Jonathan Weiss has posted some great pics at his Expo Greenway blog of freight trains and streetcars on the old Santa Monica Air Line. The photos were taken by Alan Weeks, and I've posted a few of them here and you can see a lot more on his blog. And read about Jonathan's proposed greenway project along the right-of-way to help filter storm runoff water before it reaches the ocean.
I also wanted to catch up on some Expo Line news.
News tidbit No.1: It looks like the California Public Utilities Commission board will issue a decision in early December on the two disputed pedestrian crossings in South Los Angeles on the first phase of the Expo Line, which is now under construction. A PUC judge last month ruled that the Expo Line Construction Authority should: Close the Farmdale Avenue crossing of the tracks next to Dorsey High School and build a pedestrian bridge over the tracks; and build a pedestrian bridge over the tracks at Harvard Avenue, adjacent to the Foshay Learning Center. Here's a link to an earlier post about that decision. The Board can uphold, overturn or revise the judge's ruling.
The Construction Authority is saying that building the two bridges would be costly and could delay the line from opening in 2010. Community groups and the LAUSD Board say that the Construction Authority can get the money from the MTA and that the street crossings are dangerous to both students and the community. The big issues, I think, will be whether the bridges are in fact safer than at-level street crossings and how eliminating the Farmdale crossing of the tracks may impact traffic in the neighborhood around Dorsey High.
News tidbit No. 2: The Construction Authority is saying that it will likely declare its preferred alternative for a route in early 2009 for the second phase of the Expo Line from Culver City to Santa Monica. There's two routes on the table: continue on the old Air Line right-of-way from Culver City through West L.A. neighborhoods just north of the Santa Monica Freeway or instead take the line down Venice Boulevard to Sepulveda Boulevard to meet back up with the right of way in West L.A. The second route would stay south of those West L.A. neighborhoods. It will ultimately be up to the MTA Board to decide which one to use.
Did I mention that both issues are extremely contentious? Making matters more interesting is that if Measure R's lead holds, the half-cent sales tax increase in L.A. County provides $925 million for the Expo Line, although the cost of the project is expected to top $1.6 billion, the reason that state and federal funding will also be needed.
One other note: The Cheviot Hills Homeowners Assn. will be meeting tonight and Expo Line issues will be discussed. So, if you live in the area and have two cents to chip in, it may be worth attending.
Two more photos of the Air Line after the jump.
-- Steve Hymon
Photos: Alan Weeks
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(UPDATED, 5:10 p.m. with comments from South Los Angeles community group)
(UPDATED, 6:45 p.m. with comments from Expo Line Construction Authority, other contextual information and other editing)
A Public Utilities Commission judge ruled Wednesday that the Expo Line must build a pair of pedestrian bridges over railroad tracks in South Los Angeles, with one bridge next to Dorsey High School and the other next to the Foshay Learning Center.
It is a setback for the Expo Line Construction Authority, which hoped to open the line in 2010. Completing the needed environmental studies and building the two pedestrian bridges, complete with elevators, could cost $18 million and delay the opening of the line one to three years, said Richard Thorpe, the CEO of the Expo Line Construction Authority.
He said that the Construction Authority doesn't have the $18 million that the bridges will likely cost. "We don't have that kind of contingency money," Thorpe said. "If the proposed decision stands, we'll have to go back to the Metro Board and request additional funds."
PUC administrative law judge Kenneth Koss does not have final say on the matter. PUC commissioners are
expected to vote on whether to accept his rulings next month; they can
revise Koss' ruling, change it entirely or leave it intact.
The Construction Authority had asked the PUC for permission for the Expo Line's tracks to cross Farmdale Avenue -- which runs next to Dorsey High -- at grade, with crosswalks for pedestrians. Koss said that a grade-separated crossing was safer and, in this case, practical to construct.
Koss also ordered that Farmdale be closed at the track crossing. In other words, through-traffic will no longer be able to cross the tracks on Farmdale.
At Foshay, the Construction Authority wanted permission to build the Expo Line atop a pedestrian tunnel under Exposition Boulevard. Koss said that the tunnel would not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and that it "would not provide an adequate level of general public access or safety."
Community activists from both South L.A. and West L.A. had fought the Construction Authority. The Los Angeles Unified School District had also joined the battle, saying the crossings near both schools would pose a danger to students. In response, the Construction Authority had proposed several measures, including posting security guards at the crossing next to Dorsey and slowing trains there to 10 mph before and after school when students flood the streets.
