West Hollywood rail extension (Los Angeles, El Monte: low income, transfer to, buyer)

[OyCrumbler]

West Hollywood officials have continually requested subway access and right now they're asking for the Crenshaw Line to do a northward extension. However, light rail isn't nearly as effective as heavy rail would be and West Hollywood is really dense.

The most reasonable extension to me would be a branch that extends off the heavy rail red line from its westernmost stop in Hollywood and making its way west and south to West Hollywood and tunnel boring machines make it easier to do certain parts of the alignment without following the streets straightaway and fairly cheaply. This branch going down from Santa Monica Boulevard on the way to Beverly Hills and beyond should then meet up with the Purple Line either sharing tracks or crossing the tracks.

Now the issue is that the Purple and Red Line are already pretty full up in peak scheduling frequencies where they share the line so this additional run along that segment would crowd things, but there's already a suggestion to allow for the Red Line to actually go further down Vermont Avenue rather than interlining with the Purple Line from Westlake through to downtown. If that's being seriously considered, then I think what makes sense is for one of the two services (the West Hollywood one or the SFV one) to head down Vermont and the other to head into DTLA. This can fit the current frequency tables so no one would lose out for any of these transfers and it's a more efficient use of the system overall.

[looker009]

Why bother extending when ridership for public transportation been going down for the last 25 years?

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by looker009

Why bother extending when ridership for public transportation been going down for the last 25 years?

Because rail ridership has been for the most part going up and only dipping in parts in the last few years on a a few of the older lines?

[looker009]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

Because rail ridership has been for the most part going up and only dipping in parts in the last few years on a a few of the older lines?

Not really, what been happening is people moving from buses to rails and it seems like rail is always busy because there is only so much room on the rail. However after few years overall number of people that use any particular line starts to drop. Public transportation in LA is not utilized in high numbers except by those that are low income and can't afford a car.

[sean1the1]

I don't think it'd make sense for the red line to go two different directions. I think the Crenshaw extension down San Vicente, or LA Cienaga would make the most sense as the red line already goes down Vermont.

[dvxhd]

Originally Posted by looker009

Why bother extending when ridership for public transportation been going down for the last 25 years?

Maybe because that's a very, very short-term way of thinking? It's like when a single weather event prompted Glorious Leader to declare climate change to be over, when climate is a broader range than weather.

Likewise, why do idiots buy gas-guzzling vehicles when fuel prices are low with the assumption they will remain cheap? God knows those trends don't change. Often they have buyer's remorse when gas surprisingly increases in price.

Declines are going to happen, inevitably, but you have to consider the overall trend (and that ridership decline you posted isn't accurate). It's like when I lived in Phoenix and people didn't feel the need to invest in water infrastructure, economy, transportation, or education, or put more simplistically, the Aesop's fable of The Grasshopper and the Ant. Put in another way, to drive this point home, I put a few thousand dollars into my eventual retirement plan, which initially lost a few hundred dollars it has since regained, and long-term as I work and age, the market will...what? The DJIA was below 1,000 when I was born, which isn't the case today, and won't be when I retire. Do you get the picture? God, conservative shortsightedness causes so many problems that aren't immediately clear, though will surface in time when they realize they didn't plan for the future.

To the OP, I know it's fairly close to Vermont, but I would personally love to see an alignment from Expo/Crenshaw and northeast along Pico and to Western to continue north, because that road gets horribly clogged in Ktown. From there it could connect to the Purple Line at Wilshire/Western and the Red Line at Hollywood/Western before aligning to Highland and onward toward West Hollywood (probably either moving toward Sunset or Santa Monica).

[looker009]

Originally Posted by dvxhd

Maybe because that's a very, very short-term way of thinking? It's like when a single weather event prompted Glorious Leader to declare climate change to be over, when climate is a broader range than weather.

Likewise, why do idiots buy gas-guzzling vehicles when fuel prices are low with the assumption they will remain cheap? God knows those trends don't change. Often they have buyer's remorse when gas surprisingly increases in price.

