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Post by tobias087 on Apr 20, 2011 15:39:40 GMT -8
Let us know if you start a petition on the issue. I'll sign it.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 22, 2011 12:45:17 GMT -8
Any word if the motion made it out of committee yesterday? Most of "my people" (people with jobs) can't make it to meetings in the middle of the day. Really, MRT's motion is trying to do three things. - Add the optional station at Vernon Avenue.
- Put the train underground below Crenshaw south of 48th Street.
- Change the subway tunnel construction from cut-and-cover to a bored tunnel.
The last of these goals is an interesting one. Boring the tunnel certainly would minimize construction impacts, compared to cut-and-cover. But alas, whence the money for a bored tunnel? As I've said, all three of these goals would make sense if this were a high-ridership line along a very narrow or congested street, and if money was flowing like water. Unfortunately, none of these are true: - Metro estimates 2030 ridership of only 13,148.
- Crenshaw Blvd. south of is four lanes in each direction, south of 48th Street, and traffic through this area will not increase due to at-grade rail.
- The Crenshaw Line is already over its Measure R budget, and the various funding sources (federal, state, Metro, etc.) have no money available, especially for nice-to-haves.
If this motion passes, there is a good chance that the entire project will implode due to lack of funding. But if MRT hopes to pull money from Expo, the Green Line, or any other projects to gold-plate this line, he is in for a big fight.
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andop2
Junior Member
Posts: 70
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Post by andop2 on Apr 22, 2011 13:30:40 GMT -8
Any word if the motion made it out of committee yesterday? Most of "my people" (people with jobs) can't make it to meetings in the middle of the day. From Steve Hymon yesterday on the Source: The Board of Directors’ Measure R Delivery Committee voted 2 to 1 on Thursday for a motion by Board member Mark Ridley-Thomas that seeks to add a Leimart Park station for the Crenshaw/LAX Line and also underground a portion of the line from 48th to 59th streets. The committee vote moves the item to the full Board of Directors, who meet next Thursday. The motion proposes two key changes to the Crenshaw/LAX Line and I’m sure it will prompt an interesting discussion — especially because there is community support behind the changes.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 22, 2011 14:04:31 GMT -8
They could have fitted a trench station like Expo Park / USC in the triangle at the southeast corner of Crenshaw and Vernon, which would provide great access. But Metro doesn't know how to build rail lines. They should have had a construction authority for this project like they had for the Expo and Gold Lines. This is a very poorly designed line with the cost already way over the roof.
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Post by JerardWright on Apr 22, 2011 17:21:06 GMT -8
Any word if it made it out of committee yesterday? Really, MRT's motion is trying to do three things. - Add the optional station at Vernon Avenue.
- Put the train underground below Crenshaw south of 48th Street.
- Change the subway tunnel construction from cut-and-cover to a bored tunnel.
The last of these goals is an interesting one. Boring the tunnel certainly would minimize construction impacts, compared to cut-and-cover. But alas, whence the money for a bored tunnel? Actually his motion isn't trying to any of these things, what his motion is trying to do is circumvent two critical Metro policies; 1) Metro's Light Rail Grade Crossing Policy, remember he tried to change this back in October of 2010 and in February 2010 at the Expo Board meeting when the EIR was being certified. 2)The Unified Cost measures policies for Measure R projects by trying to adjust the LPA scope and thus making it eligible to raid measure R funds from other projects...the very thing he accused the Purple Line project of doing. When you realize that the stakes are much higher than just allowing an extra station at Vernon. [/li][li]The Crenshaw Line is already over its Measure R budget, and the various funding sources (federal, state, Metro, etc.) have no money available, especially for nice-to-haves.[/list] If this motion passes, there is a good chance that the entire project will implode due to lack of funding. But if MRT hopes to pull money from Expo, the Green Line, or any other projects to gold-plate this line, he is in for a big fight.[/quote] What will happen is that 30/10 will in a nutshell imploded and die because of this project ballooning out of control. I wonder who controls the House in Congress? Oh yeah the Fiscally conservative republicians.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 22, 2011 17:25:52 GMT -8
That's a completely BS estimate. More people than that already ride the bus.
