A fight on the Expo Line, Chapter 2

I posted yesterday about the ongoing dispute involving the Expo Line light rail that is under construction from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City. Yesterday’s post looked at the controversy from the point of view of Damien Goodmon, who is heading a group called Citizens’ Campaign to Fix the Expo Line.

The gist of it is that Goodmon wants to see the light rail line put underground as it travels through South Los Angeles for safety reasons. He says that at-grade crossings will be unsafe and put residents at risk, particularly near two schools that sit next to the tracks, which run along Exposition Boulevard. Above is a drawing of the proposed crossing outside Dorsey High School.

Goodmon notes that 90 people have been struck and killed by the Blue Line since it opened in 1990 and connected Long Beach and L.A. The Blue Line runs up the middle of some streets and also features numerous at-grade crossings.

On Tuesday, I interviewed Rick Thorpe, who is the chief executive of the Expo Line Construction Authority, the public agency that is building the $863-million line. Thorpe said that he’s been building transit systems for 30 years (which included the Gold Line to Pasadena) and that the current Expo Line project is the toughest of them all due to rising construction costs, the shortage of transit funding and the controversy involving the South L.A. crossings.

Thorpe also took me just across the 1st Street bridge over the Los Angeles River to the site of a new high school that is under construction. Thorpe is clearly exasperated that the LAUSD board has passed a resolution that the Expo Line should forgo at-grade crossings. Why?

The new LAUSD school, shown below, sits next to the tracks for the east side extension of the Gold Line that’s under construction. That train runs right up the middle of 1st Street, maybe 30 feet from the new school. "Talk about being close to a school," Thorpe said. "But for pedestrians, it will be just like getting across a busy street. The train won’t be running any faster than automobiles."

There is a crosswalk across the tracks and Thorpe said that pedestrians will be guided by both pedestrian signals and a sign that will warn when a train is coming. As it happens, a station is next to the school.

We then drove a few minutes east to the site of another school, the Ramona Opportunity High School. The Gold Line tracks wrap around two sides of the school on both Indiana and 3rd Place and there is a new station on Indiana. To reach the platform in the middle of the tracks, students will use a crosswalk to get across the tracks.

Again, Thorpe maintained that it is safe -- as long as students and other pedestrians don’t jaywalk. I asked him what about students who are wearing headphones. A train is, after all, much bigger than a car. A car can swerve. A train can’t.

His point: People are going to have to exercise caution around the train just like people are careful around trains that run on or along streets in many cities around the world. "This is an urban environment, and you have to be paying attention to what you’re doing," Thorpe said. "You have a better chance of getting run over by a car or truck than by a train."

As for Goodmon, Thorpe praised him as both "tenacious" and "very intelligent." But he criticized him for stirring up the community with facts that he said are false. He took particular umbrage at Goodmon’s assertion that the train line spent money to make crossings safer near wealthy USC and Culver City, but not South L.A.

"Talk about environmental justice," Thorpe said. "Why should South L.A. get anything better than what they’re getting in East L.A.?" He also pointed to the numerous at-grade crossings along the L.A. to Pasadena line, including one near Blair High School in Pasadena.

At USC, Thorpe said that while the train will travel under Figueroa in a tunnel, all three stations near the school will be at street level and students will cross tracks using crosswalks. In Culver City, Thorpe said that the station will be elevated to cross busy Washington Boulevard and perhaps Venice Boulevard, if the line is extended in that direction.

As for comparisons with the Blue Line, Thorpe argued that it was built two decades ago and didn’t include many of the safety features incorporated on later lines.

He also rejected Goodmon’s estimate that it would cost no more than $300 million to put the train underground in South L.A., saying it would cost at least $100 million just to put it under Farmdale Avenue at Dorsey High School -- a problematic place because an underground stormwater drain would have to be moved.

Goodmon has argued that the Construction Authority, in its applications to the state Public Utilities Commission, has asked to run trains at speeds up to 55 mph near the school. Thorpe said that the request was in the application, but the authority has offered to slow trains to 10 mph near the school and post a police officer on either side of the track both before and after school.

At the least, it’s pretty clear that there’s a stalemate for the time being between the authority and Goodmon. The PUC will make the call in November. Thorpe said that the delay has already put one of the project’s contractors two months behind schedule, but that if he gets a favorable ruling the line could still potentially open by the end of 2010. If the project must build over- or under-crossings, he said the line would likely be delayed at least two years, presuming money could be found to build those structures.

Finally, I asked Thorpe about the issue of speed. Goodmon argues that if the region is going to spend gobs of money on a project that is intended to last many decades, it’s best to do it right the first time – and get the maximum return in the form of speed and ridership. Thorpe said that in an ideal world he can understand that point of view, but transit funding these days is hardly ideal.

"If as a country we ever decided to invest like Europe does in infrastructure, then yeah, we can do all these things as subways," Thorpe said. "But our country has never done anything like that.

"My feeling is that it doesn’t get any cheaper" to wait to build rail lines, he added. “You can come back and retrofit the lines later. The speed of the trains for now is locked in. What are we projecting the freeways to do? The longer we go [in terms of time], the faster the train gets."

I’ve tried to lay out both sides of the dispute. In coming days, I’ll be looking at some of the politics involved here, as well as the escalating dispute over the second phase of the line and how that is impacting the first phase.

In the meantime, please make liberal use of the attached comment board. Those boards are what make these blogs lively and interesting.

--Steve Hymon

Drawing: Expo Line Construction Authority

Photo: Steve Hymon/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[richard schumacher]

LRT is less dangerous than a busy street. Cars may swerve to avoid jaywalkers but they can also swerve off the street and onto the sidewalk. At least with a train the pedestrian's fate is in their own hands.

Keep the pedestrian crossings in the open air, and don't bother with a pedestrian underpass. Unless it is constantly patrolled the thing would quickly become an unlighted bathroom.

[David Bradley in SoPas]

Mr Goodmon,

It is quite possible for two intelligent beings can come to different conclusions based on the same information.

