare here"

In regards to a new east platform the sidewalk doesn't appear to be very wide there. A new east side platform would block access to businesses as the platform is raised two or three feet, and like MC's stats above pedestrian through traffic would be blocked as well? Would a new west side platform eliminating one traffic lane be more feasible?

Additionally, Is there room to extend the platform. North bound trains stopping at one end and south bound trains stopping at the other?

Sidewalk width is 10' if you remove the railing and the move the catenary pole to the back of this new platform it expands to 12-13' which is the current width of the Pico platform.

Also considering that we're only dealing with 2 maybe 3 buisnesses that doesn't get a lot of foot traffic now and the bulk of the foot traffic that is there is only there to access the Pico Station. Which one serves a greater purpose and will create the greatest positive impact?

Removing a traffic lane to Flower, I think would cause a bigger impact because now we have two sets of passengers potentially crossing both sets of tracks, something that the new sidewalk platform would avoid to 50% of the passengers. As I'm looking over this, that could work provided theres enough queuing space for passengers leaving the platform to cross 12th Street and they use the full lane, depending on how wide that is.