Downtown connector meetings begin Thursday

One of the more intriguing mass transit projects that has been talked about for years --they usually require decades of talk before actually getting built -- is the downtown connector, also known as the regional connector. It's a line that would connect present and future light rail lines, the idea being to eliminate time-munching transfers.

For example, the connector would allow a train to run straight through from Long Beach to Pasadena, a trip that now requires a rider to go from the blue line to the subway to the Gold Line. Just as important, the connector would allow riders on any of the light rail lines to get closer to their downtown destinations instead of having to transfer to another line.

That's key because the Gold Line goes nowhere near the core of downtown, and the Blue Line and future Expo Line terminate at 7th and Flower, missing the northern and eastern swaths of downtown. When people complain that mass transit in L.A. kind of gets them near where they're going, this is what they're talking about.

The MTA is holding a pair of public meetings on the project this week to discuss two possible routes: one at street level, the other that would go underground. Eric Richardson at blogdowntown has been closely watching this project, as has Zach Behrens at LAist, who kindly converted the above map from Metro (aka the MTA) to a jpeg file and allowed Bottleneck to use it -- saving the Bottleneck many keystrokes. (Side note: why does Metro insist on putting all its maps and timetables in the annoying pdf format? Have you tried downloading a pdf timetable on your phone lately? This is a travesty!)

At the moment, Metro doesn't have any money to build the connector, but they're trying to get a lot of the studies completed in case the money arrives one day. Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase proposal in Los Angeles County, would provide $160 million for the connector. The Measure R expenditure plan also lists the connector as costing $1.3 billion and says it would be completed between 2023 and 2025. Gulp.

As blogdowntown reports, the subway alternative would cost more than the street level alternative (that's a map of possible routes from Metro). Presumably the street level line could be built more quickly than a subway, but street level also takes space on the street away from cars, a politically touchy notion here in the City of Angels Who Drive Everywhere, Including the Corner Market They Could Easily Reach on Foot.

Again, this is an early study that is only looking at alternatives. But the real action is often in these early studies. Once a route is chosen, Metro tends to stick with it, even if years later people begin asking "hey, why'd they choose that route?" The agency hopes to pick a route and then ask the Board of Directors later this year or in early 2009 to begin the environmental and engineering studies to prepare the line for construction.

As for the meeting locations:

Thursday, Oct. 16, noon to 1:30 pm
Los Angeles Central Library
630 W. 5th St
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 6:30 to 8 pm
Japanese American National Museum
369 E. 1st St
Los Angeles, CA 90012

-- Steve Hymon

maps: Metro

Comments

[Damon]

Ok, I think I understand a bit better now. It looks like the connector could be used for a BART-style system where the lines will be re-routed to share track.in certain areas

For example:

Blue: Long Beach to Pasadena
Gold: Pasadena to East LA
Expo: East LA to Westside

.. any any combination thereof

This seems perfect in that anybody coming from Pasadena, LB, the westside or East LA will have a direct connection to union station.

[Sameer]

Damon,

Yes, you're right, the plans currently propose that Long Beach trains would go through Little Tokyo and up into Union Station, continuing towards Pasadena. If you look at the conceptual map, you'll see the dotted blue line showing the possible extension of the Blue Line from Metro Center through the Downtown Connector and onto the Pasadena-bound Gold Line tracks. The Expo Line (black line and black dots) would also continue from Metro Center through the Downtown Connector to Little Tokyo, and then (according to the map), continue on the East LA-bound Gold Line tracks.

[Ken Alpern]

Yes, Damon, that is correct--the trains will go back and forth from the Expo/Blue to the Gold Lines, making them one coherent system.

Who knows? Perhaps we'll even see the Eastside Gold Line and the Expo Line become a singular light rail line with a unifying color...and same with the Pasadena and the Blue Line.

That's all beyond the point, Damon...the fact is our future connectivity of having situations of, say, a single trip from Santa Monica to Pasadena.

[Tom A.]

I don't even know if it would be physically possible (without major redevelopment along the route, anyway), but wouldn't it be cool to see the connector routed through the old Pacific Electric Subway Terminal at 4th and Hill? All six(?) platforms and spaces for five(?) tracks are still down there in the basement, which could allow specific platforms to be set aside for specific routes (Pasadena-Long Beach on Track 1, Expo-Eastside on Track 2, Long Beach-Eastside on Track 3, etc.). A pedestrian tunnel could also be added to connect to the Pershing Square Red/Purple Line station.

Oh well...

[Damon Tordini]

Maybe I'm not understanding this right. The way it looks to me, the Blue/Expo lines are just being extended to Little Tokyo, not passing through Union station at all.

Are you saying that the actual lines will be rerouted so that Blue goes all the way from Long Beach to Pasadena, through Union Station?

[Alan Fishel]

Leave to the MTA to set things up so there is no choice. With all of the surface alignments selected which did not include 1st which would have most likely been the best choice, the MTA selected the worst. Closing the Second St tunnel to auto traffic and not using 2nd St to Central as with subway alignment, but choosing the much slower and longer Temple St alignment must be MTA’s attempt to make the surface alignment to obnoxious that the subway alignment “must” be chosen.

If a surface route is to seriously be considered 1st St should be considered as well as some of the better of the original selections.

Incidentally my personal choice is the subway.

[Ken Alpern]

Damon, my understanding is that the trains will run through Little Tokyo on the way to the Downtown and Westside and Long Beach Expo/Blue Lines AND from the Eastside to Pasadena.

Yes, there will be some transferring at Little Tokyo, but most trains will probably go where the demand is, so that Union Station will see direct trains to and from Metro Center (i.e., the Blue and Expo Lines).

Similarly, because of demand, we'll probably see the majority of the Eastside Gold Line trains go directly to Downtown and Metro Center rather than be diverted to Union Station in order to benefit the majority of those who want the quickest west/east route possible.

So there will be a few transfers at Little Tokyo, as there must always be at any rail wye, but the demand for the routes that most riders want to go will dictate which nontransferring trains will go where.

Even those who have to transfer once at Little Tokyo, however, will probably have a better option than the awful Blue/Red/Gold Line transfers we now see.

[calwatch]

Presumably the Eastside extension will be through run through the Downtown Connector, without going through Union Station. So passengers coming from Metrolink would have to transfer once to the Pasadena line, and once again to get to the Eastside.

[Kymberleigh Richards]

Damon,

The connection is proposed for Little Tokyo Station, as I understand it, so that Expo/Blue can run through Union Station on the Gold Line extension tracks.

So all the connections you list would be made from Blue/Expo as those trains continued north of Little Tokyo.

Except Greyhound, which does not use Union Station, but has its own terminal about a mile away.

I don't understand your comment about not being able to transfer to the subway at Union Station, though. A lot of people already do that every day.

[Damon]

Maybe it's just my novice brain, but why exactly are the blue/expo lines being connected at the Little Tokyo stop on the Gold line?

Sure, this will let you transfer easily if you're coming from Pasadena or East LA, but how can that possibly compare to Union Station, where not only does the Gold line stop but, but so does:

- 7 Metrolink lines
- Amtrak
- MTA local and Metro Rapid buses
- regional buses like Greyhound
- (hopefully) the future CA high speed rail
- proposed West Santa Ana branch corridor (connecting to us here in OC along the Pacific Electric right of way).

This means tens of thousands of commuters will still have to make that extra transfer to get over to the subway lines... seems silly to me.