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This Dreamy Map Shows The Potential Future Of L.A.'s Transit System
North Hollywood Metro Station (Photo by Chris Yarzab via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr)
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Come November, Angelenos will have the chance to make dreams come true, or at least the dreams of every transit-loving resident of our fair city. All we have to do is pass a half-cent sales tax increase that would put Metro's roughly $120 billion plan to fix transportation in Los Angeles into motion.
So what do those dreams-come-true transit projects look like? Think a rail line under the Sepulveda Pass that goes all the way up Van Nuys Boulevard, for starters, along with a Crenshaw Line that links to both the Purple and Red lines, and rapid bus lines down Vermont Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard, to outline just a few of the plans. You can pore through Metro's extensive detailed plan to try and make sense of everything, or you can check out this incredibly cool map created by transportation planner Steve Boland, which visualizes all the projects and their timelines. Here's what it looks like (high-res version here):
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(Courtesy of Steve Boland)
Boland, who works at transportation planning firm Nelson\Nygaard, created the map on his own, because he felt like "there should be a simplified map (and not just Metro's geographic maps) that outlined everything in the proposal (including when different pieces would come on line)." He's been working on it in his free time since Metro released their revised comprehensive plan back in June, and put his version online on Tuesday morning.
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There are also a couple of projects unrelated to Measure R2 that are largely funded and likely to happen that Boland included on his map, which he explained to LAist in an email:
The "unrelated" projects are the LAX people mover, Downtown LA and OC (Santa Ana-Garden Grove) streetcars, and the first phase (Bay Area-LA) of high-speed rail. There's actually some funding for the DTLA streetcar in R2 but it's not a Metro project (Metro might operate it—remains to be seen).
Like the way all this looks? Well, we are now officially in charge of our own transit destinies. It's up to you this November, Angelenos. See you at the polls.
Note: This post was updated to reflect the new name of the Metro-sponsored ballot measure in question: The hopefully-soon-to-be-approved 1/2-cent sales tax increase formerly known as "Measure R2" is now called "Measure M," as of this morning.
In other news, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors formally approved the measure for November's ballot at a meeting this morning.
And the @metrolosangeles sales tax increase proposal has a name, maybe: Measure M. pic.twitter.com/KqLemVvlsY
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