Smaller Flyaway Bus

The Really reputable USA Today is reporting that the Flyaway departing from Van Nuys, Union Station and Westwood will begin being serviced by smaller "21 Passenger Buses"

I'm not sure why USA today is the only mention i've heard of this but this should be big (and negative news) for public transit in Los Angeles. The worst news is that they plan to begin using the smaller buses in December. Everytime i'm on a flyaway bus from or to Van Nuys duing december every seat is full and people are standing in line - often times the bus is full by the time it gets to terminal 5 or 6. That's with using the full size 55 seat coach buses - i shudder to think what the flyaway service is going to be like in and out of van nuys over christmas this year if they do in fact plan to use the shorter buses. This is the quickest way to kill this system - make it inconvenient for everyone to use over a major holiday season. I hope someone over at LAWA has thought about this and possibly actually rides the flyaway.

As a side note - one of the reasons i liked the flyaway so much is that they were huge comfortable coach buses. I usually got my own seat and could relax. I think 21 person buses are pushing the limits of a normal route and not looking for future growth.

Hollywood Dell Music Park - in the plans?

Some of you may remember my post from a few weeks ago about the vacant lot at Cahuenga/Franklin being a possible target for a pocket park

It turns out a similar project may already be in the works for the area. While i was casually browsing old minutes from the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council archives I happened upon a few mentions of a rather odd lot that now sits empty and looks like it is part of the freeway system.

I've included the text I'm talking about below but the gist of it from what i can gather is that the lot at Franklin and Ivar next to the freeway is up for sale from CalTrans for $897,000. One person wants to buy the land and make it a parking lot, someone wants to buy it and put up condos (freeway adjacent!), and Robyn Whitney thinks it would be a good idea to put a Music Park (with underground parking and an on-site caretaker?). I would really like to see the PowerPoint presentation she used to describe this project.

The project sounds awesomely ambitious and I'm all about it. Not sure if i can get behind 39 underground parking spaces (i read somewhere to construct underground parking it's $20,000 per spot - I'd provide a link if i could but i have no idea where i read it) but right now that lot is vacant with a few trees and a chain link fence. If someone could figure out a way to utilize this space and minimize the effect the freeway has on this stretch of Franklin lets go for it. I don't see those Quimby funds being used for anything else (Curbed and Downtown News have both reported on Downtown's lack of ability to spend Quimby fees)

Below is the information from the HUNC Meeting minutes I'm getting all my information from.

HUNC Board Meetings: Third Monday of the Month at 6:30pm at First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood

The lot being discussed is on the right, just north of Franklin. The 101 is adjacent to the lot.

From the August 20th Meeting Minutes:

"The lot will be up for auction on Sept. 1st. Eric Garcetti will contribute $400,000 in Quimby Act funds. The money is not in hand, it’s coming later. So it can’t be given to CalTrans. The price for the lot is $897,000.00 with 10% down."

From the Sept. 17th Meeting Minutes

D. PS&T –
2. Update on the status of the lot on Franklin at Ivar,
a. Presentation by Robyn Whitney for a proposed use of the lot.
Robyn Whitney presented the concept of a Hollywood Dell Music Park for this site.
How this land might be used--some options:

• Leave as empty land
• Parking
• Park
• Condominiums –(26 units)

An innovative use would be a Music Park. H. B. Barnum, the benefactor, would like to leave a park on this site. This will be a private / public park partnership. Quimby funds could be used to purchase the lot. Developers contribute to Quimby Funds to help acquire green space. A caretaker will live on the premises. The site would have buildings and 39 parking spaces below ground. Robyn made a power-point presentation with diagrams and renderings showing the envisioned project.

She also noted that keeping it as a park would benefit Hollywood because State Law states that: “Once land is designated as a park it remains a park forever.” There is a need to form a Parks Advisory Board.
Robyn Whitney requested a support letter from HUNC to Tom LaBonge for the Hollywood Dell Music Park.

Motion: Gary Slossberg, “To support the Hollywood Dell Music Park and to write a letter of support to Tom LaBonge and the appropriate LA City and State officials.”
Second: Andrew Ettinger
Vote: Yes---11 No---0 Abs---1

Letter Drafted During Sept. 17th Meeting
Hollywood Music Park letter

Dear ______,

The Hollywood United Neighborhood Council would like to extend its enthusiastic support of the proposed Hollywood Dell Music Park to be built on the Caltrans empty lot at the intersection of Ivar Street, Franklin Blvd and the 101 Freeway. The park is an innovative and cost-effective way to create more green space in Hollywood and to celebrate the accomplishments of musicians and (_____________) in the Hollywood area.
We strongly encourage the City and State to make all efforts to provide the adequate funding to make the Hollywood Dell Music Park a reality.

