(1) A few readers contested what they saw as my assertion that the Westside could not support heavy rail. I can see how they construed this from what I wrote, so allow me to clarify. In terms of the Purple line extension, we need to get away from the name “Subway to the Sea” as it reinforces the expectation of a heavy rail line to Santa Monica. Considering (a) the Westside’s lower densities in comparison with the rest of the Wilshire Corridor, (b) the broad dispersion of and multiple destinations within those densities, and (c) Santa Monica’s location off the Sepulveda/LAX axis, a subway all the way to Santa Monica would not be the most effective use of valuable transit funds. Those funds should be devoted to establishing connectivity throughout central LA by creating the Westwood Regional Connector, the Hollywood Regional Connector, and the Pink Light Rail line from Hollywood/Highland to Westwood. The Westside has the density to justify the cost of a single heavy rail line directly serving a single destination on the Westside. However, a more effective use of transit resources would be a network of light rail lines serving the multiple dispersed destinations throughout the Westside.
Downtown Santa Monica:
(2) Based upon the objections to my Expo proposal, I decided to drive along both alignments today and get a better feel for the area. As far as the route from West L.A. to Santa Monica, I've changed my mind. The Expo right of way should stay that course, though it should go along Colorado past 17th. It was a tough call because Pico is a nice commercial corridor to about Cloverdale, but the directness of and business concentration (however suburban in form) along the original route tips the choice in favor of the original alignment. (contingent upon that Colorado alignment. Continuing it along Olympic west of 17th would be pointless.)
(3) I stand by the Venice/Sepulveda alignment though. Neighborhoods along Venice Boulevard would be given a unifying transit and commercial orientation while the Sepulveda segment (going from up to Pico, then rejoining the Expo ROW to the west) would establish the southern half of the Westwood Regional Connector. In contrast, the existing right of way between Robertson and Sepulveda goes predominately through residential areas with no the logical focus of stations or development comparable to Venice Boulevard. It also does nothing to establish infrastructure that can elaborated upon later in its life. My proposal accomplishes the immediate goals for this project while leaving the door open for future expansion.
Initial Build Out:
Full Build Out:
(4) Commentator Allen also made to following comment that I feel deserves special consideration:
John’s ideas seam to be taking valuable traffic lanes in almost all of his “designs” which is not necessarily the best way to go.This sentiment really goes to the heart of what our goals should be in developing a transit system for LA. Any effective system for this city will inevitably compete and come into conflict with automobile traffic. But as Gerald at Baltimore Innerspace explains:
When possible keep the lines away from traffic and roads, but have the stations at where they can be the most convenient for hubs and transfers as well as walk able to the greatest needs.
Most people do not use transit because they want to. They use transit because they need to. Most New Yorkers and Londoners would not use their local subways if they had easy highway access to work and subsidized free parking. They would become like Baltimoreans and stay in their cars.Transit development is a process of carrots and sticks. In compulsively avoiding the “stick” (demanding auto-traffic to accommodate and yield to localized mass transit, demanding the investment), we forfeit any “carrots” public transit may offer (pedestrian orientation, spatial economy, potential to revitalize urban space). The Expo line perfectly illustrates this. The Palms ROW alignment seems logical only on the basis of short-term goals of avoiding "sticks" and serving a rapid regional function mainly for Downtown and Santa Monica. In contrast, the Venice/Sepulveda alignment follows a surface routes where businesses and pedestrians are actually located, giving it a greater local function. As a local line with destinations closer together, Metro would not need to worry about maintaining the speeds a regional line requires to be effective.
There is no doubt LA is in the midst of a transit crisis and immediate measures must be taken to extricate ourselves from it. However, we must not allow the need for short-term solutions to eclipse long-term strategy. Our current crisis has been years in the making and our solution to it will be also. There is no magic bullet train.
3 comments:
John,
I really appreciate your website.
Everything is well articulated, even if I disagree with not extending the Purple Line all the way to Santa Monica.
For regional purposes, there needs to be a one seat ride from Santa Monica to Downtown. I'd say you have a better chance of getting the Venice-Sepulveda alignment if the Purple Line went all the way to the Promenade. You'd have a better chance of having the Purple Line end at Westwood if the Expo Line went directly through the Cheviot Hills ROW.
I certainly appreciate your support of the Pink Line between Hollywood and Century City or Westwood.
This is all good stuff. I really appreciate your blog.
I rode the Red Line on Sunday and it was such a great reminder that some day I might be able to do this closer to home.
Random thought: I get that it's technically not the most cost effective system to build subways or heavy rail instead of light rail, but I think the long term benefits of heavy rail are substantial.
The New York subway is a hundred years old. Not every line built underground necessarily deserved to be in 1910 and 1920 and etc, but the builders understood that they were going to be driving development (this was before cars, so rapid transit was the key to all growth). A subway tunnel can and will last hundreds of years. It's a significant investment, but a very long lasting one.
Anywhere rapid transit is built, things are going to get denser, so why not get things right from the start? My issue with "light rail" as currently implemented is that Los Angeles is a vicious car culture, so we end up with stupid situations where rail cars are waiting for lights to change and are in a sense stuck in the same traffic with everyone else. Until we have a real network, no one's going to accept the train blocking their car's god-given rights even for a minute. Also, switching from subway to street level light rail instead of just walking to another track in one big station can sometimes end up convoluted and ruin any sense that you're riding a unified system, not to mention make things more confusing.
Maybe Santa Monica doesn't need a subway, but I think almost everything should be grade separated into its own right of way and a subway seems the clearest way. Transit people talk about what a huge waste of money the BART system in San Francisco is because it's so grade separated and non-standard even in areas where it doesn't make sense based on the densities, but that consistent separation and right-of-way are part of what make it such a popular and useful system.
I'm not an expert on any of this so I'm sure I've screwed up several concepts and principles here, but it just seems to me from my own experience riding different systems around the country that a unified system that never competes for the right of way at all provides the best contrast and best experience versus the car culture.
This is going to sound obvious.
But as our system has been built so far, two general principles have been followed:
1) Where you are building from "scratch," subway is the preferred modality.
2) Where you are reusing old ROW's, light rail is preferred.
This is generally true but not 100%. The Green Line is light rail, but it is built "from scratch" on a constructed ROW. Is it a coincidence that the Green Line is one of the least ridden? (Yes, I know the Gold Line is lower, but it is also newer.)
My point is that the Expo Line is going to go (and should go) along the previous ROW of the Pacific Electric. It should go there, even if Venice Blvd. is "more populated."
Why? It will make the entire trip along the line shorter and quicker. If you put the alignment along Speulveda, you might gain SOME new riders in that area, but you will lose more riders from Santa Monica because it will take 15 minutes longer to get to Culver City or downtown.
I agree that we should be moving towards "one side rides" as much as possible. In fact, I am even in favor of extending the Red and Purple lines to the east side (as was planned originally), so a one seat ride could be had from, say, West Covina to North Hollywood, or La Habra to Santa Monica.
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