With that being said it still didn't answer my question of; How would a subway or trench as you've suggested for Expo LRT make any bit a difference if an auto accident were to occur with pedestrians leaving a subway station with both vehicles skidding towards the waiting pedestrians at the station entrance? Or let's take it with a different approach, What difference would it make if two vehicles were to collide at a traffic interesection and both vehicles skid towards the waiting pedestrians?

[Madam_S]

By the way, if we have to do something, why not do pedestrian tunnels? They would protect people who can't look out for themselves (?), and would be much easier and cheaper to build, not like the $300 million that posters here are discussing. Do they think that an extra half-billion is going to fall out of the sky? Trains are no more dangerous (I think less) than cars. The drivers are professionals, and the tracks show you exactly where they're going!

And there's a reason why monorails are a sideshow all over the world. They are slow and ugly, and the stations in the air suck! Even transit-crazy Japan only built a couple of them, and they're not popular. We also have to think about connecting to other, conventional lines, sharing rolling stock, etc. Monorail is a distraction.

[Madam_S]

Have we Americans become so stupid that we don't know how to get out of the way when a train is coming? This could be the best education for the kids at those schools! My kid crossed a grade-crossing every day by himself in Japan when he was in 1st grade, and in LA we can't trust high school kids to do it? Give me a break! We can't wait 5 or 10 more years to get a train to Century City and Santa Monica! Do you people really like driving (car-crawling) so much? Of course, I think subway to the sea should be our first priority, but who knows when that can be done, and Expo is ready to go. And don't worry about development near the tracks, it will come.

[Damien Goodmon]

David:

My view is systemic, while if I may, it appears yours is focused solely on the tracks.

Infrastructure and alert systems are only one component. Whether they work or not determines the accident and fatality rate, and that's predicated on behavioral factors and the conditions under which the infrastructure and alert system are imposed.

Again, these things are specified in MTA's own study, which I linked to below, and can be verified by taking a comparative analysis of the Blue Line accident rate to the accident rates of other light rail systems in other areas that have far less accidents and deaths, but the same roadway geometry and EVEN FEWER safety mitigation measures and alert systems.

But even just looking at the roadway at Farmdale, traffic at the intersection is coming and going in 6 different directions, with a crossing to the north is just 500 feet away.

I suggest you read pages 7 - 17 of the Reply Brief available at www.FixExpo.org that was written by me to get just a glimpse of how these conditional things are evaluated by other authorities. You'll see safety evaluations that consider not just crossing and roadway geometry, but the things we have the common sense to know to be true: semi-truck traffic poses a different challenge than car traffic, teenagers/youths respond different to safety mitigation measures than adults, higher traffic volume increases the number of risk-taking motorists, etc. etc. etc.

And the soundwalls are requested by the community to mitigate the noise - an adverse impact of running at-grade and elevated. (By the way there are no soundwalls protecting the properties north of the tracks, and there was no sound wall proposed in the EIR for the Dorsey HS campus despite classrooms being just 30 feet from the tracks). Like the safety questions you pose, there's this expectation on your part for the community to choose between the lesser of two evils. Your statement seems to be: "choose between blight or significant noise." Do you not understand how people could want both mitigated?

And David in response to your constant use of "non-fatal," for most people, being placed in critical condition is as unacceptable as being killed. And for most people being killed or placed in critical condition walking across the tracks is as unacceptable as people being killed or placed in critical condition driving across them.

And I think everyone understands how a subway or trench eliminates the safety hazards at Farmdale and other crossings presented by the at-grade crossing. Accidents with cars don't typically result in cars being dragged hundreds of feet, like they do with 225-ton light rail vehicles, and cars have the ability to swerve to avoid accidents.

David you said:
"On the Gold Line with the same at-grade pedestrian infrastructure through Highland Park zero fatalites. However, none of these features exist on the Blue Line street running portion in Downtown Los Angeles, just like the study has suggested they do, per the link you provided."

Again this is a great example of you focusing on the infrastructure and not the actual conditions in which it operates. The 0.8 mile section of the Gold Line, the only section without grade separation or crossing gates, and is incidentally where a near majority of all of the accidents on the Gold Line have occurred, is in a highly residential portion with low-to-no traffic and the trains speeds reduced to 15-20 mph. To compare that to the Washington Blvd section of the Blue Line, which is down a busy street with busy cross streets with the trains operating much faster (35 mph) and with much greater frequency (23-24 times per hour during peak hour) is like pointing to a "STOP" sign that works well in a highly-residential intersection and suggesting the same is adequate for the intersection of Wilshire/Westwood.

And yes, much of the recommended signage does exist in the Washington Blvd portion, and there is a certain point where too much signage becomes a problem, but that's not the reason Washington Blvd has much more pedestrian and vehicular deaths than Highland Park or the median running portion in Long Beach, where there is for the most part a buffer between tracks at most intersections.

Again, if the signage alone were the difference, why then do light rail lines in other cities with fewer mitigations measures, less accident prone and deadly? It's the conditions - it's the social behaviors.

[David Bradley]

"All of those walls and fences you want built add significantly to the costs in construction and maintenance. since they walls will become magnets for Taggers and will have to be restored frequently. Plus the Walls will most likely depreciate land values of properties near the line, which would not be good for the community. All this wasting of money in the future of the line could be prevented if it is put underground."

Mattp, all of the money wasting could really be avoided if Expo is built safely and properly as designed without the obssively high walls that the COMMUNITY wanted.

[David Bradley]

Mr. Goodman,

With all that you've stated on that reply, it still doesn't make sense how Farmdale is a complicated crossing. It's a street that comes perpendicular to the tracks, it's not at any odd angles like Washington/National or even the Mission Station or Avenue 60/Figueroa crossing on the Gold Line.

In addition you've mentioned the Blue Line on the Washington Blvd portion. I took a ride on the Blue Line and Gold Line this past weekend and I noticed that on the Long Beach Blvd 35 mph street running portion, the signage are well luminated with active flashing signs, there is plenty of pedestrian queing space at the rail crossings and there have been very few non-fatal pedestrian incidents in it's near 20 year history there.

