Art of Transit: Denver gets a new light rail line
Photos by C. Martinez
RTD Denver celebrates the grand opening of the W Line, their newest light rail line. If you happen to be in Denver today or tomorrow, hop on a train and ride for free.
Go Metro Weekends, April 26 – 28
This Sunday is Fiesta Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. Enjoy food, music and dancing at this free event. Festivities will take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Show your TAP card at the O’Reilly Auto Parts exhibitor booth at Fiesta’s World Cup Sports Center lot to claim a free souvenir while supplies last. The Fiesta Broadway main stage will be located across from City Hall in Grand Park, and the event will sprawl down Broadway between Temple Street and 5th Street.
Bus lines detouring for Fiesta Broadway include: 2, 4, 30, 33, 40, 45, 70, 71, 76, 78/79, 83, 84/68, 92, 96, 487, 733, 745 and Metro Silver Line. Detours will be in effect from 12 p.m. Saturday, April 27 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 29 or until barricades are removed.
Lines 2, 4, 45, 83, 84 and 745 begin detouring tonight at 7 p.m. due to event set up. For more details, check Metro’s Service Advisories. The best way to reach Fiesta Broadway is by the Metro Red/Purple Line to either Civic Center Station or Pershing Square Station.
Also this weekend, check out EXHIBIT A at Automata, an art theatre located in Chinatown. The puppet performance tells the story of a hot, dry summer in Silverlake. There are performances on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and on Sunday at 4 p.m. General admission is $18. (Metro Gold Line to Chinatown Station, Metro Bus 45 to Broadway/Chinatown)
Gary Baseman: The Door is Always Open opens at the Skirball Cultural Center this weekend, head over to see some unusual cartoon art. While there, you can also visit Noah’s Ark. General admission is $10, go Metro to get a discount. The center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. (Metro Rapid 761 or Bus 233 to Sepulveda/Skirball)
Go Metro to the land of Oz
In the mood for a movie? Oz the Great and Powerful ends its run at El Capitan Theatre on April 30, which means this weekend is the last weekend to catch it there.
Go Metro and receive a bonus stamp on your new Frequent Visitor card. Just show your TAP card at the box office when purchasing a ticket and start a new Frequent Visitor card, you’ll get a free second stamp with the first.
El Capitan Theatre is located across from the Metro Red Line Hollywood/Highland Station. Metro Bus 212, 217 and Rapid 780 also stop at Hollywood/Highland. Oz has two scheduled showings on Saturday, April 27 and four showings on Sunday, April 28. Visit the theatre website to get times and ticket prices.
Transportation headlines, Friday, April 26
Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the Library’s Headlines blog, which you can also access via email subscription or RSS feed.
Toll lane transponder fees suspended for L.A. County residents (L.A. Times) and A monthly toll road fee exits early (ZevWeb)
The Metro Board of Directors voted 7 to 4 to approve a motion by Board Member Zev Yaroslavsky to suspend the $3 account maintenance fee for ExpressLanes users who used the lanes three times or less. Metro officials say this may encourage some motorists to use the ExpressLanes on the 10 and 110 who wanted to get transponders for occasional use but didn’t want to pay the fee.
A lot of people certainly complained about the fee in the comments section of The Source and other publications. We’ll see if losing it for six months makes a difference and, if so, whether it inspires the Board to revisit the issue.
Mapping the screens at 7th/Metro Center (Steven White: The Accidental Urbanist)
Great post by Steven on the location of TV monitors at the intensely busy 7th/Metro station in downtown L.A. that serves the Blue, Expo, Red and Purple lines. The gist of it: Steven believes many of the existing monitors are in places that are difficult to see and that many of them don’t display information useful to riders — i.e. train schedules for people departing the stations.
Even better, Steven took the time to map the station and show where the monitors are versus where he thinks they should be based on the flow of people in the station. It’s obvious he spent quite a bit of time and thought assembling this post and I hope Metro takes a good hard look at it.
Your thoughts, Metro riders?
