2021 Update on LA Metro Projects (Part 2 of 3): The Sepulveda Line
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- čas přidán 10. 05. 2021
- Second of a three-part series on the latest news regarding LA Metro projects as of May 2021. This video covers the Sepulveda Line. Don't have time for this shit? Got you covered with a tl;dw right here:
• 2021 Update on LA Metr...
Sources and references used in this video:
9:12: brtguide.itdp.org/branch/mast...
16:40: la.streetsblog.org/2021/03/15...
17:17: ggwash.org/view/67201/why-cit...
29:49: www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...
31:51: web.archive.org/web/202102192...
(The article wasn't loading properly on the site when I tried to access it so I'm including this wayback machine copy.)
33:13: calmatters.org/health/coronav...
When I'm not bludgeoning the monorail to death, I’m a documentary producer and editor. If you want to see more stuff by me that's entirely unrelated to the Metro, check out the documentary Behind the Curve (about flat-earthers and the psychology of belief) streaming on Netflix, or to rent or buy on iTunes/Amazon/Google Play. Or to see some more of my editing, check out the documentary Transhood on HBO. Currently, we’re at work on a doc about the hunt for Planet Nine, among other projects. You can find me on Twitter at @NickAndert.
Every single LA politician needs to see this video. The Sepulveda line will transform this city, but only if it's done right
There is a meeting I believe on June 8
You forget america doesn’t care about it’s people. You go into office to make $$
BYD had won the contract for the Albuquerque Rapid Transit BRT project. They botched it, delivered horrible buses that couldn't hold a charge, and the city had to buy New Flyer buses to replace them. Arguably the best BRT project in the USA lost so much steam and potential for public support due to BYD. They then did the same to Indianapolis and their BRT system, and that system has had to install chargers at stations to keep those buses running. It's concerning to see BYD attempt to play that same con-game on a far larger scale. Albuquerque Rapid Transit was a relatively easy fix. This will not be. Good on you for this video, BYD must not win this contract, it will be disastrous for Los Angeles, will cost more than the other proposal, and none of it will be done by the Olympics. BYD simply can't be trusted.
Hmmm, is BYD somehow owned by a consortium of General Motors, Firestone Tires and Standard Oil?
Byd is chinese
Late. However worse. They are owned by the Communist Chinese Government.
If you're the kind of community minded nerd who get's really exited whenever the latest @Nandert video drops, then you've got a friend in me.
legend
Same here!!
same in that i've been counting the days since this one to prepare for Part Three!
Glad I'm not the only one who finds this fascinating
LA needs more advocates for the truth like you
In a just world, the Simpsons comparisons alone would be enough to shame the Metro board out of any monorail proposal.
Except there’s nothing inherently wrong about monorails, they have niches where they are ideal just like any other mode.
The problem with this proposal isn’t really the monorail aspect, instead it’s the everything else Nandert discussed in the video.
Heh, it would be hilarious if they were shown this in a public metro board meeting. The looks on their faces..
This reminds me of what Alon Levy said about American contractors pitching cheap upfront costs, then asking for more money later on. Whereas Spain studies the costs beforehand and requires the contractors to give them the actual cost estimates upfront. So they know what they should pay for and pay for it the first time.
And that’s why their trains are cost effective and good. At least they know what to do.
That's why American politicians love privatisation. When I was a public employee in Massachusetts we used to give honest accounting of projected costs.
@@edwardmiessner6502 if only that was the case here...
Same with Australia, passenger railway lines around the country (see links below, except for Western Australia) are so ridiculously expensive to construct regardless of being at ground level, elevated or in tunnel. Australia and the USA have one of the most expensive costs in the world when constructing railway lines, even if there's no mighty rivers, hills or tunnels to cross over. Other countries like Switzerland, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, China and etc are able to build high quality railways regardless of alignment at a decent price and engineering challenges.
blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2013/03/15/if-wa-can-build-rail-lines-cheaply-why-cant-the-other-states/
blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2012/02/15/why-do-subways-cost-so-much-to-build-here-than-elsewhere/
grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/The-Rise-of-Megaprojects-Grattan-Report.pdf
I wish we did what most of the world did in regards to infrastructure and ditched the whole contractor thing and instead had full time construction teams whose job it was to always work on projects.
KEEP THE LONG VIDEOS COMING! Great breakdown. I love the time you took to go way below surface level on this issue.
nick andert for metro board of directors when??????????????
also please add "investigative journalist" to your Twitter bio it only fits
God, I’m depressed now that I’ve seen the end of the video. 😔
Fun Fact: California Highway Patrol has stated that they are against the monorail alternatives as they may violate state transportation laws.