On the Gold Line with the same at-grade pedestrian infrastructure through Highland Park zero fatalites. However, none of these features exist on the Blue Line street running portion in Downtown Los Angeles, just like the study has suggested they do, per the link you provided. So maybe it has more to do with the city of LA and Metro being cheap and not providing those active signage warnings for pedestrians on Washington Blvd.

So the question now becomes, what are you bargaining for? Is it to ensure that these added flashing signage and pedestrian treatments are provided so that crossings are protected for pedestrians from the trains?Are you more concerned with the drivers crashing into the train or into another driver that would effect the pedestrians waiting at the crossing light as you stated about the pedestrian crossing at Farmdale? How would a subway or trench as you've suggested make any bit a difference, if an auto accident were to occur with pedestrians leaving a subway station with both vehicles skidding towards the waiting pedestrians?

[Damien Goodmon]

David:

Of the 27 at-grade crossings on the Expo Line only 6 have crossing gates. The rest are median and side street running like the Flower Street and Washington Blvd sections of the Blue Line, where the bulk of the vehicular accidents and increase in the number of pedestrian deaths and accidents have been occurring.

There are no crossing gates at Crenshaw, nor on Expo east of Arlington, including the major intersections of Adams/Flower, Jefferson/Flower, Vermont/Exposition, Normandie/Exposition, and Western/Exposition (where Foshay Learning Center is located)

Additionally, 4-quad gates are a relatively new addition to rail transit. Most of the light rail systems in existance that travel at similarly high speeds as the Blue don't have them (or if they do they were recently added), nor do they have pedestrian swing gates, yet they kill a tiny fraction of the number of the people.

To understand how deadly and accident prone the line is:
-One must compile the number of deaths among the 7 largest light rail SYSTEMS in the country, to equal the same number of deaths on the lone 22-mile long Blue Line in the same span.
-There are years when the one line has more accidents than the entire light rail systems of other cities.

The cause of the Blue Line's high accident and fatality rates are the conditions of the environment in which the train operates coupled with constraints of the system, which were documented in the 1998 MTA study: http://fixexpo.blogspot.com/2007/09/booz-allen-hamilton-study.html

The conditions and constrains are greater on the Expo Line corridor.

Additionally:
-Even the less than safe Gold Line has had pedestrian accidents.
-The volume and complexities of the Farmdale crossing are like nothing on the Gold Line.
-The close proximity of the holding pens and school to the crossing make a train-vehicle accident just as dangerous to pedestrians as being hit by the train itself.
-The CPUC and Metro are highly scrutinized for conducting inadequate accident investigations, best illustrated by their determination that a much greater percentage of accidents in this state are the result of suicides, in comparison to other states.

[Jerard]

"New designs incorporate emergency walkways and switches within the right of way."

I've seen those monorail switches and they create a physically imposing shadow over the street surface and they make a lot of noise.

Perhaps LRT should have emergency evacution systems like monorails do actually they do, on an elevated LRT system that bulky structure doubles as the evaculation area for passengers to quickly and safely escape a LRT

"A woman was hit by a subway train today and the third rail had to be de-energized to remove the body. The subway system was down for several hours."

That's a mistruth, it was only delayed for tops 20-30 minutes because the steel wheels systems with simple track crossovers and switches allowed the other trains in either direction to go around the accident with minimal delay.

I suppose with an elevated Monorail if a person gets hit by the train off the platform they would freefall off of the track and no police investigation would be neccessary without suspending any operations because the police reliazed, 'Oh they were hit by the Monorail. We don't need to do an investigation to see if in fact this was a suicide or an accident. I guess the police work would need to take a backseat to the unrealistic 55,000 person per hour carrying capacity of the monorail.'

I also suppose with a monorail, they would still have to shut down power since the beam is carrying the electrical power and that body might rest on that beam. I can also suppose with the Monorails that they would easily switch to another track and go around an incident like that, like the subway did!

An LRT in a grade separated environment if that person was hit, they would have to remove the body but not shut down the power because the power source is above the train.

[Jerard]

"You may have missed or chosen to disregard some of my points."

You had zero points to make. How is it that I'm disregarding something by using how Monorails are done in other locations, did you bother to read that portion and how they are applied and function.

"The monorail I described is designed to carry up to 55,000 people per hour. Most of the existing Light Rail systems don't carry that many in a week. The monorail system costs 50% to 75% LESS than LRT. It does not need longer cars or stations and does not need massive beams."

Is there a mathemitician in the audience? For you to create the type of speeds, capacity and size for a monorail system to move 55,000 people an hour, the Monorail train needs to be at least 600' long or have 3 or 4 beams/rails to occupy a two minute headway in one direction. A two minute headway on a small vehicle is realistically impossible.

Brian, I would love for you to go to any Transportation Systems planner around the world and explain to him or her how a small vehicle footprint that your suggesting on a 2 minute headway can carry 55,000 people in an hour. The tops that a design like that would carry is 10-12,000 per hour with that headway. You might be able to get that 55,000 number if the passengers inside the smaller Monorail cars are packed like sardines.

If that were the case we would have build the subway with much smaller platforms, Lord knows the politicos would love to have that work out. Better still we could build a track guided elevated electric busway like it was done in Sao Paulo Brazil, that takes the Monorail concept of horizontal stability which reduces the need for steering and utilize the existing bus fleet and just build a network of these systems throughout Los Angeles.

"Monorail designs have the small motors and wheels contained within the streamlined cars. They are quieter than freeway traffic, let alone the screaming of steel wheels on steel rails associated with elevated LRT or the warning horns required for surface rail."

You've neglected the key point I mentioned which is the friction between the rubber tires and concrete beam suspended in the air. At low speed applications, they are quiet, the monorail in Downtown Disney in Anaheim is a perfect example, but as the speed increases (you were refering to a 40-80 mph system) so does the noise. I never implied that LRT was quieter, it makes noise, I understand that. My comment is on the claim that a high speed elevated Monorail would work in a low rise residential setting with that kind of speed will be quieter.

Since there have been no Monorail design that works in the residential that was being mentioned for Expo. If the residential you are refering too is a dense mid to high rise urban residential setting then that may work just fine.

