Photo courtesy of Metro Library and Archive.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced today that the Metro Gold Line will receive $66.7 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The funds will be used for the Metro Gold Line Eastside Light Rail Extension.

“By getting these funds to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority now, we’re providing a boost that will help this project keep moving forward while jump-starting the economy and putting people back to work,” Secretary LaHood said.

The East Side Extension is six miles of track that will connect the Gold Line at Union Station through Little Tokyo, Boyle Heights, and end in East Los Angeles at the intersection of Atlantic & Pomona Boulevards.

It is worth noting that today’s announcement doesn’t really mean any more money for the Gold Line. In 2004, the Feds agreed to provide $490.7 million of the $898.8 million total project cost. This was to be paid in annual increments through 2010.  The ARRA grant announced today doesn’t increase the federal commitment to the project; it just expedites funds already promised.

While Secretary LaHood was happy to announce the advance on our allowance, he did not mention a specific preference for what the Eastside Extension should be called.

By now, you’ve probably heard about Metro’s board giving the new Eastside Gold Line extension two different names. One in English: Edward R. Roybal Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension. The other in Spanish: La Linea de Oro, Edward R. Roybal. Both of which will prove to be a useless political move, as normal human beings will revert to the shorter, easier “Gold Line.”

The fact that Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina has forced this down our throats without any public input from the actual citizens who will have to pay for all of that new signage – twice – has already been hotly debated on sites like Curbed. And while the stupidity of some out-of-touch policitian making such a move will cost us millions in wasteful spending, there is a bigger issue here.

Instead of unifying the unique ethnic enclaves that make up this great city, Los Angeles is segregating them. Isolating them further into their own little pockets by the ever-growing language barrier. And for what purpose?

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Rendering of Possible Alameda Gold Line Station, in Beautiful Downtown… Azusa???

Metro had another meeting today. They decided to move forward with Westward extensions of the Red & Purple Lines to somewhere, a Downtown Connector, further extension of the Gold Line from East L.A., and the Orange Line train bus to Chatsworth. Super. Start building the damned things already.

Just one question… Why is L.A. still ignoring one of the fastest-growing traffic nightmares in the city?

101-134-210. It’s not code. It’s three major freeways that bridge the gap between the two Valleys. Van Nuys. Sherman Oaks. Studio City. Universal City. Burbank. Glendale. Pasadena. Major job centers. Thousands of motorists playing a daily game of car jockey at 15mph.

Why isn’t the city addressing this region with any sort of urgency? Why aren’t there at least discussions on the table about a Metro Rail link between the San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel?

I went back to Metro’s Long Range Transportation Plan to see if I missed something when it first came out.

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I almost spit out my cough drop when I read an entry by Steve Hymon on yesterday’s Bottleneck Blog:

During the news conference about Measure R’s passage, Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Roger Snoble said it may now be possible to extend the line to Fairfax Avenue within six or seven years and the line could get to Westwood in 20 years. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa heard that, and super-super-quickly stepped to the mike and promised to be “aggressive” about securing federal dollars to speed that up.

By the time Snoble and the boys finishing tunneling down Wilshire, the Gold Line will have reached Phoenix.

Way to go.

There is growing opposition to the NBC West Coast Headquarters project planned for the lot above Metro’s Universal Station. Some say it will be too big and create a traffic nightmare. That is why NBC needs to push for expanding rail transit in the Valley. Rail that goes in more directions, to more places.

That is why NBC needs to push for a Ventura Boulevard subway.

Just last year, both Tom LaBonge and Zev Yaroslavsky started to complain that this project was too big for Universal/Studio City/North Hollywood or whatever city your post office calls the area. They claim that this quaint little neighborhood of amusement parks, freeway interchanges and car dealerships cannot withstand such a massive development. It will be traffic hell. Read the rest of this entry →