Damien Goodmon, the chair of United Community Associations, said that his group was disappointed that the PUC also did not revisit its earlier decision to allow the Expo Line to cross Western Avenue at grade. Goodmon added that his group also would likely have issues with the decision to close Farmdale Avenue to traffic.
"What they do at this intersection is going to impact this community for the next 100 years," said Goodmon, also the coordinator for the Citizens' Campaign to Fix the Expo Line. "We need to be taking that more seriously."
Goodmon said that he believes the better solution at Farmdale would be for the train to go over or under the street. The Construction Authority has opposed that because of cost. Goodmon said that if pushed, the Construction Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which will eventually operate the Expo Line, could find the money.
Homeowners and residents from Westside communities had joined the South L.A. activists in battling for the crossings. One potential route for the second phase of the Expo Line would take the train on an old rail right-of-way through Cheviot Hills and West L.A.. Some homeowner groups there are concerned the Construction Authority will also want to build rail crossings across busy streets such as Overland, Westwood and Sepulveda.
A victory in South Los Angeles could delay the line from reaching their neighborhood and also set a precedent for how the Expo Line deals with street crossings near schools. An elementary school sits next to Overland crossing.
--Steve Hymon
Here's the unusual press release of the day, from the Expo Line Construction Authority. It's announcing it's hired a PR firm and defending its right to do so.
This isn't really news: I posted about this a couple of weeks ago, quoting Damien Goodmon, the leading critic of the Expo Line. He says the train needs grade-separated crossings in South Los Angeles for safety reasons and alleges that the Expo Line is trying to drum up false support for the project. For what it's worth, Goodmon was also at a recent subway meeting, complaining that the Westside is getting a subway and that South L.A. is getting street-level trains.
Dakota Communications, the PR firm, has said that it's trying to give the public the real facts about the project and the street crossings and that Goodmon and others in the Citizens' Campaign to Fix the Expo Line have spread false information.
Decide for yourself whether the authority is outside the lines on this one. The press release is after the jump.
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Damien Goodmon, who is heading up the Citizens' Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line, recently sent an e-mail blast accusing the Expo Line Construction Authority of hiring a PR team to gather signatures in support of the downtown-to-Culver City light rail line under construction.
Well, it's true. The Expo Line Construction Authority has hired Dakota Communications -- a longtime player in political circles in Los Angeles.
"We've been brought on to help set the record straight," said Rick Taylor, a partner in the firm. "We're trying to remind the community what this is about."
The Citizens' Campaign alleges that the Expo Line, as planned, would pose a danger to neighborhoods in South Los Angeles because the line is going to run at street level down Exposition Boulevard. Goodmon, in particular, has said that this will result in numerous accidents and be especially problematic for the two schools -- the Foshay Learning Center and Dorsey High (a rendering of the Dorsey crossing is above) -- that are adjacent to the line.
The dispute takes on added relevance because the Construction Authority still needs to receive approvals from the state Public Utilities Commission for two crossings in South L.A. outside of those schools. Hearings are scheduled to begin Tuesday.
"I can't believe anyone in the African American or Latino community would be against this," Taylor told me yesterday. "It's amazing after all these years that Tom Bradley's vision for the community is finally being realized. They [critics of the line] should just say we're against transit for the community."
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 There's a wee bit of a development on the California Public Utilities Commission's hearings over the two disputed crossings along the Expo Line light-rail project in Los Angeles: the parties involved have been ordered into mediation this afternoon to try to agree on a way to solve the crossing issue at Dorsey High School.
The train, as proposed, would cross Farmdale Avenue, which runs adjacent to the high school in South Los Angeles. The Expo Line Construction Authority, which is building the line, wants to cross the street at grade, whereas community activists say that's not safe and want the train to go under or above Farmdale.
At this point, the judge has told the parties to consider three options in their mediation: an under-crossing, over-crossing or pedestrian bridge over the tracks. If they can't agree, hearings over the crossings will resume in September.
"I would say we're happy to negotiate in good faith, and we intend to do that, and if we're not able to reach an agreement then we'll be presenting our case in September," said Samantha Bricker, the chief operation officer of the construction authority. "Our goal is to move this project forward and complete it as quickly as possible."