BYD has been up to no good in Toronto too. Our local transit here (TTC) is trialing electric busses from BYD and two other companies to decide which to make a large purchase from. BYD’s bus is the worst in almost every performance metric, but it’s clear that some members of the commission are still in their corner. BYD also uses public dispositions in the board meetings to sneak in their marketing. I hope LA doesn’t go for their proposal.
Thank you for showing the context for non-Anegelians; absolutely love the Beschdel graph with the octopus-looking arrows spurring out
Shoutout to Hong Kong here
Stop BYD, Stop CCP, FIVE DEMANDS NOT ONE LESS
This half-hour video needs way more views.
I know right? Most folks really suck. I bet if @Nandert ate a tide pod half way through then more peasants, I mean people, would give a shit. #Grumpy #Misanthrope
We like long videos! Don't think we'll unsubscribe! I'd love a full-length take on all of this.
FANTASTIC video. The incredibly detailed breakdown of the two projects is exactly what many need to see, especially because the monorail proposal has seemed fishy from the jump. Now, with seeing the challenges with BYD's proposal laid out so clearly (including the company's sketchy relationship with Metro Board members), I feel far more informed to advocate against their proposal.
Sidenote: I'm not a fan of P3 transit partnerships (look at the Purple Line debacle in Maryland), but if LA is to have one, having one that more seamlessly integrates with the existing system is the way to go. Keep the great videos coming!
I like the long form essay format. Keep it up. Sprinkle a few amongst your shorter videos. Make them an hour long if you have to.
The Bechtel proposal is clearly superior, just technically speaking. They're proposing off-the-shelf technology, using widely available high-speed trainsets, proven operations standards, and a novel construction method that could become the standard for a new generation of rapid subway tunnel projects across the LA region. Basically, they're replicating Sydney Metro, which is awesome.
I know this comment is old but they’re also using the same tunnel engineering team that’s constructing the single bore tunnel in downtown San Jose right now.
These are literally the best videos on the internet. Thank you. Can Metro just hire you already to sway what residents need?!
nandert, rising star of youtube!
YEAH, ANOTHER ONE! Actually though, great to see another new video from you dude
Please say NO to Monorail! PLEASE!
Rather don't build anything and give some money to solve other LA city issues such as homelessness or maintaining roads. The LA public transport is already one of the worst and slowest in the world. Please do not make it even worse. Rather don't give people hope.
This was such an incredibly well done video! Thank you so much for making it!
I genuinely didn't think I'd ever see a transit video of this quality about LA. So many transit channels seem to have given up on the west coast, and while I can't blame them, it's so refreshing to see something so informative and educational about our fascinating and fantastic and terrible metro system
great video. And it seems to be working too. There was a public comment period in June of 2022 where 93% of comments were in favor of the Heavy Rail alignment. If that doesn't have a strong enough signal I don't know what will.
I think they will be going with Heavy Rail as well. I could see it with Platform Screen Doors if they automate it especially with hub stations.
The message you have at the end of this video regarding corruption with BYD and politicians accepting money for an inferior and possibly more expensive project needs to be made into a shorter punchier video and shared with all urban advocacy orgs in the LA area, this is ridiculous and there should be massive public pressure to stop this garbage.
Should be shared wider than LA. Judging by other comments from people in other cities, BYD a horrible reputation for being a serial offender of this
@@tylermc11795 Agreed there is a lot of corruption via lobbying / special interest in this country.
Public comment period just started! Can you do a video with your thoughts for the alternatives they’ve shown?
Amazing video! I like that it ends on a super triumphant musical monorail moment and you have to be a Simpsons scholar to know that in spite of the unified cheerful enthusiasm, the monorail doesn't turn out well.
Heavy rail should have written a song like that guy.
You don't have to be a Simpsons scholar if you saw the episode. It stays with you!
I was literally just wandering when you were going to upload this video and I got excited when I saw it! This was well-worth my 37 minutes! Please do more videos!
I knew the the Monorail option sucked from day one.
Bravo! This video is beyond amazing, on so many different levels for so many different reasons! Once again, Bravo!
Discovered your videos a few days ago and instantly subscribed. Very well researched, put together, and beautifully presented. Definitely a new favorite channel of mine. I hope you can continue to grow and spread this information as wide as possible. I've shared this video with a few people but it really needs to be seen by many more. Thank you for your hard work and for your service to this city.
