people wanting to leave the station have to run up the escalator really fast

excellent pix of the new gold line subway stations. they look like theyre for a real metro

this is a fake metro? lol i get it, not HRT but LRT.

The stations look amazing. i wonder what the birds and the words signify?

Lots of LRT systems have underground stations, the Gold Line is no exception.

Can't wait to try it once it opens.

:previous:
Yeah, San Francisco's MUNI comes to mind.

Dallas's DART has a couple of them, too... And yes, those are great-looking stations on the East Side Extension!

Aaron (Glowrock)

Other underground station light rail stations include PDX, Seattle, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, and there are probably several others (Boston T). LRT does not exclude underground stations as some believe.

Yeah, the existing Foothill Leg has one, I think.

Here's the Crenshaw Transit Corridor DEIS/DEIR...

http://www.metro.net/projects_studie...eir_report.htm

This makes me sad.

• Video Link

So many lines lost...

Minneapolis has one at the Airport.

Plus the Red Cars.

From the project list

1K - West Santa Ana Branch Corridor

Is L.A. really going to fund a rail line to Santa Ana? Does anyone have any details on this proposed line?

^ Measure R only provides funds for the LA County portion of the line, because the sales tax only applies to LA County.

Metro to Hold Public Hearings on Crenshaw Transit Corridor Project

Community to Review DEIS/DEIR Document

September 11, 2009

After two years of studying options for a new transit system for the Crenshaw Corridor, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) is encouraging public comment on draft environmental documents at four public hearings scheduled throughout the community in late September and early October.

These hearings provide the opportunity for the public to comment on the modal alternatives, Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), and design options being considered in the Draft Environment Impact Statement/Draft Environment Impact Report (DEIS/DEIR) for a critical transportation project that will serve the communities along the heavily traversed Crenshaw Corridor as well as the South Bay and the region as a whole.

These communities have historically been underserved by transit investments, and the project will not only improve local mobility but also will generate jobs directly and indirectly for the entire region.

The project is a major north-south investment in the Crenshaw District area, potentially providing relief for the I-405 and I-110 Freeways. It also will be a major connection to LAX connecting the Metro Green Line to the south and the Expo Line to the north and potentially to the Wilshire Corridor (bus rapid transit only). The project would provide connections to the entire Metro Rail system and its more than 2,100 peak-hour buses.

The study area for the Crenshaw Corridor Project includes the cities of Los Angeles, Inglewood, Hawthorne, El Segundo and portions of unincorporated Los Angeles County and covers approximately a 33-square mile area from Wilshire Boulevard to the north, El Segundo Boulevard to the South, Arlington Avenue on the east and Sepulveda Boulevard and La Tijera Boulevard/La Brea Avenue on the west. Download: Crenshaw Corridor Project map.

The BRT alternative is 12 miles in length with the travel times estimated at 28 to 30 minutes from the Metro Green Line to the Expo Line or 39 to 41 minutes from Metro Green Line to Wilshire Boulevard/Western Avenue. There will be eight stations along the alignment with up to four stations north of Exposition Boulevard to Wilshire/Western. Cost is estimated at $500 million to $600 million in today’s dollars. The jobs created during the construction phase are estimated to be 3,500.

The LRT alternative will be 8.5 miles in length with the travel times estimated at 20 minutes from the Metro Green Line to Expo Line. This alternative provides for seven stations plus an option for one more. The base cost of the project is estimated at $1.3 billion in today’s dollars. Various design options cost between $11 million to $255 million and would add to the total project cost. Job creation is estimated at 7,800.

Funding will come from Measure R, the half-cent sales tax initiative approved by voters last November to improve the region’s mobility and create the transportation infrastructure needed to help resolve traffic congestion, air pollution and enhance economic development in Los Angeles County.

Comments received at the upcoming public hearings will help determine the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) that will move into final environmental clearance for the Crenshaw Transit Corridor Project. Based on the environmental document and comments received, the Metro Board of Directors will select the LPA later this year.

The complete listing of public hearings is as follows:

• Wilshire United Methodist Church Hall of Fellowship: Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009, 6-8 p.m.; 4350 Wilshire Blvd., LA, CA 90010; served by Metro Bus lines 38, 210, 710.

• West Angeles Church Crystal Room: Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009, 6-8 p.m.; 3045 Crenshaw Blvd., LA, CA 90016; served by Metro Bus lines 38, 210, 710.

• Inglewood High School Cafeteria: Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009, 10 a.m.-Noon; 231 S. Grevillea Ave., Inglewood, CA 90301; served by Metro Bus lines 40, 111, 115, 212, 740;

• Transfiguration Church Hall: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009, 6-8 p.m.; 2515 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., LA, CA 90008; served by Metro Bus lines 40, 42.

At the beginning of each meeting, there will be an open house format where Metro will provide the public opportunities to speak with project representatives and view study display maps and the environmental document. After a project presentation, including its purpose and need, Metro will request public input through the submission of written and verbal comments.

