For San Diego, more like 2030. Then we get to take the scenic route through Riverside. :rolleyes:

I read an article saying that the ARRA or TARP was doing pretty well - expected losses and American debt will be a fraction of what was origionally budgeted.

Hey I'm changing topic here, but have you seen Miramar College expension ? It's going to look great. I go there to school and it's getting bigger everyday. We also have new buildings and state of the art desks with computers,etc..
Here is the description of the projects. The Student learning center is getting its walls right now and they are starting to build the student services center.

http://sdmiramar.edu/root/news_comm/...0for%20COC.pdf

I've got a bunch of picture of the construction, it looks nice but I can't figure out how to put it on this website. Anyone knows how?

Oh yes, if they actually want to do it, I don't know how they're going to. I once took the bus from Mira Mesa to Escondido mall. The route wasn't that hilly and a trolley could roll there. Can you imagine if you live in North county and working Downtown? You'd just pay $2.50 to get there, no gas, less stress, etc.
But people love their car. I heard very few people in L.A use the subway.

Start an account at photobucket, upload the pictures there, insert the urls of the pictures into the picture icon here. :tup:

Talking about the trolley, this is the proposed route through UCSD.

http://blink.ucsd.edu/_images/sponso...285_lrtmap.jpg

It's going to be an aerial structure with stops at Sixth College (instead of Price Center) and East Campus (hospitals + parking lots).

Not exactly the way I would have aligned it (VA, PC East, East Campus) but nice to see the actual route map.

Thanks HurricaneHugo!
Here is some pictures of the extension
The new Arts & Humanities building in the background with the grass area
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/...7/CIMG5673.jpg

Another one, you can see the compass on the ground thats going around the four building, it looks nice with numbers on it:
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/...7/CIMG5671.jpg

The new Student Learning center, the building is massive with 100,000 suqare feet & 3 stories
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/...7/CIMG5670.jpg

The new Maths building
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/...7/CIMG5658.jpg

Entrance of Arts buildings
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/...7/CIMG5716.jpg

They are also building a 4 stories parking lot with a police station and the half of the other lots are covered with solar panels. After everything is finished, Miramar College is going to be a reference compare to other colleges.
:notacrook:

Lots of people use the subway in Los Angeles. The problem is, as yet, it is not very large. However, in the next 10-11 years, it should almost double in size. The Red Line is really the Red & the Purple Line. The Purple Line is planned to be extended along Wilshire, all the way to Westwood - UCLA area. That is about 9 miles. It will link downtown Los Angeles to UCLA and the Westside.

By the way, the light rail system is now the 2nd most used light-rail system in the country. It passed San Francisco and is now 2nd only to Boston's system.

Other rail projects are in the works too.

I think it is a bit easier to design transit systems in Los Angeles. Lets compare SD and LA. They have tons of large arterial boulevards that run for 10 to 20 miles through the deadpan flat LA basin. SD has a very small area that is built on a continuous grid compared to LA. Think about how much larger the footprint of dense pre WWII neighborhoods is in LA compared to our little Uptown out to SDSU and the relatively small old South East sections of SD that are dense.

We don't have many roads that run for miles and miles on a straight grid like they do. There are no canyons cutting up neighborhoods there. There is no giant peace of vacant land smack dab in the middle of the metro area like we have with MCAS Miramar and the open space area to its east. Plus they have the density. Our most dense hoods are Uptown through City Heights, LA has an area like that times 5 in area and it is even more dense.

And shouldn't LA have greater light rail ridership then the SF Bay area it is a metro area twice it's size without a giant bay in the middle of it. I'm all for light rail expansion here into Claremont/Kearny Mesa, and the old hoods already mentioned. I'm just not sure North County is dense enough to justify light rail, and comparing it to LA is not really apples to apples.

"I'm just not sure North County is dense enough to justify light rail"

Isn't the Sprinter only averaging around 7,000 boardings a day?

You heard wrong, I take it every day to work, to Hollywood to go to the gym, the movies, Trader Joes. The traffic is so bad up here, and the parking so difficult or expensive, that the subway is an option that many people utilize. As it expands it will be even more popular.

The main problem is that the sprinter does not go to any large employment centers. Everything is so scattered in North County. It doesn't go to the business parks in Carlsbad, and Southern Vista, or obviously to the office parks in Rancho Bernardo. Some high school and college students take it but I just don't see the ridership numbers being really high unless oil prices keep climbing.

Bingo. 40% of all Coaster riders use the Sorrento Valley stop to connect to their employers. Like North County there's plenty of sprawl in that area. It's not an ideal situation, but having buses connect to the stop at rush hour has helped.

