Trolley Thursday 9/23/21 - The (Very Dense) History of the LA Metro

Over one-hundred years ago, the city of Los Angeles boasted the finest interurban transit system in the world, spanning three counties with over one thousand miles of track. The Pacific Electric Railway (PE) hauled everything from daily commuters and freight to special horse-racing and Catalina ferry trains and became inexorably linked to Los Angeles' identity as it recovered from World War II. And then... it was gone.

Today, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit District (better known as the LAMTA) seeks to reinvigorate what we lost in the wake of the PE and the Los Angeles Railway (LARy) being shut down in favor of increased bus use and car-centric road design. Despite having only a tenth of PE's tracks, LA's light rail and subways continue to look ever forward to that final frontier of efficient rapid transit, and it's why we are highlighting its history on today's Trolley Thursday!

      

But First, a Warning to All Outsiders

My ever-nebulous but particular editor (who is from Wyoming) notes that those who do not live in Los Angeles may find this article rather dense or confusing, with the rampant references to locales you may not know living in the US or living worldwide. As such, before we begin, here is LA Metro's official map of their light rail (and busway) system below. A larger version can be found here.

Some say it never rains here...
(LA Metro)

It's A Long Way To Get From There to Here...

The "Crying Trolley", LAMTA No. 3002, heralds
the end of streetcars in Los Angeles, February 8, 1963.
(Metro Library and Archive)

So what exactly went wrong to make a city as big and sprawling as LA give up its electric railways? While this subject has been covered in other posts (and other systems like Oakland's Key System), the short run-down is that electric railways were already in decline into the 1920s. The first freeway in Los Angeles, the Arroyo Seco Parkway, opened in 1940 thanks to the Auto Club (yes, that Auto Club) and if not for World War II, the PE and LARy would have simply gone out of business as all the other private electric railways did at the time. Had PE been able to realize its failed subway plans (such as the Vineyard Subway from Hill Street to Santa Monica) or not closed the highly-profitable and -populated Hollywood Subway by 1955, perhaps its fortunes would not have turned for the worst.

PCC No. 3148 is seen on standard gauge trucks at 6th and Main on February 1960,
alongside Blimp No. 1708. The results of the test were null and void as LAMTA
closed the line anyway.
(Ralph Cantos)

The LAMTA logo.
(LACMTA)

The underpinnings of today's LACMTA were formed in 1958 when private companies National City Lines and Metropolitan Coach Lines (who ran the LARy and PE, respectively) formed the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (LAMTA, note the lack of "County") as a city program to give the impression that Los Angeles was consolidating the remaining one PE line and five LARy lines for future use. The LAMTA was so confident in pushing for continued use of the PE's Long Beach Line (the oldest line on the system) that a single PCC was trialed to see if light rail was still viable. Unfortunately, by 1963, PE had closed its Long Beach Line and LARy abandoned its five remaining cross-town streetcars, bringing an end to 90 years of light rail to Los Angeles for the next thirty years.

Farewell to the "Four Tracks" as PE Blimp No. 1520 leads an inbound train
under the still-incomplete Santa Monica Freeway (later the 10 Freeway).
(Jack Finn, PERYHS)

Mass Transit From Fantasyland

One of the fanciful Coverdale & Colpitts illustrations for
a monorail line over the Hollywood Freeway, 1954.
(HistoryGarage)

However, as the streetcars were being phased out, it wasn't like Los Angeles wasn't finding ways to apply modern rapid transit to the city. The most infamous of these rapid transit proposals was the Los Angeles Monorail proposed by engineering firm Coverdale & Colpitts, whose 45-mile elevated monorail from Long Beach to Panorama City (with branches to Los Angeles International Airport) was treated more as a wacky Gerry Anderson fantasy than anything serious. That the monorail intended to tunnel under downtown lent further credence to the perception that the monorail was designed to generate attention for Coverdale & Colpitts, rather than intend to solve a serious transportation issue. ALWEG, the famous German monorail developer, also proposed building their own monorail system in Los Angeles after 1963 (having famously supplied Disneyland with their monorail) that was a little more serious in scope. 

Another illustration, this time by ALWEG, shows
their recent Seattle World's Fair monorail integrated
into what appears to be Pershing Square.
(ALWEG)

As many disgruntled futurists and monorail enthusiasts will tell you, LA did not even give ALWEG the time of day, let alone consider their proposal for a monorail. As famous resident and speculative author Ray Bradbury wrote in Westways Magazine in 2000: 

"on New Years Day 2001, let us pour 10,000 tons of cement into our never-should-have-been-started, never-to-be-finished subway, for final rites. Its concept was always insane, its possible fares preposterous. Even if it were finished and opened, no one could afford to use it. So kill the subway and telephone Alweg Monorail to accept their offer, made 30 years ago, to erect 12 crosstown monorails--free, gratis--if we let them run the traffic."

