Queen Mary reopens for tours, New DASH route in North Hollywood, and more

Shuttered since the start of the pandemic, the City of Long Beach announced this week that the RMS Queen Mary has officially reopened for limited tours as of this week. But if you want to take a look, it may be a while. Scheduled tours are already fully booked, but you can keep an eye out for future openings here: longbeach.gov/qmtours.

Since taking back management of the Queen Mary in June 2021, the City of Long Beach has engaged in repairs to ensure the historic vessel can remain afloat. This included the removal of 20 lifeboats, as well as the installation of a new pump system to discharge any water that may leak into the hull. An emergency power generator, new boilers, and heat exchangers are also t be installed next year.

At a ceremony yesterday, LADOT and City Council President Paul Krekorian announced the expansion of DASH bus service in North Hollywood. DASH North Hollywood is described as a neighborhood circulator service, connecting the North Hollywood community to the G and B Lines, as well as the NoHo Arts District and the NoHo West shopping center. Service on the 6.5-mile route will run every 30 minutes in both directions from 6:00 am to 7:00 pm between Monday and Friday, and from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

Here's what we're reading this week:

A year after opening 600 rooms to L.A.’s unhoused, the Cecil Hotel is still mostly empty. Here’s why "It’s one of the few affordable housing projects in Los Angeles of this size that is fully privately financed. Publicly funded projects often cost more and take longer to construct. For Baron and his investors, the new plan had an upside in that they would be serving tenants in need whose rents would be paid for by the federal government, a guaranteed source of income for the building....However, Baron said he quickly ran into one of the biggest challenges with the Cecil project: figuring out how to work with the city and various agencies that deal with homelessness and housing." (LA Times)

CPUC Votes To Change The Way California Will Compensate Rooftop Solar Energy "The decision, which came after more than three hours of public comment in which rate payers, environmental advocates, and solar industry workers voiced their near-universal opposition to the policy change, will effectively reduce how much money new solar customers can expect to recoup by 75% or more." (dot LA)

Eyes on the Street: Extended Bus Lanes on Alvarado Street "These new Alvarado bus lanes are the second and, for now, final phase of planned bus lanes there; the first phase opened in July 2021. The initial segment was about 1.2 mile from 7th Street to just south of the 101 Freeway. The full length of the Alvarado bus-only lanes is now about 1.6 mile, though there are short gaps at the 101 Freeway." (Streetsblog LA)

For Sepulveda Pass Rail, Majority Of Respondents Want Underground Train "The Sepulveda Pass Transit Corridor, which will connect the Westside to the Valley through the Orange line, is still years away from being built, but a recent Metro survey revealed that 37% of respondents prefer an underground rail option versus the 26% that favor a monorail." (LAist)

Drought-ravaged L.A. seeks surprising source of water: A contaminated Superfund site "...the city is nearing the completion of a massive, $600-million plan to bring that resource back online. Centered on three treatment facilities in the San Fernando Valley, the groundwater remediation project will essentially create giant filters for the city’s toxic plume, enabling Angelenos to regain full access to up to 87,000 acre-feet of water each year, or nearly a fifth of what they consume." (LA Times)

City Hall braces for the Builder’s Remedy development boom "Developers have begun filing permits to build large housing projects throughout the city that far exceed local zoning restrictions and while those permits are subject to cursory review, the City lacks any clear path to head off construction of more than 4,500 new units." (SMDP)

Pandemic eviction protections, direct payments kept homelessness in check, study shows "The study released Wednesday by the Economic Roundtable estimated that homelessness increased 13% from 2020 to 2022 — a higher figure than the official count — but that it would have climbed to 23% without the interventions." (LA Times)