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On Lankershim Boulevard between the Red and Orange Line terminal stations in North Hollywood, the crosswalk is pretty much always swarming, and the traffic backed up. In the spirit of problem solving born of lack of foresight, transit officials are only now looking into building an underground tunnel to link those two major transit hubs.
"The $22 million project would create a 150-foot below-ground passageway from the existing Orange Line bus platform to the mezzanine level of the Red Line subway, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority," reports the Daily News.
Count this project/solution with Metro-created issues like, gosh, let's see: Installing fare gates, getting a rail line all the way to the L.A. Airport, and making sure there's enough parking at Red Line stations like NoHo and Universal (the latter two of the issues still unsolved). How Metro did not forsee this issue and include building a bridge or tunnel for pedestrians across one of the biggest East Valley north-south Boulevards has remained a mystery to locals and transit users.
The Daily News interviewed commuters who see the same thing every day: People running across traffic on Lankershim to catch the Orange Line bus they see at the station on the other side of the street. It's especially bad during peak commuting hours, when the traffic also gets backed up on either side of Lankershim.
"Metro has applied for a $17.6 million federal grant that funds transit infrastructure projects. Metro would foot the remaining $4.4 million, according to officials," add the Daily News. If the grant goes to Metro when such funds are awarded mid-summer, the project could be completed by 2014.