"I was there the afternoon our supervisors rejected that splendid offer, and I was thrown out of the meeting for making impolite noises. Remember, subways are for cold climes, snow and sleet in dead-winter London, Moscow or Toronto. Monorails are for high, free, open-air spirits, for our always-fair weather. Subways are Forest Lawn extensions. Let's bury our dead MTA and get on with life."

You really had no choice in the matter, anyway.
It was either this or buying a car.
(Unknown Author)

Judging by his choice of words, Bradbury was highly critical of both the LAMTA, its operating division RTD, and the inherent distrust in more tried-and-true methods of rapid transit like subways, compared to the intense futurism brought out by monorails. While both have their pros and cons, Los Angeles was not willing to drop billions of dollars in developing an extensive otherwise-uncommon system in a city already used to the automobile (if you want to see how something like this went, look at the BART). But I will have to bop Mr. Bradbury for his opinion, because if we didn't get a subway and if we didn't get a monorail, what else is there?

RTD: Really Terrible District?

The original SCRTD logo. Very futuristic.
(Metro Library & Archive)

A "What if" paint scheme of LARy P-3 PCC Car No. 3165
in the orange-brown-white livery of the original SCRTD.
(Harry D. Peat, Ralph Cantos, PERYHS)

In 1964, one year after the Los Angeles Railway went defunct, the four counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino (all formerly served by Pacific Electric's Northern and Southern Districts) formed their own collective transit agency, the "Rapid Transit District" or RTD. Its goal was to take over each counties' failed bus lines (about eleven in total) and run them under one roof, with considerations to heavy-rail commuter development (which later became today's Metrolink) and bus lane construction. Unfortunately, what was thought to be a wonderful idea to streamline the four counties' failing transit systems turned into an "800-pound gorilla" that did little to nothing to satisfy the needs of normal commuters. Its most common failure was "cream skimming", providing optimal service in one sector to neglect other, less-profitable areas. 

RTD Bus No. 7145 passes by the odd sight of PE "Ten" No. 1058, 
parked on the side of the road presumably because Mr. Richard
Fellows wanted to go for a ride. 
(Metro Library and Archive)

County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn,
father of the LA Metro system.
(Los Angeles Herald Examiner)

This led to it being made the enemy by neighboring Long Beach Transit (who didn't join the RTD) as it knew the RTD would only stick to profitable areas like downtown and Shoreline Drive and neglect other suburbanized areas just north of the city. Incensed Angelinos had enough of the RTD by 1976, which resulted in the formation of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC) to secure funding for commuter traffic improvements. Thanks to the LACTC, Proposition A was passed in 1980 that secured a half-cent sales tax to fund a new regional transit system that wasn't just eleven bus lines in a paper sack. With Proposition A came the promise of ten new light-rail and subway transit corridors from Sylmar and Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach, Norwalk, and San Pedro in the south. It wasn't exactly the return of the Pacific Electric, but to LA County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn who authored the proposition, he felt it was the best thing LA could ever want. In campaigning for Prop. A, he famous declared, "I'm going to put the trains back."

And he did.

Proposition A's planned rapid transit map.
So far, only four routes have been fulfilled from this map.
(Public Domain)

Where No Metro Has Gone Before

The LA Metro Subway prepares to dig deep in this photo by contractor Traylor Bros.
(Traylor Bros.)

Fun fact: George Takei turned down appearing in the famous
"Marge Vs. the Monorail" episode of the Simpsons because he
refused to participate in any media that insulted public transit.
Leonard Nimoy, who had no such qualms, appeared instead.
(Metro/20th Century Fox)

Planning for both the RTD's subway projects and the CTC's light rail projects took some considerable time before and after Prop. A passed. For the RTD, their cornerstone plan involved a subway line traveling along Wilshire Boulevard between Downtown and Fairfax before turning north to the San Fernando Valley. Notably, one of the people involved in the final approval of LA's first subway was Star Trek actor and internment camp survivor George Takei, who served on the RTD's board from 1973 to 1984 as an appointment of then-mayor Tom Bradley. The legend goes he left Paramount Studios in full Starfleet dress to attend the vote, as he was filming "Star Trek IV: The Journey Home" at the time.

