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Art of Transit:
Anaheim’s new transit hub set to open Saturday (Register)
The $185-million station — also known as ARTIC — will serve buses, Metrolink and Amtrak and replaces the old train depot in the parking lot of Angels Stadium. The new station is 1,000 feet from the old one and officials say they’ve been notifying passengers of the upcoming change. An open house is being held Monday.
Los Angeles makes unique play for 2024 Olympics (Associated Press via Daily News)
The AP takes a peek inside the Los Angeles area’s quiet pursuit of the 2024 Summer Olympics — and not surprisingly transit expansion is being emphasized. Downtown Los Angeles and a renovated Coliseum would play a big role in hosting events (Red/Purple Lines, Expo, Blue and Gold Lines), as would Santa Monica (future Expo Line) and the Rose Bowl (current Gold Line).
Here’s a recent ESPN article on cities around the world potentially interested in hosing the games. In the U.S., the list includes L.A., San Francisco, Boston and Washington D.C. Internationally, Paris and Berlin could be strong contenders. One semi-related note: the International Olympic Committee has had a tough time finding a host for the 2022 Winter Olympics, with Oslo recently pulling out, citing expensive demands from Olympic officials it didn’t want to deal with (supplying limos and travel lanes, etc.)
Central subway connection to Fisherman’s Wharf makes sense (S.F. Chronicle)
Architecture critic John King argues that the ongoing project to extend the Muni light rail line — via a subway tunnel — to Chinatown would be a lot more useful to riders if the line was extended to North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf. The ridership would almost certainly be there but funding, as always, would be a challenge.
Work on subway construction digs up ancient farm in Rome (Mass Transit)
The farm and an old irrigation basin thousands of years old were found about six stories below ground level. “Notable finds included a three-pronged iron pitchfork, storage baskets, leather fragments possibly from a farmhand’s glove or shoe, and traces carved into stone by a waterwheel’s repeated turning….Peach pits, presumably from the farm’s orchard, also were found. Peaches were still a novelty, first imported from the Middle East.”
Categories: Transportation Headlines
On extending the SF Central Subway all the way to Fishermen’s Wharf, I suspect that just getting it extended to a station in the hole where they dismantled the moles would be a challenge (and at least the tunnel already exists to there). I’m reminded of why the PM Cable Car stops at Bay & Taylor instead of, say, being extended a mere three blocks to Jefferson & Taylor. According to every reason I’ve ever heard, the only reason is that certain very wealthy people own storefronts along those three blocks of Taylor, catering primarily to tourists, and if the foot traffic were to dry up, they wouldn’t be able to charge nearly as much rent. As it is, it’s easy enough to transfer to an F-car at Powell & Market. (Or at least, no more difficult than transferring to a Crenshaw car at Expo and Crenshaw; at least transferring between the T and F lines, you wouldn’t be on an airport run, and so presumably wouldn’t be encumbered by some 80 pounds of luggage.)
(And NO, I could NOT resist being snarky about the Crenshaw line’s failure to replace the Flyaway Bus as a single-seat ride between downtown and LAX, much less between Union Station and LAX.)