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Post by jeisenbe on Apr 24, 2011 7:08:24 GMT -8
That's a completely BS estimate. More people than that already ride the bus. The bus goes to Wilshire Blvd (210/710) or Downtown (40/740) directly. And to the south, the 210 and 740 buses continue on Crenshaw, while the 40 and 740 go down Hawthorne. The first section of the Crenshaw line won't go downtown or to Wilshire, and it will go (Near) LAX and to the Green Line, instead of continuing south on Hawthorne or Crenshaw, so many people may continue riding the bus. Consider that the Eastside extension of the Gold Line is getting about that ridership, and it is in a denser area. It also has the problem that the bus on Cesar Chavez or Whittier provides a more direct and sometimes faster trip to Downtown. The Crenshaw line would get much higher use if it were extended at least to Wilshire Blvd, so people could get to jobs on the Westside or directly transfer to the subway to get Downtown instead of transferring at Expo, in the same way that the Eastside extension will improve with the regional connector. But I'm afraid the current ridership estimates may be right.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 24, 2011 12:13:38 GMT -8
I think that many people going downtown will use Crenshaw to Expo instead of the bus and there will be an additional destination of going to Santa Monica. And Liemert Park is a destination in itself and so is the mall. Also large numbers of LAX employees, hotel employees, etc will use Crenshaw. And although I somewhat agree with the comparison to the gold line, the ridership on the bus paralleling the gold line (30?) was already dismal before Expo. The ridership on Crenshaw is not dismal. There was no reason to expect high ridership on the gold line by looking at the parallel bus ridership like there is on Crenshaw.
I'm very confident that the current estimates are way low and I think that I know why. It has to do with how their models are weighted. They don't weight existing transit ridership and transit dependency highly enough because taking people off buses and putting them onto trains isn't viewed as positively as taking people out of their cars is. I think that you have a better chance of getting federal funding for a line that will have 20k riders but remove 15k people from their cars than you will for a line with 30k riders that only removes 5k people from their cars.
Also the East LA area served by the gold line is not more densely populated than the area served by Crenshaw. Plus Crenshaw will be crossed by more major bus lines and isn't as isolated as East LA. East LA is hurt by the freeways making the area served by the gold line disconnected.
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Post by erict on Apr 24, 2011 15:22:24 GMT -8
Even if the initial riderships sucks for this line, once it heads north and connects to the Purple line, the the Red line, and maybe the 405 connection (or both as a branch), this line will become one of our most important rail lines.
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Post by jeisenbe on Apr 24, 2011 23:49:28 GMT -8
I think that many people going downtown will use Crenshaw to Expo instead of the bus and there will be an additional destination of going to Santa Monica. I agree, actually. The biggest reason for hope about the Crenshaw line is that the Expo extension to Santa Monica may be much more important than the models showed. In fact, I'm not sure that they even included Expo phase 2 in the ridership model, since it was not yet finalized. This is also true, but as I mentioned the current bus routes will be more direct and not much slower than the future train route plus transfer to Expo for getting downtown, and will not help much at all for getting to the Wilshire corridor. Sorry, this is incorrect. If you look at the area within a 1/4 mile walkind distance of each station, Boyle Heights and East LA have 20 to 30k people per square mile in most cases, while along Crenshaw there are only 10k per square mile, with one exception. You can see the numbers on this map (though the color all looks the same, sadly): projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/mapOr you can see slightly older data on the map I made (from 2005 to 2009 data, I think): maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=209582850025375035802.00047bbd63b18dd455fce&ll=34.010266,-118.269539&spn=0.158803,0.22213&z=12
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Post by jeisenbe on Apr 24, 2011 23:59:07 GMT -8
Even if the initial riderships sucks for this line, once it heads north and connects to the Purple line, the the Red line, and maybe the 405 connection (or both as a branch), this line will become one of our most important rail lines. This may be true, assuming this becomes a combination of the Pink Line route and adds a connection north to Wilshire. But this will all be very expensive. Should this line really be a priority over extending the subway south on Vermont to southeast Los Angeles, or extending the Purple Line to Santa Monica, or building the Sepulveda Pass light rail line, or extending the subway east on Whittier? Crenshaw extended to Wilshire and then to West Hollywood will be 18 to 19 miles long, twice as long as the westside subway extension to Westwood, and will cost about as much (I estimate at least $4 billion now, or more after inflation), based on estimates for the first phase. For the same cost we could build light rail from the Orange Line to the Expo line along Sepulveda, I estimate. Or we could build a subway on Vermont south to Slauson, even including $1 billion to fix the connection at Wilshire/Vermont. Crenshaw, when extended to Wilshire or Hollywood, will be useful, and more used than the Foothill extension of the Gold line, the south bay extension of the green line, or the second phase eastside line to Whittier. But it would not be the next priority, in a rational system.