Damage from the Miracle Mile Gas Explosion in 1985.
(Los Angeles Public Library)

The Red Line map as it exists currently.
(Ricky Courtney)

Due to a gas explosion at a Ross department store on Fairfax and Third in 1985, Mid-Wilshire was dubbed a "methane zone" and any and all subway construction was moved along to Vermont Blvd, traveling north until it followed Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga Pass to the San Fernando Valley. The subway line was originally planned to be an elevated line along Sunset Boulevard, but due to the existence of major TV studios and hospitals along the right of way, it was made a subway and routed along Hollywood Boulevard to Highland and Cahuenga Pass. This became what we know today as LA Metro's "Red" or "B" Line, but transit enthusiasts like myself call it the "New Hollywood Subway". 

The Blue Line leaves the four-tracks and elevates at Slauson Blvd, something PE never did.
(Justefrain)

The Green Line on opening in 1993, with the trains
in their original RTD livery.
(Metro's The Source)

The CTC's light rail projects were conveniently much simpler, but also very controversial. The simple part began in 1982, when Caltrans investigated potential PE alignments to return to operation. Their study brought back a rather poetic result: return the Long Beach Line to light rail. The four-track "broad way" was originally built in 1902 as PE's first line, and now it formed the backbone of the CTC's "Blue Line" plan. By then, ex-PE parent Southern Pacific was still using the line to serve local freight customers, so the two west-side tracks were chosen to convert to light rail. The most controversial light rail line followed the new Century Freeway Project (now known as the 105) which was busy blasting through neighborhoods in Compton and Century City between Norwalk and LAX. The new freeway also carried a light rail line that was originally planned to be automated, but this was never implemented, leading to both the eventual "Blue" and "Green" lines to share much of the same rolling stock. Because of the concurrent construction projects, the CTC and RTD eventually consolidated all construction under a new single banner by 1988.

From Subways to the Surface

Welcome back, you loveable trolleys. We missed you.
(KCET)

A posted at 7th & Metro station heralds the arrival of the
Red Line in 1993. A Blue Line train is above.
(Salaam Allah)

July 14, 1990 was a banner day for Los Angeles. In the heart of downtown, a banner was strung across a rail tunnel entrance just southwest of Flower and 11th Street and photographers and reporters lined the tracks leading up to Pico Station. Then, in a woosh of smoke, confetti, and humming electric motors, the first Blue Line train split the banner and heralded a new era of light rail in the City of Angels. The initial segment ran between Downtown and Anaheim Street station in Long Beach, with most of the route at-grade along the original PE tracks. A year later, the new 7th/Metro terminal subway station opened north of Pico Station, allowing passengers to switch between the Blue Line and the Red Line that opened just a year later. The Red Line's initial segment ran between Union Station and Westlake/MacArthur Park, stopping just short of touching Wilshire Boulevard and only running a total of one mile. 

A Green Line train is stopped at Norwalk Station, with 
a sign pointing out a pedestrian connection to the 105/605 freeways.
(The Militant Angeleno)

The Green Line (now the C Line), and the controversial 105 Freeway, opened in 1995 to a not-so-popular reception compared to the Blue Line. Due to the Green Line's proximity to El Segundo's local aerospace industries and airfields, it was expected that it would see plenty of suburban commuters from Norwalk to El Segundo. However, by the time the Green Line opened, the Cold War was over and the presence of military aerospace business began to shrink as a result. This meant that the population the Green Line was supposed to serve (middle class white and black families) left as a result, and the local Hispanic population had no connection or need for the line. The fact that the Green Line was also neutered by not connecting directly to LAX (due to local bus unions opposing the measure and LAX itself worried that overhead wires would screw with the airplanes landing) meant the line was more useless than the Blue Line... at least for now.

I Can Assure You, There's No Volcanoes Under The La Brea Tar Pits. Fossils, yes.

The Hollywood Sinkhole in 1993.
(TunnelTalk)

In 1993, two major occurences brought the Metro closer to what we see today. That year, the RTD and the CTC were merged into the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) and was publically branded as "LA Metro". That same year, the Red Line opened its first phase (dubbed MOS-1) between Los Angeles' Union Station, 7th Street/Metro Center, and the Westlake/MacArthur Park station. However, as construction was underway for the second phase towards Hollywood and Vine in 1995, the unthinkable happened. A sinkhole suddenly appeared right underneath Hollywood Boulevard, causing part of the constructed tunnel to cave in and damaging buildings above. Thankfully, the construction crews were relatively unharmed. The odd event ended up delaying the opening of the new Wilshire Boulevard extensions to Western Avenue to 1996, as well as inspiring some filmmakers to dramatise the incident in the very-much scientifically inaccurate and hilarious blockbuster movie "Volcano", starring Tommy Lee Jones. 

