Another Way to Provide Bus Rapid Transit to Cal State Northridge

Metro Los Angeles is currently studying a bus rapid transit (BRT) line for the North San Fernando Valley.  Here is what the current alternatives look like.

However, all is not well with this project.  Acccording to Numble on Twitter, Metro is considering caving into NIMBYs on this project.

This would be disastrous for transit riders in this area.  In particular, this would leave California State University, Northridge (CSUN) out of our growing mass transit system.  If this terrible-case scenario occurs, I've been thinking about how else to serve CSUN.

One idea that has long been discussed is to have branch services from the "Orange" Line (now the "G" Line) on other busy north-south corridors in the San Fernando Valley.  One of these proposed busy corridors is Reseda Blvd.  

My proposal would be to have a branch service of the G-Line going north-south on Reseda, east-west on Nordhoff, and CSUN along White Oak as seen below.  We'd have G1 service between North Hollywood Metrorail station and Chatsworth Metrolink/Amtrak Station, and G2 service between North Hollywood Metrorail station and CSUN.

But we can see from this map even though we would still serve CSUN, what a large east-west gap in mass transit we are leaving out of our system in the North San Fernando Valley.  I really hope NIMBYs do not prevail here.  We need BOTH the proposed North San Fernando Valley BRT and a Reseda Blvd. BRT.

Also, coming to the San Fernando Valley will be a "Sepulveda" Line (hopefully as heavy rail and not monorail) between the Valley and the Westside, as well as a planned BRT route connecting North Hollywood to Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena.

A note for the future.  Eventually, the G-Line may be upgraded to light-rail.  A further enhancement I would support for this new Reseda Blvd. BRT is to run it between Universal City station and CSUN via Ventura Blvd.  Somehow Ventura Blvd. keeps getting left out of our San Fernando Valley mass transit conversation, when we should already be installing bus lanes on it.

And, of course, we should be doubletracking and upgrading the Metrolink/Amtrak rail corridors as well.

What do you think?

Link the coming Sunset and La Cienega Bus Rapid Transit Corridors

 Here is a Metro Los Angeles map of potential transit corridors for possible upgrade to Bus Rapid Transit.   

Metro  recently released it's top five priorities for Bus Rapid Transit corridors.

The La Cienega BRT Line would run from Slauson to Santa Monica Blvd.  Why not link this BRT Line  to the new proposed Sunset - Cesar Chavez BRT Line via Santa Monica Blvd. and/or Sunset Blvd.?

That map may off on scale, but a BRT Line between the ocean - Venice - La Cienega - San Vicente - Santa Monica - Sunset - Cesar Chavez - Union Station sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?  Actually that alignment works really well as a streetcar/tram too.

(As a side note, La Brea is also targeted for future BRT.  Well, if La Brea is already getting BRT, then surely the Crenshaw Metrorail Northern Extension project should flow at least as westerly as Fairfax.  La Brea doesn't need both, especially when we compare a potential stop to serve The Grove / Television City at Beverly & Fairfax, versus the two gas stations and a car rental at Beverly & La Brea.)