LOS ANGELES | Transportation News & Discussion

[jmecklenborg]

For fun I drew this quick concept - to interline the proposed Sepulveda line from the SF Valley south to UCLA, then to have a branch divert toward the Culver City Expo Line station. Stations would be located at Wilshire/Beverly Glen, Century City, then a long run to Culver City.

So the Beverly Glen station would hit a major intersection missed by the purple line's deflection to Century City, the branch would then transfer with the purple line at Century City, and then it would travel directly beneath the golf courses where a big residential development could be built on its way to Culver City.

Rancho Park is public so it could be land swapped to the Inglewood oil field after it closes. I have no idea how the country club could be motivated to move, since land is so scarce in LA, but the Rancho Park course is a big piece of land, measuring 3,000x2,500 feet, or roughly 170 acres, so a very significant TOD could be built there. They could build 10,000 apartment units in that amount of space without going over 10 stories with any individual building. Obviously that count could be doubled by getting the country club to move, but I'm doubtful that could happen.

[IMBY]

Are parts of the Purple line going to open, or are already open, like to LACMA,or the line won't be running until they get to the end in UCLA? I'm coming down there this summer, and I was hoping I could take the purple line to LACMA, even though the entire line won't be completed for a number of years to come. And will the Crenshaw line be operational as well?

[numble]

Originally Posted by IMBY

Are parts of the Purple line going to open, or are already open, like to LACMA,or the line won't be running until they get to the end in UCLA? I'm coming down there this summer, and I was hoping I could take the purple line to LACMA, even though the entire line won't be completed for a number of years to come. And will the Crenshaw line be operational as well?

The Purple Line will open in phases, but it won't be open this summer. The first phase still hasn't completed tunneling, let alone mining the cross-passages and setting the rails/systems down, or fitting out the stations. It is doubtful that Crenshaw will be open/operational this summer, though it may have been substantially completed and in full-scale testing by then.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Even in the subway option the mountain crossing will likely follow the 405 so it doesn't need to go under any private property for most of the route.

Getting to UCLA campus may require this but we haven't seen a detailed alignment with station locations. I'm guessing it will loosely follow Sunset, Westwood, Pico.

Why would that be the case when a straighter, more direct route is not only more logical, but also less costly?

Non-starter for whom, is the question. Measure R/M have finite revenue and a long list of projects to get done. The savings from the Sepulveda project alone could pay for a whole LRT branch elsewhere in the city. And in lieu of a direct connection, SkyRail has suggested other ways to serve UCLA campus with a people mover system that could be underground or elevated (ideally linking to the VA station for direct connections to both lines).

The combined transit sales tax (Props A/C, Measures R/M) have no sunset. Under R/M, this segment is allocated $5.7 billion, which is roughly half the capital cost of the project. The rest can be financed through a mixture of bonds, federal/state grants, revenue from premium fares (this will be automated, so it could theoretically run 24 hours) and Metro ExpressLanes through the Sepulveda Pass, and advertising/naming rights.

[LineDrive]

The fact mono rail is still alive in this thing is ...genuinely criminally negligent.

This is the single most influential rail project (to me in the world) outside of MAYBE Crossraio or Second Avenue Subway. They CANT get this one wrong.

To me this should’ve been underground from SoFi to Sylmar with local and express tracks in the valley (in place of ESFV line). But HRT from LAX to VN ML with subway most of the route is good enough.

If they go with MRT... woof. The LA Metro system will be... woefully underperforming. Plus I wouldn’t be shocked if LA got Billions in funding from the Biden infrastructure bill

[badrunner]

The Sepulveda pass is beautiful in its own way, though most people only think of it as a traffic nightmare. A monorail will be an eyesore imo. Monorails are more appropriate for places like Disneyland and Las Vegas.


The Sepulveda Pass by Stephen Carr, on Flickr

[urbanflight]

The Sepulveda pass is the eyesore.

[numble]

Video advertising the monorail proposal:
https://twitter.com/numble/status/13...130150401?s=20

[Busy Bee]

Smh

[jmecklenborg]

The LA Times opposes the monorail:https://www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...-pass-monorail

The editorial makes casual mention of a "connection" between the proposed line and the u/c Wilshire Subway. It's unfortunate that construction of the Westwood extension is underway with apparently no provision made for a pedestrian connection, let alone a track connection between the two lines (although it's unlikely that the new line will use the same equipment as the existing heavy rail metro lines).

In an ideal setup, the two lines would cross each other underground at their respective platform midpoints so that passengers could transfer from one train to the other with minimal walking. Instead, passengers will likely have to walk to the end of either platform to reach the other line. Will the proposed station be east or west of the soon-to-be u/c Wilshire/Westwood purple line station? Nobody knows.

Here is a vague outline of the proposed Westwood station:
https://www.larchmontbuzz.com/wp-con...owebinar07.jpg

[badrunner]

All light rail and heavy rail in the city uses standard gauge track so if they go with heavy rail for the Sepulveda pass there will be a physical track connection to the purple line, obviously. It'll initially be for maintenance equipment and rolling stock delivery but service can be expanded at a later date as the article suggests. It's another strike against the monorail.

[numble]

Originally Posted by badrunner

All light rail and heavy rail in the city uses standard gauge track so if they go with heavy rail for the Sepulveda pass there will be a physical track connection to the purple line, obviously. It'll initially be for maintenance equipment and rolling stock delivery but service can be expanded at a later date as the article suggests. It's another strike against the monorail.

There is no physical track connection for the Expo (E) Line and Crenshaw Line, which uses the same light rail trains. Nor between the Green (C) Line and the Blue (A) Line. The reason a new maintenance facility is part of this project is because it will not interline to the Purple Line.

