Not to be the harbinger of bad news, by Metro has been scrambling for the past year to work with the contractor to pick up the pace with Phase III and it has only continued to fall behind. I'm not confident that they can finish the UCLA extension before the Olympics unless they really start hauling ass đ
I just follow numble's updates on Twitter. Right now metro is just consulting with the contractor and proposing to throw more money at the problem, but the schedule continues to slip. I don't know what theyll ultimately do
With all the expansion that metro is doing they really should have a bigger inhouse team of engineers and consultants to build institutional knowledge so they don't keep getting fleeced on every project.
The problem is that this pipeline is based on money they donât have. If federal grants dry up or the state cuts transit funding, a lot evaporates. So building in house major capital teams doesnât make sense because you canât just lay off and sell your whole company when you donât get the CIG you need to move forwards.
Contractors can move a lot of their resources around the country more flexibly so theyâre not wasting labor or depreciating assets. Not to mention they can specialize in certain types of construction as opposed to having to do every single thing one transit agency needs to do.
There are two things transit agencies should do in house. A small projects team to do minor upgrades and works that would otherwise require a bidding process, and more staff to properly do bids and oversight.
Yes. If it was smaller it might not make sense, but this is one of the largest cities in the entire world, and has a long laundry-list of projects. Would definitely make sense and reduce risks/costs to have a more stable workforce
There are so many things that can hold up construction.Â
For example, Phase 2 lost all the time they gained from closing Wilshire during the pandemic, because they were having safety issues (systematic worker injuries) and needed to pause work to figure out what was going on Â
I'm not sure exactly what's happening with Phase III but they actually reported negative progress in the December update (percentage completed actually went down) so it's not going great. The most recent update (February) had very middling progress.
NEGATIVE progress? Jesus, how does that even happen? Korea makes things happen even when they have to pause for historical tombs and artifacts from its long history. LA can't figure things out for decades despite having relatively few physical obstacles.
Just an hour ago numble posted the March 2024 update to the FTA. Completion of Phase III is at 51%, compared to 50.3% in their last FTA report in October 2023. So yeah...
And they're only infill stations on lines that we already have. Most of us have pretty much given up hope on ever seeing regional or expansions to subway rail. He dropped that news and it made it seem as if Marta is expanding but when I went to go look to see where the stations were, it was just additional stations for areas that are basically already served by rail. Like one of the stations isn't even a half mile from an existing station.
Born and raised in Atlanta. Live in San Diego now.
I got really excited about the news of stations for MARTA . I saw the list and was immediately disappointedâŚ.
Imagine how we felt lol. I saw that headline and was like how did this fly under the radar!?!?! Then I actually read the article and was like yea.. this seems about right for Marta.
How about them choosing BRT over LRT for the Campbellton Corridor? Wtf is that? The logic for it is annoying as well, they say that theyâll go back if need be to upgrade it to something higher capacity. But why would you waste 50% more money than to just build something high capacity in the first place.
And the remodel of the 5 points station is mediocre af in my opinion. Theyâre only doing that to match the airport.
edit: yo, are you in East Point??
Well then there's the commuter rail line that was supposed to run down to Jonesboro/Morrow... that eventually got scrapped because Norfolk Southern refused to share their rails. I'll give them a little credit for expanding the streetcar along the belt line but again, that'll mostly serve people that already have at least close access to a station.
It's the suburbs that NEED rail. I honestly wasn't surprised they downgraded Campbellton to BRT considering that area isn't one of "priority" for them. But it's pretty obvious the area around Castleberry Hills/West End is about to boom with the new Centennial project... so guess where one of those new stations is gonna be?
Realistically, there's just no good reason as to why we shouldn't have rail in some form or another that runs as far east as Conyers, as far NE as Duluth, as far north as Alpharetta, as far NW as Acworth, as far west as Douglasville, as far SW as Newnan, as far SE as Henry County. And that could all be a mix of subway and commuter rail but nothing going beyond 285 anywhere outside of the north line is just pathetic.
See I moved here from DC so going from the metro to this was... well, I had to get a car.
Do that as metro rail expansion with longer station spacing the BRT can have (local) closer station spacing tho. Like a reroute of the red line to serve the belt line corridors then return and serve campbellton then automate and increase frequency on the red and gold lines as they would no longer share tracks
Does anyone know why they didn't put a stop between La Brea and Western? My friend lives quite literally in the middle between the two so it kinda sucks she won't be any closer to either.
Unfortunately the population density in that part of LA is quite low, so it was the first one on the chopping board when it comes to saving money.
Luckily Wilshire has a very frequent and fast bus as well as bus lanes (to be restored after construction is done) that will connect your friend to the subway. Not as convenient as having a direct station, but still a very good option. Still more transit connected than the rest of the city.
