LOS ANGELES | Transportation News & Discussion

[bzcat]

Originally Posted by Eightball

What's up with the metro bus fare readers/machines (on the buses themselves) not being able to be used for reloading your TAP card. They've had that in DC for at least 5 years... annoying

Or the fact that TAP website doesn't work... and it hasn't worked for as long as there is a supposed TAP website.

[Nexis4Jersey]

Los Angeles Metro Rail 25th Anniversary

• Video Link

[Quixote]

Metro Rail officially turns 25 years old tomorrow! On July 14, 1990, the Blue Line began rail service between Downtown and Long Beach. Metrolink began operations two years later. It's really mind-boggling to think just how young our rail system really is and the ultra-sad state of the region's public transportation network prior to the 90s (not too long ago).

• Video Link

[Eightball]

Impressive progress in 25 years! Here's to the next 25 and ongoing rapid expansion

Originally Posted by bzcat

Or the fact that TAP website doesn't work... and it hasn't worked for as long as there is a supposed TAP website.

ah man haven't even tried the TAP website

[202_Cyclist]

Not building the Center Line over a decade ago was really a terrible decision. Orange Co. would have been a tremendously different place with the Center Line, this Santa Ana -Garden Grove streetcar, the proposed Anaheim streetcar, and the current Metrolink and Amtrak service.

Santa Ana-to-Garden Grove streetcar project rolls forward

By Nicole Knight
Orange Co. Register
July 13, 2015

"The prospect of a light-rail streetcar traversing a segment of the county’s urban core took another step forward Monday when the county transportation board approved a framework agreement with the city of Santa Ana.

Under the agreement, the Orange County Transportation Authority will bear responsibility for the construction, maintenance and operation of the estimated $250 million Santa Ana-to-Garden-Grove rail line.

The four-mile, hop-on, hop-off service would carry commuters, shoppers and tourists on a dozen stops to the county seat, jobs and entertainment. It’s expected to open in 2019..."

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/s...il-county.html

[Busy Bee]

What was the Center Line again?

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

What was the Center Line again?

"

"The CenterLine, a 9.3-mile light rail system serving Irvine, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, was originally planned in the 1990s and was intended to open in 2009. Costing $1 billion, it was originally envisioned as a 30-mile route that would run from Fullerton to Irvine, through Anaheim, Orange, Santa Ana and Costa Mesa. The route would have served destinations including John Wayne Airport, South Coast Metro, South Coast Plaza, Santa Ana College and downtown Santa Ana.

While OCTA secured funding through Measure M, lack of support from Orange County's congressional representatives resulted in no federal funds obtained for the proposed transit line. In February 2005, the CenterLine was suspended indefinitely and later in May 2005, the plan was officially scrapped in favor of expanding express bus service throughout Orange County and improving existing Metrolink commuter rail service..."


Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange...tion_Authority


Orange County to Decide Fate of CenterLine Project Monday
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jul...e-centerline19

[Quixote]

Happy 25th birthday, Metro Rail! Here's to another 25 years of rapid expansion. I think an average weekday ridership of 1 million by 2040 sounds doable.

I just realized that I posted the same YouTube video as Nexis4Jersey.

[Eightball]

LAX to allow Uber and Lyft http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...ry.html#page=1

[202_Cyclist]

Options the study looked at include both extending the Orange line bus rapid transit and extending the Red line to Bob Hope Airport.

Study outlines potential transit improvements at Bob Hope Airport


An airplane takes off at the Bob Hope Airport, where new art created by a student is being displayed at the airport's main entryway, on Tuesday, October 2, 2012. (Image courtesy of the Burbank Leader)

By Chad Garland
Burbank Leader
July 23, 2015

"Planes, trains and automobiles — and buses and bikes and even good old walking.

All these modes of transportation converge at Bob Hope Airport, and a recently completed transit study outlines potential improvements around the airport to enable it to serve as a transportation hub within the region.

The study, which was initiated in September 2011 and paid for largely through a $5.4 million federal grant, looked at ways to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution while improving connectivity to the airport both along the Antelope Valley rail corridor and from Pasadena via Glendale..."

http://www.burbankleader.com/news/tn...,7693790.story

[202_Cyclist]

Metro's dreary, dangerous Rosa Parks Station in Willowbrook to get a major makeover

By Dan Weikel
LA Times
July 23, 2015

"For years, Metro's Rosa Parks Station in Willowbrook has been one of the busiest, dreariest and most crime-ridden light-rail stops in Los Angeles County.

Much of the Blue Line platform squats under the noisy 105 Freeway, its vast expanse of gray concrete amplifying the station's drabness. Transit riders have complained about safety, crowded platforms, poor lighting, broken elevators and limited access to Wilmington Avenue.

As the 50th anniversary approaches of the riots that began in nearby Watts and highlighted L.A.'s stark socioeconomic disparities, county leaders and transportation officials say the community deserves better..."

http://www.latimes.com/local/califor...723-story.html

[Muji]

In relatively minor news, Metro has completed the station upgrades part of the Blue Line refurbishment. The most visible changes are much better lighting and the installation of second canopies on many stations that previously only had one, which should make waiting for the trains much more comfortable year-round.

Press release at The Source: thesource.metro.net/2015/07/22/station-refurbishment-work-on-the-blue-line-completed-ahead-of-schedule/

[202_Cyclist]

In L.A., efforts are afoot to make bike share a genuine part of the transit network

By Yonah Freemark
Aug. 3, 2015
The Transport Politic


Image courtesy of the Transport Politic.