Another point that I see very little research or analysis done on is how the size of these motors and the speed they can go are in direct correlation. Smaller motors generally mean a slower speed or slower acceleration. The smallest the motors could be used for the speed and capacity and reliablity you are looking for are Linear induction motors that create a mini maglev operation over the existing tracks. I don't know how the rubber tires could function with these motors because the rubber would suck some of the extra power away.

[Brian C. Brooks]

Jared, you may have missed or chosen to disregard some of my points.

The monorail I described is designed to carry up to 55,000 people per hour. Most of the existing Light Rail systems don't carry that many in a week. The monorail system costs 50% to 75% LESS than LRT. It does not need longer cars or stations and does not need massive beams.

Monorail designs have the small motors and wheels contained within the streamlined cars. They are quieter than freeway traffic, let alone the screaming of steel wheels on steel rails associated with elevated LRT or the warning horns required for surface rail.

New designs incorporate emergency walkways and switches within the right of way. Several people were injured recently jumping from a Gold Line train traveling at 20 mph that hit a stalled car and had a fire. Perhaps
LRT should have emergency evacution systems like monorails do. A woman was hit by a subway train today and the third rail had to be de-energized to remove the body. The subway system was down for several hours.

In my analysis, monorail is superior to subway, surface rail and elevated LRT. I often wonder why some people seem to be violently opposed to allowing an initial monorail system to demonstrate the truth of that belief.

A monorail Expo line could go to the Santa Monica Pier with spur routes to Marina Del Rey and LAX for less "public revenue" than the LRT estimated cost. I say give the people a choice, Build it and they will come. I also say that monorail system will not hit a child, pedestrian, or automobile. Why not monorail?

At Your Service,
Brian C. Brooks

[Jerard]

"We need transit systems that can run at 30-80 mph and only have to slow down to stop at stations. We do not need to hear it a mile away or to hear warning horns at every cross street. Monorails can run as often as every two minutes without blocking traffic. The trains would then be one to two miles apart. The shadow is miniscule and the stations do not need to be blocks long. Self-propelled, walk-through cars allow stations shorter than the rail platforms now in use."

I agree with the need for fast efficient systems but with Monorails the problem is capacity even if the trains you require operate at 2 minute interviews that would be only 50% of the total capacity carried by an at-grade LRT of a 3 car LRV at 5 minute intervals while being at least 50% more expensive.

Of course we could build longer cars and longer stations like Epcot Center and the Monorails in Japan but that would now require a much thicker beam and wider cars and a limited speed through residential areas since a rubber tired monorail going higher than 35 mph creates as much noise as a busy freeway, increase the speed of the rubber tires means you increase the sound of the friction between the Rubber and the concrete beam.

That is why the fastest sections of the Epcot Center and Japan Monorails are through forest grove of trees or around a body of water and not in an habitable area because of the noise.

And we haven't even discussed operational impacts if this piece of transit infrastructure needs track switches for special operations for when a train breaks down on the beam or trains that need to run as short line on the busier section of the corridor. The track switches for monorails are big, noisy and creates more of a shadow on the streetscape below in order to fit the flexible track.

Let's not forget the emergency walkways and soon the elegant solution looks a lot like an elevated LRT with the reduced crossing impacts and greater carrying capacity for the same costs. Which one in your analysis when the facts are presented becomes the better solution.

[Brian C. Brooks]

Several of you made comments related to my original posting on June 5th. I would like to respond and to assure you my mispellings were typographical and not educational errors.

We do need to invest in infrastructure now. But building systems that have been shown not to work in the past should be discarded. My flood control and right of way experience has convinced me of the value of our existing assets.

The Expo alignment is an excellent example. But the tracks themselves were abandoned with good cause. They do not work with the existing traffic and they are intrusive. It is not NIMBYism to wish for peace and quiet at our homes.

A subway would be terribly intrusive during construction (many firms went out of business during the construction of the Red Line) and less so afterward. Underground channels cannot be taken back up or around, they must continue to flow at a down-grade toward the sea. The underground gas hazards are significant. But the biggest obstacles to a subway should be recognized as the astronomic costs and lengthy construction time. The estimated $7 Billion dollar cost and ten to twenty year timeline for construction should eliminate this option. This is more than ten to fifteen times the cost per mile of monorail. Monorails can also have very low operating costs. I have been told that the cost of operating the existing rail transit systems in Los Angeles County is higher than the cost of carrying the same number of people in Limos.

Buses will continue to be necessary in any case, but their operation and maintenance costs are also very high. Your government pays ever-growing subsidies to cover these costs, but they use your money. It is important that you remember government revenue is spelled TAX.

Once we realize we need to look outside of the box for a solution, monorail should be considered. Monorail systems carry millions of people daily in Asia and they have never killed a passenger. One system has carried over a billion passengers without a breakdown. The Disneyland monorail technology is not advanced enough for our needs, but it has carried millions and does show that they do not intrude on our traffic, pedestrians, or our enjoyment of outdoor activities.

New technology monorails are self-propelled, environmentally clean, silent, and swift. The height above ground of the rails (which are about the size of the center dividers on freeways) of about thirty feet is not intrusive. Many two story homes or buildings are taller. The potential monorail routes along flood channels and railroads tend to be at the lowest elevations, not on ridgelines. A four-foot diameter pole every 100 feet or so is about as intrusive as a utility pole system. In Asia, the area beneath monorails is used for quiet garden parks, schools, and child care facilities as well as for traffic and businesses.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, a three-line (inbound, outbound, and express) monorail system within existing right of way could be implemented for under $40 Million per mile. The existing systems are being constructed at costs exceeding $150 Million per mile. The $100 Billion per mile Mr. Clarke would make monorails a relative bargain.

Newer (maglev) technology may be developed in the next ten to twenty years but our need is for traffic and congestion relief now. A 10% reduction in the number of commuters can double the average freeway speed. A single lane of freeway carries less than 2,000 vehicles per hour. A monorail system can carry up to 55,000 passenger per hour.

