MOVING LA
By Ken Alpern
The good news: California just got roughly $2 billion out of $8 billion in high speed rail funds from the Obama Administration towards the construction of the California High Speed Rail Project that will help transform it into a 21st century super economy.
The bad news: Los Angeles won’t get a requested $77.6 million from the
federal New Starts program in 2011 for preliminary engineering for the
Wilshire Subway and the Downtown Light Rail Connector projects in the
federal budget that comes out 2011.
The difference: We had planning and consensus for the former, but not (quite yet) for the latter.
Contrary to those who believe we have to have funding in place before we can start planning something and building consensus, the way things work is that (like the chicken/egg conundrum) we need all three as far as the feds are concerned. If we don’t get Consensus and Planning, we can’t get federal Funding (funding for what, they would rightfully ask us). If we don’t have Funding, then why build consensus and spend money for planning?
Measure R and the California High Speed Rail Initiative, both passed during 2008’s fall elections, told the federal government we meant business and were willing to put our money where our collective mouth is. We’d also been planning the California High Speed Rail project for a decade—so when the money got doled out this week, we got the big win.
Unfortunately, despite Metro’s speeding-like-Tiger-Woods-from-his-wife-with-a-golf-club efforts to quickly get outreach and plan the right routes for the Wilshire Subway and Downtown Connector, they are roughly six months away from being finished with a Draft EIR (DEIR) for the Metro Board to vote on…and they’ve got to meet the laws of both politics and physics in order to come up with a decent DEIR.
Metro officials report that the work on the Wilshire Subway is only 60% complete, and the Downtown Connector team is still moving closer to a route and configuration that is both financially and politically pleasing to all local and federal parties.
Not to worry, however—federal and Metro officials are still working together on these projects, because we’ve got Measure R funds to move things along in the planning process and to start utility relocations as early as 2012. Furthermore, we’ve got an active partner in Washington that truly knows and respects the value of the Wilshire Subway and Downtown Connector projects.
Furthermore, the preplanning of a 2011 budget will always, always, always be trumped by a 2010-11 frenzied allocation process of cities and states that are now rushing-like-NBC-to-get-Jay-Leno-out-of-primetime-and-back-to-late-night to get their projects shovel-ready for a government ready to finally address overdue infrastructure improvements.
So I’m optimistic, despite this recent setback, we’ll get a good commitment from the feds when the time is right for a key partnership with the Wilshire Subway and Downtown Connector Projects that’ll each add roughly 100,000 transit riders a day (or more) when they’re done.
But we need to show Washington (and Sacramento, when the time is right) that we mean business, and that means coming to key decisions when we’re ready to vote on them. Here are five key decisions for 2010:
1) PASS A FINAL EIR FOR PHASE 2 OF THE EXPO LINE ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4TH
This is a local/state funded project, but the sooner we have this figured out the sooner we can devote local and state funds to other projects. Yes, there are some critical decisions that have yet to be concluded, but getting the routing focused on the Exposition Rail Right of Way to expedite the design and construction of the portions that aren’t controversial is a no-brainer.
From Friends4Expo’s website:
It’s my contention that the Expo Authority Board should continue Preliminary Engineering (the next step beyond a passed EIR) for:
a) BOTH the elevated and at-grade alternatives at Sepulveda (the LADOT has approved both options),
b) Less or even no parking at Westwood station but much more parking at Sepulveda station,
c) An Expo Greenway between Sepulveda and Overland that will create the Westside’s newest park
d) A call for the City of Los Angeles to ensure an Expo Bikeway, as well as north-south bike lanes on Sepulveda and Westwood to connect to those two rail stations
As for Westwood and Overland, it should be reminded to those who oppose the at-grade alternative pursued by the Expo Authority engineers that:
a) The LADOT has authorized, for better or for worse, at-grade crossings at Westwood and Overland
b) The pursuit of a below-ground undercrossing at those streets will continue in court, so passing the Final EIR on February 4th won’t prevent that
c) If a truly comprehensive EIR is sought, that means including options for a rail bridge or an elevated Overland Avenue and/or Westwood Blvd. option over the rail line (which IS, by the way on a rail right of way)
Anyway, let’s get this project moving where there is no controversy, and duke it out when and where the time is right over issues that will never achieve closure except in court.
2) FIGURE OUT WHERE THE WESTERN TERMINUS OF THE SUBWAY WILL BE, AND HOW IT’LL INTERFACE WITH NORTH-SOUTH LINES SUCH AS THE CRENSHAW CORRIDOR PROJECT AND 405 RAIL LINES
This map from Metro says it all:
a) We need to know whether the Crenshaw Corridor Light Rail Line will some day interface with the Wilshire Subway at Crenshaw (unlikely), La Brea (much more likely) or Fairfax (maybe). The ability to create a network that has both north-south and east-west routes is as much as a no-brainer as having both north-south and east-west freeways. Perhaps there will be options for all three stations to have designs for future connections, but I’m guessing that the feds would prefer we know the specific connection sooner, and not later.
b) There are no shortage of transportation officials who believe that traffic and future planned density does NOT favor a full Wilshire Subway “to the beach”, so can we please all start “keeping it real” about NOT having a temporary Westside Subway terminus at the Sepulveda VA (legal and political problems aplenty there, y’all!) and focus more on a more realistic terminus at say, Wilshire/Bundy?
(By the way, a mea culpa: my last post on this subject described this as being planned before the West Hollywood link—the opposite is true, so if we have a Sepulveda VA terminus then we’ll be stuck with that for a looooong time!)
d) Get a Major Investment Study for a 405 Rail Line to connect the San Fernando Valley with the Westside, dammit—it’s decades overdue! As with the question of a true western Wilshire Subway terminus, it MUST be determined how this future transit line connects with the future Wilshire Subway before we can realistically build this line any further west than Century City.
3) FIGURE OUT ANY UNRESOLVED ROUTING/TRANSIT LINKS FOR THE CRENSHAW LINE
In addition to the Crenshaw/Wilshire question, the question of where and how the line will be designed to link with a future Green Line to the Westside and a LAX People Mover monorail is overdue. A quick EIR can be drummed up in about 3-6 months, because it needs only update the previous ones done over the past 10-20 years.
This EIR can easily be funded by a L.A. City Council that can require L.A. World Airports to do that study (and throw a small $2-3/flight fee for all LAX flights to fund it). Furthermore, it shouldn’t be hard for Maxine Waters and Jane Harman and other federal/local politicians to help procure the $4 million or so to do this EIR.
4) CONCLUDE ANY ROUTING OR UNDERGROUND ISSUES FOR THE DOWNTOWN LIGHT RAIL CONNECTOR
Metro has come a long way towards this effort, especially when it started focusing on a plan to keep the Gold Line/Connector Link at Little Tokyo completely underground in order to avoid disrupting that community and worsening car traffic there.
The above-ground option is all but dead, and although Metro is legally required to do its due diligence I look forward to the all-but-concluded underground plan that we can all confidently go to the feds with and say, “Look! We’ve got an awesome, viable plan to link four converging light rail lines and give Downtown L.A. its second subway!”
From the politicians to the grassroots, we’ve all got our jobs to if we want Washington to do its job. Despite the current economic challenges, these major transit projects have the ability to bring both short-term construction and long-term businesses to the City and County of L.A.
Let’s get moving, L.A.!
(Ken Alpern is a Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) and is both co-chair of the MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee and past co-chair of the MVCC Planning Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and also chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at
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The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.) -cw
CityWatch
Vol 8 Issue 9
Pub: Feb 2, 2010
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