By Steve Hymon, February 24, 2014
Here’s the agenda for Thursday’s meeting of Metro Board of Directors and a few items of interest on fare gating, station renaming and park-n-ride lots
•Metro staff are considering establishing a budget to add fare gates to four street-level stations for the Crenshaw/LAX Line and the 4th Street station in downtown Santa Monica for the second phase of the Expo Line. In a separate motion, the Board is considering to launch further engineering and cost analysis of adding fare gates to stations across the Metro Rail system.
•There are a couple of station renamings on the docket. The Board is considering a motion to rename the Blue Line’s Grand Station to Grand/L.A. Trade Tech and the Expo Line’s 23rd Street Station to 23rd St/L.A. Trade Tech. The Board is also consider a motion to rename the Exposition/La Brea station to the Exposition/La Brea Ethel Bradley Station.
•A motion asking Metro to implement an online database of previous Board of Director actions. At present, searching for motions and past actions is a crapshoot. The motion also asks for linking audio from Board meetings to reports — something that would, I suspect, be very useful to anyone who cares or is interested in actions taken by the Board.
•A motion
asking the Board to oppose AB 1941, which would add two members to the
Metro Board to be appointed by the Assembly Speaker and the Senate Rules
Committee, respectively. I included some background and thoughts on
this legislation in a recent headlines — see the last item in this post.
•A motion asking Caltrans to report on difficulties
that have emerged in the transfer of park-n-ride lots at Metro Rail
stations from Caltrans to Metro. The motion begins: “Item No. 18 and
Director Najarian’s accompanying Motion underscore the importance
of Metro’s increasingly complex relationship with Caltrans.” If I am
reading the remainder of the motion correctly, I think “complex” is a
perhaps one way of saying “difficult,” at least on this issue.
•A motion to improve lighting and pedestrian access to/from the Universal City over-flow parking lot for the Red Line station.