This is Southern California. We do not have New York winters. We like to be (and see) outside. We need transit systems that can run at 30-80 mph and only have to slow down to stop at stations. We do not need to hear it a mile away or to hear warning horns at every cross street. Monorails can run as often as every two minutes without blocking traffic. The trains would then be one to two miles apart. The shadow is miniscule and the stations do not need to be blocks long. Self-propelled, walk-through cars allow stations shorter than the rail platforms now in use.

I would like to respectfully suggest that my belief in monorail as the elagant solution is not romanticized. It is based on extensive experience, education and effort. If it is obvious that you don't want monorail I would respectfully ask why not? No system can be invisible, buried is not better. Swift, silent,and sure is better.

Thank you for allowing the extensive comment.
At Your Service,
Brian C. Brooks
brianc.brooks@verizon.net

[David Bradley]

"Per MTA's own Blue Line Accident reporting, the count was 28 deaths and 172 accidents in the 5 years from 2002-2007. There were a few more deaths and over a couple dozen accidents since July 2007 as I'm sure you know."

That is because you're adding the Auto accidents. If this case is based upon the pedestrian safety of the proposed Light Rail Line at two schools we have to look at the Gold Line for comparison because that is the way it is currently being designed.

The Gold Line with Quad gates at the vehicle crossings, ped gates, large pedestrian waiting zones, active flashing signage. Most of the things that the Blue Line at the 55mph section doesn't have, while the Gold Line and other LRT lines across the country and around the world has all of these and have ZERO pedestrian fatalities. It's the car drivers who are getting into most of the accidents.

[Damien Goodmon]

Matthew H:

I find it interesting that you would post those statistics, despite the fact that you've been informed that you are using incorrect data in response to the email you sent me. Once again:

"Your numbers are not accurate. I don't have the numbers before me, but I suspect you may be only including pedestrian-train accidents/fatalities and not vehicle-train accidents/fatalities.

"Per MTA's own Blue Line Accident reporting, the count was 28 deaths and 172 accidents in the 5 years from 2002-2007. There were a few more deaths and over a couple dozen accidents since July 2007 as I'm sure you know.

"You should know, almost every other rail SYSTEM in the country takes a decade or more to kill the number of people killed by the lone Blue LINE in one year. There are problems, unique to the Blue Line, which were identified in MTA's '98 study. Expo Corridor has characteristics that are more intense than the Blue Line. There will be accidents and deaths over the 100 years of the project that would be prevented with grade separation, that will not occur in Culver City. Go to FixExpo.org for more information, and thank you for your email."

The source by the way is the "Summary of Metro Blue Line Train/Vehicle and Train/Pedestrian Accidents," which is reported quarterly by MTA.

[Matthew]

Oil sits at $138 a barrel at closing on June 6, 2008. Air and water pollution from vehicles continue to grow, leadng to unhealthy air; and oceans turning acidic and dead zones (no oxygen) from carbon gases. Global warming is here and moving forward.

10mph for some stretches of the Expo line, if needed to ensure the safety of students and everyone else, is a small price to pay considering the alternatives listed above.

[Matthew H]

In regard to the number of incidents with pedestrians on the Blue Line, including deaths, the following is from the California Public Utilities Commission, the agency authorized to control rail and street crossings.

Statistics for the LACMTA Blue Line from July 2002 to April 2008 are as follows:

BlueLine incidents, Train vs. PED (current as of 4/08)

Train and PED

Total # of incidents 58

Total # of fatalities (less suicide) 14

Suicides 9

[Damien Goodmon]

Steve you have the wrong picture up there. That's of the street closure and pedestrian bridge option, which is not what the Expo Authority proposes. They propose an at-grade crossing.

You know most people read what Thorpe wrote and see, he's no where near as dismissive of the issues being raised as one would expect. Some have even gone as far as saying he's agreeing with our point.

I see the the same voices here, so I'm going to be brief (for me :-)) and not waste much of my valuable time addressing people who under no possible circumstances would ever hear any argument or proposition that impedes this line getting to the Westside as quickly as possible, safety, community, transportation engineering and logic be damned!

Just to clear up a few facts:
-A fight at the crossing is but one of multiple scenarios that have been laid out over the net by myself and others. Its unfortunate people think a person that's "very intelligent" person (thank you Rick :-)) could spend 45 mins talking to an interviewer at the crossing and only possibly come up with one scenario.
-There are problems with slowing it down to 10 mph, which I'm none to interested in stating here considering we have a court case coming up. I will say that the idea that it would only lose 20 seconds is very inaccurate. And Matt is completely right, with every accident and death people and oversight agencies will justifiably argue for the line to be slowed down.
-The request is for a trench OR TUNNEL with open cut stations (like Memorial Park) from just west to Figueroa to La Brea (a distance of 4 miles) not the entire line. Being that I have actually looked at the utilities and know the real cost of going underground in putting together the Get LA Moving plan (www.GetLAMoving.com) I know the tunnel may be the cheaper option. This of course is feasible, but it takes more time and $245-305 million more dollars, and those are costs extrapolated from the 2 mile tunnel on the Eastside Gold Line extension by engineers who helped build the Red Line. For those that say $245-305 million is too much, the Expo Line budget in September '07 was 640 million. Today it's $862 million. $218 of that additional $222 million came from the same source we've been requesting to towards grade separations in Phase 1: Proposition 1B, yet not a penny has been allotted for those purposes despite the fact we've been asking for the money since the day the bond was passed. And it would behoove "transit advocates" to begin talking about long-term economic cost ("life cycle costs") and not just upfront capital costs.
-As I've said repeatedly, the environmental racism issue is specific to Expo Line Phase 1 - not the system as a whole. I'd suggest that people actually educate themselves about how the line will impact the one majority Caucasian residential community along the alignment west of La Cienega versus the majority-minority and poor communities along the alignment. Not that I'd expect it to change the opinion of some in this crowd. The same people commenting here have been told about the discrepancies - best illuminated by fact that more $$$ is being spent in the 1 mile between La Cienega and Robertson (1 mile) than in the 4 miles between Vermont and La Brea. Of course, many see no problem with that.

