Los Angeles Metro Communications Manager Discusses New Expansions & Mindset In Making City Of Angels Easier To Navigate
One of the aspects of IPW and of its parent the US Travel Association is making entry into the country’s biggest gateway cities easier. Los Angeles, one of the largest US cities, has always been besieged by its traffic. Since 2008, there has been an active push to link key sectors of the city that have long been bottlenecked by crippling gridlock. With brand new initiatives including the current completed Expo Line to Santa Monica, the active construction project of the Purple Line through Beverly Hills & Westwood and the just announced LAX connector aiming for completion by 2024, MTA LA understands the evolution needed. The Buzz sat down with John Saturo, Communications Manager & Spokesperson for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority about urban renewal, active development and more accessibility for different Park N’ Ride scenarios to serve both the RV crowd and outdoor enthusiasts.
The Buzz: Can you talk about the changing game of transportation in LA, especially taking into consideration large vehicles like RVs?
John Saturo: We had a sales tax approved in 2008 in the middle of the recession to fund transportation projects. That happened nowhere else in the country. Right now we are in the best position to add additional rail lines in our system and [are] expanding it to the four corners of the county. One of the most important areas is the West Side [of Los Angeles]. If you look at a map of the transit system, there is a big gap there. Nothing goes there. Up until a month ago, we didn’t have the Expo line going to Santa Monica.
We have two projects that are going to address the transportation needs of the West Side. The Purple Line is a high dollar project . It is 6.3 Billion dollars. We are going to extend it from the current terminal at Wilshire/Western, down Wilshire Blvd and eventually it is going to reach Westwood/VA. It is about a 9-mile addition to rail service. It is going to be high capacity…reliable, frequent transit service. Anyone who has traveled on Wilshire Blvd…they can attest that it takes forever. The intersections are congested. There are about 150 of them. (chuckling) I am exaggerating…but there are a lot of intersections between Downtown and Santa Monica. So to traverse all those intersections is extremely time consuming and frustrating. So what we are doing is building a subway that is going to travel along Wilshire Blvd. It is going to pop up and give access to key destinations on Wilshire. Who doesn’t want to go to the LA County Museum Of Art. The La Brea Tar Pits are world famous. The Petersen Automotive Museum. [Then] along Rodeo, we are going to have a Rodeo destination stop. A Century City stop. A Westwood/UCLA station stop. So it is really going to hit those target high demand destinations.
The Buzz: Can you speak to the construction impact aspect, especially in the Beverly Hills area, but also from Beverly Hills to Westwood itself and then right to the 405, which can be unbelievably congested. Is Metro LA using technology breakthroughs to make the transition more seamless?
JS: We are engaged in a construction boom throughout the county. We have so many projects that are in progress at the exact same time. It is challenging to do construction in a dense urban environment like Los Angeles but I think we have a good construction relations effort…a team that really gets out into the community and lets the residents and the businesses in that immediate area know that “yes…this coming week we are going to be closing down the street”…putting decking on Wilshire Blvd for example. We do those things on weekends so you are not impacting the daily weekday driver. A lot of our major construction work is done that way. That has been the case and is the typical way of construction. You do as much work as possible in a 52-hour period from a Friday night at 6 or 8pm to 6am in the morning on Monday. You go like gangbusters.
The Buzz: Can you address the Park N’ Ride aspects of this new expansion in Los Angeles which can aid travelers such as RV owners who would optimize such systems?
JS: We do provide Park N’ Ride for some of the stations on our new projects. In some cases, it is hard to provide those kinds of lots in dense areas like Westside and Santa Monica. We have about 3 Park N’ Ride lots on the Expo Line. [By comparison], in the suburban areas like with the Gold Line extension there is more room so there are lots at every single station. All of these projects undergo a multi-year environmental review process and we do take into consideration people who is driving to stations. Of course, we want to encourage people to use other means to access our stations. Most of them do come in by other ways…like a bus line, walking or biking.
The Buzz: Since the Expo Line opened, Culver City on the West Side has been undeniable renewed. How does this kind of metro integration encourage urban renovation. There is even a plan in play for an LAX connection from the Westside.
JS: When you do the planning for these big projects, you want to make sure you are hitting the major destinations along the way. For example, the Red Line goes straight through Hollywood. There are three major station stops through[there]…one is Hollywood/Vine, the world famous intersection. So we do try to select the places people want to go to when we build the transit lines. Then once it’s built…it creates its own effect because it [initiates] a great amount of activity that comes in and around the station that has nothing to do with Metro. We may own that piece of land right on top of the station. We can develop something [there] but within a half mile radius of every station, that is the prime zone for people to develop…redevelop…create more density…create more housing…create more shopping.
Tim Wassberg
A graduate of New York University's Tisch School Of The Arts with degrees in Film/TV Production & Film Criticism, Tim has written for magazines such as Moviemaker, Moving Pictures, Conde Nast Traveler UK and Casino Player. He enjoys traveling and distinct craft beers among other things.
Be Sure To Check Out:
Metro Los Angeles, where new light rail and subway lines are linking new parts of the city including the new Expo Line connecting Downtown Los Angeles through the West Side to Santa Monica.