"You might say that bike sharing has conquered the world, invading city after city since the first modern systems featuring information technology opened in Europe in the 1990s. Now more than 40 U.S. cities have systems in operation. They’ve been attracted to the relative ease of implementing bike sharing, the low costs of operation, and the popular interest in the programs which indeed do a lot to expand mobility in cities.

Los Angeles is the glaring outlier, the only one of the ten largest American cities with no system. Though the City of Los Angeles planned a system in 2013, that proposal fell apart after difficulties with permitting got in the way. In the meantime, other cities in L.A. County—including Santa Monica and Long Beach—have implemented new dock-less networks.

Now L.A. is moving ahead with a countywide system that could eventually include 4,000 bikes distributed across the region, creating a network similar in size to systems in Chicago, New York, or Washington. The initial phase will provide 1,100 B-Cycle bikes at 65 stations downtown beginning early next year. Future phases could extend into other parts of the county and will be partly funded by local governments; communities currently identified include Beverly Hills, Culver City, Huntington Park, Pasadena, East L.A., North Hollywood, West Hollywood, Venice, and areas along the Red and Expo rail lines..."

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2...ansit-network/

[blackcat23]

Aviation/Century Station, as of this weekend.

http://urbanize.la/post/elevated-cre...ion-takes-form

[Busy Bee]

Why does this get such dowdy architectural treatment as compared to the Expo line , specifically those highway codebook supports?

[Quixote]

• Video Link

[Bikemike]

Now Santa Monica needs to up its game. It's become quite the conservative city these past couple decades. The failure to substantially reduce parking minimums and recent watering down of their LUCE zoning for denser boulevards is going to hurt progress. Couple this with the fact that Council Members are trying to remove common-sense bike lanes that were already approved for Westwood Blvd and North Figueroa. Let's face it. Angelenos are still OVERWHELMINGLY attached to their cars if Santa Monica and Westwood of all areas can't even commit to substantive changes in the setting of the Expo line. It seems noone in LA has the vision to take the lead on anything.

[Eightball]

Originally Posted by Quixote

• Video Link

so exciting!

also had no idea they were so far along on the Crenshaw/LAX line

[M II A II R II K]

An L.A. transit plan with vision

Read More: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/edito...811-story.html

Mobility Plan 2035 PDF: https://losangeles2b.files.wordpress...35_may2015.pdf

The Los Angeles City Council will vote Tuesday on a new 20-year transportation vision that no longer treats the car as king of the road. Under the proposed Mobility Plan 2035, city planners and engineers would have a new mandate to design and build streets that make it safer and easier for people to bike, walk and take public transit. It's time for L.A. to shed its traditional automobile-centric approach and evolve into a modern, multimodal city.

- The new vision laid out in Mobility Plan 2035 prioritizes safety and alternatives to driving. The plan includes a goal to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2025 — the idea being that more people would be willing to walk or bike if they felt safer on city streets. It also proposes hundreds of miles of new bus-only lanes and protected bike lanes, as well as sidewalk and streetscape improvements in neighborhoods with a lot of pedestrians. Although the plan sets the stage for safer, multimodal streets, the routes and road changes are just lines on a map so far. The city would still need to conduct public outreach and study the potential impact of each project.

.....

[Bikemike]

^Thanks for posting this one, Mark. Ive noticed that non-Angelenos seem more interested in local policy as it relates to urbanism than Angelenos themselves do (we seem more interested in the aesthetics of a particular development).

Mobility Plan 2035 was already voted on this past Tuesday and approved by the City Council with No votes by two council members (Cedillo and Koretz) who hope to remove proposed bike lanes from their districts (all of NE Los Angeles in Cedillos case and Westwood Blvd in Koretz's). Freshman council member David Ryu, who transit advocates hoped would champion bike lines in his Hollywood district, disappointed when he commented that he wanted to remove bike lanes from the his districts portion of the Mobility Plan as well. Despite campaigning on alternative transportation modes Ryu looks increasingly like a flip-flopper, although he did ultimately commit a Yes vote to approve the Mobility Plan so I'm not sure what which side he's really pandering to.

Overall, LA City Council members tend to lack the backbone, vision, and most importantly, the mandate to champion the real underlying issues that would truly tackle transportation and planning challenges that this city faces. Worse yet, Los Angeles' executive government is to some extent informally the Council plus Mayor, with the City Charter giving the Mayor very weak powers relative to the council, resulting in a fiefdom where council members have pretty much full discretion in gutting their district's part of the plan on a whim with little public input. In Koretz's case, denying even a formal study into the feasibility of alternative proposals for Westwood bike lanes just because. It also doesn't help that Garcetti is a light-handed mayor who seems only interested in proposing things but not actually pushing for results, since to actually do so would involve ruffling council members' feathers, something Garcetti appears overly cautious to avoid. The jury's out on whether Garcetti has enough gumption to be an effective leader.

Overall I'm pleased that this Plan was approved at all, but realistically speaking there's a LONG way to go before any of it gains teeth. It's only a plan after all. The above council members, caving into NIMBY interests (who are almost exlusively single-family homeowners) will undoubtedly try to block implementation once elements of the plan are acted upon.

The same thing happened to the LA Bike Plan, which was approved by the council back in 2010, but has been gutted and watered down beyond recognition. It is now 2015 and LA has a piecemeal smattering of mostly useless short stretches of lanes that can hardly be called a network. This is how LA seems to work - Proposing plans seem to serve the purpose of providing political sound bytes for politicians seeking office. Backing words with action on the other hand, appears to be optional once in office. Some cultural stereotypes definitely have a kernel of truth to them.