Catching Up With... The Regional Connector

This is an exciting time for the city, in that a progressive new administration is about to begin in Washington, that California voters gave the nod for a high speed rail link between north and south state and that L.A. County voters passed the tax increase that will enable construction of the Downtown Connector and a Subway To The Sea.

Now imagine returning to L.A. by air, flying into Glendale/Burbank Airport, boarding a subway train there at the airport and being able to travel underground southward to the Media District, then onward to one level below the Hollywood/Highland Redline station and then west to the Sunset Strip, south beneath LaCienega where one could transfer to the Wilshire Subway, or proceed further south to Culver City, Westchester or LAX. There at the airport, one could transfer to the Greenline or get on a flight to New Zealand or meet a friend arriving from Beijing.

Rather than connecting Hollywood and West L.A. with a third subway, planners at the MTA perhaps might think about the larger scheme of things in regional transportation, north/south as well as east/west.

"Planners at the MTA perhaps might think about the larger scheme of things in regional transportation, north/south as well as east/west."

Yeah, what's so special about Santa Monica? Already they're set to get the Expo Light Rail line, the Wilshire Subway and now a second subway (from WeHo). Why so much mass transit to the "Home of The Homeless"? Don't blame it on Tom Haden. He was against subways back when it was fashionable. There would have been no Redline if he had been given the choice.

I also have a problem focusing so many transit resources on the largely suburban west side. Downtown and its surrounding areas are far better suited to transit because they are denser and walkable. What happens when you get off the Expo Line in the middle of a single family R-1 zoned neighborhood? Where would you walk to? Those lines should be feeders into downtown and Holywood, not the other way around.

Once the transit is in place, suburban areas will become less attractive as employment centers. That's the point if we are to reverse decades of asinine development that makes it impossible to get anywhere without a car.

The west side is suburban? I don't thing so. It may not be as dense as the mid-city or downtown but the west side is very crowded. More so the the San Gabriel valley. And it has some of the worst traffic in the region.

The Expo line should go to Venice from Culver City, rather than to Santa Monica. With shifting local & national priorities, the Subway To The Sea might possibly be constructed all at once, rather than in phases. That would make getting the Connector up and running much more urgent.

Metro's proposed downtown alignment is not all underground. There is still an at-grade crossing at 1st/Alameda, which is a traffic and operational nightmare.

"Once the transit is in place, suburban areas will become less attractive as employment centers. That's the point if we are to reverse decades of asinine development that makes it impossible to get anywhere without a car."

It's called the donut effect: http://www.google.com/search?q=donut+effect

Damien is right about the weak link in the Downtown Connector at 1st & Alameda. As he pointed out in one of the public meetings that I attended, at that point an accident could bring down the whole system. It is there that all the trains would be at street level, and running as close as every 2 minutes in mixed traffic over a wye in the middle of a street.

It's a bad plan to build it that way and will act to slow down the entire system. I am not sure what the solution is, other than perhaps to move the point where the lines join, or rebuild the entire 1st & Alameda junction underground.

Tornadoes28: The West side may be crowded, but it is very much entirely suburban. The residential density is very low, and the traveling distances are too far to walk anywhere except within limited areas. The crowding you describe is from traffic, not density. It's a perfect example of a suburban model reaching development capacity limits, where the potential for economic expansion disappears due to the structural limitations of the suburban model.

300,000 people commute in and out of West LA, per weekday. If that doesn't beg for mass transit, I don't know what does. The traffic is crippling and will eventually lead to economic trouble if not mitigated. Currently, Westside residents shoot down all development based on "traffic concerns". If you secretly want the Westside to lose its luster, then, yes, argue it's not set-up for mass transit. If not, realize it needs to be integrated into the city's transit system, and that the economic importance of the region depends on better integration. LA's infamous income stratification? This would be a valid step towards ending it.

Tell me how you would construct a mass transit system to bring people to jobs that do not exist in a centralized zone. They are spread out all over the Westside, in every nook and cranny that is not covered with single family homes. Except for Century City, it's close to impossible.