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Post by erict on Apr 25, 2011 6:43:56 GMT -8
This may be true, assuming this becomes a combination of the Pink Line route and adds a connection north to Wilshire. But this will all be very expensive. Should this line really be a priority over extending the subway south on Vermont to southeast Los Angeles I think the Vermont subway/light rail (whichever it may be) is totally important for the central side (East?) of town, but Crenshaw will be a vital connection more on the west side of town once and if it is finished connecting purple and red lines. There are few cheap options for rail left in LA County since there aren't many ROWs left to use, unless I'm missing a few out there that still exist.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 25, 2011 17:06:22 GMT -8
I think that we mostly agree about this line although I am somewhat more optimistic given the same information. The reason that I said that the population densities were about the same was after looking at the LA Times Mapping site. It shows Hyde Park at 13k people per square mile and Leimert at 10k. Boyle Heights at 14k and East LA at 17k. Higher, but not night and day especially because iinm Crenshaw is more accessible for people farther away. The gold line is cutoff by two freeways and two cemeteries. I'd really be surprised if there are more people within an easy (1/2 mile) walk of the gold line stations as there will be for the Crenshaw stations. And Crenshaw is certainly crossed by busier bus routes which is another indicator (probably the best) of what kind of ridership you can expect at those stations.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 26, 2011 12:22:53 GMT -8
The April Board Meeting agenda is out. Of special interest to the Crenshaw Line are items 14-16. - Item 14: Adopt Arbor Vitae/Bellanca as the preferred site for the maintenance facility.
- Item 15: Receive and file staff report on the Park Mesa Heights Grade Separation Analysis.
- Item 16: MRT's motion to add Vernon/Leimert Park station and put the line underground through Park Mesa Heights.
If you feel strongly about the Park Mesa Heights tunnel, you still have time to email the Metro Board members. As a reminder, here are the email addresses I could find: - Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, markridley-thomas@bos.lacounty.gov
- Supervisor Gloria Molina, molina@lacbos.org
- Supervisor Michael Antonovich, fifthdistrict@lacbos.org
- Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, zev@bos.lacounty.gov
- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor@lacity.org
- City Council Member Diane DuBois, kheit@gatewaycog.org
- City Council Member Pam O'Connor, Pam.Oconnor@smgov.net
- City Council Member Ara Najarian, anajarian@ci.glendale.ca.us
- City Council Member José Huizar, councilmember.huizar@lacity.org
- City Council Member John Fasana, fasanaj@accessduarte.com
And here are the three I could not find. - Supervisor Don Knabe
- Mr. Mel Wilson
- Mr. Richard Katz
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 26, 2011 13:37:45 GMT -8
Here is how to add a Vernon Station without spending $300 million. There would be the usual U section just north of 48th St for the train to come below grade. About 700 ft is all that is needed to go 30 ft below grade. The 16-ft-wide, 360-ft-long four-car platform would be fully underground and covered, approximately 30 ft below. There would be an elevator and stairs for access to the center platform. Access would be provided from the southern crosswalk of Crenshaw and Vernon and barriers would be provided to protect the station access from vehicles. Some partial acquisitions in the triangle between Crenshaw and Leimert would be needed to add the lane taken by station access.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 28, 2011 8:17:17 GMT -8
Ridley-Thomas motion to fully underground the line has been withdrawn. There will be a new motion at the May 26 board meeting.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 28, 2011 8:25:04 GMT -8
^ Ha! It must have been clear to Ridley-Thomas that he didn't have the votes. For reference, this was item 16 on today's meeting agenda. Just search the page for WITHDRAWN in red capital letters, LOL.
