Open Thread for Tuesday
The MTA's Green Line from Norwalk to Redondo Beach has been derided for years because it stops about a mile short of serving LAX. Those who do wish to continue on to the airport must exit the train and then connect to an airport bus. For some time, many transit advocates have called for the line to be extended to the airport.Now Los Angeles World Airports General Manager Lydia Kennard has come out against ever extending the Green Line to the airport. Kennard feels it would be a waste of resources when other transportation options - such as the newly established Union Station to LAX Flyaway bus line - could be further developed.
One issue is that both Mayor Villaraigosa and Councilman Bill Rosendahl - who represents the airport area - campaigned on promises to extend the rail line to LAX. Does Kennard reflect their thinking, or will both of them now backpedal from the campaign promise?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 7/11/2006 12:00:00 AM
14 Comments:
Angeleno=Joseph Mailander
Rosendahl doesn't just want the Green Line at LAX, he wants it all the way up Lincoln or Sepulveda (with the latter being a better idea, IMO) to meet the future Wilshire subway. It won't happen for a decade or more, but considering how many high-density residential and employment centers are along the 405 corridor between LAX and Westwood/Brentwood, it would be one of the few rail plans that really makes sense.
It's probably true that the Green Line will never go into the terminal area at LAX because there's just not enough room in there for it. So the question is, how would it serve the airport any better than it does already?
Oakland Airport was, for many years, served fairly well by BART via a shuttle bus that took about the same time to connect the terminals with the train as does LAX's shuttle bus from the Green Line Aviation Station.
For years the plan for the Green Line northern extension called for a station at Lot C, just north of Century Blvd. From there, passengers would ride the shuttle bus for a very few minutes into the terminal area. That probably remains the best place to put an airport station. After that, the train can go northward any way the planners choose. Arguments can be made for both Lincoln or Sepulveda, but it's the Expo light rail the line probably will connect with, not the Wilshire subway.
Finally, the big challenge is to get the northward-turning light rail down from the elevated Aviation Station to a below-grade crossing under the glide paths for the two LAX south runways in something less than 200 yards. By some reckoning, the results would seem like a ride at Magic Mountain, and may well be technically infeasible. It suggests that Green Line trains headed north would have to be diverted down from the 105 freeway prior to reaching Aviation so they could make the turn and the descent.
Kennard's concerns about how to pay for a Green Line extension to LAX are very real. The feds won't allow LAWA to pay to build a line that serves anything but LAX, but the need for the Green Line to go further north as a part of the regional light rail system is very real. So her reticence isn't just political posturing, as some might try to portray it.
Building on what Peter and Anon 6:18 wrote, Mayor Villaraigosa and Councilman Rosendahl can still make good on their promise by bringing the Green Line closer to LAX as part of a larger expansion. Ideally, at a future station the Green Line could share a platform with a "People Mover" into the terminal area that would allow for seamless transfers.
In order to make LAX more accessible, the Green Line should move up Sepulveda at least to the Expo Line, as Peter mentioned. From there, it could move north to Westwood (meeting a future Red Line extension) and then to Sherman Oaks and the Orange Line. I agree with Councilman Rosendahl that this is a "no brainer" from a transportation planning standpoint, as is moving the Green Line down to South Bay Galleria.
Mayor Sam, I have a hard time believing that "an old, dead Republican" like you would support any spending on rail construction.
traffic on the westside is ....ed up. deal with that
Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Newark airports have good rail connections directly to their airports. Southlanders should demand the same.
Oakland's Air Bart bus connection to the airport should not be the model for LAX but rather rail connections on the par with Heathrow in London or at Frankfurt am Main airports.
San Diego municipal bus and light rail connections to the San Diego Airport put Air Bart in Oakland and the LA Flyaway to shame with on schedule connections and the ability to use transfers from the existing public transit lines.
LAX Flyaway bus is a pitiful, cobbled up affair akin to the Orange Line that is a band aid that may look good to some on a paper. What was spent to downgrade a railway to a bus express road on the Orange Line, should have been put into a decent Light Rail system instead.
Light rail and rail municipal transportion have received short shrift by the politicos and their urban planner elite that seem more interested in serving rich developers than the public in Los Angeles County. San Diego light rail works and does provide service for most of the day.
A case in point is the balkanized public rail transportation between Los Angeles and San Diego that displaced Amtrack. Neither the Metrolink (Los Angeles-Oceanside)or the Coaster (San Diego-Oceanside) offer commuter service with a few trains in the morning and evening - but nothing substantial enough to encourage people for abandoning cars for long distance public transit.
Waxman, Rosenthal, and the Santa Monica politicos pay lip service to public rail transportation. They really do not want Red Line to go from downtown to Santa Monica with stops at UCLA and Westwood VA Hospital as well as other frequent destinations in West Los Angeles - much less a connection to an extended Green Line. There is too much self interest in keeping the status quo and the 405 jammed forever.
A coherent commuter light rail and rail transit system is needed in Los Angeles. The Metro Red buses to Santa Monica on Wilshire are not a substitute for a Red Line extension.
Try commuting from Sierra Madre to UCLA on public transit is an exercise in frustration. What should take less than 60 minutes s by car and should not take 3 hours on public transit - especially if one has to make it work on time.
