It’s transit maps in motion! Here’s a really well done presentation of the rapid transit projects in Measure M, which is Los Angeles County’s version of ST3 Regional Prop 1.

31 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: A Visual Breakdown Of LA’s Measure M”

  1. Somebody decided on Friday that the bus lane on Montlake Blvd. (heading north just before the Montlake Bridge) was a great place to block with an electronic sign telling football fans where to park. In fact, the sign was right on top of the “Only bus” painted into the roadway.

    Can the UW, WSDOT, or whoever owns the sign be taught that the purpose of a bus lane is the movement of buses, not a shoulder to store debris? There are plenty of other places they could have put the sign, such as on the median, or on the grass between the sidewalk and the street.

    1. Seriously, asdf2, I’m pretty sure nobody in the athletics department even knows what a bus lane is, let alone that that the restriction applies all the time.

      They’re probably still in shock over the whole New World Order that’s just split open the Earth under their feet. Maybe they think that all the buses will soon not need any lanes at all, because they’ve all fallen down the chasm into Hell.

      Which I still think happened to the Route 43. So I really think that a phone call to the department will get the sign moved next time. Too bad it won’t get the 43 back. Councilman Dembowski’s people tell me to just stand in the bus lane next rush hour with a sandwich sign advocating it.

      Mark

    2. On the subject of “Larger Scale Thinking” here, we’ve got a blocked bus lane here and a Blockage the Size of a European Country around LA. So I’m wondering why presentations on a large-scale transit future include so few mentions of working-people-type work as a selling point?

      No matter how much construction is mechanized and train operations are automated (BART-type system is one of few instances I’d allow it) public transit is mostly work that requires trade-school math and mechanical skills for job requirements.

      Exactly the category of work the whole formerly industrial world is dying of civil violence, methamphetamine and opioids from the lack of. Every time I hear “Post” in front of “Industrial”, I’d like to rent a “D-9 Caterpillar tractor” and a “Chain.”

      Mark

    4. That sign has been in the bus lane off and on for weeks. I emailed SDOT and suggested that since the sign was solely for the benefit of motorists, they should relocate it to one of the general purpose lanes. No response.

  2. But on this morning’s lead story- best map I’ve ever seen of its kind. Last time I saw LA was 1992. Rode Blue Line to Long Beach. A trolleybus line to Santa Monica was also being considered. There was a busway out Highway 10 to El Monte.

    Meaning, I think that LA had already begun to come around. Because 24 years ago, I also noticed how much from Roger Rabbit’s day was starting to show its age. So my guess is that the grand kids of the 1992 governing generation are looking to the lifestyle envisioned by this morning’s map.

    Wouldn’t surprise me if Judge Doom’s evil gasoline-tire-highway conspirators now have holdings in Parsons Brinckerhoff’s rail division. But am also pretty sure that the vanguard areas will look more like South Lake Union than the East LA in the Emmy Lou Harris song. And those Two More Bottles of Wine will have a vintage rather than screw-on caps.

    But considering Columbia City, kind of sad that my Route 7 passengers’ generation won’t be able to afford to live where they can ride the Santa Monica line- which will get rail and catenary before trolleywire, surface, elevated, and tunneled all three.

    Mark

    1. I am impressed at how much better these graphics are compared to ST’s. It’s also interesting how there are corridor alternatives as well as a multi-modal referendum.

      I am pretty sure that they need a 2/3 vote, right? Multi-modal measures do wonders for de facto subarea equity.

  3. I’m really surprised that I have not seen anything written about the 2 big stories on Link light rail from last week: the opening of the Angle Lake Station; and the big Friday with the Huskies home game and the M’s home game, where people were predicting Link might have 100,000 boardings that day.

    So, what happened? How many boardings were there at the Angle Lake station per weekday last week? And how much did boardings on the entire Link line increase per weekday with the Angle Lake Station addition?

    How many boardings were there on Link in total last Friday? And did the accident where a Link train hit a pedestrian and the entire Link system was shut down for a while near the end of the Huskies game cause problems for people leaving Husky Stadium who wanted to ride a Link train after the game? How did that work out at Husky Station after the game Friday? Were all the escalators working at Husky Stadium Station Friday evening?

    Can someone fill me in on these two big stories? Thanks.

      1. When Husky Stadium and Capitol Hill Stations opened, ST gave ridership figures only a couple of days after those stations opened. There was no waiting until the month end. ST has the ridership figures for last week and for last Friday. What are they?

      2. I got this tweet from @SoundTransit on Friday:

        “Odds are good for a new record-setting day. Will take a few days to download and verify numbers.”

        So the numbers are coming in a few days, not the end of the month :-)

      3. The end of September was Friday, so we already are past the end of the month.

        The monthly data usually gets posted here after the end of month analysis. Friday will be in there I’m sure.

    2. They probably have the figures but I don’t think anyone has really looked at them yet considering it is the weekend.

    3. As I rode the 541 home from work on Friday, I completely forgot about the Husky game until I saw people walking to the game after I got off the bus. Somewhat amazingly, the off-ramp from 520 to Montlake had almost no traffic. This was around 5:45 Friday afternoon, just before the start of the game (I heard the Star Spangled Banner as I went by).

      So, I guess whatever they did for traffic management worked well (well, except for blocking the bus lane with the parking sign).

    4. I rode Link home from the game on Friday, and everything seemed to go pretty smoothly. They had made an announcement in the stadium late in the game that Link was experiencing delays. We had to wait about 5-10 minutes at the top of the escalators because transit police were holding people to prevent crowding on the platform. I don’t know if this is common practice for Husky games, as this was the first one I have been to since the new station opened. I breezed down to the platform and hopped on a train that departed shortly. It was full, but I would not describe it as a crush load.

