Light Rail Line

A new light-rail system through South Los Angeles and the South Bay was approved by transit officials Thursday, but some local politicians and residents worry that the rail line could pose similar problems that have hampered other projects. The 8 1/2 -mile line is the biggest beneficiary to date of Measure R, the half-cent sales tax for transportation projects that L.A. County voters approved last year. Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said Measure R revenues would provide most of the estimated $1.7 billion needed for the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor Project, which would pay for a relatively bare-bones version of the line.

After numerous delays and cost increases, Los Angeles County transportation officials Friday said the first segment of the long-awaited Expo Line will finally open to the public April 28. The light-rail line will carry commuters 7.9 miles between downtown Los Angeles and the eastern edge of Culver City in about half an hour. "Some of us didn't think we'd live long enough to see this day, but we made it," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who is also a Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member.

County transportation planners are launching a $300,000 study on the feasibility of installing a light-rail line to parallel the transit corridor outlined by San Bernardino and Pomona freeways. "This will be an important step toward bringing rail transit to a major portion of eastern Los Angeles County," Supervisor Deane Dana said of the study, as he announced that three supervisorial districts will provide $25,000 to help pay for it.

The Metrolink commuter railroad held a safety workshop Tuesday for officials responsible for overseeing transportation agencies that operate buses, trains, subways and light rail lines throughout the region. The one-day program at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles brought together federal and state safety experts, transportation agency executives and members of transportation commissions in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. The program included presentations by National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt and former Deputy Secretary of Transportation Mortimer Downey, who now serves on the Washington Metro board of directors.

A possible light-rail line and the impact of an upcoming environmental report on the Crenshaw Boulevard business corridor were discussed at a citizens advisory meeting last week. Representatives from the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Community Redevelopment Agency, City Councilman Nate Holden and several local business owners were at the Wednesday meeting along with 20 people from the community at Continental Cablevision, 2900 Crenshaw Blvd.

Why are elected officials allowing 600 homeowners, totally ignorant of what light rail is, to kill a wonderful opportunity in the proposed Chandler-Victory light-rail line? After reading numerous accounts of San Fernando Valley homeowners' whining about noise, ground vibrations, crime, visual blight and reduced property values, all I can say is prove it! What studies have these people commissioned to back up these ridiculous claims? Let's get some facts straight: --Light-rail transportation systems are not powered by diesel engines, in contrast to freight/Amtrak trains.

At the very end of the long news story hyping light rail, Bill Hodge, an Orange County Transportation Authority spokesman, was quoted as saying "In 20 years, [light rail] may be the only way to get around quickly in this area" ("New Legs for Light Rail," Dec. 6). Anything is possible, but Hodge's hyperbole is not supported by the facts. Over the last 10 years, the OCTA has spent more than $10 million on rail studies, and in every case, light rail would not reduce traffic congestion and its collateral effect, air pollution.

Why hasn't anyone figured out that the proposed Fullerton-to-Irvine light-rail line would be a huge redundancy? Metrolink and Amtrak both run between those cities. Metrolink, particularly, is a commuter line and has intermediate stops in Anaheim, Orange and Santa Ana between those two cities. All that is needed is to run Metrolink both directions during the middle of the day and add a couple of late-night runs and the commuting problem between those two cities is solved. Light rail works only in densely populated areas, and even then it is questionable.

In a victory for supporters of the Pasadena Blue Line, the California Transportation Commission has appropriated $40 million for right-of-way acquisition and construction. The allocation from Proposition 116 rail bonds brings to $88 million the state's investment in the planned 13.6-mile light rail line between Downtown Los Angeles and east Pasadena.

A Los Angeles County transportation panel approved an environmental report Wednesday for a proposed light rail line connecting Burbank, Glendale and downtown Los Angeles. The 11.9-mile line, which would begin at the Burbank Airport and run south through Glendale to Union Station, is one of six rail projects competing for funding priority under the county's 30-year Integrated Transportation Plan.

Los Angeles transportation officials want to ask voters during next fall's presidential election to support at least a 10-year extension of the Measure R sales tax, a move that could raise billions more for transit projects and likely speed construction. When officials convinced the county electorate in 2008 to overwhelmingly approve the half-cent levy for rail and other transportation efforts, it increased the sales tax in Los Angeles County to 9.75% — one of the highest rates in California.