In sections on the east side of the 405 between approximately the 101 and the metrolink tracks there is a large (I think 120") MWD pipe and a high pressure gas pipe line. There would most likely be no room to for the BYD Monorail columns . I don't think BYD did any pre routing review as to existing infrastructure and utilities for their proposal.
Just like them and monorail supporters, they are uninformed.
I love your detailed breakdown and analysis of each of the bid proposals. I really appreciate how you uncover the hidden motives and stakeholders which aren’t immediately clear. Thanks for doing such great work, you’re quickly becoming one of my favorite content creators. I hope this video reaches the eyes of riders and decision makers because it’s really important!
Keep it up!!! Excited to see where your content leads to in terms of community engagement.
Before this video, I was for the monorail as I thought it would allow riders to see LA while moving through it.
Now, seeing how the exact plan for the path fails to do that, i dont think we should, especially since im for more capacity as public transport is no.1 in improving wealth and growth in a city.
Thank you
Everyone in LA needs to watch this!
The 4 dislikes are probably Garcetti and other BYD shareholders.
I love these videos, keep them coming
I have no idea why I am watching this video living 50k Kms away from what this video is concerned about but still loving it and actually taking interest in it and getting worried about BYD. I just loved it Nandert. The video was amazing, the figures the stats and everything was mindboggling. Cheers ❤️
Ok but I’d totally be down for more 40 minute vids going into the nitty gritty details of public transit projects.
Lol this is my fourth time watching this video in full. Please make more.
Doing gods work with these videos
This was a fascinating video to watch. Very deep dive, lots of detail, and clear explanation of the political and economic issues. Well done. We transit wonks thank you.
This area needs a real heavy rail line
No less
BYD's proposal looks like a tour of the highway. Gotta smell that fumes-rich air of freedom.
In 1972, Quentin Kopp lead a ctizien initiative to change the BART board to elected after the disastrous crony BART bond...This should happen with METRO.
Really? Metro's Board absolutely should be directly elected. Sadly, LACMTA board members are set by state statute. We'd need a state prop to get that changed, right? (I'm not actually sure) Though, perhaps a more effective technique would be a county initiative to restrict the collection of taxes for the use by Metro until changes were made to the board?
Need a lawyer.
great video. Very informative. My colleague recommended it to me. I am not disappointed.
I have nothing to say except this is great and I'm trying to boost this on the algorithm with comments
Excellent video. The whole thing is clear(er) to me. Meticulous work. Great details.
How long is phase 1? 10 miles? Good luck doing either for $10 billion.
The ease of connection and UCLA are crucial. Smaller trains with higher frequency also reduces the wait time. 15 minute travel is all well and good but if passengers know they will only wait 120 seconds for the next service then there will be many more riders.
The other the reason Metro would have for granting two pre-development contracts is to keep Bechtel’s price down. They may have paid $60 million to the SkyRail consortium but they may save $500. Perhaps?
BYD (an abbreviation of “Build You Dreams” [LOL]) has typical Chinese 差不多 (cha bu duo/close enough) culture. Whatever they’re building is not a dream of mine!
It’s a nightmare disguised as a dream. Who builds a line connecting The Valley through UCLA and LAX and doesn’t plan for UCLA?
Can't wait for part 3!
BYD is the same company that got embroiled into a lawsuit and controversy in Albuquerque, NM with ABQ Ride, metro area transit system there over their botched opening of the new BRT line called ART there because the BYD busses had many problems in the testing of the line and were considered unsafe by the city after further investigations when they delayed opening it. They did open the line 2 years later from initial opening as the BRT lines had other issues than just the buses themselves, but went with New Flyer instead, a major bus manufacturer of articulated busses.
Great work!
25:44 - a station that serves Sherman Oaks Galleria's car-parking decks.
Go away BYD!
Ask Vancouver about "more-frequent, shorter" trains. That was the idea on the Canada Line.
This isn't as extreme as Vancouver's Canada Line. I think Canada Line has 164 ft platforms and max capacity of 15,000 pph, but Bechtel's proposal is 280 ft platforms and max capacity of 27,000.
@@numblenumbler3172 Indeed, and you can add cars with walk-through diagrams which never open their doors in stations. London does that on many of their Surface Lines.
This is amazingly informative
I re watch your videos constantly I live in enlagnd but your videos are amazing
great and depressing at the same time. i like the extra-long format fwiw; i'm sure it takes lots of effort, just that if it's necessary i don't think most people would mind
This was very good thank you
Los Angels definitely needs to take a page out of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system design for this one. They should build big high capacity stations further apart to focus on speed and transfers. Also stations should be built for 10 cars instead of 4. I know it would boost the cost significantly but they will be needed one day.
