The Arcadia City Council and Chamber of Commerce are trying to hold Metro to a promise it made to build the parking lot at the Arcadia train station for the Gold Line extension in a way that it could be expanded later from 300 spaces to 800 spaces as demand increased.
In recent months it has become apparent that those plans have quietly changed, which could lead to limited parking until an entirely new, expensive, and lengthy Environmental Impact Report and design change were to be completed and approved. Gold Line officials are now suggesting that train riders will simply and happily begin carpooling, walking, and riding buses and bikes to the station, thereby reducing parking demand.
Work is underway on an 11.5-mile extension of the Gold Line from its current terminus at the Madre Villa station in Pasadena to Azusa. The new $18.5 mil. “iconic” bridge over the eastbound lanes of the 210 freeway into Arcadia is expected to be completed by September (the public is invited to meet the artist of the bridge design at the Arcadia Public Library on June 26). Meanwhile, work is beginning this month to demolish the train bridge over Colorado Blvd. to make room for a new, bigger bridge there. A bridge will then be built over Santa Anita Avenue — officials have yet to commit to start date or schedule for this work. Those tracks will lead to the station and adjacent parking garage on the northwest corner of First Avenue at Santa Clara. Additional construction will be needed to expand the bridge over Huntington Drive at Second Avenue. The next leg after Azusa would be to Claremont and Montclair, and eventually to the Ontario Airport around 2025, though approvals and funding are still needed for the latter stages.
Station platforms (in yellow) have since been revised to be west of First Avenue adjacent to the parking garage.
When Metro was gathering support for the project, they promised that the Arcadia parking garage would initially be built with only two levels, but designed from the beginning to be constructed in such a way as to be easily expanded by as many as three additional levels of parking to handle up to 800 cars.
But during presentations at Arcadia City Council meetings and during questioning at Arcadia Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Forums, it has been revealed that the current plans do not include the design of an expandable parking garage, and that the current EIR does not account for anything more than two levels of parking.
The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a resolution “requesting” the Metro Gold Line Foothill Construction Authority to design and construct the Gold Line Arcadia station parking structure to allow for future expansion of up to 800 spaces as required by the full build alternative as documented in the 2007 Final Environmental Impact Report and subsequent supplemental EIR.
That was just a few minutes after Construction Authority CEO Habib Balian, during a regular update of Gold Line progress to the Council, confirmed that the current plans for the parking structure call for a two-level garage with a capacity for 300 spaces (50 fewer than the planned station at Monrovia). He also confirmed that although the pillars of the garage are being built big enough to eventually handle three additional levels of parking, a new design and EIR would be required if and when demand increased for parking. But he said that based on current usage patterns, when parking garages reach capacity, train riders are finding more environmentally friendly ways to get to and from stations, such as bicycling and carpooling.
Later in the meeting, the Council approved $70,000 for a consultant to help the fledgling Arcadia Downtown Business Association establish a Business Improvement District to tax property owners in the area just south of the Gold Line station to create shops and entertainment in the area that will not only create a more enticing environment for local residents but that will also leverage the potential customers arriving and leaving the parking lot at the station.
– By Scott Hettrick
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So, I live up near the end of Arcadia in Highland Oaks and the Metro Rail Authority wants me to ride my bike down the hill,and then back up upon returning from using the Gold Line…on a rainy day? Probably because they are already running out of funds and can’t keep their promise they made to the city. And just this past week local CBS news exposed Metro Gold Line executives of excessive dinners/entertainment/etc.,etc. Yet we put our trust in them to do their job for us in a honest way. Seams that this disease is running rampart in federal/state/county government. Throw them out of office and have them become unemployed. Clearly there are replacements who would welcome to have such a job and honor their word…and deliver the Gold Line on time and under budget. Just who do these people answer too?
I read your recent post about the current parking discussion with the City of Arcadia, and strongly believe that you have misinformed your readers.
The Construction Authority certified an Environmental Impact Report in 2007. As part of that certified document, the Construction Authority approved 300 parking spaces to be built in Arcadia when the line opens to Azusa. There was additional discussion in the EIR about the full build out of the project to Montclair, and the possible need for additional parking at that time; however, as you are aware only the segment to Azusa has been environmentally cleared and is being built.
The purpose of including the future estimated parking analysis in the EIR was not to require mitigation, but rather to provide agencies and the public a general understanding of what might change over the life of the project and the possible future needs when the line opens to Montclair. That timeframe is not known at this time, but the current parking structures are being designed to allow for future expansion. Importantly, any expansion would require independent analysis and would have to be planned, designed and environmentally cleared at that time.
Our experience watching the Gold Line ridership increase over the last nine years of operation – to more than one million boardings a month – is that adding parking may not be warranted or necessary in the future. Although ridership has increased well beyond what was estimated during the planning phases of the initial segment, no additional parking has been added at the 13 initial Gold Line stations between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena, and a number of the stations continue to provide no parking at all. Some parking is located at Metro-specific lots (like Sierra Madre Villa), while others are located at Transit Oriented Developments near stations (such as South Pasadena, Fillmore and Del Mar). These are all real and meaningful experiences that we have learned from over time, and help us understand ridership behavior differently than we may have a decade or two ago.
To that end, the Construction Authority has been awarded several federal grants to study how to improve access to the future stations from Pasadena to Azusa for more than just cars. We have looked at connections for bus riders, bicyclists and pedestrians, and found ways to improve our design to make the stations more attractive and comfortable to be accessed by all modes of travel. Importantly, the Construction Authority was recently awarded another $6 million to take that planning and build real improvements around the future stations that will encourage biking, walking and riding the bus to arrive at the stations from the very beginning of rail service.
We have worked very closely with the City of Arcadia for nearly a decade on the plans for their station area and believe we have laid a strong foundation for a successful project.
Three community open houses are planned in June to answer questions about construction, timelines and to allow the community to meet the six station artists. I encourage your readers to attend one of these meetings to ask questions. Each open house will provide the same information, so attendees should choose a date that works best for them. The events are open from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and no formal presentation is planned. Here are the dates and locations (additional information can be found on our website – foothillextension.org):
• Wednesday, June 20 – Memorial Park, City of Azusa
• Tuesday, June 26 – Arcadia Public Library
• Thursday, June 28 – Duarte Community Center
Finally, please see the note below within your post. The dates you provide readers regarding Santa Anita construction is not correct. The schedule has not been finalized for this major activity, which is not anticipated to start construction before mid-2013. We strongly encourage anyone that wants to know when construction will be impacting Arcadia (or other corridor cities) to sign up to receive construction notices at http://www.foothillextension.org.