In addition, permanent fixed-route mass transit is best built where existing bus transit is at full capacity (Wlshire is a good example), but within most of the west side the buses run empty where they run at all (major arteries like SM Blvd & Wilshire excepted). So where is that ridership expected to come from? And how does someone get to their office if it is 2 miles from transit, or the transit nearby runs every hour? How many rail lines would be needed to cover the vast areas of employment? Many more than there are funds or riders for. In addition, there is a cultural bias against transit. You're considered a loser if you ride transit.

Not a good future for that model. 450,000 commute into downtown every day, which is a much smaller area than the westside. The traffic is not nearly as gnarly. There are many other options, buses, trains, etc. One here you can walk to most anywhere.

The westside will experience economic trouble. I don't wish it, but how could it be otherwise? It's too decentralized.

Until 2003, I lived in Westwood Village and worked at running a branch office across the street from Beatty's old lair atop that old hotel on Wilshire in Beverly Hills. Driving anywhere at rush hour became a nightmare and if there was a brush fire in Sepulveda Pass, general gridlock ensued. So I started walking back and forth to work. And it was wonderful.

How many students, professors and staff attend UCLA? And there is the village and highrise offices and condos nearby. Never did I experience traffic congestion in Century City anywhere near as bad as that in Westwood. Anyone who works or commutes thru the business district in Beverly Hills knows it can be as bad as Westwood. So it will be great that each of these areas will be served by the future subway. It would be a mistake if it does not run all the way to Ocean Avenue in downtown Santa Monica.

Finally, after more than one death threat, being taken for a ride that I didn't particularly enjoy and seeing a secretary get run over at Wilshire and little Santa Monica Blvd., I decided to get out, flee the nightmare of it all. Beware of Industry types driving black Range Rovers and talking on their cells. They don't mind running red lights and if you're in their way, you'll fly like a rag doll and your head can end up lying right in the gutter, dead. They'll only hit the brakes after they hit you - 40 mph.

Regarding the First & Alameda issue, I too forgot that the MTA revised it's concept so as to have Alameda be depressed, dive under First. First and the light rail tracks would be on same level. Overhead pedestrian bridges above grade could be problematic. People will likely jaywalk instead of taking a ramp or elevator up to get across, be it First or Alameda. With the light rail station at the northeast corner, this will be critical to preventing numerous pedestrian casualties as well as adding to the congestion.

It seems like some sort of strange, gizmoid, futuristic contraption would be needed to pick people up at sidewalk level and transport them betwixst the northeast and southeast corners, including the elderly and those in wheelchairs. Forget ramps and elevators; go high tech. Make it look like a ride at the Fun Zone at the L.A. County Fair, circa 2050.

On second thought, we'll prolly be able to levitate ourselves by then and said contraption can then be demolished. And then the L.A. Conservancy will go nuclear!

"In addition, permanent fixed-route mass transit is best built where existing bus transit is at full capacity (Wlshire is a good example), but within most of the west side the buses run empty where they run at all (major arteries like SM Blvd & Wilshire excepted). "

Buses run empty through the Westside? I'm very surprised to see many buses on the Westside (like Olympic, Pico Venice, Third Street, Fairfax, Lincoln, Westwood, Sepulveda filled to capacity) so that they can feed those trunk lines.

"People will likely jaywalk instead of taking a ramp or elevator up to get across, be it First or Alameda. With the light rail station at the northeast corner, this will be critical to preventing numerous pedestrian casualties as well as adding to the congestion."

That's likely however if it's connected to the corner developments. Even with at-grade pedestrian crossing it will only encounter the northside sidewalk of First Street with only half of the crossings since the trains will split right after the subway portal. Around the portal, the southside sidewalk of First Street from the presentation the pedestrian crossing will be closed to peds. This set up will be like the one at 12th Street where the Blue Line trains exit the subway. The north 12th Street crossing is closed to pedestrians.

I want to call out a couple of misleading comments on here.

It was stated that Santa Monica or the Westside would have two subway lines (the Pink and Purple Line). The Pink Line just involves building stations from Hollywood/Highland to La Cienega (3 additional stations I believe). Saying that Santa Monica would have two subways is as incorrect as stating that Downtown has two subways in the Purple Line and Red Line.

Also, the Westside has a much larger working daytime population than Downtown. Yes, it is more decentralized, but Westwood and Century City each represent medium sized downtowns in other cities. Also, many of the jobs on the Westside that aren't in Westwood or Century City are on Wilshire where the subway would go, while others are near the Expo Line, especially in Santa Monica.

