Metro Board Chairman Michael D. Antonovich just dropped the gavel on today's meeting of the Metro Board of Directors, the 13-member body that oversees Metro.
Administrative note: L.A. Councilman Tom LaBonge is serving on the Board today as a substitute for Councilman Jose Huizar.
As we wrote the other day, there are three big items on the docket that will determine how Metro spends billions of dollars: a contract to build the Crenshaw/LAX Line, a Measure R project acceleration plan and another item to determine how cost over-runs on several projects are paid for.
Please check out this post for more on those items.
Today's meeting is also the final one for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa after serving the past eight years on the Board. Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti takes his place next month.
And, today is also the last meeting for Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich as Board Chairman. The Supervisor remains on the Board while Board Member Diane DuBois becomes Chair next month.
In his comments to the board, Antonovich called for better transit connections to the region's airports — something he said should have been done decades ago — and for better schedule coordination between transit systems. He also called for a countywide ballot measure next year to help fund a regional transportation system but with more input from local Councils of Government on which projects to include fund.
DuBois praised Antonovich's efforts to improve safety across the system and said that she, too, intends to focus on that issue because there's nothing more important than the safety of everyone who uses the Metro system.
Items on the consent portion of the agenda were just approved by the Board. The Board will now begin to tackle the items for discussion. It's standing room only in the Board room with many public comments expected on several items.
Those wishing to listen to the meeting by phone call dial 213-922-6045.
Categories: Projects
I agree. We all want better coordination and shorter transfer times, but we can’t keep throwing tax dollars at something by guesstimating.
When Metro starts latching the gates on the rest of the Red and Purple Lines, can you guys just latch them up on exit too? It’s not like this TAP-in and TAP-out concept is something that’s completely alien either. Every other successful major city with excellent public transit does this because they understand the importance of data.
C’mon, stop wasting time and money. Just do it at the same time! If you’re gonna latch the gates on entry, it should cost nothing to latch the gates on exit at the same time anyway. It’s like a two-for-one deal. And bam, you start getting instantaneous data collection today to start helping you coordinate everything immediately. Sheesh, get in with the times man. You guys do everything too slow and too inefficient. What are we paying you guys for!?
I’m all for Antonovich’s plan for “for better schedule coordination between transit systems,” but realistically speaking, this is not possible without some form of TAP out data collection and analysis which we currently do not do.
You need latched gates on both entry and exit to do TAP in and TAP out.
TAP in and TAP out then provides the crucial data which allows the transit agency to collect and analyze massive amount of transit ridership data to see where the transit riders are getting on and getting off at which particular times of day or particular special events.
How do transit riders get to Staples Center? Where do they come from? You can’t tell anything with only a TAP-in process. because TAP in only provides data where people board, not where they get off. You need both entry and exit data to make this analysis work.
This is especially true for major transfer points, from bus to bus, rail to rail, and everything in between across all agencies that use TAP. This is why the most excellent transit agencies in the world like Japan and the UK has a TAP out – it’s not only to enforce collection of fares, but also to collect and analyze massive amount of data to coordinate their transfers better.
You want better transfers? Great. But we’re going to need a TAP out process to collect data to do so. If Metro is serious about following Antonovich’s proposal they need to start doing TAP out, not just as a means to fight fare evasion, but also as a process of data collection and analysis.
I know its only 2013, but is there any plans to make these meetings available via any other form of transmission apart from the telephone? I hear the kids do this thing called “livestream”, and a few years back an outfit in Seattle called Progressive Networks had this thing called “RealPlayer”. Maybe Metro could look into it for us?