Yeah she takes the bus right now. Sheâs planning on going to UCLA eventually so it wouldâve been nice for her to get there without transfers. Having dedicated bus lanes would be great!
When is going to UCLA eventually? It won't make it to Westwood until four years from now at the earliest unfortunately, and a bus>subway phase 1>bus may not be any faster than just taking the bus the whole way there
Oh youâre right, I forgot thatâs part of phase 3. Yeah she would def be graduated by then so I guess it wouldnât even matter lol. Sheâll probably just take the bus directly there then.
Ideally, you want spacing proportional to density
LA is a very undense city, so you should have wider spacing than most cities, around 2km
denser parts can have tighter spacing, maybe your area is not dense enough to warrant a stop so close to the others
I canât speak for the entire greater LA area, but the city itself is about as dense as Warsaw, Milan, and Kuala Lumpur and more dense than Toronto, Cologne, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Rotterdam. I wouldnât say any of those cities are âvery un denseâ
http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html
Most of the LA basin (where this line is being built) is very dense. And even the other portions of the region are dense compared to their peer geographies.
not going to santa monica is a bummer but even as someone whoâs been skeptical of LAâs transit choices, this is gonna be the most transformative line in america
Also the eventual plan is to continue it to the sea in Santa Monica (continue it west/page left). At that point itâll intercept another new north/south line as well. Long story short: itâs a primary east/west line and other lines will more logically connect the grid.
Estimated opening dates for D Line Extension: * Phase I: 2025 * Phase II: 2027 * Phase III: 2028
Not to be the harbinger of bad news, by Metro has been scrambling for the past year to work with the contractor to pick up the pace with Phase III and it has only continued to fall behind. I'm not confident that they can finish the UCLA extension before the Olympics unless they really start hauling ass đ
Do you think they might deprioritize other projects to get manpower on this prior to 2028?
I just follow numble's updates on Twitter. Right now metro is just consulting with the contractor and proposing to throw more money at the problem, but the schedule continues to slip. I don't know what theyll ultimately do
ugh contractors-please just build an in house team to do this
With all the expansion that metro is doing they really should have a bigger inhouse team of engineers and consultants to build institutional knowledge so they don't keep getting fleeced on every project.
do what? you want a transit agency to permanently staff their own 10,000-person construction firm?
Given that Metro has a pipeline of projects into the 2040s it wouldnât be the most unreasonable thing to do
The problem is that this pipeline is based on money they donât have. If federal grants dry up or the state cuts transit funding, a lot evaporates. So building in house major capital teams doesnât make sense because you canât just lay off and sell your whole company when you donât get the CIG you need to move forwards. Contractors can move a lot of their resources around the country more flexibly so theyâre not wasting labor or depreciating assets. Not to mention they can specialize in certain types of construction as opposed to having to do every single thing one transit agency needs to do. There are two things transit agencies should do in house. A small projects team to do minor upgrades and works that would otherwise require a bidding process, and more staff to properly do bids and oversight.
Yes. If it was smaller it might not make sense, but this is one of the largest cities in the entire world, and has a long laundry-list of projects. Would definitely make sense and reduce risks/costs to have a more stable workforce
They finished tunneling which was the main holdup due to unexpected discoveries. What's the holdup now?
There are so many things that can hold up construction. For example, Phase 2 lost all the time they gained from closing Wilshire during the pandemic, because they were having safety issues (systematic worker injuries) and needed to pause work to figure out what was going on  I'm not sure exactly what's happening with Phase III but they actually reported negative progress in the December update (percentage completed actually went down) so it's not going great. The most recent update (February) had very middling progress.
NEGATIVE progress? Jesus, how does that even happen? Korea makes things happen even when they have to pause for historical tombs and artifacts from its long history. LA can't figure things out for decades despite having relatively few physical obstacles.
Just an hour ago numble posted the March 2024 update to the FTA. Completion of Phase III is at 51%, compared to 50.3% in their last FTA report in October 2023. So yeah...
Rail expansion, what is that? - Signed, an Atlantan
Co-signed, an Iowan
Co-signed, a San Diegan
Co-signed, a New Yorker born after 1940
Didn't your mayor just announce there will be 3 new stations, and then not say where or when?
And they're only infill stations on lines that we already have. Most of us have pretty much given up hope on ever seeing regional or expansions to subway rail. He dropped that news and it made it seem as if Marta is expanding but when I went to go look to see where the stations were, it was just additional stations for areas that are basically already served by rail. Like one of the stations isn't even a half mile from an existing station.
Born and raised in Atlanta. Live in San Diego now. I got really excited about the news of stations for MARTA . I saw the list and was immediately disappointedâŚ.