As for low residential density on the Westside, this must have been written by someone who is unfamiliar with the Westside as the neighborhoods around Wilshire are almost exclusively filled with dense medium height apartment/condo buildings not 1 acre mansions (also there are not fields of empty parking lots as there are in Downtown).

Finally, it should be noted that there is only funding right now for the Purple Line to go to Westwood and no further. There is no funding currently for the Pink Line segment in the West Hollywood/Beverly Center areas.

"the Westside has a much larger working daytime population than Downtown."

This is not true. The daytime working population of the west side is about 300,000. Downtown's is over 450,000, and in a much smaller area. I can't find the source for these figures (I used to have a copy of the Chamber of Commerce report that cited it, but can't find it now). If you have a source that demonstrates otherwise, please link it if you can.

In that analysis downtown was the area around the center city but also included the industrial areas around it, and the west side figures included everything west of La Cienega all the way south to the airport.

I walked past there today, again. The plan needs serious work to function properly.

I think the MTA has a strategy of proposing the cheapest alternative and then waiting for others to insist they need to spend more money and do it right. Takes some of the heat off. That's what Damien is around for.

It needs to be underground all the way to Temple or so, no question.

I found a source for some employment data for downtown and the westside, although the definition of the westside in the report begins at the edge of downtown and runs all the way through to Malibu, (it includes all of Hollywood and everything east all the way to about the 110, but not the airport).

http://www.laedc.org/reports/

Scroll to: Regional Economic Overview & Forecasts for Areas of Los Angeles County

Here it shows downtown with 500,000 jobs and the entire westside, from downtown all the way west, with 600,000 jobs. Within that, it defines the "west westside" as west of LaBrea, with 400,000 jobs and the "east westside" east of LaBrea with 200,000 jobs.

The sticking point is where you define the westside, I guess. I tend to side with the Militant: http://militantangeleno.blogspot.com/2008/03/journey-to-center-of-townorthe-militant.html

So there you are.

Bert:

Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood, Brentwood, Culver City, downtown Santa Monica, Olympic Boulevard in Santa Monica.

These are the activity centers on the Westside where employment is concentrated. So, instead of one large downtown, you have several smaller downtowns that are spread out across the west side of Los Angeles. If anything, having these employment centers spread out the way they are makes mass transit MORE important on the west side than it would be Downtown. Of course, as the historical downtown city center, Downtown was and is the logical place for most transit services to cross, or connect, or at least serve. And the logical place to start building this system.

But the Westside has been CRYING for this type of service since 1990 when the Blue Line opened. Traffic's only been getting worse and worse since then. I know, I've lived in LA since 1990.

Purple Line and Pink Line should be next! Then Regional Connector, then Expo Phase 2, then Eastside Phase 2, then Foothill Gold Line. Then LAX, then Red Line to Burbank Airport, then light rail down the 405, Etc. etc. How about a Ventura Boulevard subway for 2099?

You are right in that I misspoke, when I said the Westside has a larger working daytime population. It really depends on how you measure each area. Thank you for the correction

I do know that the Westside has a larger office market vs. Downtown/Central Los Angeles (DT having a large industrial workforce), and I had confused this. It is important to note that many of these workplaces Downtown/Central Los Angeles are not near rail transit stops either.

Nevertheless, my arguments from my original post still stand. I believe the Expo line when completed in full will be a moderate success when compared to similar light rail lines (even more of a success if the Downtown Connector is built). The Subway to the Sea/Purple Line will be an extremely heavily used line and perhaps the most heavily used in the US - I have little doubt of that.

"I think the MTA has a strategy of proposing the cheapest alternative and then waiting for others to insist they need to spend more money and do it right. Takes some of the heat off. That's what Damien is around for."

Someone finally gets it. Most agree inside and outside the agency, this is the most important project at Metro. Invest in it and build it like its the most important project at Metro!

I suspect it's just Metro's bureaucratic arrogance. They're operating/planning with the assumption that there is some prohibition to demolishing and reconstructing the 1st/Alameda station. They need to, and they need to identify solutions that assume it is necessary, and possibly relocate the station.