Damien Goodmon, of the Citizens' Campaign to Fix the Expo Line, said he was pleased that the three options in mediation did not include an at-grade crossing, but he wouldn't commit to the proposed pedestrian bridge. He would only say that that's an option that he may take back to the community for consideration.
The pedestrian bridge, according to the construction authority, is estimated to cost about $7 million. Over- and under-crossings for the train would cost millions more, the authority says.
The other crossing dispute--at Harvard Avenue next to the Foshay Learning Center, nearby in South L.A.--isn't on the table at this time. Again, the construction authority wants an at-grade crossing and activists don't.
The construction authority wants to finish the Expo Line between downtown and Culver City by 2010. The PUC hearings are significant because decisions about the crossings could affect the cost of the project and lead to delays.
--Steve Hymon
photo: Expo Line Construction Authority
The Expo Line Construction Authority held a community meeting last night to unveil its proposals for street crossings on the second phase of the proposed light rail line from Culver City to Santa Monica.
The dust hasn't quite settled yet, but this can be said: no one in the community is happy.
The authority is proposing a series of at-grade crossings, among them three very busy north-south routes: Overland, Westwood and Sepulveda. In the authority's view, mitigations such as street widening, no parking restrictions and adding some extra lanes at the crossings would help keep traffic moving at the crossings -- even when there will be 24 trains per hour at peak times.
Even two different groups that have been battling over which route the train will take on the second phase agreed that the announcement was a disappointment.
Karen Leonard, of Light Rail for Cheviot, said that while philosophically she believes at-grade crossings can work, she expected at least one or two of the crossings would be grade-separated to help appease neighborhood concerns that too many street crossings will hopelessly tie up traffic and be a danger to school children.
Her group wants the train to use an existing right-of-way along Exposition Boulevard, a route that cuts through Cheviot Hills and bisects neighborhoods of single-family homes behind the Westside Pavilion.
Terri Tippit, of Neighbors for Smart Rail, said pretty much the same thing, although her group has been pushing for the train to detour around Cheviot Hills and the neighborhood immediately south of the Westside Pavilion.
"It all comes down to money -- they don’t have the money [for grade separated crossings] and they barely have the money to do what they’re doing now."
I just got off the phone with Rick Thorpe, the president of the Expo Line Construction Authority. He first confirmed that he survived the meeting -- no small task, in my view -- and then explained the authority's reasoning for putting the train at-grade.
"We're trying to treat everyone the same in Los Angeles County because everyone would prefer grade-separated crossings for their light rail lines," Thorpe said. "But it doesn't make sense to do that. If we did, we wouldn't have enough money to build anything."
He said that the authority had three different traffic engineers look at the crossings and determine that they could work with the mitigations in place.
The city of Los Angeles will first get a crack at weighing in on the crossings, but it will ultimately be up to the California Public Utilities Commission to approve them. It's almost certain at this point that some of the crossings will be heavily contested by community groups or members -- just as two at-grade crossings on the under-construction phase one of the Expo Line still must be approved by the PUC.
Construction on the second phase is supposed to begin in 2010, assuming funding is secured. The line is slated to open in 2014 or '15 if all goes well, but prolonged fights over the crossings could easily throw that into doubt.
Click on the following links to see part one, part two and part three of the Expo Line posts.
--Steve Hymon
map: Expo Line Construction Authority
 I posted two long items last week about the controversy surrounding at-grade crossings on the first phase of the Expo Line, the light rail line under construction between downtown Los Angeles and Culver City. (Click here for Part 1, and here for Part 2).
Today I want to look ahead a bit to the second phase of the project, which is planned to extend the line from Culver City to downtown Santa Monica by the middle of the next decade. If completed, it would be the first modern rail line to travel the entirety of the Westside to downtown L.A., although much of the route is south of the 10 freeway and wouldn’t stop near job centers such as Century City and Beverly Hills.
The line is still in the planning stages, but it is also submerged in controversy over two significant items:
1. The route: Will it follow the old rail right of way that the MTA purchased years ago and goes through Cheviot Hills and other neighborhoods near the Westside Pavilion shopping mall? Or, instead, will it detour around Cheviot Hills and detour on Venice and Sepulveda boulevards before rejoining the rail right of way? (See above map.)
2.) How will it cross busy streets on the far Westside? Will there be gated crossings that tie up traffic? Or will it tunnel under or bridge over some streets?
Click below to keep reading...
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 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?