On Thursday, the 13-member Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board will vote on two issues of significant concern to the people of South Los Angeles: whether the new Crenshaw-to-LAX light-rail line will include a station in Leimert Park Village, and whether it will go underground along a congested stretch along the Park Mesa Heights stretch of Crenshaw Boulevard. The planned rail project will run about 8.5 miles along Crenshaw Boulevard, from the planned Expo Line on the north to the Green Line on the south.

At first glance, office buildings in the rustic complex on the edge of Culver City look decidedly down-market. The mismatched assortment of corrugated steel, wood and concrete structures on La Cienega Boulevard were thrown up haphazardly after World War II. But inside it's a different story. The complex today, known as Blackwelder, is home to upscale firms in creative fields such as movie production and fashion, and the renovated interiors tend to be rich in design with walnut stairs, European-style kitchens and 3-D theaters.

If you drive through Cheviot Hills and Rancho Park and see the orange-and-black signs peppering front lawns, you might get the impression that these neighborhoods solidly oppose the coming of the Expo light-rail line. "Kids and Trains Don't Mix," they shout, and "Don't Let the Train Block the Road. " But the reality is quite different. Every weekend for the last couple of months, a group of us have been walking door to door, talking to our neighbors about the Expo Line that will soon connect our community to downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica and points in between.

Los Angeles won a major federal loan Friday that will speed construction ? perhaps by as much as 10 years ? of a light-rail transit line from the Crenshaw district to a station near Los Angeles International Airport. Work is expected to begin late next year and finish no later than 2018, about a decade ahead of schedule, said Art Leahy, chief executive of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The $546-million loan is the first federal commitment to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's so-called 30/10 initiative, which seeks to speed completion of a dozen transit projects proposed by the MTA, including the Westside subway extension.

For the most part, the buildings designed for spots near new mass transit lines in Southern California have been pretty underwhelming architecturally. And it's easy to be cynical about many of them. After all, putting a new apartment building or mixed-use complex close to an existing transit line — or a transit line that may potentially, possibly be built in the future — often absolves developers of a range of architectural and urban-planning sins, including packing in far more density than a site can comfortably absorb.

A proposal to build a costly elevated light-rail line down the middle of busy Hawthorne Boulevard will be the topic of a public forum Tuesday at Torrance City Hall. City Council members scheduled the 5:30 p.m. hearing last week after receiving a draft engineering study on the ambitious transit project. The line, which would connect to another that is being built as part of the Century Freeway, is in the early planning stages and faces numerous funding and other obstacles.

Some Cheviot Hills residents might have a nasty commute Thursday afternoon when they converge on downtown, where the board of the Exposition Construction Authority is scheduled to decide whether to green-light a planned light-rail line through their neighborhood. Too bad they don't have a slick new rail route to whisk them across town -- and if they get their way, they never will. New rail lines often attract community opposition, but Westsiders, perhaps because they tend to be able to afford attorneys or they have particularly strong neighborhood associations, are unusually successful at blocking projects.

They are strangers on a train. Text-messaging businessmen and hawkers selling pirated DVDs, cotton candy and drugs. Teenage mothers pushing strollers and weary scavengers with strollers heaped with cans and bottles. Students quietly reading textbooks and proselytizers shouting passages from the Bible. There is the blind man who takes out his glass eyes for money and the tightly coiled gangbangers with whom direct eye contact is not advised. Commuters lost in their iPods next to full-throated yakkers broadcasting personal confessions.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board on Thursday approved $690 million in funding for the extension of the Gold Line in the San Gabriel Valley, marking a significant step forward for the project. The money would go toward extending the light rail line 11.3 miles from its current terminus at Sierra Madre Villa Avenue in Pasadena to Azusa. The board's approval means the project is on track to break ground in June and begin service in 2014. The extension is one of several major rail projects being planned for L.A. County in the next few years, including an extension of the Expo Line into Santa Monica, a new line down Crenshaw Boulevard into the South Bay and an extension of the Eastside portion of the Gold Line.