Volcanology is certainly not part of being an LA Metro subway maintenance crew.
(20th Century Fox)

Some of the many fossils found during
Metro excavation work for the Purple Line.
(KTLA)

After the Wilshire/Western terminal opened in 1996, construction further commenced to connect the Hollywood subway's second phase through to 1999. The line ran from the junction at Wilshire/Vermont to Hollywood/Vine, with services on either branch running concurrently. While the politics of the construction on MOS-2 are hotly debated, involving illegal contracts, corruption, and the passage of LA County Proposition A that banned using existing sales taxes for subway tunneling, what IS interesting is just how many fossils were found during construction of the subway. In total, over 2,000 fossils were discovered during construction of the Red Line that included mammoths, longhorn bison, ground sloths, and even ancient redwood trees. Most of these fossils were turned over to the George C. Page Museum of the La Brea Tar Pits, where they can now be seen on display. MOS-3, which extended the Red Line from Hollywood/Vine to North Hollywood, opened in 2000, fulfilling the original route of Pacific Electric's San Fernando Valley line.

Greeting Passengers at the Red Line's North Hollywood station is the original
PE/SP North Hollywood station, now a Groundworks Cafe.
(Los Angeles Daily News)

Good As Gold In the Valley

A Gold Line train passes over the Santa Fe Arroyo Seco Bridge,
the oldest extant railroad bridge in Los Angeles and part of my neighborhood.
(Dreamyshade)

The new Siemens P2000 cars herald the opening of
the Gold Line in 2003. Note the "Metro Rail" script
on the nose, now replaced by a simple "M" roundel.
(Metro Primary Resources)

As the subways dug under Los Angeles and the Blue and Green Lines continued to tout light rail's return to Los Angeles, a new project was underway beginning in the late 1990s. In 1993, the resident Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (ATSF) Railway abandoned their "Second District Line" between Los Angeles and San Bernardino via Pasadena, Azusa, and Cu.... Camonga (something for you "Jack Benny Show" fans) with Metrolink taking over service between Claremont/Montclair and San Bernardino. This left a large swath of right-of-way perfect for light rail conversion, especially a freeway median segment between Pasadena and Arcadia. Initial plans wanted to connect the Blue Line to the Santa Fe line via a subway from 7th/Metro to Union Station, but a 1998 ballot measure (Proposition A) curtailed any additional tunneling. Congressman Adam Schiff then introduced a bill in 1999 that sought to reuse the Santa Fe line as a light rail corridor instead of building a whole new tunnel and right-of-way, which passed quickly. Construction began on the new "Gold Line" in 2000 and the first segment opened to the public in 2003 between Union Station and Sierra Madre Villa in the eastern Pasadena foothills. 

Pasadena's Del Mar Station, once a boarding point for the rich and elite in LA, is now a transit station
with the original building (left) housing the La Grande Orange cafe.
(Tom Bonner, Congress for the New Urbanism)

Where trolleys once tread, now bus treads
stain the asphalt on the Orange Line.
(Light Rail Now)

However, there was "anti-rail zealotry" afoot as Metro attempted to convert an old Pacific Electric line to extend their reach into the San Fernando Valley. In the past, streetcar service between North Hollywood and Owensmouth was handled by the former Chandler Blvd. Branch of the Southern Pacific Railway, which closed in 1952. In the fifty years since, the area built up quite a crowd of rich residents who saw the need for a subway, but were displeased with then-mayor Richard Riordan's suggestion of using a trenched line (like the Alameda Corridor) in place of a more expensive subway. Such was the ruckus about the new line that, in 1991, state senator Alan Robbins banned any and all non-subway use of the Chandler Blvd. branch that prohibited "any form of rail transit other than a deep bore subway located at least 25 feet below the ground". The passage of Prop. A, mentioned above, cut off subway funding as a consequence and so, with both light rail and subway trains banned from using the right-of-way, the local city governments threw up their hands and said, "Fine, we'll do something." Thus was the origin of the much-maligned, much-noisy and much-too-slow Orange Line busway from North Hollywood to Chatsworth via Warner Center in Woodland Hills. 

Measure "R" for Rail Revival!