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Post by masonite on Apr 28, 2011 12:37:22 GMT -8
That's a completely BS estimate. More people than that already ride the bus. I believe the 13k is the ridership without considering Expo Phase II and the LAX PeopleMover, which they were not allowed to do because neither were under construction as of the Crenshaw EIR (maybe this figure can be updated for Expo Phase II before the Crenshaw EIR is completed?). With those projects in place, I think something like 25-30k is reasonable. Certainly not great, but not too bad for this length of a line. If it goes to Wilshire and connects with a Purple Line to Westwood, it will be higher (although it looks like they estimated that at about 31k if that were the case). I do think the overall shame in this line is the difference between Crenshaw Expo and Wilshire and Vermont/Western Expo and Wilshire. A lot more ridership in the Vermont/Western area between the Red/Purple Line and Expo than in the mid-city area.
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Post by James Fujita on Apr 28, 2011 14:50:09 GMT -8
Hopefully a new motion can be put together which includes the Leimert Park station but which doesn't include the extra underground. Assuming that a motion is needed to do such a thing.
The more I study this issue, the more I think a Leimert Park station makes sense, especially if they want to redevelop the area with mixed-use.
It's just a question of where do we put the station. Gokhan has a good idea, I'm willing to entertain anyone who can come up with better.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 28, 2011 15:31:39 GMT -8
Hopefully a new motion can be put together which includes the Leimert Park station but which doesn't include the extra underground. Assuming that a motion is needed to do such a thing. It's not technically needed. In other projects (like Expo), design options are often recommended by Metro staff when the FEIR is released. Then these design options are approved along with the FEIR by the full Metro Board. However, there are times when Metro staff does not want to make such a recommendation, one way or the other. Especially issues that require a political decision. The two issues raised by Ridley-Thomas (Vernon station and Park Mesa tunnel) are certainly controversial. It makes sense that Ridley-Thomas would ask for these two things, since he is looking out for his constituency as Supervisor. The motion would force staff to include both options in its recommendation. I would be surprised (and disappointed) if the rest of the board went along with this motion. The delay of one month avoided an actual vote, which may have proven embarassing and resulted in loss of the station at Vernon/Leimert Park.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 28, 2011 16:56:04 GMT -8
Here is the Vernon-triangle alternative. It requires increasing the slope of the LRT ramp in the U section from to 4% to 6% (which is possible as LRT can climb as steep as 7%). This decreases the length of the U section to 500 ft, allowing the tracks to be able to curve into the Vernon triangle. The station access in this alternative is entirely within the Vernon triangle, completely separated from traffic with no barriers needed. There is also a large station plaza available. Track geometry is more challenging but still doable without excavating in the park. Here is the original alternative for comparison:
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Post by JerardWright on Apr 28, 2011 18:23:01 GMT -8
Gokhan as always, great job to present an idea.
Spatially, those extra curves will almost make this part of the tunnel infeasible perhaps even negating the trip time savings for Park Mesa subway. ;D Hell even if the line is built 'correctly' there's only one minute time savings to overall trips and by adding the station the trip savings of one minute that costs $220+ million dollars will balloon to $390+ million dollars with no time savings. MRT should be an investment advisor.
