Downtown: Red Car RFP
December 06, 2004 by Eric Richardson
CRA/LA (Community Redevelopment Agency) just posted the RFP (Request for Proposals) for their downtown Red Car study. Basically, this is will be a $100,000 study to "provide recommended development approaches for the resurrection of downtown red car trolley services." The RFP going out means that the study is about eight months away from completion, figuring two months to choose a proposal and then six months or so for the study. The tasks listed in the RFP look good and comprehensive. They ask a lot of the same questions I've been wondering about recently (curbside vs. median, traffic impacts, etc).
The interesting parts of the RFP don't come until page 19. Feel free to skip up to that point (unless you're someone actually considering putting in a proposal to do the study, I guess). On page 20 the tasks start, and as I said they seem very comprehensive. Quick vocabulary for you, since I had to look it up: kinematic envelope.
The next thing you'll want to look at is the 7 page conceptual design doc done by Korve Engineering in 2001. That's Exhibit C in the RFP doc list.
Perhaps most interesting to me right now is the question of what lane you run the trolley in. The Korve docs call for curbside running, but the problem there is that you lose any possibility of curbside parking on that side of the street. The other mentioned alternative is center median running, but that's problematic as well (left-turn backups as well as the problem of needing a safe passenger space out there). What I would see is a solution that put the trolley only on one-way streets (to give us a few more lanes to work with). I would then let the right lane be all-hour parking (1 hour during the day, but not a 4-6pm no stopping zone, etc). I would make the second lane a peak-hour bus lane and run the trolley tracks there. When it came time for a station, I would just cut the tracks into that right lane and board curbside. Obvious problem is that people would need to learn to be good parallel parkers or they'll slow up the bus/trolley traffic, but you could just make the parking spots big to cut down on the pressure there. But that's just me talking; I haven't done my homework yet to see what other true street-running systems have done lately.
Interesting stuff. It'll be fun to watch this study develop, and to see if hard numbers can do something to counter the built-in resistance from people who think a trolley will make far worse downtown's already bad traffic (or whether the numbers instead validate these fears).
i'm still here
December 06, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Not much here in the way of updates lately, but that'll happen come this time of the year. I thought that things would be lighter after last Thursday, but it turns out I'm still going to be busy straight on through the end of finals.
So USC's in the Orange Bowl... And in an orgy of bad planning my flight back from MI is scheduled to arrive into LAX right as the game is supposed to begin. I'm going to need to be seeing what can be done about that.
free water, a rarity in these parts
December 03, 2004 by Eric Richardson
The water's been non-potable (ie. undrinkable) in my building here at work for a week and a half or so now. I'm not sure exactly the details of how it happened, but the word is "ruptured pipelines." That doesn't really affect me, since I don't generally drink from the water fountain anyway, but until the lines are fixed the contracting firm is providing bottled water on each floor.
That means that while I wouldn't normally be drinking water out of the fountain, I now have free bottled water today to help me get myself a little more hydrated.
ah, promises*
December 03, 2004 by Eric Richardson
So I haven't watched last night's debate yet -- I went to sleep at 4pm yesterday and didn't wake up until 9am this morning. I did tivo it, so I'm planning to check it out this evening. That said, I saw an interesting tidbit in today's LA Times coverage.
Villaraigosa, who represents an East Los Angeles council district, said he would extend the Red Line subway to the beach.
Did he really?
If so, do these candidates even listen to what they're saying up there?
I would absolutely love to see a Red Line extension to Santa Monica, but the logistics are absolutely breathtaking.
Let's say it's 13 miles down Wilshire from Wilshire/Western to the end. Right now the estimated costs for the 3 mile Red Line extension to Wilshire/Fairfax are running around $300 million/mile. So a 13 mile project would cost $3.9 billion.
You have to get the no tunnelling under Wilshire law overturned, or waste time going around its boundaries.
You have to get the sales tax restrictions on subway spending overturned.
And maybe most importantly, the city doesn't control the MTA. The MTA is a countywide agency on whose projects the city of LA gets a voice. A big voice, certainly, but still just a voice.
Hopefully what he really said, or at least what he really means, is that he'll do what he can to get the process started. Because no matter what there's no way a line, even one approved today, would be running before a newly elected mayor termed out.
I would think it might be cheaper to just build a beach at Wilshire/Western.
Updated (2pm): Revised my distance estimate to a more realistic 13 miles down Wilshire.
time for some sleep
December 02, 2004 by Eric Richardson
So one more paper is now done, and another will be turned in late. I finished my big paper for speculative cinema in just the nick of time this morning (after working on it for about 20 hours straight... I think that's a record for me. no clue why so slow). I then went to two classes, almost fell asleep in both of them, and now I'm back here. It's 3:50pm and I'm ready for a nap. I've been up since 9:30 yesterday morning.
That said I'm not the only one going through this right now... my roommate Magilla didn't sleep last night either; he too spent his night paper writing.