Transportation headlines, Monday, Nov. 14

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 blog.

Beverly Hills bids to halt subway tunnels under school (Associated Press)

A recap of the ongoing efforts in Beverly Hills to prevent the Westside Subway Extension from tunneling under the Beverly Hills High School campus, mostly out of safety fears. The story included a couple significant errors: The project is currently scheduled to open to Fairfax Avenue in 2019; the 2022 date in the story refers to finishing the entire line to Westwood under the America Fast Forward plan to accelerate construction and funding. Also, the story fails to make it clear who is alleging that Metro’s buses are dirty–the way the story was written and edited, it could be a Beverly Hills High student or the reporter.

In addition, the story notes: “The consultants are confident tunneling would not endanger the 2,200-student school, but some envision the worst: a tunnel collapse directly below campus, with students inside the buildings.” The reporter does not report whether such a collapse of a subway tunnel has occurred anywhere (I’m unaware of it).

Also, the subway route was envisioned as serving Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood — no specific route was ever chosen and then changed. It’s also worth noting that no matter where a station in Century City is located, there are commercial properties that would benefit and, in my view, all would benefit because the station locations under consideration are within walking distance of one another.

Ideas floated to improve traffic in San Fernando Valley (Daily News)

A transportation summit was held last week to discuss the always vexing issue of traffic and…surprise!…many of the same old ideas that have been discussed for years and years and years resurfaced. That said, there was talk about a rail project under the Sepulveda Pass — there is about a billion dollars in Measure R funding for some type of Pass project. And there was also talk about some type of futuristic pod car system that I suspect will never, ever get built because it lacks the capacity to accomplish anything.

What could Metro do to improve the customer experience? (blogdowntown)

A motion by Metro Board Member Mike Antonovich asks the agency for ways to improve the customer experience — i.e. wi-fi at stations, more coffee kiosks, countdown clocks to the next train. Blogdowntown, in turn, asks its readers to for their ideas. Read the comments — there’s good feedback for the agency.

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