With that blurb aside, there maybe a way to design it so it can work and I think Gokhan you're on the right track. From 48th Street north that the tunnel doesn't curve under the centerline of Crenshaw Blvd but that it instead go in a straight line right up to where Crenshaw splits with Leimert Blvd right at the tip of the triangle and then slightly curve to the west ala Memorial Park station on the Gold Line. Also the platform area can fit within the edge of the triangle and have enough space to not touch Leimert Park with a cut-cover tunnel by shifting the station area about 100' to the south so that the tunnel will have a very minimum of cut-cover design within the Leimert Park village area. Minimizing disruption and keeping costs in control so that the station CAN exist within budget, provided they make the Crenshaw/Expo station an initial at-grade station so that the funding can be shifted to fund the Leimert Park station.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 29, 2011 13:42:49 GMT -8
I like the Vernon-triangle alternative. But you might as well take advantage of the triangle as well as Leimert Boulevard, to smooth out the zig-zags from that curve:
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 29, 2011 13:48:42 GMT -8
If they are going to acquire the property on the Vernon triangle anyway, they may as well take advantage of Leimert Boulevard and smooth out that curve: The U section (surrounded by walls) needs to stay in the median; otherwise, it would block the lanes and they would have to permanently close the street.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 29, 2011 14:22:30 GMT -8
It may be acceptable to close the Y-intersection connecting Leimert Blvd and Crenshaw Blvd. The connection between Leimert and Crenshaw Blvds can be moved north to 46th Street. (This would be similar to the relocated intersection of Main and Alameda in Downtown L.A.)
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 29, 2011 14:46:45 GMT -8
It may be acceptable to close the Y-intersection connecting Leimert Blvd and Crenshaw Blvd. 46th Street can be extended west, just north of the portal: this would reconnect Leimert to Crenshaw. That still wouldn't work because it would create a very awkward long and diagonal at-grade crossing across Crenshaw Blvd north of 48th St. Edit: I see your picture now. You can't transition that fast from the median to the side without making a very sharp curve. In your drawing you're showing that the tracks already have a curve south of 48th St, whereas they are actually straight.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 29, 2011 14:53:24 GMT -8
It may be acceptable to close the Y-intersection connecting Leimert Blvd and Crenshaw Blvd. 46th Street can be extended west, just north of the portal: this would reconnect Leimert to Crenshaw. That still wouldn't work because it would create a very awkward long and diagonal at-grade crossing across Crenshaw Blvd north of 48th St. It wouldn't be that awkward. Metro has build other seemingly-awkward crossings on the Gold and Blue Lines. Heck, the crossing I fear the most (Expo/Rodeo, LOL) is more confusing than this would be. (Copying the image again, since we're on a new page.)
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 29, 2011 14:56:09 GMT -8
Repeating my post edited after seeing your picture. Edit: I see your picture now. You can't transition that fast from the median to the side without making a very sharp curve. In your drawing you're showing that the tracks already have a curve south of 48th St, whereas they are actually straight.
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Post by metrocenter on Apr 29, 2011 15:11:46 GMT -8
Alright. So I moved the U-section north toward 46th Street: this allows more space for the crossing of 48th Street and the short transition into the U-section. Also, I put a slight angle on the bottom of the U-section.
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Post by rubbertoe on Apr 29, 2011 15:41:22 GMT -8
Somewhat off topic, but along the lines of what good communication can do to show how a project will affect a neighborhood. There is lots of discussion here as to whether the additional underground segment is needed or not. As far along as the Crenshaw project is, you would think that they would be able to rather easily put together a simulation showing all the various alternatives. If a picture is worth a thousand words, than a video of the entire alignment, from multiple perspectives, would be priceless... www.metrocouncil.org/transportation/ccorridor/video/RouteSimulations.htmHere is one of the 3 videos from the above link showing a simulation of the just approved Central Corridor light rail in Minneapolis. 720p full screen has you riding in the cab right down the tracks:
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