Metro encourages public participation in the critical process of determining the Crenshaw Corridor’s transit future and its relationship to the quality of life in the corridor communities.

Those unable to attend the meetings can submit their comments in writing to Roderick Diaz, Metro Planning Project Manager, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), Mail Stop 99-22-3, One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Comments may also be submitted through e-mail at diazroderick@metro.net or by phone on the project information line at (213) 922-2736. Comments should be received no later than Monday, October 26, 2009 by 5 p.m. More project information and a downloadable version of the DEIS/DEIR are available at www.metro.net/crenshaw

Posting just for the sake of posting. Notice at 2:09 there's what looks like an additional station north of Hollywood/Highland. Of course, it could just be a station with a tunnel connecting to Hollywood/Highland. It probably has something to do with the Pink Line platform being directly underneath the existing station.

EDIT: It's a station at the Hollywood Bowl. Nice.

• Video Link

[QUOTE=Westsidelife;4451982]^ Measure R only provides funds for the LA County portion of the line, because the sales tax only applies to LA County.[/QUOTE

That's what I thought, but the name of the line suggests otherwise. Hopefully OCTA will extend this line all the way to Santa Ana.

Or more specifically, Santa Ana Metrolink Station. The would have lots of ridership potential.

It would be nice, but OCTA is deep in debt. I don't expect to see anything like this happen until we're out of this depression.

From the Los Angeles Times:



Glitches and finishing touches on Gold Line extension to East L.A.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-09/49208090.jpg

Paint on concrete at certain spots contained a compound that conducted electricity, causing false signals and forcing removal. But with 99% of construction done, the line could open in November.

By Hector Becerra
September 12, 2009

It was to be a little aesthetic touch added to the Eastside extension of the Gold Line as it neared completion.

But no one imagined what gremlins would be unleashed when workers added a layer of paint to the concrete at "cross-over" points where the light-rail trains could switch tracks.

The coloring agent was made of iron oxide. And at intersections like 1st and Clarence streets in Boyle Heights it caused the painted concrete to conduct an electrical circuit that basically told a lie.

"It was sending out a false signal that the train was there," said Dennis Mori, the Gold Line Eastside extension's project manager. "When the weather got hot, it did it more. . . . When we removed the painted concrete, the false signal disappeared."

As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority works to replace the painted concrete, the glitch is just one reminder of the challenges faced in completing the county light-rail system's first leg into the Eastside. For a while, officials estimated that the six-mile line could open sometime in the summer, maybe as early as June.

Now they are hoping for a November opening. That will still give the MTA enough time to do testing and open the extension before the year is over, and a federal funding deadline arrives.

http://www.latimes.com/media/graphic...9/49213756.gif

On the surface, it looks as if there's quite a lot of work to do. On a stretch of the line along 3rd Street in East L.A., bulldozers and cranes excavate asphalt, and stretches of track lie exposed after the colored concrete was removed. Workers shovel in asphalt, which will be painted, but without conducting false signals.

There are shallow trenches along the side of the track. But Mori said most of the work that remains is finishing touches, and testing.

"We're 99% done with construction," Mori said.

The roughly $890-million Gold Line extension, which runs from Union Station to Atlantic Boulevard, has 1.7 miles of twin tunnels and two underground stations. But the bulk of it runs down the center of comparatively narrow streets, leaving not much separation between the line and vehicles passing by.

In contrast, much of the Pasadena-to-downtown L.A. portion of the Gold Line was built along train right of ways, Mori said.

For the Eastside extension, a vigorous safety campaign has begun, including citing people who jaywalk across tracks.

"People have to adapt to a rail line in the center of the street," said Frank Villalobos, whose firm Barrio Planners is the lead architect for the project. "I've been involved since the beginning, and I think a lot of things that would be considered impediments have been overcome."

The challenges have included fault lines miles underneath Soto Street and the unearthing of the skeletal remains of more than 108 people just outside Evergreen Cemetery. Most of the remains are believed to belong to Chinese laborers buried in a potter's field in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A school also had to be moved.

"I'd rather they take their time and make sure everything is safe for the community," said Diana Tarango, 74, a lifelong Boyle Heights resident and member of the MTA's resident advisory committee for the Eastside extension.

There has been much anticipation on the Eastside about the line. Residents have long complained that the area has a large number of mass transit riders but no rail service.

Although the extension itself is relatively short, it gives Eastside residents a route into downtown and to Union Station, where more rail routes are available.

There has also been talk of a Phase 2 pushing the line farther east.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-09/49208087.jpg


Tarango said she can't wait for the Gold Line trains to rumble through the neighborhood. She said she still remembers the disappointment she felt when it was decided that the Red Line subway would not come to the Eastside in the 1990s.

"We've been waiting a long time for this," Tarango said. "I think it's going to be a whole changing of the community. I really believe it."

hector.becerra@latimes.com