Rendering: CasdenWestLA.com
Will the Casden development be L.A.’s traffic Bermuda triangle? (LA Weekly)
A look at the proposed Casden West development at Sepulved and Pico of a 638-apartment building and retail outlets — including a grocery store and ‘national retailer’ — that will be adjacent to the Expo Line’s Sepulveda station. The site has been a concrete plant for many years.
But residents and even transit advocates say the building is too big and will add too many car trips to streets already clogged, thanks in part to the adjacent 405 freeway. Bolstering their point: the developer’s website says the project will have an underground garage with 1,795 parking spaces, including 1,155 for residents.
On the pro side, the developer and at least one L.A. planning official (among others) say this is the kind of transit-oriented development that the region needs and that new residents will likely use their cars less than existing residents of the area.
Good article. One issue not mentioned that I think is important is the current state of Pico and Sepulveda boulevards in the area. Sepulveda is not what I would describe as pedestrian oriented; Pico has been nudging in that direction for a few years — especially east of Sepulveda. The Little Tokyo West neighborhood along Sawtelle Boulevard is on the other side of the 405, about a half-mile walk from the Expo station.
My long-winded point: I think if the area was more pedestrian-oriented, it would give new residents less reason to drive; having more than 600 parking spaces for retail seemingly gives people plenty of reason to drive to the site. It certainly makes sense to put stores and residences near transit, but the question here: can you really call something with 1,795 parking spaces transit-oriented? I don’t know.
Underground cell service expands but some call for quiet (New York Times)
Those with AT&T or T-Mobile devices can now get service at 36 subway stations in Manhattan and some folks are finding they can even get a signal in the tunnels. Gov. Cuomo says one reason for the expansion of service is safety because it gives subway riders the ability to call 9-1-1 pronto in an emergency. Some customers were ambivalent, telling the Times they enjoyed the time away from their cell devices and one subway musician said that too many customers with cell phones was hurting business.
The Metro Board approved a contract earlier this year with a firm that will be wiring all underground stations for cell service. Metro staff said at the time that it would take two years to install all the equipment in the subway, the challenge being that the subway runs 20 hours a day.
City of Agoura Hills breaks ground on Canwood Street Improvements Project
From left to right: Greg Ramirez, City Manager; Lan Saadatnejadi, Metro Highway Program Executive Officer; Ben Jong, Metro Project Manager; Illece Buckley-Weber, Councilwoman; Bill Koehler, Mayor Pro Tem; Ramiro Adeva, Public Works Director.
Photo by Luis Inzunza/Metro
This morning, the City of Agoura Hills and Metro broke ground on the Canwood Street Improvements Project. The project, scheduled to begin on April 29, will receive full funding of $1.1 million for construction from Measure R.
“We are deeply appreciative of Metro’s support for this much needed project,” said William Koehler, Mayor Pro Tem of the City of Agoura Hills. “Without Metro and the help of Metro staff, we would have had a difficult time moving the project forward.”
The improvements to Canwood Street will maintain continued mobility and operational safety, both pedestrian and vehicular, along this corridor. The Canwood Street Improvements Project is Phase I of a larger project, the Agoura Road Widening Project, which is anticipated to start construction in 2014. All phases of this project are funded in full by Measure R. Both Agoura Road and Canwood Street serve as emergency by-pass routes for the 101 Freeway and their operational safety and capacity are imperative for the freeway in emergency events.
To see the project area and get more information, check out the Canwood Street Improvements notice or visit the city’s news site.
Other items from today’s Board of Directors meeting
And here are a few other items the Metro Board took action or discussed on at today's meeting:
•The Board approved issuing a public notice that the Metro Board will seek a change to the technical language of Measure R that is necessary before the Board consider any future project acceleration plan. The change would allow funds to flow to some projects earlier than anticipated — only if those funds are secured. Staff report
•The Board approved a revised draft environmental impact report for the project that would add HOT lanes to the I-5 between the 14 freeway and Parker Road in northern L.A. County. As part of the approval, the Board selected the HOT lanes as the locally preferred alternative for the project.
Quickie background: This is a project that Metro intends to build this decade through a public-private partnership. As originally envisioned, the project would have included carpool lanes. Instead it will now convert the lanes to toll lanes in order to raise the money to pay back a contractor for building them now instead of a completion date of 2040 or later. Staff report
