As regular readers may have noticed, I have a strong aversion to local rail systems forced to also handle regional transit functions. Local and regional rail transit functions must be separate and complementary. Otherwise, they cancel out each others goals. Local transit is sent wandering out into the hinterlands looking for passengers while regional transit's inter-city purpose gets bogged down by the frequent stops required by intra-city transit. This is at the core of my objections to the Gold Line Foothill Extension. Orange County and its relation to Los Angeles provides a good exercise in determining local and regional goals.
Many respondents suggested connecting Anaheim to the future Gold Line Eastside extension to Whittier and or the future Green Line station at Norwalk station. The most obvious method would be to make the Anaheim line extend to either of those destinations. However, such extensions would diminish the local functionality of whichever two lines are joined. Such overreaching lines would undermine the core system's potential to reshape and recentralize the region as a whole. Finally, it is questionable whether the traffic so far from the system core would justify the investment in peripheral extensions.
If properly integrated into the network, Metrolink could do the heavy lifting for traffic between LA and Orange County as well as even long distance travel within Orange County itself. A Rapid Bus would provide local, non-commuter, and high-frequency connections between Whitier, Norwalk, and Anaheim.
Here's the system with some of the BRT lines being proposed.
Anyway, more details later...
2 comments:
GetLAMoving.com (which has not been updated in over a year) actually suggests making the Foothill Extention Metrolink, which I think is fairly absurd, even considering they end their commuter rail line in Old Town Pasadena, not what I would have feared (Sierra Madre Villa, which would truly be the middle of nowhere). Unless they want to make the entire current Gold Line Metrolink, or otherwise connect it with the rest of the Metrolink network, such an approach would only result in Pasadena becoming a business district, making LA's mobility crunch that much harder to untangle.
As far as your reasoning for not extending the Gold Line Whittier along the Union Pacific ROW into La Habra and Brea, point taken. Metrolink may be close enough to attract riders in those areas.
However, I believe that Cal State Fullerton would generate so much ridership that its a no-brainer to extend your green line north from downtown Fullerton north to the university and possibly into downtown Brea.
Lastly, I would suggest extending your red line southeast in Tustin to meet up with the Irvine Transportation Center, the Great Park, and the Irvine Spectrum. Each of these spots are important OC destination centers, and it would be wise to extend to these areas.
Other than that, I totally agree.
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