Sincerely,
HUNC

The Vine Theater: Gone Again?

This is an unconfirmed report but the Vine Theater - that old porn theater on hollywood that shows two movies for seven dollars - may have quietly shut it's doors this weekend. The marquee had been displaying both the Transformers and The Simpsons Movie for seven bucks for the past four weeks or so - now it only lists a church service they host on sunday mornings.

Confirming this theory is the movie listing at losangelesmovietimes.com which says they aren't showing any films. Could just be an error - will follow up and report back sometime soon.

Film Shoot on Ivar Hill

Saturday afternoon residents were greeted with Tow-Away No Parking signs and film permits taped to front doors. Our little stretch of Ivar (between Yucca and Franklin) will be completely shut down to both parking and driving on tuesday and wednesday. The permit shows the location of the shoot will primarly be the Alto Nido apartments and possibly involve some sort of stunt - then again the permit also shows the street will be shut down from 7am-10pm and the sign above has a posted no parking from 7am-10am. A minor difference

Parking is sure to be worse in the next few days as residents hunt for a spot.

What i'm anxious for is to see these temporary No-Parking signs remain up for weeks. The place i used to live at in Van Nuys had these same signs posted one day for a shoot and remained up for at least 4 months and might still be posted to the tree's. Whoever is responsible for putting these signs up should also be responsible for taking them down.

Metro Westside Expansion Meeting

I attended one of the five community meetings that are being held to gauge public opinion of what (if any) additional metro service should be planned for the west side. I did not stand up and voice my opinion but i plan to craft a letter that I will be sending that will voice my opinions.

Overall the meeting seemed productive - this is the first Metro meeting i've been able to attend and they seemed legitimately interested in getting public opinion about transit options in the area. The presentation was fairly straightforward and reinforced all the signs they had posted around the room. They addressed what exact phase this project is in, possible outcomes, possible alignments a project would have and what the next steps would be. They stressed many times that Nov. 1st is the cut off date for public opinion in order to look into what the "locally preferred alternative" is. I urge everyone to let Metro know what you think about LA Transit and the traffic on the west side here

The first thing that caught my attention was the potential alignments poster. They showed the obvious alignment down wilshire but also an alignment that goes from Hollywood/Highland down Santa Monica and continues down Wilshire to the Ocean.

I think both of these alignments would add value to Los Angeles but I think the Wilshire branch would be the most beneficial. A few people from neighborhood councils expressed concern with building a subway through their "historical" neighborhoods. One commenter was very against building a station at Wilshire/Crenshaw because of the ridiculous Park Mile designation that has kept any retail out of the area - it hasn't kept large office buildings out of the area though and multiple 6-8 story office buildings line wilshire that could be served by that station - not to mention connecting to Crenshaw transit options.

The comment that got to me the most was by a gentleman who claimed Los Angeles is a horizontal city and doesn't have any need for a subway - he ranted about how much a subway costs compared to other options. It's that kind of narrow thinking that keeps Los Angeles stuck in traffic all day. Los Angeles may have been a horizontal city in the past but look at any major artery in the city and all you see is 10+ story buildings going up.

There were lots and lots of interesting stats about the west side including job growth and population growth. It made it hard to imagine any alternative other than building a subway to help with the problem.

If i was planning this route I would look at a combo subway/light rail project. Build a tunnel under Wilshire from Wilshire/Western to the UCLA/405 area. At that point the trains emerge from a tunnel and run along a surface alignment through the residential and less dense areas around Santa Monica. I don't know enough to know if it would save that much money to make the train above ground for that last portion through Santa Monica but it seems like a good solution that has been achieved in many other transit systems (MBTA in Boston and MUNI in San Francisco to name a few)

After the Wilshire line is created - or at least approved - then we can start talking about a major north/south alignment. I had no idea why no one is talking about a line down Sepulveda along the 405. And how about extending the crenshaw line up to hollywood to connect at hollywood/vine or hollywood/highland.

• Additional coverage of this meeting can be found on Metro Rider - more in depth analysis of the comments and attendance.

• Also of note is that the LA Times had a reporter there writing down lots of notes. I'm sure we can expect to see a piece in the paper this week.

**thanks to Elissa for the use of her camera for the above photos**