I must however point out that now Darrelll Clarke and Karen Leonard are claiming that Culver City area in question is majority-minority, thus they didn't get special treatment. As everyone knows the argument is laughable, the area was majority white when the EIR was certified in 2005, when the environmental justice complaint was originally sent and it is majority white today. But this is the same crowd that claims at-grade rail is just as safe as grade separated rail, and Balloona Creek is in South LA, so I'm not the least bit surprised. Nonetheless, I'm pleased to see them finally admit that the line operates differently west of La Cienega than it does in the area of controversy (Trousdale to La Brea).

What I find interesting, is that any person who possibly questions the engineering of a line is a NIMBY. This among all other reasons is why I am the lead spokesman for this issue. If a person with as much transportation knowledge and advocacy like myself is a NIMBY I think it proves the bigger point that's been made that a lot of so-called transit advocates are not about transit at all, they're instead about projects. We can agree to disagree, but the fact that I'm using many of the same arguments presented by these very people in the past and suddenly they're NIMBYism is telling. Fix Expo is not asking for it not to be in our backyard. Quite the reverse. We're asking for it to be in our backyard, but that it perform the same way through our residential community, pose the same health and safety risk and have the same impacts as it will through Culver City. We've identified and advocated for additional funding for the request and offered our organization support to all efforts to obtain the additional funding.

Incidentally, while I am the spokesman, I love that the effort to make this appear as a lone man in the way. I speak for far more than 1000 people. Fix Expo has collected 3000 petitions to date (over just 4 weekends) is composed of 18 homeowners associations, block clubs and community based organizations and has the support of the 3 impacted neighborhood councils, United Teachers Los Angeles, LAUSD Parent Collaborative, SCLC-LA, LAUSD Board of Education (at Farmdale) Board Member Marguerite LaMotte, former City Council Member Nate Holden, and at the Farmdale crossing US Congresswoman Diane Watson, Assembly Member Mike Davis and even the Expo Authority Board have admitted more can and should be done. They're all NIMBYs of course.

And who elected me? The good people of the Empowerment Congress West Area Neighborhood Development Council, which at 42,000 stakeholders has more people than the entire city of Culver City, and did so on the basis of both my regional advocacy efforts in putting together Get LA Moving, overall advocacy efforts on all things local, tenacity and intelligence. (Again, thank you Rick).

Incidentally, these people (who in one meeting come out in greater force than any transit advocacy organization in this region), would like to hear from you personally - yet I never see you guys show up - and when you do - you don't speak. I guess the anonymity of the internet emboldens people to say what they really want. I make it a point to sign my name to everything I say and will give the same argument to South LA as I will Santa Monica. Because ultimately, I believe we're right and I'm unashamed of arguing why from the prospective community, safety, traffic, environment, transit, long-term investment, etc. etc. etc.

If you want to read more go to www.FixExpo.org

[Hugo]

Mass transit sucks. I want to believe in it, but seriously, it's just bad. 10 mph through the school? Has anyone been on the Blue Line? it takes an hour to go from Downtown to Long Beach. By car, I can get there in 30 mins, if there is traffic, I get there in an hour and 10 minutes.

Why bother building these massive transit projects when the alternative only saves us ten minutes, but you have to share a seat (or stand), deal with crowds, get to the station ON TIME, etc. etc.

[GS]

You folks forget that traffic runs North to South in this town also. Lets see, a train every 5 mins and the way the lights are synced on the Westside;...mmm you think traffic is bad now, just you wait. Understand this project is being done on the cheap. Don't you think we should have a train from the airport first?

[Altadena]

God people in LA need to stop being idiots and stop trying to beat the train or whatever they keep doing when they get hit.

The Gold Line is painfully slow - and it' so unnecessary. People everywhere else in the world have figured out how to live with at-grade trains - why can't we? It is so sad that these local activists are making public transit even more impossible.

[Michael]

The Cheviot Hills Homeowner's Association claims that the proposed rail passing by the Overland Elementary School would be unsafe - HA! That school sits directly on Overland Avenue with THOUSANDS of cars passing by every hour - isn't THAT unsafe!?!?! Please...a train passing by a school once every 10 minutes isn't unsafe - it's wonderful! Also, just imagine the possibilities for the school to access the line and take field trips by train - what an incredible opportunity Overland Elementary will have - don't screw this up CHHA!!!!

[Rail for the Westside]

This is NIMBYism at its worst.

Damien Goodmon only chose to become a NIMBY so that he could show everyone not only the Cheviot Hills can be NIMBYs but also his minority community. This is absolute madness.

So much time has been spent to bring the Expo Line from a distance concept to be easily defeated by Cheviot Hills and similar Westside NIMBY neighborhoods into the current construction stage. The grassrooots advocates have been pushing this for 20 years and it was only a dream until recently.

And all of a sudden a radical neighborhood activist comes forward and asks for a billion-dollar trench through his neighborhood. He distorts all the facts available to him and makes insane statements such as the trench could be built for $75 million per mile. (The truth: It costs at least three to four times as much.) In order to accomplish his goal, he sides with the worst NIMBYs in business. And the worst of all, he tries to implant seeds of racial hatred in this town, by making outrageous environmental-racism claims.

How long will this madness continue? I sincerely hope not too long. We need these lines built now and built fast. Inflation drives up the construction costs with every month of delay.

[Scott Mercer]

Monorail ia not an "elegant solution."

It is a poor compromise.

It is merely a light rail on elevated structures, only with one rail instead of two. The cars are too small. In L.A., the cars will get way too hot in the summer. Monorails are hard to switch (switches are huge and expensive). Stations are a gigantic blot on the streetscape (huge and expensive...see Las Vegas).

Cost almost as much as a subway and carries far fewer. Many fewer companies manufacture the parts. Smaller trains mean more drivers, more salaries. Additional modalities will mean more money for training of mechanics, more stocking of different replacement parts, just more money.

Please people, forget about monorail.

[kint]

I think Goodmon et al's real issue is the noise - they think the line will be noisy. It's not about children safety, etc etc - they think it's the noise. Trust me, I've been to that fight at the Gold Line. But he's mistaken - the noise isn't bad.. the horns/bells are completely within acceptable limits of everyday traffic noises.