Declines are going to happen, inevitably, but you have to consider the overall trend (and that ridership decline you posted isn't accurate). It's like when I lived in Phoenix and people didn't feel the need to invest in water infrastructure, economy, transportation, or education, or put more simplistically, the Aesop's fable of The Grasshopper and the Ant. Put in another way, to drive this point home, I put a few thousand dollars into my eventual retirement plan, which initially lost a few hundred dollars it has since regained, and long-term as I work and age, the market will...what? The DJIA was below 1,000 when I was born, which isn't the case today, and won't be when I retire. Do you get the picture? God, conservative shortsightedness causes so many problems that aren't immediately clear, though will surface in time when they realize they didn't plan for the future.

Here is the reason why you are wrong and it's pretty simple reason. LA is extremely spread out. it's nearly impossible to create a system where it would be convince to use metro system even for 50% of the population. The main issue that exist is getting to the metro and getting to the destination. Basically you would either need to drive , take a taxi, uber, walk etc to get to metro and then ride the metro for x minutes and for destination repeat same thing as you did to get to metro. Majority of people will just jump in their car and drive to their destination. The only people that will utilize the metro is those that can't afford a car. To get a real system in LA that will actually work for most people would cost billions of dollars which county/city/state do not have. They are better off spending that money on fixing the roads.

[2Easy]

Originally Posted by looker009

Here is the reason why you are wrong and it's pretty simple reason. LA is extremely spread out. it's nearly impossible to create a system where it would be convince to use metro system even for 50% of the population. The main issue that exist is getting to the metro and getting to the destination. Basically you would either need to drive , take a taxi, uber, walk etc to get to metro and then ride the metro for x minutes and for destination repeat same thing as you did to get to metro. Majority of people will just jump in their car and drive to their destination. The only people that will utilize the metro is those that can't afford a car. To get a real system in LA that will actually work for most people would cost billions of dollars which county/city/state do not have. They are better off spending that money on fixing the roads.

Nah. The problem is that we've been building substandard, slow rail to places that aren't big destinations. The purple line extension will be faster than driving and will go to mid-city, Beverly Hills, century city, and Westwood/UCLA. It will have huge ridership.

And we are spending billions of dollars. Tens of billions of dollars. Are you familiar with what's going on in LA?

[2Easy]

Metro is no longer considering a subway extension through West Hollywood and I don't think that they will reconsider that anytime in the next couple decades.

Extending the Crenshaw line is a pretty good deal though. To meet ridership they will probably make the part between expo and Hollywood every 3 minutes or twice normal peak frequency for other lines. West Hollywood will have direct access to Hollywood, LAX, the South Bay, and be able to transfer to the subway to get to downtown, the valley, or Westwood. That's excellent access.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by looker009

Not really, what been happening is people moving from buses to rails and it seems like rail is always busy because there is only so much room on the rail. However after few years overall number of people that use any particular line starts to drop. Public transportation in LA is not utilized in high numbers except by those that are low income and can't afford a car.

Bus ridership is dropping partly because they don't have their own right-of-ways or signal priority for most of the routes outside of something like the El Monte busway, so they essentially sit in the same traffic as cars, but with stops and a rigid schedule. In Los Angeles, that's obviously a massive detriment so it makes sense that people move away from the buses as they are now to private car ownership and rail. This is not the same thing as that mass transit is not viable or cannot increase its ridership or is not worth investing.

Originally Posted by sean1the1

I don't think it'd make sense for the red line to go two different directions. I think the Crenshaw extension down San Vicente, or LA Cienaga would make the most sense as the red line already goes down Vermont.

I'm not saying that the Red Line as is should split its current service pattern and frequency in two different directions. I'm saying that there's a limiting factor right now which is the peak frequency when the Purple and Red lines share the same tracks. So let's say that we evenly split the two and that interlined (shared) portion is essentially close to its maximum frequency for two lines to share. In that case, that means that the Red Line has portions where it isn't shared with the Purple line that actually has some slack room, but can't use it because it'll butt up against sharing with the Purple line.

In that case, have a service that uses the money and infrastructure we already put into the Red Line for the portions in Hollywood and East Hollywood where it isn't shared with the Purple Line for a new service that uses the Red Line tracks in Hollywood and East Hollywood that goes down Vermont on one end and into West Hollywood and Century City and maybe beyond on the other end with transfer stops at Westlake so essentially you've made everyone's currently existing ride the same or better and then added a new rapid transit set of pairs to commute between.