The irony is that depressing the rail crossing and having a fully grade separated solution at 1st/Alameda, as opposed to depressing Alameda St vehicular traffic and still having a 1st St at-grade crossing (Metro's current proposal) are likely comparable in capital cost. And of course, the long-term benefits of having a grade separated 1st St crossing far outweigh the initial capital cost.

Incidentally, failure to look long-term regarding 1st/Alameda Station (while constructing Eastside LRT) and the resulting proposed 1st St at-grade crossing (in the DTC), is a prime example of how piecemeal planning instead of regional planning is costing Metro money (planning and operational) and leading to it's poor national reputation for planning.

Well aside from inadequate rapid transit on the Westside, much of the traffic nightmare is applicable to insufficient housing and non-existent affordable housing. (Those 720s, 333s, 704s and 302s are filled with workers coming from the central city/eastside who can't afford a car.)

And the pockets of dense residential areas (most of which are way to expensive for anyone making less than 4K a month) aren't adequately connected to rapid transit (intra-Westside and regional) and lack city streets that encouraging driving alternatives.

Can all of this change? Maybe. But it takes a loooonnnggg term vision - that is going to need to be radical. We basically need to completely redesign West LA, and do so with no land to play with...and oh yea preserve single-family home communities.

Should we go as far as prohibiting any building over X feet/with a FAR above X/intended to generate X trips, outside of downtown and arterial roads planned for rail transit investment in the next 20 years, while simultaneously encouraging condo conversions of every building taller than 45 feet away from these planned arterials?

But even if we go through the workshops, the bureaucracy, the committee meetings, etc. dedication to whatever plan(s) created is going to be difficult, because we're dealing with term-limited politicians whose campaigns are predicated on dollars from the construction industry (the developers, the contractors and big labor). So it's a difficult road.

People wonder why most homeowners are anti-growth. Many of these people are ridiculed. "NIMBY" on some blogs is as bad a label as racist in the South. But with the state of affairs as they are currently, can you really blame them? I'm an optimist in this respect, so I still hope we can become a true smart growth city, but I sympathize with the frustrations of the anti-growth.

And I can't overstate the importance of investing in the grade separated rail transit first - RIGHT NOW - (100 miles in 10 years!). But it has to be real transit that is a solution not an impediment to existing problems and future growth, that actually goes to these existing centers and near places where increased growth is possible.

/end rant

Damien understands the fundamental importance of prioritizing grade separated rail above all else. It is really quite simple, but too many local leaders get caught up in politics which frequently demand immediate or near term results. Politicians and planners get bogged down with their transit statistics, and trying to please all their constituents when they should instead have laser like focus on efficient, long-term, grade separated, rail solutions. Grade separation is the long term solution that we require, and Damien is a visionary who is still distanced enough from the political scene to see this. Of course the DTC should be completely grade separated including the 1st alameda station, and if they have to redo it, then Metro should eat their pride and just redo it now. Grade separation is the only reasonable long term solution to increasing traffic and transit congestion - it allows fast unfettered transit - plain and simple. Either do it correctly now and pay the price, or redo it and pay much more for it in (10-20-50) years when we absolutely must.

The First & Alameda portal will need to be engineered so that the track rises, runs up and high enough to prevent potential mayhem. Take a look at a U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle map of Downtown and one will see that Alameda south of Aliso was once the riverbed of the L.A. River. South of Fourth Street, the river then fanned out in a wide arc.

Various historical accounts for L.A. relate that the river had shifted to the west during the years 1815 to 1825, that it flowed roughly along where Los Angeles Street now runs. But the topographical contours on the USGS maps seem to suggest that following the 1815 flood, local residents diverted the river at Aliso & Alameda and forced it to flow directly south. This I suppose was to keep a portion of the agricultural bottom land on the west side of the river, for easy access.

If a severe storm were to hover over Downtown, something like the storm that hit the Watts area in the fall of 2003 (a 100 year plus event), there would be floodwater way up over the curbs. Entire roadways would be flooded deep in water and with Alameda still being the low point, guess what? The connector tunnel would become a storm conduit for passage of floodwaters to 11th & Flower. And lets not talk about the L.A. River popping above/out or the low parapet lately constructed along it's bank through Downtown. If that were to happen, the Redline tunnel would get flooded (and a whole lot more).