Say NO to BYD's idiotic monorail and say YES to Bechtel's heavy rail!
Commenting for the algorithm, more ppl need to see this
Great video @nandert!! Do we know if Bechtel is planning to use the smaller height Linear Induction Motor subway trains as part of their innovations to save on construction of even smaller diameter single bore tunnels?
Thanks! The document says it's under consideration and they'll look more into it in this next evaluation phase.
Hi Nandert, thanks for the amazing video being provided. Would you be able to give the link of the picture you used in 24:46? I can’t find it online with your sources being provided
All resources regarding that station can be found here: metroprimaryresources.info/future-stations-of-the-past-whatever-happened-to-early-plans-for-a-metro-rail-stop-at-the-hollywood-bowl/1697/
@@nandert thanks! Looking forward to part 3 of this series!
Do you believe the Simpson’s made this Monorail episode to make fun of or bring to notice a possible monorail proposition brought up in Los Angeles County back in 1993 or 1990’s? I saw some propositions for that on the Wilshire (purple) Line and one proposition for a Sunset Blvd line, but never was able to find dates. Would sort of show people that this was a proposition shut down before and maybe would show the reason why as well. Could still be relatable to today?
Great video, Angelenos need to know what they’re getting here
Love the "The Wørd"-esque snark
I did that commute from the valley through the Sepulveda pass for 14 years. It was a nightmare that only got worse over the years. I had enough of the traffic and left L.A.. I don't miss it one ounce.
Can you please link the documents for both the Bechtel and BYD proposals? Love your work!
I've reuploaded them here: www.dropbox.com/s/pvh9l5ood6ndap1/Bechtel.zip?dl=0 www.dropbox.com/s/0gofokkdui58m45/BYD.zip?dl=0
@@nandert Thanks! Helping a fellow transit enthusiast!
These videos are a pleasure, not only super informative, but also good at injecting a good laugh right when you feel you might cry over the travesties waiting to be dumped on the city. The 37 minutes flew by.
What are the most effective ways to make our voices heard to prevent the monorail monstrosity? A strong public showing is necessary here.
Sydney Australia built a monorail downtown and now they're removing it
Does anyone know if the the details of Bechtel's proposal are publicly available? and If so where can I find it?
Im am 80/20 certain that by 2028, we will only have had the crenshaw line & regional connector done. Because the Olympics are a few weeks long, Metro will just build a single track on the WSAB, and DMUs or Metrolink cars on all freight ROW adjacent to the blue/green lines. Some events may take place in San Pedro, & they'll have a Metrolink train going down Alameda Corridor. Sepulveda will most likely have a BRT & they'll use the Orange LIne's "Trains on rubber tires" salespitch.
Where did you find the documents in the video? I'd love to read them
I would like to thank you for enlightening me on more infrastructure policy and just that even the people we vote to control the metro matter. Will be voting cautiously next election. Would like to get your thoughts on people running next year on this issue concerning metro and other transit. Since things like this are a very long term thing.
8:07 YUP!! And WE'LL MAKE IT HAPPEN TOO!!
I predicted the single bore tunnel for this project at a meeting at the Proud Bird. I filled out a question card and submitted. The host on the microphone, responding to my card, told the entire room that Metro studied the single bore tunnel and it was not considered for the Sepulveda line project because the cost benefit analysis did not show enough cost savings to be further considered. I didn't consider the single bore tunnel identified in the design for the monorail to UCLA.
oh whee part 2 is here :::)
oh no part 2 is fucking terrifying :::(
I would like to see ever slightly longer platforms planned out from bechtel at 5 car to allow capacity to grow more.
I'm 4 months late. But the entire BYD proposal has cost overrides written on it. The entire project would be easier if they stuck with precast U or W girders (they are cheap to build) and stuck with conventional heavy rail. Monorail also means custom signaling and switches and rolling stock. Guess what, BYD doesn't have experience with signaling. Boy oh boy, this is a going to mint a lot of money for BYD.
I don't see anything that talks about signaling equipment costs. That'll a huge red flag.
The fact that BYD is a PRC company alone should eliminate them from consideration. Wouldn't be surprised if Pooh told them to propose this to cripple what would be a hugely transformative line for one of our most important cities.
what is the current time via car. With and without traffic?
Traffic from Sepulveda/ Ventura to West is around 30 minutes. No traffic 10-15 minutes. Basically double.