      Oddly, my ride north to the stadium at about 5:30 was perhaps more out of the ordinary, with the train holding short of the station at about 4 stops in the tunnel, including both at Capitol Hill and Husky Stadium.

      1. We rode the train north from Westlake at about 5 or so–the platform was mostly full and the first train was so full that only a handful could get on (and I don’t mean Seattle full–I didn’t even attempt to get on and I’ve ridden all over the world). They were making announcements that there were 4 (!) trains currently in the tunnel so we waited. Sure enough, as soon as the full train cleared the station the next train pulled right in with much more space to stand, a more common rush-hour level of packed.

        Following the game, despite most people having stayed until the end, there was no traffic at all south of 520 on 23rd. We took the 48 up the hill to do some post-functioning and it was mostly empty by the time it caught up to us. As Chris mentioned, they were holding people outside the station after the game as crowd control. I didn’t notice it to that extent after the last games as they didn’t have the same attendance and were blowouts where people left early at any rate.

        The line and station is a game changer (pun intended) for a lot of Husky fans. We normally tailgate so it won’t affect us, but when we don’t it’s really nice to be able to meet up, eat/drink/watch other games on Capitol Hill or downtown. So far, at least, the Huskies are undefeated all-time in home games you can take the subway to!

  5. Ok. Glad to hear last week’s Link boarding figures will be released by ST soon.

    But, didn’t anyone who reads this blog take Link home from Husky Stadium after the game Friday night? Can anyone give a personal description of how Link worked after that game? I read here a few days ago that escalators in the Husky Stadium station were not working a couple of days before the game. Were they working Friday? Did people have to wait long to get on Link trains after the game? What was crowd control like? Were the Link cars all “crush loaded”? Etc.

    Didn’t anyone reading this blog take Link home after the Huskies game Friday and can give us a report on how that experience was? I have not read anything about that anywhere, and I am curious to hear how it went. That was the first sellout at Husky Stadium in quite a while. Around 72,000 people attended. How well did Link handle that crowd after the game?

    1. Am I reading our bulletins right that LINK had a two-hour service delay Friday night? I’d believe that by now the public likes our single seat ride from Angle Lake park and ride to the game well enough to excuse a lot.

      But I’d say something to my Sound Transit boardmember. I don’t even like football. Though I do take plane flights every now and then. Any clarification on this one?

      Mark Dublin

      1. You may be referring to the incident where a pedestrian was hit by a train going southbound between the Columbia and Othello stations after which ST ran trains on the northbound track both ways for some time.

        Of course the text messages that ST sends out doesn’t tell you anything other then there is disruption of service without any details on where the disruptions is and how much of the line is disrupted.

        I wrote an email to ST about this and received a response back from Jon Highland who is with ST customer service and he said that ST sends out these first text messages just to say that there is a disruption as quickly as possible. That is nice but why can’t those text messages have some more detailed information but according to Highland he says that most disruptions are short term. That may be true but when you receive those first text messages you as a rider don’t know that and you wonder if you should re-arrange your travel plans.. He also said that my email would be forwarded to the Link Operations team for review. I received that email on September 13th but have not receive any further communications from ST.

      2. I only looked at ST’s twitter feed after the fact, but that made it pretty clear that there was single track operation in the RV due to an accident investigation.

        Maybe the real problem is that there are multiple channels of communication and they don’t all get the same level of detail. Between text messages, tweets, Facebook posts, email alerts, and web pages, how do you expect them to give quality data to all channels?

  6. Well, Fox News says it’s Hilary’s fault that once again Snidely Whiplash fastened the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief’s daughter to the LINK tracks at either Othello or Rainier Beach.

    Luckily, Dudley Doright and his horse were on Fare Inspection as usual, so no harm, no foul. With Snidely going “Curses!” as the Bus Bridge carried him away from the scene at three miles an hour in game traffic.

    Good thing it’s “Just Not Done!” to lie on either Fox News or Twitter! Though one unfortunate result is that terrorists and lunatic killers always take advantage of the rule, and Tweet the detailed truth about all the atrocities they’re going to commit just before they do them.

    But what a relief that the Media never give these monsters free publicity by announcing what they just said.

    Mark

  7. So, if LAX is the fourth circle of hell and Sepulveda Pass is the third circle of hell, what are the first two?

    2. The frequent transit map was updated last week. The Seattle Transit Map online version was updated a few weeks ago. I’m working on a mini printable version of the map.

  9. The LA plan to extend the Purple Line to the Art’s District brings up an interesting option. I wonder if the south end of Link’s rail yard in Seattle could eventually be multi-purposed into a North Georgetown light rail station? The track is already there, and there seems to be plenty of space.

    1. Maybe when ST3 builds the new downtown tunnel and they see that Ballard-SLU-Downtown needs more service than Downtown-Rainier-Airport-Tacoma, they could short-turn some trains at the yard and have them serve North Georgetown rather than just turn them back at Stadium?

      Not sure – but it’s an interesting idea.

  10. Considering the Beyond Stupid I’m hearing from some corners that transit riders are the “lowest common denominator” and folks won’t ride the transit, well this is my response: https://www.flickr.com/groups/pugetsoundtransitcrowdshot/

    You can now put in a Flickr group your Puget Sound Transit Crowd Shot. That means pictures of crowds – or even portraits & selfies – of folks riding Puget Sound Transit.

    I really think we need to use our cameras and be the media as the late Andrew Breitbart would say. We don’t have to sit back and take these LIES and empty hot punditry from TheTodd and the rest of ’em. We’re not victims, we’re victors!

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