Australian architects offer Chargers stadium alternative
 

The proposed downtown Chargers stadium, debated endlessly by fans and critics, hasn't been formally proposed, much less financed.

But that hasn't kept two Australian architects, specialists in hotel, office and residential projects, from independently coming up with their own idea that's just going public.

"We feel we have an idea that will inspire San Diego to embrace a stadium downtown," said Paul De Bartolo, 33.

He and his business partner, Ivan Rimanic, 43, have designed a circular-shaped stadium inspired by the Chargers bolt logo and located on the same site as the team's proposal -- the city bus yard at 14th and K streets.

But their proposal also includes a roughly 7.5-acre park/amphitheater that would rise above the San Diego Trolley tracks and act as an outdoor venue for conventions and other events.

They say a retractable roof, as the Chargers have suggested to handle convention events on the field, is too expensive and the money would be better spent as needed on temporary structures at the park.

Mark Fabiani, counsel to the Chargers on the stadium project, said he was not familiar with the Aussies.

"But of course we'd be excited to take a look at any and all new ideas," he said.

The partners originally came San Diego in 2005 to work on Embassy 1414, a 28-story residential tower in Little Italy proposed by Australia-based Constellation Group.

After the economy scuttled the plans, the two partners remained in San Diego, married locals and began designing hotels, office buildings and private residences. Their firm is De Bartolo + Rimanic Design Studio or DBRDS.

Their current portfolio includes a 160-room hotel in Indian Wells and a home for Rob Watson, developer of several local hotels, as well international projects in Australia and China.

They took on the stadium on their own without any financial backing or public impetus, other than their own interest in advancing the potential for a stadium.

They work in the offices of David McCullough, a landscape architect involved in the Orchids & Onions program put on by the San Diego Architectural Foundation to praise good designs and critique bad ones.

McCullough, who is collaborating on the land plan for the project, said he encouraged De Bartolo and Rimanic to go public and share their plans with the Chargers, downtown planning groups and other interests.

"We say to the Chargers, this is your opportunity (to get a stadium), and it is our opportunity to get a public-private partnership (to get a park)," McCullough said.

De Bartolo said his plan does what the Chargers doesn't -- link downtown parks and open spaces in a network in the same way Chicago's Millennium Park links to that city's waterfront park spaces.

De Bartolo said among the shortcomings in the Chargers' plan is a stadium "squashed" onto a narrow site. Their plan would provide room for pedestrian circulation around the stadium and through the proposed park and amphitheater.

The DBRDS design resembles a metal volcano, 800 feet in diameter, with the top edge finished out as edges of Chargers bolts. It would hold about 75,000 spectators and several thousand parking spaces. Also included are levels of corporate suites. (See details at the firm's website, dbrds.com.)

Surrounding it are about 12 acres of green and pedestrian space, including the amphitheater area with a capacity of 10,000.

"Our design creates iconic architecture for San Diego," De Bartolo said.

The team's blue and gold colors also are incorporated into the design. There is even space for a small tailgate-park area.

The partners have not gone beyond design. They don't know whether their plan would cost more or less than the $950 million figure the Chargers have broached ($800 million for the stadium, $150 million for site work).

But they hope their proposal will push the debate beyond Chargers-no Chargers and onto the bigger subject of what such a megaproject could do for the public in general.

"We want the city to have the best downtown in the whole U.S.," De Bartolo said. "Sydney is a great city, but this city has real great potential."

Some downtown planners have spoken of developing a sports and entertainment district, modeled after LA Live in Los Angeles.

But De Bartolo said San Diego's weather argues instead for outdoor spaces, not more indoor venues for events.

"We want to celebrate the weather here," he said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...m-alternative/

http://media.signonsandiego.com/img/...r_day_t593.JPG

http://media.signonsandiego.com/img/...an1_1_t593.JPG

That's a badass design, but it massacres the street grid.

i approve :tup:

Needs more tailgating.

Wow! I am quite impressed with this design. I think it's innovative and fresh, compared to the same rehashed stadium designs/proposals we've seen. More green space is always welcome, especially this design which includes an amphitheater (something the convention center would be able to leverage too?). It also looks like it preserves the Wonderbread building by moving it a block east. The design of the stadium itself looks pretty awesome. IMO, it's instantly identifiable and rather iconic. Question though, where's the jumbotron? I'm a big fan of tailgating and I'm bummed that this proposal basically kills the big time tailgate atmosphere I'm used to, but I think it's just the price to pay for a unique downtown stadium with added green space, not to mention keeping the Bolts in SD.

That is SO ridiculously cool. Too bad we will never see anything like it actually happen.

If you look closely, I think it's the large thing with the bolt on it that is slanted inward towards the field.