The agendas and staff reports have been posted for the Metro Board’s committee meetings, which will be held Wednesday and Thursday at Metro HQ adjacent to Union Station.
The meetings are open to the public — sorry, no popcorn allowed — and are live-streamed and archived online if you can’t make it in person. See this page for committee meeting times, agendas, online staff reports and links to the live-streams and recordings.
If you’re new to the Metro game, the agency’s 13-member Board of Directors are the deciders of most important agency matters. Twelve of the 13 Board Members are elected officials and the other is an appointee of the Mayor of Los Angeles.
After the committees meet, the full Metro Board will gather for their monthly meeting on Thursday, March 28, at 9:30 a.m., also at the Metro mothership next to Union Station.
As I like to do for the full Board meetings, below is a quick roundup of some of the more interestingness the Board is scheduled to tackle this month:
•Here’s a 2019-20 budget development update — hey, wake up! — with a focus on project costs. Finance and Budget Committee, Wednesday, noon.
•Staff has some ideas about the parking of dockless bikes and scooters at Metro stations. Long-report-short: the idea is to give bike/scooter firms interested the chance to rent a parking space for a reasonable fee. Planning Committee, Wednesday, 2 p.m.
•The Board will consider advancing two concepts for the Vermont Avenue bus rapid transit project while receiving-and-filing a report on making the project a rail line. Gist of it: rail is beyond Metro’s current funding for the project and the bus rapid transit options can be built in a way that would not preclude rail in the future should the money become available. Staff report and here’s a blog post from last year on the project. Planning Committee, Wednesday, 2 p.m.
•There will be an oral report in the Operations, Safety and Customer Experience Committee (Thursday, 9 a.m.) on the New Blue project and the NextGen Bus Study to restructure Metro’s vast bus system. Here’s a presentation.
•How about free rides on Metro on Earth Day as the agency did last year? It’s up for consideration again. Why? As we’ve said many times on this blog, generally speaking taking transit instead of driving alone results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Operations, Safety and Customer Experience Committee, Thursday, 9 a.m.
•As is done every month, the Operations, Safety and Customer Experience Committee will get an update on crime and policing on the Metro system. Thursday, 9 a.m.
•The Construction Committee will get its regular monthly update on project progress. Thursday, 10:15 a.m.
•Here’s an update on the Gold Line 210 Barrier Replacement Project. The project aims to stop vehicles (especially big rigs) from having accidents on the freeway that result in the vehicles ending up in the Gold Line right-of-way (the train runs down the middle of the freeway from Pasadena to Arcadia). There have been 10 such accidents since the Gold Line opened in 2003. Construction Committee, Thursday, 10:15 a.m.
•There will be an oral report and presentation in the Executive Management Committee (Thursday, 11:30 a.m.) on Metro’s four bus rapid transit projects and a possible bus-only lane on Flower Street during the closures of the northern part of the Blue Line later this year.
Categories: Policy & Funding, Projects
Finally, “The Source” may have figured out that it is the Metro Board committees where most of the important, publicly accessible transit decision-making action occurs. Hence it is those Board committee agendas, etc., that most deserve public coverage by the Source–at least as much coverage for the transit-using public as the [relatively impotent and disinterested] regional service councils already have been receiving.
By the time most important agenda items reach the monthly Metro Board meeting, “the Fix is [usually] in.” In other words, allowing a 60-second comment, to Metro’s mostly ex-officio directors at a full Board meeting, by real (non-politically connected) members of the public that actually depends upon Metro for transit has become purely a pro-forma exercise in order for Metro to appear to comply with State law.
Now if only the Board Committees would have the consideration to allow a bit more time for individual public comments on issues of importance to actual Metro riders . . . . It is obvious that the rich and powerful (most of whom DO NOT ride Metro) who want to get some of Metro’s abundant “goodies” simply can flood Board meetings with enough employees/officers/directors etc. to get before the Board everything they want to say.
[Yes, I know it’s the Impossible Dream of actually facilitating participation by Metro riders in the process of governing Metro.]
While they are fixing the 210 Gold Line Barriers, why can’t we get some sound proofing type walls at Lake, Allen and Sierra Madrea Villa? The noise has gone on too long.
“…the “Golf” line right-of-way” lol
Hi Marvin —
Fixed! My excuse is a new keyboard 🙂
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source
you can delete this comment if you want – “Golf” should be “Gold” – in the 210 Freeway barrier thing. (But it passed spell-check!)