[Rail for the Westside]

Mattapoisett in LA said "Thorpe said that the request [55 mph] was in the application, but the authority has offered to slow trains to 10 mph near the school 10 MPH? I can ride my bike faster than that."

For crying out loud Mattapoisett in LA, it's 10 MPH only thorugh the Farmdale crossing. This will add only 20 seconds to the travel time, about eight seconds to slow down the train, four seconds to run it at low speed, and eight seconds to speed it back up.

Enough with these outrageous NIMBY claims! The Gold Line, even with the 15 MPH slow down through the entire Highland Park neighborhood (which the Expo Line won't even have), travels through the 14-mile-long route in 29 minutes!

[Paul]

If the train slows down to 10mph near schools, it will be worthless. The last thing L.A. needs is another line as slow as the blue line.

[Dan Wentzel]

"We of Light Rail for Cheviot have many supporters now, people who favor using the existing Right of Way and who favor fair application of the grade-crossing criteria all along the line, phase 1 and phase 2."

I am glad to hear there are light rail supporters in Cheviot Hills.

One of their fears is that rail will lower their property values. In every ciity with a world class transit system, being close to the system is a plus and adds to the value of nearby property.

[Bob in LA]

Beware the warnings of the Cheviot HIlls Homeowners' Association.

They are concerned that the light rail will pass too near to the Overland Ave. Elementary School -- a stellar, high performing school. They advocate that the rail be routed away from the now dormant right of way (used primarily as a toilet for Cheviot Hills dog walkers and the occasional homeless transient) and routed to Venice/Sepulveda Blvd....

....where it will pass right by the Charnock elementary school, a wretched, low-performing elementary school with a majority Lationo population.

Quite simply, it's a question of whose children the train places at risk...

[Darrell Clarke]

"Some in Santa Monica are looking for Expo at Grade Level. Those who are concerned with Cost not safety, reliability, and effectiveness."

Light rail in boulevard medians with signal priority performs well and fits the scale of neighborhoods in other cities. It's the model for the Eastside Gold Line and what the City of Santa Monica is seeking. Their new Land Use and Circulation Element Strategy Framework includes this explicit policy:

"D5.3 The City shall strongly encourage the Exposition light rail line to be at-grade in the Downtown and discourage the light rail above grade as this would negatively impact the quality and character of the street and Downtown. ("Santa Monica's Districts", page 3.4-12)"

--------

"If the NIMBY's don't want the Expo line, and continue to delay it, Mr. Thorpe, move the money where they do want it."

Expo Line supporters have shown we overwhelmingly do want the line! It's under construction because of popular support, and it will be finished.

--------

On monorails, the Las Vegas line cost around $100 million per mile. It would be substantially more now with inflation. And, as Kymberleigh Richards noted, Expo Line opponents don't want aerial rail.

For more monorail considerations -- with images -- see http://lavisions.blogspot.com/2008/05/wilshire-monorail2.html and its links to two earlier posts.

[Mattapoisett in LA]

"No, but it is gold plated to expect to build the whole thing underground. Santa Monica is seeking the line to be at grade level."

Some in Santa Monica are looking for Expo at Grade Level. Those who are concerned with Cost not safety, reliability, and effectiveness.
--------------

"No, Expo will be a popular, reliable alternative. And I don't mutter under my breath about NIMBYs. I'm angry enough now to shout it out loud."

I will do a big Mea Culpa if it is successful but I truly believe that Expo will be busy during rush Hour and empty all other times because @ 10 MPH most buses will go faster. Also consider adding the time for Phase 2 travel and think about a Light rail from Santa Monica which because of needed speed restrictions will take over an hour to downtown. Plus this ROW was designed in 1875 A lot has changed around the ROW since then and I'm not sure the MTA has fully taken it into consideration.
__________________

"Close off the Farmdale crossing and build a twenty-foot fence to prevent trespassing. Build a pedestrian bridge over the tracks. Whatever. But BUILD EXPO NOW!"

Agreed."

All of those walls and fences you want built add significantly to the costs in construction and maintenance. since they walls will become magnets for Taggers and will have to be restored frequently. Plus the Walls will most likely depreciate land values of properties near the line, which would not be good for the community. All this wasting of money in the future of the line could be prevented if it is put underground.

[Karen Leonard]

Damien keeps alleging that Culver City is being favored since the station there will not be at-grade. He is
quite wrong about Culver City's elected officials being the
determining factor. In fact, the Venice-Robertson intersection is (barely) in LA, but the aerial station there will certainly be in CulverCity so that's a minor point. But the reason for that one elevated station in Culver City is due to the application of the grade-crossing
criteria, as was the case for La Brea and La Cienega. The line otherwise runs at-grade in Culver City, and future light-rail lines there will probably do that as well, eg. on Culver Boulevard when an Expo-Green
line connector is built. Please see Darrell Clarke's rebuttal of Damien's false claims; it is no longer available on CityWatch but is copied at

http://friends4expo.org/citywatch.htm

And note that, in fact, consistent application of Metro's Grade Crossing Policy has resulted in twice the overpasses in (minority) Los Angeles (La
Brea and La Cienega-Jefferson) as in (minority*) Culver City (Washington-National). (*The neighborhoods north and south of National in Culver City are also majority-minority.)

Finally, note that all in Cheviot Hills are not NIMBYs. We of Light Rail for Cheviot have many supporters now, people who favor using the existing Right of Way and who favor fair application of the grade-crossing criteria all along the line, phase 1 and phase 2. We will find out this coming Monday, June 9, what the proposal is for grade-crossings at Overland and Westwood and others...

Karen Leonard, Co-Chair of Light Rail for Cheviot

[transit-rider]

After living and chocking on traffic and car fumes of the Westside for 20 yrs, I picked up my belongings and moved to Long Beach. I rode 8 miles on a bus each day from La Cienega to Downtown....one hour, door to door. I ride from Long Beach to Downtown on the Blue Line...25 miles, 40 mins. door to door. If the NIMBY's don't want the Expo line, and continue to delay it, Mr. Thorpe, move the money where they do want it. The Gold Line to Montclair folks are dying to have it. The Purple Line to the sea is desperate for it. Just as the Valley residents stopped the Red LIne in North Hollywood so many years ago (and do they now regret that!), let'm suffer in their own world of horrible traffic.

