Category Archives: Projects

Knabe confab takes transportation on the road to Cerritos

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Los Angeles County Supervisor and Metro Chairman Don Knabe leads transportation panel at Cerritos Library. From left, Metro CEO Art Leahy, Lakewood City Councilwoman Diane Dubois, Santa Monica City Councilwoman Pam O'Connor, FTA / FHWA team leader Ray Tellis, and Metro staff members Raffi Hamparian, Michael Turner, Doug Failing and Renee Berlin. Photo by Juan Ocampo

Los Angeles County Supervisor and Metro Chairman Don Knabe leads transportation panel at Cerritos Library. From left, Metro CEO Art Leahy, Lakewood City Councilwoman Diane Dubois, Santa Monica City Councilwoman Pam O'Connor, FTA / FHWA team leader Ray Tellis, and Metro staff members Raffi Hamparian, Michael Turner, Doug Failing and Renee Berlin. Photo by Juan Ocampo

Los Angeles County Supervisor and Metro Chairman Don Knabe brought the “State of Transportation” Wednesday to a group of civic leaders from the Gateway Cities and South Bay regions of Los Angeles County at the Cerritos Library.

The confab took transportation on the road, detailing highway, rail and other transportation projects throughout Los Angeles County, with a special emphasis on projects within the Gateway Cites and South Bay regions and state and federal funding expectations for the next year.

Cerritos May Joseph Cho welcomed Metro Board Chairman Don Knabe, Directors Pam O’Connor and Diane Dubois; Ray Tellis, Team Leader, joint FTA and FHWA Los Angeles Metropolitan Office; and Metro CEO Art Leahy and his staff, who provided status reports on Measure R, highway and transit projects and alerts on pending issues in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

Five things I'm thinking about transportation

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In this relatively new feature for The Source,  I express actual opinions while working for government. Members of the media: please take any of these ideas and run with them — we could use the coverage!

1. I think it’s good news to hear that Caltrans is beginning scoping work on how to improve the rail corridor between Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo, much of which is single track. The fact that it takes 2.5 hours to travel 95 miles by train from Union Station to Santa Barbara says a lot about — and not much good — about the state of our passenger rail system in California.

2. One of the most interesting points I’ve read in the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of President Obama’s first term was in the New York Time’s profile of new Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who was previously Denver’s mayor. Hickenlooper’s main point was that Obama should have focused first on infrastructure. Excerpt:

But he did go on to question one aspect of the Obama presidency — in order, tellingly, to make clear that he values consensus over a crusade. “Rather than going to health care first, I would have gone, I think, to transportation infrastructure,” Hickenlooper said, explaining that he noticed through his work with the U.S. Conference of Mayors that the issue had moved from a Democratic preoccupation to a more bipartisan one. “Here’s something everybody cares about. Maybe we focus on that to build bridges.” Was the double entendre deliberate?

“I think the Obama administration,” he added, “saw a higher need to make history.” Continue reading →

Metro refines Regional Connector route through Little Tokyo

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Refined Alignment for Regional Connector

Metro has made some new refinements to the proposed alignment for the Regional Connector project through Little Tokyo. The aim is to bring down costs and lessen construction impacts in the area.

The proposed change would essentially eliminate the sharp curves the light rail alignment was going to use to meet up with the Metro Gold Line at 1st and Alameda. Metro staff will brief the Little Tokyo Business Improvement District on Thursday. On Wednesday, Metro presented the changes to the Little Tokyo Community Council Transit Committee in order to receive feedback.

Metro’s project team says the refined route would avoid a storm drain on 2nd Street, avoid the Office Depot property and most of the businesses businesses facing Central Avenue. The refinements would also mean the elimination of having cut and cover construction along 2nd Street within the Little Tokyo community.  These were key concerns raised by the Little Tokyo stakeholders during the draft environmental study process. Continue reading →

ExpressLanes project picks contractor

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Here’s the news from Metro CEO Art Leahy’s daily email to staff:

Today, a major milestone was reached with the ExpressLanes Project with the issuance of the Notice to Proceed to Atkinson Contractors, LP. The Contractor was competitively selected to design-build-operate-and–maintain (DBOM) the ExpressLanes Demonstration Project. The Atkinson team includes AECOM for design and ACS Inc for tolling integration. This is the first DBOM contract in the history of the agency.

