A Carless culture‘s a series of posts that examines how we can make de-car-ing a sexy and viable travel solution for Angelenos.
I guess the plan to extend the to-be-built Expo light rail line from downtown LA to Santa Monica isn’t a done deal yet! A bit of a battle’s heating up, in fact, between various badly-needed mass transit projects.
The LAT reports today that while some want to use transportation money on extending the Expo Line, others think that money should go towards Pasadena’s Gold Line, extending it 13 miles east to Montclair.
Both sides seem to concede that both projects good projects — They just feel their project should get funded first…
As a gal who lives in Santa Monica, you can guess what my opinion is :P I mean, the Westside and downtown LA are already like one big city — a city that should be easier to get around so we can live, work, and play without relying on the car so much.
Since the population density around the proposed Expo line’s already dense, ridership’ll likely rise quickly — and remain high even on the weekends. People could, say, shop in the jewelry district or party at The Standard Downtown, then safely take the light rail home.
Montclair, on the other hand, is very clearly a suburb — meaning little-to-no weekend ridership. In fact, weekend ridership on the existing Gold line’s already been dropping…
Anyway — I wonder what kind of lobbying the Friends 4 Expo — the group that’s been pushing for the Expo line for years now — is doing! I’ll have to drop by another meeting soon to find out –
Update, 9/15/06: To petition for extending the Expo line to Santa Monica, check out Westside Cities Council of Governments and its Westside Mobility Advocacy Toolkit (PDF) — which includes a sample advocacy letter to send to local, regional, state and federal officials.
Update, 4/11/07: The City of Santa Monica’s put together a website keeping track of the Expo-to-Santa Monica process. The first funding decisions to bring light rail to Santa Monica will be made in June / July 2007
… and I’m on the opposite side. I live in Temple City (near where the Gold Line currently ends) and I work in Claremont (where the Gold Line would go if extended) .. I’d love to be able to bike to a Gold Line station and take a train to work. But unless Drier gets Federal money for it, I can’t see that happening anytime soon. (I’m no fan of Drier.. I think this is the first thing he’s supported that I liked.) And the west side actually has decent busses already, unlike the patchwork of half-assed transit agencies we have out here in the San Gabriel Valley.
Yeah, an Expo line would get more traffic, I think. But if the Gold Line were extended past Montclair to Ontario (and actually connected to the airport, unlike the stupid LAX situation) then that would make using Ontario convenient for a lot of people.
And building the Gold Line will be easier and less controversial .. the right of way already exists for much of it, and there’s plenty of open land for all of it. Unless the Expo line can go underground (which would currently make it ineligible for Federal funding, from what I understand) it’ll be a mess trying to determine where the tracks can be put. (Bradbury’s monorail concept might make it easier to place tracks, but I can’t see that happening.)
Comment by Tim Buchheim — September 5, 2006 @ 2:12 pm
I guess I’m really focused on more traffic here — I’m hoping for a critical mass, and I’m afraid an extended Gold Line will only be used by the few die-hard commuters — whereas I think an extended Expo might help make commuting more like the norm for more people more quickly…
I guess we’re 2 more people who think both projects are good but want our own built first :P
Comment by Siel — September 5, 2006 @ 6:03 pm