[Wright Concept]

Originally Posted by Westsidelife

Has the MTA even considered adding an infill station there? Is it too early to be discussing infill stations?

I haven't heard any discussions on infill stations yet. Its a little too early to tell. I think once the Purple Line reaches Century City and couple of the Measure R projects become reality this could become a very real conversation.

Again, I think a special exception needs to be made here. Anyone who's been down that stretch of Wilshire knows that the commercial density there clearly, CLEARLY deserves a station. It's a no-brainer to me.

Personally, I disagree because the commercial density is on par, its the residential density that is the deciding factor to tell if the investment is worth it. The projected ridership at Wilshire/Robertson was one of the lowest on the corridor meaning that would tip the balance in getting no Federal New Starts funding. Right now as suggested in the Alternatives Analysis Phase a Purple Line extension with the following stations from Wilshire/Western:

* Wilshire/La Brea
* Wilshire/Fairfax
* Wilshire/La Cienega
* Beverly Hills
* Century City
* Westwood

Will barely give us a Medium FTA cost-effectiveness score. Once it slips below Medium, there better be a solid density, redevelopment and transit restructuring plan to go with this to make the ridership pencil out. The one recent exception to that rule was Charlotte with their new starter LRT on abandonded rail right of-way and upgraded existing streetcar infrastructure. Charlotte was about 10-15 cents off from the Medium rating, which would give the FTA's blessing. However because the Charlotte Planners worked out Public-Private partnerships to coincide with the stations along the line to be built and moved in by the time the rail opened and they utilized existing infrastructure and developed the abandoned railroad corridor, the FTA approved it because it showed solid public and private backing.


Another example similiar to Robertson is around Wilshire/Rimpau. There are a number of high-rise buildings surrounding that intersection. It would have some distance (about 0.6 miles from La Brea, 0.75 miles from Crenshaw, 1.25 miles from Western) Could a station work? No, because the residential density surrounding this area would never get any denser or bigger. If there is one location that should have consideration for infill is the City West/Good Samaritan area. It has a high residential density, high transit dependancy, moderate to high commercial density all factors in having good ridership at the stations.

Personally, I would like a combination of 1/2 mile stop spacing in core zones mixed in with farther spaced stop spacing to maximize the accessiblity along the entire corridor. Unfortunately I don't have the $$$ to do it, however another idea would utilize BRT with signal pre-emption or priority on the street with the HRT below to give the best of all possible worlds. Speed, efficiency, accessiblity and cost-effectiveness.

When did that happen in Toronto and Madrid? What were the costs?

Like I said that description was from memory from a Construction article about Toronto (North York Centre), around the late 80's. Madrid is more recent but costs I don't have in front of me, the design of their tunnels are closer to the cut-cover tunnel concept.