6:18, couldn't the extension just go straight west from Aviation Station for a mile or so and not turn north under the glide path until it was underground? Expensive, yes, but it wouldn't feel like a roller coaster and would thus meet Federal Transit Administration standards.
11:08, if you say that Santa Monica politicians only pay "lip service" to rail transportation, why did the city just drop that money on buying the Sears Auto Center building at Colorado and 4th to build an Expo Line station? For that matter, the only major opponents to the Expo Line--Cheviot Hills homeowners--aren't even in Rosendahl's district, either. As far as the Red Line goes, I have a tough time believing that Rosendahl would really oppose it given that in his district, almost all of the housing within half a mile of Wilshire is multifamily.
If you ran the Green Line a mile westward along Imperial Highway to get it down to the surface and then underground to cross northward under LAX, you wouldn't be under the glide paths anymore, you'd be under the runways well to the west of the terminal area!
The light rail train would then also be in a location where it would likely have to remain underground (at enormous expense) to get to either Lincoln Blvd. or to double-back eastward over to Sepulveda. Either way, can you imagine Westchester and Playa del Rey homeowner NIMBYs sitting still for that?
Come on! Think it through before you toss out what you think are simple solutions to complicated problems. If running the Green Line northward were so easy, maybe they would have done it a long time ago.
What the Mayor and Lydia don't realize is that users of the Airport and the Green Line come from cities outside the City Limits of Los Angeles. The flyaway is great, if you happen to live on skid row and need to get to the airport in a hurry. But what about those users that live in cities such as Bell, Huntington Park, Downey, Norwalk? I'm sure there would be a lot more ridership to the airport, if in fact the trains were traveller friendly. But the truth remains, that these trains are overcrowded. Can you imagine travelling with your family in a standing room only train car blocking the aisles with your suitcases. The trains are not airport traveller friendly, and thus do not provide any incentive to get us out of our cars.
Lydia's statement is more political. She's reinforcing the current administrations stand on airport regionalization. She's telling air travellers to use the other airports in the region as LAX is NOT going to make it easy to get to and from here on public transportation.
I honestly don't see where the gain is for Rosendahl if he were to block the Green Line. He campaigned on promises like holding town halls, pushing for clean money, and stopping airport expansion. He's come through to varying degrees on all of those things.
When Rosendahl's opponent got a last minute independent expenditure from the developers of Playa Vista, Bill got a much smaller independent expenditure from a grassroots environmental group.
It very much serves Bill Rosendahl's interest to extend the Green Line into the airport.
As for Henry Waxman, it looks to me like he's held up tunneling all this time because of his NIMBY constituents. Now that it's traffic that they don't want in their backyard, they're warming up to the Wilshire Red Line and he's promised to get his 20 year ban lifted.
I think that Westsiders are so fed up with traffic that they'll vote for anyone with a big idea to mitigate it. Any pol who wants to do well on the Westside better talk about rail.
I blogged about this on 11/30/06:
http://hollywood-liberal.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_hollywood-liberal_archive.html
and on 12/4/05 (you have to scroll down):
http://hollywood-liberal.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_hollywood-liberal_archive.html
considering how many high-density residential and employment centers are along the 405 corridor between LAX and Westwood/Brentwood, it would be one of the few rail plans that really makes sense.
Good point. One of the main problems with the current system is the lack of rail to the communities that would benefit the most. The average commuter already has two cars, and takes one to the train station. Amazing that at the turn of the century, before the automobile industry took off and government subsidizations supported the collapse of one of the greatest rail systems in the world, Los Angeleans could get around without a car.
I wrote a documentary on public transit in LA when I was in college - feel free to check it out: Los Angeles Public Transportation
Cheers,
Alex
Regardless how much since rail might make to the public in the I-405/Wilshire area, the rich Westwood crowd that has an inordinate amount of political influence are the ultimate NIMBYs.
Some of them relish the gridlock and fear open streets since it would bring more people to the neighborhood.
Waxman and Rosenthal have constituents that are equally vocal on pro and con side. The rail system was needed twenty years ago, given the polarization in various neighborhoods then and now, its really doubtful that even if the money became available from the Feds - that with all the bickering on how it should be done - it will be another 25 years before construction might begin providing the Santa Monica crowd does demand ecology friendly materials in the trains and Phase 1 studies ad nausem.
Regardless how much sense rail might make to the public in the I-405/Wilshire area, the rich Westwood crowd that has an inordinate amount of political influence are the ultimate NIMBYs.
Some of them relish the gridlock and fear open streets since it would bring more people to the neighborhood.
Waxman and Rosenthal have constituents that are equally vocal on pro and con side. The Santa Monica crowd will demand ecology friendly materials in the trains and environmental studies ad nausem for any endangered species along the right of way.
The rail system was needed twenty years ago, given the polarization in various neighborhoods then and now, its really doubtful that even if the money became available from the Feds - that with all the bickering on how it should be done - it will be another 25 years before construction might begin and the mutual admiration society of city planners gets to work.
Lydia
If you actually went to work more than twice a week and actually tried to travel like a common person, extending the Green Line would make sense. But then again, your contract is almost up, so who cares anyway?
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