Engineers will have to elevate the First Street bridge over a depressed Alameda, sufficient to prevent floodwaters from entering the Connector tunnel. If not, power and communications systems would be destroyed. Passenger trains are not equipped with emergency air masks. Not good! First and Alameda is one hairy prospect.

OK, so then elevate the entire thing above 1st & Alameda. Grade separation can be achieved many ways...

Though I see the concern, I wonder what that large concrete channel called the LA River is doing there, that alone has made it so that those flooding concerns are a thing of the past? Also building a large storm sewer that is routed down to flow into the LA River can acheive the same goals in case of a major storm.

If this is the case why aren't we worried about the 101 flooding since it's right in that general area?

Also there are other ways to grade separate; Tunneling, trenching, elevating, seperate other factors from the train, rerouting traffic in the area, closing off crossings.

Jerard, here's to suggest that you research the intense storm cell which parked itself over the Watts area one afternoon in October of 2003.

Then spend some time researching the topography of the riverplain of the L.A. Valley. Storm drainage systems for city streets are not designed to handle one hundred year events.

The low parapet walls which were recently constructed along the river through Downtown are meant to protect the area from up to a one hundred year event upriver. Suggest that you also research the spring 1825 flood of the Rio Porciuncula. If there should ever be a recurrence, there will be tens of thousands of corpses floating in the Pacific Ocean. The L.A. River will equal the Mississippi; it's gradient is far more steep. Imagine the Mississippi running through Elysian Narrows jacked on Crystal Meth. It could easily cut a new channel(s) clear to the ocean.

It's funny, my insurance policy for my downtown gallery on Main Street has a 100 year flood clause, under which there is no coverage.

Juanito,

I'll take a more detailed look at that information through the Friends for the LA River history and FEMA sites and take an impromptu trip to the Central Library tomorrow after my errands to due some further research. Thank you for bringing attention to it.

To my planning knowledge those kind of storm cells possiblities are designed for 25 year storm lines to drain to a major facility, most cities only build up to 5 years. 25 year storm line will cause a little back up but not as severe as other cities because it's designed to flow better.

What you're predicting will happen if the concrete lined portions of the LA River were to disappear and return to it's natural setting, that is why I asked what have been the impacts of the currently in place LA River channel. Most of LA used to be marsh land and swamp with very sandy and silty soil so it makes sense for the river to have shifted like this.

The point is not that the river would spill its banks or change course, the 100 year flood waters would never end up in the river, they would rain down in the city and create flooding everywhere, then collect in the gentle basins that exist within the natural geography. There are several places in LA that would be susceptible, and yes, any freeways, subways and underpasses would be affected too.

In New York they have an elaborate system to pump water out of the city's underground spaces which operates 24 hours a day. If it ever went out of operation the city would flood in a few days, and that is even without a storm.

Jerard,

check out the bound volumes of the Southern California Quarterly in the history department. There is an interview with one among the Lugo family who was a young boy when the 1825 flood occurred. The family residence was at the n.e. corner of 2nd & San Pedro Road (now street). The headwall of the flood crashed thru the narrows at midnight and woke up everyone in the valley. He ran east in the moonlight and watched as the floodwaters cut along the east side of the valley, forming the escarpment below Boyle Heights. Afterwards, these bluffs were commonly referred to as Paredon Blanco, due to the presence of white quartz sand & pebbles.

Summer 1950 edition, pgs. 190-91, published by the Historical Society of Southern California. The guy's name was Jose del Carmen Lugo.

I think that the flood originated in the Big Tujunga Canyon. There could possibly have been a big landslide on one side of the canyon which caused a sizeable lake to form and then the storm that Lugo mentions could have caused the earth dam to collapse. (That was only 13 years following the two great quakes of Dec. 1812). The day preceding the flood had been clear. Gazillions of mustard seeds were carried along in the waters. Lugo says that mustard had never grown in the lowlands previous to that point. There are still large patches of tall mustard which grow on the sides of the Big Tujunga Wash, north of Sunland, just below where the canyon empties into the wash. If the flood wasn't caused by a landslide, then a storm of millennial intensity had taken place high up in the canyon. The upper Big Tujunga is the highest/furthest point in the L.A. River watershed.