[Dan Wentzel]

"Is it Gold Plated to think that Public transportation should move people in a reasonable amount of time? "

No, but it is gold plated to expect to build the whole thing underground. Santa Monica is seeking the line to be at grade level. I do not believe the people who live along Phase I are less intelligent than the people who live along Phase 2.

--------------

"When No one takes the Expo Line except for a few fanatical transit advocates who mutter under their breath about NIMBYs, it will be considered a failure."

No, Expo will be a popular, reliable alternative. And I don't mutter under my breath about NIMBYs. I'm angry enough now to shout it out loud.

It's about time we had politicians and elected officials standing with the common good instead of grandstanding with the NIMBYs.

"Close off the Farmdale crossing and build a twenty-foot fence to prevent trespassing. Build a pedestrian bridge over the tracks. Whatever. But BUILD EXPO NOW!"

Agreed.

[Alek F]

It's purely astounding that - at those times of soaring gas prices, the times when we need Rail lines the MOST, and to be built ASAP, as fast as possible - there are those senseless groups and individuals who are trying to prevent construction... How ridiculous and outrageous!
And - yes, unfortunately in this city NIMBY'ism has way too much power. Those pathetic NIMBY's should have their mouth shut, and should be completely ignored, like they are in other countries!

[Kymberleigh Richards]

Monorails are not the answer. This is obvious to anyone who attended the most recent Westside Corridor public meetings.

They have the same passenger carrying capacity as a short light rail train, but with a longer length (so to carry the same passenger load as light rail would require an extremely long station platform). They require an overhead structure to hold the rails which is considerably more intrusive to a neighborhood's aesthetics than any other mode. In order to go through major intersections, a cross-beam support must be constructed for a block in each direction which will either eliminate the sidewalk or reduce it to a very narrow walking area. To construct a station at one of these intersections requires not only the cross-beam support but a structure that will cast a permanent shadow for a block or more over the street below, plus require the taking of adjacent property in order to construct the station access escalators/elevators/stairs.

Mr. Brooks appears to have a romanticized view of the monorail. I do not blame him for that, because I think everyone who has ever visited Disneyland has a soft spot in their hearts for them. But as a public transit mode in a region with the potential ridership that Los Angeles has, the monorail has no viable place.

[mattapoisett in LA]

Is it Gold Plated to think that Public transportation should move people in a reasonable amount of time? Above MTA's Rick "Thorpe said that the request [55 mph] was in the application, but the authority has offered to slow trains to 10 mph near the school " 10 MPH? I can ride my bike faster than that. And they will need to do this after the first few cars and or people get hit, like with the opening of the Orange line in the Valley. This will turn a reasonable trip from Culver City to DTLA [20-25 Minutes] into a trip that reasonable people will consider not taking because it takes too much time. [45-50 minutes or more] When No one takes the Expo Line except for a few fanatical transit advocates who mutter under their breath about NIMBYs, it will be considered a failure.

[Joel C]

Local NIMBYs have way too much power in this city. That's why nothing ever gets done here. That's why we're the only major world metropolis with a rail transit system so small.

This project has been on the books for over a decade. No more delays! Close off the Farmdale crossing and build a twenty-foot fence to prevent trespassing. Build a pedestrian bridge over the tracks. Whatever. But BUILD EXPO NOW!!!

[Bob Zwolinski]

Steve, thank you once again for another of your in-depth reports!
I’d sure like to know why that the East LA extension of the Gold line, being built at-grade, adjacent to schools and is being hailed as a great neighborhood improvement but in the mid-city area, having the Expo line being built next to Foshay & Dorsey is being cited as “Environmental Racism”. GIVE ME A BREAK! And now Goodman wants it in a trench? That will add about $150 to $200 million per mile to the cost of the project.
What really made me laugh was Goodman’s blurb in yesterday’s related blog about rival gangs at Dorsey potentially dukeing it out on the right-of-way when a train is coming.
Those gang members are going to have a real tough time trying to climb a 10 foot fence along the line just to get on the right-of-way just to duke it out with their rivals.
These NIMBYs are getting weirder with every new project!

[Dan W.]

I agree. I am so sick and tired of what NIMBYs have done to this city. The Purple Line (Wilshire subway to the sea) got delayed for 20 years because of NIMBYs.

The people MOST supportive of these unnecessary gold plated improvements intended to sabotage and bankrupt the Expo Line project at Phase 1 so it never gets to Phase 2 are the remaining delusional NIMBYs living in Cheviot Hills who still fantasize they are living in Sam Yorty's Los Angeles.

NIMBYs seem to have inexhaustable abilities to thwart public transit improvements.

Other cities around the world like Taipei, London, Singapore, Beijing, even Denver etc. are RAPIDLY expanding their transit systems yet we still have to fight the battles of the 1980s from people in denial about the irrevocable decline of the L.A. car culture.

NIMBYs have far too much power in this city.

[Brian C. Brooks]

Obviously all of these issues and 3/4th of these costs would have been eliminated by a fair consideration of monorail in the design phase. Mr. Goodman's choice of subway (even if physically feasible) would cost ten times what monorail would cost. Elevated grade crossings are "included at no extra charge" with monorail and the right of way below could be a riding and hiking route for most segments. Even now monorail would save taxpayer's money and allow construction to Santa Monica and speeds of sixty miles per hour at one-tenth the operational cost and less construction time.

Mr. Hymon, you and Mr. Goodman know this becuse we have discussed it. Do you not print it because it does not fit your plan? Monorail is the elegant solution and one the people would prefer if given all of the facts. I would be pleased to meet with you and discuss the issue.

[Jason]

Just build the line. Enough with the NIMBYs! We need to invest our infrastructure now. Or our economy will suffer and jobs will be lost. Why is South LA being so combative against a line that will help them?