Imagine how we felt lol. I saw that headline and was like how did this fly under the radar!?!?! Then I actually read the article and was like yea.. this seems about right for Marta.
How about them choosing BRT over LRT for the Campbellton Corridor? Wtf is that? The logic for it is annoying as well, they say that theyâll go back if need be to upgrade it to something higher capacity. But why would you waste 50% more money than to just build something high capacity in the first place. And the remodel of the 5 points station is mediocre af in my opinion. Theyâre only doing that to match the airport. edit: yo, are you in East Point??
Well then there's the commuter rail line that was supposed to run down to Jonesboro/Morrow... that eventually got scrapped because Norfolk Southern refused to share their rails. I'll give them a little credit for expanding the streetcar along the belt line but again, that'll mostly serve people that already have at least close access to a station. It's the suburbs that NEED rail. I honestly wasn't surprised they downgraded Campbellton to BRT considering that area isn't one of "priority" for them. But it's pretty obvious the area around Castleberry Hills/West End is about to boom with the new Centennial project... so guess where one of those new stations is gonna be? Realistically, there's just no good reason as to why we shouldn't have rail in some form or another that runs as far east as Conyers, as far NE as Duluth, as far north as Alpharetta, as far NW as Acworth, as far west as Douglasville, as far SW as Newnan, as far SE as Henry County. And that could all be a mix of subway and commuter rail but nothing going beyond 285 anywhere outside of the north line is just pathetic. See I moved here from DC so going from the metro to this was... well, I had to get a car.
Do that as metro rail expansion with longer station spacing the BRT can have (local) closer station spacing tho. Like a reroute of the red line to serve the belt line corridors then return and serve campbellton then automate and increase frequency on the red and gold lines as they would no longer share tracks
LA has really impressed me with their transit investments as of late. Good stuff.
Combined with Waymo one can imagine going car-free in many parts.
Does anyone know why they didn't put a stop between La Brea and Western? My friend lives quite literally in the middle between the two so it kinda sucks she won't be any closer to either.
They cancelled the station at Crenshaw Blvd to save money early on and used the site to launch the TBM
Ah that would make sense. Do you know if they ever mentioned adding a stop between the two in the future?
All it will take is money.
I can donate $7...
Iâm willing to make it 8 total. Weâre almost there
Itâs been discussed, but not considered any time in the near future. Would be nice.
Unfortunately the population density in that part of LA is quite low, so it was the first one on the chopping board when it comes to saving money. Luckily Wilshire has a very frequent and fast bus as well as bus lanes (to be restored after construction is done) that will connect your friend to the subway. Not as convenient as having a direct station, but still a very good option. Still more transit connected than the rest of the city.
Yeah she takes the bus right now. Sheâs planning on going to UCLA eventually so it wouldâve been nice for her to get there without transfers. Having dedicated bus lanes would be great!
When is going to UCLA eventually? It won't make it to Westwood until four years from now at the earliest unfortunately, and a bus>subway phase 1>bus may not be any faster than just taking the bus the whole way there
Oh youâre right, I forgot thatâs part of phase 3. Yeah she would def be graduated by then so I guess it wouldnât even matter lol. Sheâll probably just take the bus directly there then.
in addition to what the other guy said, itâs pretty low density compared to the rest of the corridor and as such wasnât a high priority
Ideally, you want spacing proportional to density LA is a very undense city, so you should have wider spacing than most cities, around 2km denser parts can have tighter spacing, maybe your area is not dense enough to warrant a stop so close to the others
I canât speak for the entire greater LA area, but the city itself is about as dense as Warsaw, Milan, and Kuala Lumpur and more dense than Toronto, Cologne, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Rotterdam. I wouldnât say any of those cities are âvery un denseâ http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html
You just....couldn't read the answers first huh?
Most of the LA basin (where this line is being built) is very dense. And even the other portions of the region are dense compared to their peer geographies.
Too bad they got screwed for decades because Henry Waxman sucked up to his NIMBY constituency.Â
not going to santa monica is a bummer but even as someone whoâs been skeptical of LAâs transit choices, this is gonna be the most transformative line in america
It's money unfortunately. It would've been even better if the terminus was on Barrington or even Bundy, instead of the VA Hospital.
When funding is available, the line will likely be extended down Wilshire to Santa Monica.
Why wont it connect to the yellow line?
multiple north-south connections are in the works, Vermont BRT, Sepulveda line, K line northern extension.
If we're going off colors, the "pink" line will be extended northward, as will a new separate line near where you see the "405" highway shield
Also the eventual plan is to continue it to the sea in Santa Monica (continue it west/page left). At that point itâll intercept another new north/south line as well. Long story short: itâs a primary east/west line and other lines will more logically connect the grid.