Have you posted Part 3 yet?
No, i've been waiting for congress to pass the bill so I can talk about what's in it, which I naively expected to happen already. Now, I'm not even sure they'll pass anything at all. I'll give up on waiting and make a part 3 in a few weeks maybe.
So With Garcetti now nominated to be the US ambassador to India who will initially replace him on the Metro board when he’s confirmed (assuming he is confirmed which i think is a pretty safe bet)? And when will the Metro board make key decisions on this project?
6 car bonafide electrified monorail
If you build the monorail, LA transit will forever be known as inferior, and public opinion will turn against transit. Build the monorail, and you can kiss goodbye to any rail expansion plans after that. Just look at what happened in the Bay Area. They built a crappy subway system (the BART), and now Bay Area people are all defeatist and are against building new rail transit because rail transit in the Bay Area (except for Caltrain) is crappy by definition.
The most uninformed moronic comment on this video. Bart was a huge success for the bay. Ridership was already at 100,000 a day before it's 10th anniversary. Bart has also helped shape the bays development and how people get around. It's also the 5th largest rapid transit system in america by ridership. Bart has it's issues, but you won't sit up here and act like it was a complete failure in the bay. It has the HIGHEST rail ridership on the entire west coast. LA WISHES they had got a system like the bay did back in the 50s and 60s. Politics, NIMBYISM, construction costs, and uninformed people like you have kept SOME parts of the bay against rail, but all of the bay isn't anti-rail.
If the bay area was so against rail, Caltrain wouldn't be electrifying. Bart wouldn't be going to SJ. The tri-valley wouldn't be getting dmu lrt service. Marin wouldn't have built Smart. And a second transbay tube wouldn't be such a huge priority. You people need to do research before coming to videos commenting incorrect information about things because that spreads to people who are against big projects and the same incorrect information you spewed gets regurgitated into media outlets for people like Ralph V of the LA times to pick up and repeat to the masses, THUS backing the NIMBY's and creating new ones who were already probably on the fence about rail projects.
This is great detail! Does anyone know how the American jobs plan is supposed to affect Los Angeles rail spending?
That will be covered in part 3, coming out in a few weeks (apparently he's waiting for more details to clear up regarding precisely what will happen)
Slight Nitpick, but the graphic you showed at 23:38 shows connections from the ESFV line at the stations, which means this is likely talking about the Option 1 Orange Line interchange at Van Nuys, not Sepulveda, meaning that it may not be fully applicable to the Monorail in this instance. You could make the argument that you might see a lot of people transferring onto the Orange Line at Van Nuys to get to Sepulveda, but I'd still wager that a lot of people coming from the ESFV line would still rather take the train north to Van Nuys Metrolink to transfer to the Sepulveda Line rather than transfer twice, once to the Orange Line, and again to Sepulveda, meaning the "more boardings than current 7th/Metro" might not exactly be accurate in this situation.
Still doesn't distract from the point that that interchange is completely awful in terms of design (well the entire proposal is for that matter), but its something I thought would be worth pointing out.
I was a supporter of the monorail proposal until I just watched this video. It would be great to have a good monorail system, but this proposal would not be it. At least not the one being fronted by BYT. It would have been great to see Hitachi or Bombardier/Alstom make a bid for a monorail system that puts a stop at UCLA and is in alignment with other stops and not ridiculous walking distances from them.
BYD is such a shady company. I would trust Bechtel more to build this project right and on time.
36:08 oh I want a video as long as this
Nandert, where did you download the Bechtel document?
Reuploaded it here (the original link expired): www.dropbox.com/s/pvh9l5ood6ndap1/Bechtel.zip?dl=0
@@nandert awesome, thank you!
How about we build the heavy rail line but also build the monorail just to the Getty? LOL
Who cares about the length. This was a great rundown. Thanks for highlighting the corruption and bait-n-switch that get used.
An expansive LA Metro has so much potential but it seems LA is its own worst enemy when getting it done.
L.A. is it’s own worst enemy when it comes to almost every major project. The problem with L.A. is that it always undercuts itself. This city doesn’t know how to be creative, innovate and think big when it comes to city planning.
Pffffff, monorail 🙄👎🏾!!! Heavy Rail 🤔?? 👍🏾😁!!!!
is there a part 3/??????/
it'll be another few weeks still as I want to wait until some of the details of the infrastructure bill solidify so the video can be more informative.
8:10 I'm dead LMAO
How will they rescue people stuck on the monorail? Disney World’s monorails keeps breaking down.