We have established and the Contractor has made a commitment to a Contract Goal for the participation of Underutilized Disadvantaged Business Enterprise firms of 16.2% of the total contract price.

The ExpressLanes project is converting the existing carpool lanes on parts of the 10 and 110 freeways to HOT lanes in which variable tolls will be used to improve speeds and allow single-occupant motorists to buy time in the lanes. People who currently carpool, vanpool or take buses that use the existing carpool lanes will continue to do so for free. More details are on the project’s website.

Scoping meetings to begin for second phase of Foothill Extension

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The public meetings begin on Wednesday night for a planned segment of the Gold Line that would run from Azusa to Montclair in the San Gabriel Valley. Details are after the jump.

The Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority — an independent agency from Metro — has said it will begin construction of the Pasadena-to-Azusa segment of the line this year. That segment is funded by Measure R, the sales tax increase approved by county voters in 2008. The segment from Azusa to Montclair is listed in the first tier of “strategic unfunded” projects in Metro’s long-range plan.  Continue reading →

How the Mulholland Drive bridge was constructed

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In this 1960 photograph, Sepulveda Bl snakes north toward Mulholland Dr Bridge. The earth embankment below the bridge was moved for the freeway. Photograph Courtesy of California Department of Transportation.

On Monday, April 4, 1960, the same day the 1959 Academy Awards were held at RKO’s Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, Peter Kiewit Sons Co. completed a bridge across the Sepulveda Pass.

Mulholland Dr Bridge nears completion. The San Diego Freeway will come approximately two years later. Photograph Courtesy of California Department of Transportation.

Ben Hur, still considered a landmark film, won the Best Picture award that year. The new Mulholland Drive Bridge received fewer headlines. After all, the bridge overlooked an undeveloped canyon. No freeway ran beneath it. No rapid route between West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley existed.

Now renamed Kiewit Infrastructure West, the contractor that built Mulholland Drive Bridge will be demolishing it. The San Diego Freeway that carried 100,000 vehicles per day at Olympic Bl in 1965 now carries more than 300,000 vehicles each workday, making it one of the busiest freeways in the United States.

The Sepulveda Pass I-405 Improvements Project will add a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane to a 10-mile stretch of the northbound freeway, creating the nation’s longest continuous HOV corridor, continuing a long tradition of channeling vehicles through the Sepulveda Pass to join Los Angeles with its northwestern neighborhoods.

It is a long history. Continue reading →

Art for the Expo Line: Ephemeral Views by Ronald Llanos

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Ronald Llanos speaks with Saskia Siebrand, Creative & Technical Director, Mosaika Art & Deisgn about his work for Expo/Western Station.

Ronald Llanos describes himself as a visual journalist. “My images are inspired by people and by the places I travel to or frequent,” he says.

Ron collects drawings in a sketchbook while people watching in a café or walking through Los Angeles neighborhoods. He creates thousands of quick sketches of people engaging in city life: talking with friends, walking past businesses carrying shopping bags, pushing a baby carriage or talking on a cell phone. These vignettes become the subject matter for zines – small self-published magazines that tell a story about a particular place at a moment in time. You can see more of Ronald’s images and follow his blog here.

Ronald Llanos shares pages of his sketchbook documenting his urban adventures.

In preparing the artwork designs for the Expo/Western Station, Ronald spent time filling his sketchbook with drawings of people and activities he observed around the station area. He then mapped the art panels at the platforms to unfold like the pages of an open book. A series of 16 watercolor paintings describe scenes from the local neighborhood.

Ronald’s watercolor paintings have a fresh, spontaneous quality to them. The task of translating his translucent washes of color into a hard, permanent material was a challenge. Artisans at Mosaika Art & Design traced Ronald’s designs onto ceramic tile and added thin layers of glaze to preserve the feel of the artist’s hand in the work. Next the work was fired, cut into small pieces and placed within the panels.

