405 widening project presentation now online

A community meeting was held Thursday evening at the Skirball Center for the 405 widening project that will add an HOV-lane for 10 miles over the Sepulveda Pass. It’s a monster project with a billion-dollar pricetag that will soon begin construction and is scheduled to be complete in 2013.

Here’s a link to an 18-page presentation on the project that was shown to audience members at the meeting. For those who have been following the project, there’s nothing new here, but the presentation does provide a basic overview of the work to be done.

When the HOV lane is complete, there will be continuous carpool lanes on the 405’s entire journey through Los Angeles County. I posted Caltrans’ most recent map of the L.A. County HOV network after the jump.

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Blue Line Accident — Expect Delays

The Blue Line is single tracking from Florence to Imperial, around an accident at Wilmington crossing.  Expect 20 minute delays. Update will follow.

Go Metro Weekends, Transit Accessible Fun – Eastside Edition

Go Metro Weekends is The Source’s weekly guide to having a great weekend in L.A. without a car. All events are easily accessible (within a half mile walk) by Metro bus and rail lines, and we make sure any night time events listed are served by Metro’s owl service (unless otherwise noted). Have an event you’d like us to include? Shoot us an email at thesource@metro.net. Time and space constraints limit us from listing every accessible event in this city, but this curated list represents what we think is cool and easy to get to.

In celebration of the Gold Line Eastside Extension’s first week in service, I’m making sure to include events along the route, they’ll be highlighted in gold for emphasis.
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Eastside, events, film festival, Giant Robot, Japanese American National Museum, weekend

Transportation headlines, Friday, Nov. 20

I have a thing for Census Bureau data and so does Planetizen: They have a smart post today showing the 10 metropolitan areas where transit use increased the most between 2006 and 2008. Riverside was — to my surprise — one of them, as was Phoenix. When I think of both cities, I think cars, cars and more cars. In Riverside, officials say they tried to strategically add service to areas with the highest demand.

The Biking in LA blog takes the city of Los Angeles to task for not moving faster on implemeting its bike master plan — thereby joining a long list of other activists who have also taken the city to task. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this could be one of the most bike friendly cities in the world if there was the willpower among both politicans and the populace — and I’m not sure either are there yet.

Here’s a headline not on the list…if you’ve been wondering what’s up with the newly-installed turnstiles at some Metro rail stations, Leylie Aghili of USC’s Neon Tommy takes a long look at the turnstile effort and its cost. It’s a good explainer that concludes with this sentence: “And it remains to be seen whether the turnstile initiative will prove to be a money-saving security measure or one more bureaucratic blunder that pushes the California deficit into an even deeper shade of red.”

The rest of today’s transpo headlines, compiled by the always-resourceful Metro library, are after the jump.

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turnstiles

Blue Line construction this weekend

Just a reminder: there is no Blue Line light rail service this weekend in downtown Los Angeles between the Washington station and Metro Center. The reason: tracks from the under-construction Expo Line must be joined together with Blue Line tracks. The two lines will be sharing a short stretch of track in downtown.

Buses will carry Blue Line passengers between the Washington station and Metro Center/7th. But passengers should plan on delays that could be up to 40 minutes. Rail service in that area will cease tonight (Friday) at 9 p.m. and resume on Monday morning.

Here’s a recent press release with more info.

Blue Line, Expo Line

Eastside trains to get a speed boost

Don’t get too excited, but a spot of good news from Metro rail officials: software will be installed by the end of next week that will allow Gold Line Eastside Extension trains to go…drumroll…15 mph over the Hollywood Freeway bridge, an improvement over the 10 mph presently allowed.

The speed increase is expected to shave less than a minute off travel times between Union Station and the Little Tokyo/Arts District station.

Here’s a link to post from earlier this week about the new Gold Line and its speed.

New Regional Connector concept proposed for 1st and Alameda intersection

Metro concept for crossing 1st St. and Alameda Street in the Little Tokyo/Arts District.

If you’ve been following progress on the Regional Connector project, you already know that the Little Tokyo community has not exactly been thrilled with Metro’s proposals to build rails at street level across First and Alameda Streets to connect with the Gold Line.

The Little Tokyo Community Council has, in fact, voted to oppose both of the agency’s build alternatives until the question is resolved on how to best cross this critical intersection with the least impact to the integrity of Little Tokyo and the Arts District.

Metro planners say they have heard these concerns and have worked closely with local stakeholders to devise a new fully underground concept that they will present tonight at a meeting with the Little Tokyo Working Group. It is important to note that the concept is just that — a concept — and the decision has not yet been made to add it for evaluation in the current draft environmental impact statement and report that is underway.

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Eastside, Little Tokyo, Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension, Regional Connector

Speaker Bass holding town hall tonight on transpo improvements

A quick meeting reminder: Assembly Speaker Karen Bass is holding a town hall meeting tonight (Thursday) to discuss transit improvements being made in the community — including the subway extension, the proposed Crenshaw light rail line, the congestion pricing lanes on the 110 freeway and the Expo Line.

The meeting is being held from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Wilshire United Methodist Church, 4350 Wilshire Blvd., 90010.

Signs posted on L.A. Eastside blog are hoax, not official Metro signage

The pranksters at the L.A. Eastside blog attempted to do a little Onion-esque satire for their readers and created some fake Gold Line safety signs using “local lingo”.

The mock-ups, which prominently display the official Metro logo, feature potentially offensive phrases like “heads up, fool!” and “whacha for el tren, ese”. Get it?

While the signs are obviously fake, not everyone is in on the joke, including many of the people leaving comments on the L.A. Eastside blog and other Metro riders who stumbled upon the blog during their internet searches. Metro has received calls and emails from customers who are understandably insulted by the signs.

Here’s the thing, Metro actually does takes safety very seriously and safety signage is there to inform and educate people about the risks around train tracks. You’ll find safety signage everywhere on the system, from the street running Gold Line to the underground Red Line.

The bloggers over at L.A. Eastside would do right by their readers and community by informing them that the signs are indeed a hoax. No one at Metro thinks we’re above criticism — but we would like to be criticized for things we’ve actually done.

After the jump, an image of what REAL Gold Line safety signage looks like.
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Gold Line Eastside, Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension, rail safety