Metro Rail's "Measure R" Project Map.
(PlanItMetro)

LA's Measure "M" Plan, which can be view in full here.
(Streetsblog LA)

The last big "boosts" for the LA Metro's growth came in 2008 with the passages of "Measure R", a County measure that raised local taxes to provide funding for transportation projects such as subway and light rail expansion, and "Measure M", an additional "traffic improvement plan". The first big expansion under Measure R. came the very next year with the opening of the "Gold Line East Side" extension into East LA. Traveling south from Union Station, the Gold Line was now able to reach Little Tokyo, Boyle Heights, and East Los Angeles, with two underground light-rail stations (Mariachi Plaza and Soto). Another drafted plan, dubbed the "Subway to the Sea" concerned the Purple Line and was initially proposed in 2010 to finish the Purple Line and serve areas completely alien to rapid transit, like Beverly Hills and Westwood. As the Purple Line intends to bring subway service to these very wealthy areas, of course the citizens revolted and refused a subway extension again, and again, and again, and again...

One day, my sweet subway cars, one day...
(LA Metro)

Old and new rolling stock meet at Downtown Santa Monica
terminal at the western end of the Expo Line.
(Streetsblog LA)

However, the bright spark from Measure R came in 2012 with the return of yet another Pacific Electric line: this time, the Santa Monica Air Line. After being abandoned by the SP in 1988, local residents along Exposition Boulevard lobbied Metro to purchase the near-complete rail alignment from being demolished by new development. In 1998, Metro was able to allocate some funds onto the "Exposition Boulevard Project" and construction began on the "Mid-City/Exposition" Corridor in 2006. Originally the "Aqua Line" for its association and proximity to the Pacific Ocean through Santa Monica, it eventually gained the name "Expo Line" due to following Exposition Boulevard almost all the way west. Phase 1 of the line opened between Downtown LA and Culver City by June 20, 2012, with the first two stations (7th/Metro and Pico) shared between the Blue and the Expo lines until Washington Blvd. junction. The finished Expo Line to Santa Monica opened on May 20, 2016, bringing commuters and daytrippers to the beach on electric traction once again. 

A map of the "Crenshaw Corridor" and the "K" Line
(formerly the "Pink" line) as it meets the Green/C and Purple/D lines.
(Jerjozwik)

A final thing worth mentioning is the future LA Metro "K" Line, also known as the LAX Airport Extension. Long gestating since the creation of the Green Line, the Airport Extension now allows a useable light-rail connection between Aviation Blvd (the east end of LAX's runway) to Exposition Boulevard and Crenshaw (meeting the Expo Line). A further extension southwest will also allow the Green Line to poke further into the South Bay with a new station to the proposed Torrance Regional Transit Center via the old ATSF Harbor Subdivision. Both will give the usually-maligned Green Line that much more usefulness to the average commuter, and enable a greater number of people to ride the train to the airport rather than drive.

Everlasting High Rise

New Tracks, New Trains, New Everything
on the LA Metro's "A" Line at Compton.
(DC Engineering Group)

As of 2021, LA Metro is still hard at work providing the best possible service for its light rail and subway systems, investing in major overhauls of some of the oldest parts of the line and realigning others to suit its own purposes. Between 2015 and 2019, the Blue Line was refurbished with new tracks, stations, and trains that saw most of the line replaced with buses, while plans were also drawn up to lash the Gold and Blue Lines at a new subway station in Little Tokyo (dubbed the "Regional Connector") that would allow a one-seat trip from Azusa's Citrus College to Long Beach and connecting the Gold Line between Santa Monica and East LA, completely removing the Expo Line. Furthermore, the Gold Line right now is slated to be extended all the way out to Montclair, with easy connection to San Bernardino via the Metrolink Commuter Rail System. Also changed were all of the colors as, to keep things open, Metro went back to the LA Railway's tradition of using letters to keep line additions open. Currently, the Blue Line is lettered "A", the Red Line "B", the Green Line "C", the Purple Line "D", and the Gold Line "L".

The planned Regional Connector is at lower right, but you can se
how the map of the LA Metro has since changed.
(Kriston Lewis)

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included LA Metro's own "The Source" online magazine, the Monorail Society, several Los Angeles Times articles about the proposed RTD plans, another article on the infamous Hollywood sinkhole, another about the opening of the Gold Line, and the Expo Line, and the photo credits listed in each caption. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”, while the LA Metro subway and light rail gifs were made by Alex Stroshane. On Tuesday, For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!