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 I had the chance to meet with Damien Goodmon yesterday outside Dorsey High School. Goodmon is leading a community group, the Citizens’ Campaign to Fix Expo, that is trying to force the under-construction Expo Line light rail to go underground for a four-mile stretch between Figueroa on the east and La Brea to the west.
This will be a long post –- but bear with me. Light rail lines don’t get built every day in the Southland, and things happening today could affect what’s up and running a decade from now.
Goodmon’s basic argument: Building the train at street level, as the MTA is doing, is unsafe and it should be built underground instead. It’s particularly unsafe, he says, outside a pair of schools along Exposition Boulevard in South Los Angeles –- the Foshay Learning Center and Dorsey High School. Goodmon has focused much of his efforts on Dorsey, which sits next to Farmdale (pictured above), a street that crosses the tracks adjacent to the school grounds.
The Expo line project is already budgeted at $863 million and will run eight miles from 7th and Figueroa in downtown L.A. to Culver City. The state Public Utilities Commission has approved 36 of 38 street crossings on the line and is scheduled in November to decide how the two remaining crossings should be built. If the PUC rules in the MTA’s favor, Goodmon says, his group will probably file an environmental justice lawsuit alleging that South L.A. is getting an unsafe train, whereas there are some grade-separated crossings near USC and to the west in Culver City.
If that happens, it’s unclear what happens next. Construction may proceed, but it could potentially be suspended. Or perhaps Goodmon gets what he wants -– the train to be put in an underground trench -- but the MTA has to put the project on hold while finding the money to do so.
A few highlights from my interview:
* I asked Goodmon why he thinks high school students –- many presumably pretty smart kids –- will get hit by the train at Farmdale when there will be crossing gates. After all, there haven’t been problems with students at Blair High School getting in the way of the Gold Line light rail in Pasadena –- and the train passes just two blocks from their school.
“Will people -– in this case high-school-age teenagers -- abide by them [the gates]?” he asked. “It’s a gamble.”
 He rejected the comparison to Blair -– saying many more students will cross tracks at Dorsey. He also rejected my assertion that his own argument over environmental justice and racism has a sour tinge -- that perhaps he's suggesting that Dorsey students, many of whom are minorities, aren’t smart enough to stay off active railroad tracks. “This isn’t about intelligence. Accidents happen to smart people,” Goodmon said, adding: “What happens when you have two conflicting gang members and they start to fight?” alongside the tracks.
* I asked him if he worries that by succeeding he may ultimately delay or perhaps stop a rail project that could give South Los Angeles residents a better transit option than riding the bus. Goodmon said that he’s pro-rail and that he wants the line to be built –- he just wants it built the right way. “They’re not going to take a penny away from South L.A. because we have the audacity to ask for the same thing as Culver City,” he said.
* Goodmon said that he believes it would cost about $300 million to build the line underground in South L.A. He says he thinks the MTA could find the money if the agency tried harder and that the project would be better –- and faster -– as a result and therefore attract more riders. In his view, the train line is a project that will last decades, so why not build it the right way the first time around, rather than wait until problems develop and traffic gets tied up at South L.A. street crossings (see above rendering). “They always want to build 10 miles of bad rail rather than five miles of good rail,” Goodmon said. “It makes no sense."
The Dorsey High crossing is not the only dispute. Just to the east, the other crossing still not approved by the state is outside Foshay Learning Center. Both Goodmon’s group and Neighbors for Smart Rail -– a group largely based on the Westside in the Cheviot Hills area -– say that at-grade street crossings at Western Avenue and a smaller street called Harvard are dangerous and that a pedestrian undercrossing at Harvard is inadequate. The folks at Cheviot Hills are involved, in part, because the proposed second phase of the project could pass an elementary school on Overland.
The Board of the LAUSD has passed a resolution against the at-grade crossings in South L.A. Goodmon, who is just 26, said that he’s devoting all his time to the fight and that he’s only doing odd jobs on the side. Most elected officials have been quiet on the issue and while the MTA says Goodmon is wrong, he has clearly gotten their attention.
More on that tomorrow and more soon on the Cheviot Hills part of the story....
-- Steve Hymon
Got a take on traffic or transportation? E-mail your tips to steve.hymon@latimes.com.
Top photo: Steve Hymon / Los Angeles Times
Bottom drawing: Expo Line Construction Authority
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I also wanted to catch up on some Expo Line news.
