Lynwood, South Gate, Downey – The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) will conduct seven extended weekend closures on the Long Beach Freeway (I-710) in both northbound and southbound directions from just south of Firestone Boulevard to just north of the Glenn Anderson Freeway (I-105).  The construction taking place is part of the I-710 Long Life Pavement Rehabilitation Project to replace 10 to 15 inches of aging pavement from I-405 to I-5.

This weekend’s closure begins Friday, August 20 at 11:45 p.m. and continues through Monday, August 23 at 5 a.m.  FULL FREEWAY CLOSURES will occur twice during the weekend: Friday at 11:45 p.m. until Saturday at 6 a.m., and again on Sunday at 11 p.m. until Monday at 5 a.m.
During the first six-hour FULL FREEWAY CLOSURE, moveable median barriers will be placed that will guide all motorists onto the northbound side when I-710 is re-opened on Saturday at 6 a.m. The number of lanes available to motorists will be reduced:  two lanes for northbound travel and three for southbound.  On Sunday at 11 p.m., another FULL CLOSURE occurs to remove the temporary barriers in time for the Monday morning commute.

CLOSED On-ramps to northbound I-710:
Eastbound & westbound on-ramps from Rosecrans Avenue and Imperial Highway
CLOSED On-ramps to southbound I-710:
Eastbound & westbound on-ramps from Florence Avenue, Firestone Boulevard and Imperial Hwy
CLOSED Freeway Connectors: Eastbound and westbound I-105 to northbound I-710

I-710 Full Freeway Closures are scheduled for these 7 weekends:

August 20-23
August 27-30
(No construction Labor Day weekend    September 3-6)
September 10-13 September 17-20
September 24-27
October 1-4
October 8-11
RESTRICTIONS: Speed reduced to 45mph. No oversized loads permitted due to narrow lanes.
DELAYS AND DETOURS: Motorists can expect delays and are advised to use alternate routes and marked street detours. Trucks are advised to use Garfield Avenue.
PROJECT DETAILS: This pavement rehabilitation project will apply several layers of a long life asphalt concrete mix that will provide the roadway with several decades of service, improve pavement performance, require less future maintenance and result in a smoother ride for the traveling public. The contractor for the $50 million project is Sully-Miller.  The project is 50% complete.  The estimated completion date is spring 2011.
BENEFITS OF EXTENDED WEEKEND CLOSURES: Moving all motorists to one side of the freeway allows construction crews to work safely and continuously for 53 hours throughout the weekend.  This schedule is cost effective and reduces the need for weeknight closures when traffic volumes are normally higher.

For more information visit: http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist07

The Pacific Electric Right-of-Way (PE ROW) / West Santa Ana Branch Corridor is a railroad right-of-way that extends for approximately 20 miles between the City of Paramount in Los Angeles County and the City of Santa Ana in Orange County. The railroad corridor was once part of the Pacific Electric Railway, or Red Car, system that provided mass transit service to Southern California from 1901 to 1961. Much of the corridor has been abandoned and is not currently used for mass transit purposes.

The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), in coordination with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), is conducting a transit Alternatives Analysis (AA) for the PE ROW / West Santa Ana Branch. The AA will examine potential transit service along the corridor that can provide additional travel options between Los Angeles and Orange Counties, reduce congestion on nearby streets and freeways, and provide adjacent communities with access to the regional transit network.

The workshops will be held at the following sites on the following days:

• GARDEN GROVE, CA Tuesday, June 15, 2010 6:30-8:30 pm
  Garden Grove Community Center 11300 Stanford Avenue
• HUNTINGTON PARK, CA Wednesday, June 16, 2010 6:30-8:30 pm
  Huntington Park Community Center 6925 Salt Lake Avenue
• CYPRESS, CA Thursday, June 17, 2010 6:30-8:30 pm
  Cypress Community Center 5700 Orange Avenue
• CERRITOS, CA Saturday, June 19, 2010 1:00-3:00 pm
  Cerritos Park East Community Ctr. 13234 East 166th Street
• PARAMOUNT, CA Tuesday, June 22, 2010 6:30-8:30 pm
  Progress Park Plaza, West Auditorium 15500 Downey Avenue
• STANTON, CA Wednesday, June 23, 2010 6:30-8:30 pm
  Stanton Council Chambers 7800 Katella Avenue

For more information about the study or to learn about upcoming opportunities for public participation, please visit www.scag.ca.gov/perow or contact Philip Law, Project Manager at 213-236-1841 or law@scag.ca.gov.

Thursday is HSR Stimulus Day.

That blog post details how Florida is in the lead to receive the most HSR stimulus funds.

The article can be viewed here, Florida Likely to Win High Speed Rail Grant

The grant will offer $8 billion dollars and “[Florida] is seeking about $2.6 billion in stimulus funds to build a rail line connecting Tampa and Orlando”

California can keep it’s fingers crossed and hope that it will get a large chunk of that $8 billion for its projects.

You can read the original entry here.

The article goes in depth about the lack of need for California to use Public Private Partnerships to fund the construction of HSR, like other international cities London and Taiwan.

Instead, due to the cost, the entry argues against letting private corporations into the HSR pie and help fund the costs, because they’re donations or contributions would be so minuscule compared to the money that will come from the Government.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority projects that it will need about 33 billion in 2008 dollars to complete its initial San Francisco-Anaheim link, a reasonable estimate considering the cost of peer systems. In addition to the $9 billion in state funds devoted to the project by last November’s referendum, the Authority is banking on $2-3 billion in local money and $12-16 billion in federal contributions. Because this aid won’t be enough to cover the full costs of the line, the state will also demand $6.5-7.5 billion in help from public/private partnerships.

In the big picture, the entry is probably right.  The benefits lost from rushing into a public private partnership for the construction of this project will make that tiny 20% look minuscule in the long run.

The whole report can be found here.

An interesting fact concerning trips in the southern California region are:

“There is also significant intercity travel in California; however, it is currently dominated by air and private auto trips. There are nearly 200 daily flights between Los Angeles metro airports (LAX, ONT, SNA) and the airports in the San Francisco Bay area (SFO, OAK, SJC). This is in addition to the scores of other daily flights between other cities in these megaregions including San Diego and Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Sacramento.” (page 4)

The energy savings and pollution that could be mitigated from having a working HSR network between in LAX, ONT, and SNA to SFO, OAK, and SJC seems almost too good to be true.  If it would be possible to reduce the 200 daily flights between the northern and southern California, the cost benefit for a HSR network or maintain the status quo would be very interesting to review.

The report sets forth 5 criteria when trying to determine why the connections between some cities through a HSR is better than others.  Those categories are

1. Metropolitan Size

2. Distance

3. Transit Connections

4. Economic Productivity

5. Congestion

Based off those criteria New York-Washington HSR had a perfect score of 100.

Of the top 50 connections that need to be made, the following were:

The new rankings show the importance of the Orangline not  just to increase mobility when the north south HSR connection is built, but because it could be the first critical step in creating the Los Angeles – San Diego connection or increase interest for the creation.