Hand glazed art tiles are cut into small pieces then placed within the art panels.

Speaking about the artwork for Expo/Western Station Ronald says, “I feel that if I search within myself for that which I find interesting about the places and people of those areas, I might be able to communicate with people across time.”

Art panels in process at Mosaika's shop.

Art panel depicting neighborhood teens.

More ‘Art for Expo Line’:

New Round of Westside Subway Community Update Meetings Planned

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Metro will be holding community update meetings January 24 through 31 for the Westside Subway Extension Project, currently going through its Final Environmental Impact Statement/Report (EIS/EIR) planning phase.

Metro will provide members of the public with background on Project planning to date, detail what community members can expect during the Final EIS/EIR phase and provide an overview of the anticipated subway construction process.

The public can participate in any of the three community update meetings.  Content for all three meetings will be identical:

  • Monday, January 24, 6-8 p.m., LACMA West  – Terrace Room, 5th Floor, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036.  Served by Metro Lines 20, 720, 217 & 780. Validated vehicle parking is available in the Museum’s 6th Street underground garage.  Enter from 6th and Ogden.  Spanish & Korean translation will be provided.
  • Wednesday, January 26, 6-8 p.m., Westwood United Methodist Church – Fellowship Hall, 3rd Floor, 10497 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90024.  Served by Metro Line 20. Free parking is available below Belmont Village, the building east of the Sanctuary. From Wilshire Blvd., use the Belmont Village driveway and proceed under the overhang to the underground parking lot.  Park on levels P2, P3 or P4 and take the church elevator in the southwest corner of the parking lot.  There will be signs to direct public to the meeting room.  Spanish translation will be provided.  Metro will also offer a live webcast of this meeting that you can view from any computer simply by going to metro.net/westside.
  • Monday, January 31, 6-8 p.m., Roxbury Park – Auditorium, 471 S. Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90212.  Served by Metro Line 28 and Santa Monica Big Blue Bus Line 5. Metered lot and street parking is available.   Spanish translation will be provided.

The final environmental review and preliminary engineering phase is scheduled to last approximately one year and is a precursor to final design and construction based on project funding.

Expo Construction Photos, January 2011

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With a partial opening of the first leg of the Expo Line possible later this year, we thought we’d take another look at progress on its construction.  The last time we checked in, it was in the balmy days of August 2010.  As you can imagine, there are quite a few new developments to capture.

Below are five photos that I picked out from my latest survey of the line’s construction.  For more Expo photos to slake your transit thirst, there are a couple of good albums to check out, in particular those at the Expo Light Rail Line’s Facebook page and the Friends 4 Expo website.

Catenary wire goes up over Crenshaw station.

Catenary wire has gone up over the Crenshaw station. The lower of the two wires will deliver power to the light rail vehicle, while the upper wire provides support.

Continue reading →

FTA gives go-ahead for Westside Subway Extension and Regional Connector to move into preliminary engineering phase

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The Federal Transit Administration has notified Metro that it has given formal approval for preliminary engineering work to begin on the Westside Subway Extension and the Regional Connector, moving both projects a step closer to actual construction.

The notification by the FTA means that both the Subway Extension and the Regional Connector are likely to be accepted into the federal New Starts program, which helps local areas pay for large transit projects. Both the Subway Extension and the Connector are also to be funded in part by Measure R, the sales tax increase approved by Los Angeles County voters in 2008.

The approval also means that the first installment of federal funds could be included in next year’s federal budget.

Furthermore, the FTA has again given strong indications that they support the subway being built quicker than originally planned. Under Metro’s long-range plan, the subway would reach Westwood in 2036. The FTA estimates that the subway could reach Westwood by 2024 under some funding scenarios. Metro is trying to accelerate the subway’s completion to 2022.

Both projects are currently in their final environmental study phase, which is expected to be finished in 2011. Preliminary engineering work is scheduled to be complete for the Subway Extension in late 2011 and the Regional Connector in early 2012.

Final design work is expected to take 14 to 18 months. Under the best-case scenario, utility relocation work for both projects could begin in mid- to late 2012 depending on when the FTA gives the go-ahead to begin building. Continue reading →