PECIAL TO CITYWATCH--A big sore spot in one of the most misconceived transit blunders in Southern California is finally being considered for a long overdue correction. Ever since its opening in January 28, 1991, the Metro Light Rail Green Line at the Aviation/Imperial Station has had the appendage of a rail stub (photo left) just hanging there that should have enabled the Green Line to travel north to LAX -- and who knows -- even beyond that to Westchester, West Los Angeles, Venice or Santa Monica. The possibilities were great.
Instead of fully building the northern route at this station, the southern route was given priority. Back then, the Southern California defense industry was in full tilt, with plenty of jobs. It was envisioned that defense industry employees would leave their cars and take the train to work. But this didn’t happen. Shortly after the train started running, the defense industry had a major reduction in funding, and hence, a major reduction in jobs. Those employees were just not there to ride the train south.
Meanwhile, areas around LAX, north of the Aviation/Imperial Station, boomed and today draw increasingly more air and street traffic. The Westside is booming, and with the recent ascent of Silicon Beach, people are flocking to jobs in Westchester, Playa Vista, Venice and Santa Monica. Now, gridlocked traffic crawls through these and the surrounding parts of the city. But there is no light rail to carry people to these growing employment centers or all the way to the airport.
Finally, through a rather short time frame for light rail development -- including its announcement, studies and reports, funding and the start of construction -- the Crenshaw Line is being built to carry people from the Crenshaw District, past LAX and to the Aviation/Century Station.
From the Green and Crenshaw Lines, passengers will be able to disembark at a station and take a train or people mover, or whatever is decided, into LAX. But that part is still years in the future.
The Green and Crenshaw Lines will complement each other and will provide crucial expansions of the Los Angeles County light rail network. The Green Line heading east, however, does not go through to the Norwalk Metrolink Station. This is another sore spot in missing connections between rail lines -- another area where a correction is needed.
Anyone riding the Green Line or driving through that part of town, would see the northbound stub at the Aviation/Imperial Station just hanging there. Draped on it have been lowered expectations, missed opportunities, an uncaring attitude and a lack to will of finishing the line.
Accumulated polluting vehicle trips, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, might have been avoided if people had had the opportunity to ride the train north. These missed train rides have added to the growing air pollution in Los Angeles County, releasing into the atmosphere tons of carbon gases, hastening global warming.
That “stub of missed opportunities” is now punctured with steel rebar skeletons for the concrete columns that will eventually support the Green Line when it finally travels north and arrives near LAX – where it should have gone back in 1991.
(Matthew Hetz is co-chair of the Los Angeles Council District 11 Transportation Advisory Committee, a bicycle rider since 1965, a driver since 1975 and a dedicated transit rider since 1992. He is an occasional contributor to CityWatch and can be reached at: [email protected]) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 80
Pub: Oct 02, 2015
{module [1177]}
