Transportation

LA Times: In a surprising and ambitious move, local transportation officials said Tuesday that they would pursue planning for two subway lines to the Westside, with one train along Wilshire Boulevard and a shorter leg partially following Santa Monica Boulevard before diving south to meet the Wilshire line. Of course, the effort is still hypothetical, and Los Angeles still needs the money to build the multibillion-dollar rail line. But officials are showing unusual bravura for a project that looked to…

So after reading about how even stubbornly car-driving Angelenos are finally making the switch to public transit, I thought that maybe I could attend my Friday 7 pm show at the Glasshouse in Pomona by taking some sort of public transit out there. After all, it’s two blocks from the Pomona Transit Center/Amtrak station. Ok, so how would this work? Ride Metro Rapid 704( DOWNTOWN LA – UNION STA) heading east From: SANTA MONICA BL/26TH ST(SW corner) Lv: 03:57PM To:…

If there’s one thing that I love to imagine, it’s how much more liveable Los Angeles would be if there was a decent transportation system. Turns out, the future of LA’s public transportation might be in Shanghai: Los Angeles Times: In 1990, four years after Los Angeles broke ground on its Red Line subway, Shanghai began to build a subway system too. Los Angeles was one of the richest cities in the world, with an extensive freeway network, top-notch engineers…

On his blog, Daniel Hernandez notes that there have been a couple really neat proposals for a proper subway system for LA. The first one, designed by Numan Parada, would put a subway stop at 26th and Wilshire, about 2 blocks from my parents’ house. It would take two transfers to get there from LAX, which would be freakin’ sweet. The second one would put a stop at 23rd and Santa Monica Blvd., about 6-7 blocks from my parents’ house,…

Los Angeles Times; August 27, 2006: But experts say the biggest culprit in rush-hour traffic snags is a boom in Westside commercial development that has lured and created jobs. Job growth has transformed the area into the region’s premiere commercial hub, second only to downtown Los Angeles in the number of jobs. Each day, workers pour into office buildings lining busy corridors such as Wilshire Boulevard, the burgeoning towers of Century City and the rows of Santa Monica office parks…