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.
Beverly Hills City Council action may delay Metro vote on subway study (Beverly Hills Patch)
Metro officials received a letter late Thursday from the Beverly Hills City Attorney informing Metro that the Beverly Hills City Council will hold a special meeting on Sunday night. The meeting’s purpose is to vote on whether to request a special hearing from Metro on the location of the Westside Subway Extension in Beverly Hills.
The Beverly Hills City Attorney says that such hearings can be requested under the state Public Utilities Code and that such a hearing — if requested — would preclude the Metro Board of Directors from voting next Thursday on whether to approve the Final Environmental Impact Statement/Report for the subway project. The FEIS/R must be approved by both the Metro Board and the Federal Transit Administration before final design and construction of the subway project can begin.
The city of Beverly Hills opposes the Metro staff recommendation for a subway alignment that would tunnel under parts of the Beverly Hills High School campus in order to reach a Century City station at Constellation Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars.
Metro officials say they will respond if a request for a hearing is received from the city of Beverly Hills and Metro will comply with the law.
Still L.A.’s transportation mayor (L.A. Times)
The editorial praises Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for staying focused on transportation during his time in office. But the editorial doesn’t — at least not at this early stage — praise the Mayor’s plan to ask voters to extend the Measure R sales tax increase to accelerate the building of transit projects. The big question, asks the newspaper, is whether such a plan would create too much debt.
Red car trolley begins testing at Disney’s California Adventure (Disney Parks blog)
Check out the pics in the post — the trolley, fashioned after the old Pacific Electric cars looks pretty authentic. It is set to open June 15.
San Francisco MTA releases post earthquake photos (SFMTA Photo Archives)
Interesting set of 43 photos detailing some of the damage the massive 1906 earthquake inflicted on streetcar facilities around San Francisco.
Categories: Transportation Headlines
Yes, BH will lose eventually. But what’s this about Metro not wanting to tunnel under the cemetery? Is that really why the line will pass so far from UCLA?
Is anyone ever going to investigate or at least review all the tons of taxpayer CA STATE $$$ that Beverly Hills USD has spent on lawyers and consultants and NOT on the students or other, one would think, imperative classroom demands? This is proof positive that the BHUSD has way too much money (or been allocated too much from Sacramento) that it can finance a FREE LUNCH and $$$ giveaway to all the usual suspects who make tons of $$$ from being hired to stop such projects as the subway to CC. Will the Times at least print some hard numbers and a pretty graph? It would be interesting to see how our money from Sacramento (and the Lottery) are being squandered by BHUSD rather than being spent on EDUCATION! Could we at least take the same amount BHUSD has spent on their campaign and, next funding round, reallocate it to some of our poorest schools in Los Angeles?
More meetings, more wasted time, more precious time lost as material and labor cost rise.
Now if Metro had stocks to give out, that option would on the table and it would be something that would be considered than endless meetings and discussions that gets us nowhere. But no, we’d rather waste our tax dollars by delaying this further because Metro is not a public corporation and has no stock option card on the table.
Regarding SF MTA 1906: The 1933 ‘Long Beach’ earthquake did some serious damage to Pacific Electric facilities.
Regarding Beverly Hills: Who sets the date for the hearings, or how long can they delay the final approval of the EIR? Also, what does “special hearings” mean? If it is just one more meeting with Metro, what can they hope to accomplish other than delay? Does some other entity act as an arbiter?
Constellation is by far the best location, with twice as many people working within 400 meters of that site. Yet I wonder what would be happening if it were not for the bad geological conditions at Santa Monica? Would the Metro board feel the need to give in to the irrational objects of BH in order to avoid negative political consequences? This maybe the first time that earthquakes have made a great contribution to life in Los Angeles!