Here are the latest refined Westside Extension (aka Wilshire subway) maps (click images to enlarge) from Metro's public meetings this week. (Also see my 11/15/07 comments and the Subway to the Sea Coalition.)
The remaining alternatives — with the best performance — are two subway options along the Wilshire corridor, and those two with Hollywood branches added. The obligatory No Project, TSM (Transportation System Management), and BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) study options also remain. These are only general route and station locations; details will come in a later study phase.
Alt. 1. This is the basic Wilshire route, with different details from Century City to Westwood. Orange rectangles highlight changes from previous versions.
Alt. 14. This jogs north to serve Farmers Market and Cedars-Sinai. I like adding these destinations, but am concerned about slowing around three sides of a box, unlike the earlier version that diagonaled to Wilshire & Beverly.
Alt. 11. Here trains would also run between Santa Monica and Hollywood, transferring to the Red Line at Highland. I suggested considering a longer north-south route from Hollywood past Wilshire to perhaps the Crenshaw line to LAX.
Alt. 16. Hollywood branch added to the Farmers Market alternative.
Other notes:
- The Santa Monica Blvd.-only options were dropped for lower ridership and cost-effectiveness.
- Wilshire only — 71K new boardings (2030), 53K daily travel hours saved, $5.5B capital cost, $32/hour saved (FTA target is $25-35/hour saved)
- Santa Monica only — 55K new boardings, 41K daily travel hours saved
- Wilshire + Hollywood — 82K new boardings, 62K daily travel hours saved, $8B capital cost, $37/hour saved
The remaining two meetings are (6-8 p.m.):
- Thursday, May 8, Santa Monica Public Library – Multipurpose Room, 2nd Floor, 601 Santa Monica Bl, SM
- Monday, May 12, Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Bl, West Hollywood
3 comments:
Excellent proposal. All of the projections are note worthy. I favor the most direct route to Santa Monica with stops at Fairfax/La Cienga, Century City and Westwood as the most prominent. I agree three sides of box to get up to Cedars Sinai/Farmers Market-the Grove is problematic. It is not a sin to have to transfer from one line to another, such as riding the Purple Line to Fairfax/La Cienga and then transferring to a Rapid Bus up those streets to get to Cedars Sinai, The Grove Farmers' Market. Any active transit rider knows that transfers are just part of the way of transit life.
IN the future, outlays of the subway to those destination can be considered. But the biggest priority is to complete the line to the Pacific (or reasonably close enough) along the route which carries a lot of people.
Matthew
I fully support either Alternative #11 or #16 which includes the Pink Line on Santa Monica/La Cienega.
If the Santa Monica Blvd. portion is included as light rail, it could be eventually be extended south to the Expo Line and potentially to LAX, and eventually be extended east to SilverLake and then to Downtown.
If the Santa Monica Blvd. portion is included as heavy rail, with reconstruction of the Hollywood/Highland and Vermont/Wilshire stations, a worthy "Circle Line" could be formed similar to the Circle Line in London and the "Clockwork Orange" in Glasgow.
I enthusiastically support Alternative #11 or #16.
I'm all for #11. I'm slightly confused about the Century City part, though. There doesn't seem to be a stop there except for Wilshire/Santa Monica, which kind of defeats the purpose of rerouting it through Century City instead of just following Wilshire. They're probably not done tweaking that, though.
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