It is very expensive to build an interlined connection and it would also be disruptive to service, both during construction and in operation. They already evaluated a connection in the initial screening report (Concept 6) and they eliminated because it was both expensive and perform poorly: http://media.metro.net/projects_stud...g%20Report.pdf

[badrunner]

I guess that article was overly optimistic with the line "Riders could take a single train from downtown to the mid-San Fernando Valley." Still, going with HRT at least leaves open that possibility whereas a monorail would permanently foreclose on such ambitions in the future. I still think that's a strike against the monorail proposal.

btw, only the Crenshaw and green lines are separated from the wider rail network (though they are connected to each other). The other light rail lines either currently connect or will connect in the future through the regional connector project. The regional connector is also a good example of how interoperability can be leveraged years down the line.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by numble

There is no physical track connection for the Expo (E) Line and Crenshaw Line, which uses the same light rail trains. Nor between the Green (C) Line and the Blue (A) Line.[/url]

There is actually a non-revenue connection under the Century Freeway that connects the blue and green lines, but I don't sense that it is used with any frequency. You can see it here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/I-...4d-118.2728129

The Washington, DC metro subway lines all run the same spec equipment but the red line is physically isolated from the rest of the system. I believe that they can move trains by towing them onto parallel commuter rail lines but I wasn't able to find a link quickly to confirm this.

I suspect that the whole reason the short 2-station Wilshire subway was built back in the early 90s was in order to justify the construction of the flying crossover that makes the purple line build-out that is currently u/c possible. It might have been the case in their federal grant application back in 1983~ that federal funds could not be used to build non-revenue track. They therefore had to build at least one active station under Wilshire west of Vermont in order to create an active branch and get the funds for the crossover. This is speculation on my part, however.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by badrunner

I guess that article was overly optimistic with the line "Riders could take a single train from downtown to the mid-San Fernando Valley." Still, going with HRT at least leaves open that possibility whereas a monorail would permanently foreclose on such ambitions in the future. I still think that's a strike against the monorail proposal.

SF already has a one-seat heavy rail connection to downtown - the Red Line, but there are about 9 stations between the transfer point and the first Downtown station, plus the Red Line follows the street grid so it's 1-2 miles longer than a direct line between these points.

CAHSR is currently planning a 3-track reconstruction of the Union Station>Burbank segment but if they do four tracks with two dedicated to Metrorail (which many have advocated) then in theory the orange line could be converted to electrified commuter rail and run express at 110mph for 6-7 miles to Union Station. There would need to be a 2-mile tunnel between North Hollywood and the existing commuter tracks aside from reconstruction of the orange line busway as a rail transit corridor, so it would be a very, very expensive undertaking, well north of $10 billion, but would be transformative for the SF Valley and improve upon Downtown LA's increasing prominence. The existing Metrorail line could be electrified as well, of course, and also operate at 110mph between Burbank and LA Union Station.

[Busy Bee]

As well as 4-tracked, the LAUS-Burbank corridor should also be trenched.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

There is actually a non-revenue connection under the Century Freeway that connects the blue and green lines, but I don't sense that it is used with any frequency. You can see it here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/I-...4d-118.2728129

The Washington, DC metro subway lines all run the same spec equipment but the red line is physically isolated from the rest of the system. I believe that they can move trains by towing them onto parallel commuter rail lines but I wasn't able to find a link quickly to confirm this.

No there is also a non-revenue connection to the Red Line at Farragut Square.

I suspect that the whole reason the short 2-station Wilshire subway was built back in the early 90s was in order to justify the construction of the flying crossover that makes the purple line build-out that is currently u/c possible. It might have been the case in their federal grant application back in 1983~ that federal funds could not be used to build non-revenue track. They therefore had to build at least one active station under Wilshire west of Vermont in order to create an active branch and get the funds for the crossover. This is speculation on my part, however.

I don't think it was quite the rule hack you're envisioning. The original plan was to have a single line running out Wilshire to Fairfax, up to West Hollywood, reverse back to Hollywood/Cahuenga, and thence to the Valley. It was a weird, backwards-S shaped line. I don't believe this original design had any junctions built into it for future expansion.

After the 1985 Ross Dress-for-Less methane explosion, they had to delete the segment on Fairfax so they switched to a 2-line system with one branch down Wilshire to hit the Miracle Mile and a second branch up Vermont to Hollywood and the Valley.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by LineDrive

To me this should’ve been underground from SoFi to Sylmar with local and express tracks in the valley (in place of ESFV line). But HRT from LAX to VN ML with subway most of the route is good enough.

The decision to extend the project's scope area to include the Van Nuys Metrolink station/ROW was huge and part of the reason why I'm partial to HRT1. My hope is that eventually Metro will rip out part of the planned light rail and upgrade to HRT as part of a capacity expansion project. The NE SFV represents a significant ridership base, and a one-seat ride from Sylmar to LAX will be attractive to lots of SCV residents.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

As well as 4-tracked, the LAUS-Burbank corridor should also be trenched.

More like 6-8 tracks.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by numble

Video advertising the monorail proposal:
https://twitter.com/numble/status/13...130150401?s=20

No to MRT, but high-quality service to the tune of 2-minute headways and 21-24 hours of operation should generate ridership beyond the projected 122-137,000. The future extension to LAX (and perhaps SoFi) should be part of the calculus as to the merits of spending $11-12 billion on the initial segment. We're building a corridor that has the potential to transform how millions (current and future generations down the line) of people travel across the city.