Grab That Opportunity

The Southern Pacific Transportation Co. has offered Los Angeles-area transit officials an opportunity to move closer to having the modern, integrated mass-transit system that it needs. The opportunity should not be missed.

The company is offering to sell local governments more than 75 miles of railroad lines that are no longer being used. The lines are all along, or close to, transportation corridors where officials have discussed putting additions to mass-transit systems already being built, like the Metro Rail subway and the Los Angeles-Long Beach light-rail line. If the old railroad lines are integrated into the new systems, the resulting transit routes would link downtown Los Angeles with Santa Monica to the west, the heart of Orange County to the south and San Bernardino to the east.

The longest of the three rail-line segments that Southern Pacific is offering to sell runs 50 miles from San Bernardino to Los Angeles. It runs through existing cities like Covina as well as the rapidly developing Fontana area. There also is a 14-mile segment that starts in Santa Monica, runs parallel to the Santa Monica Freeway to Venice Boulevard, then runs along Exposition Boulevard to USC and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, terminating close to the route of the light-rail line to Long Beach. And there is a 12-mile segment that could serve Orange County, running from Stanton through Cerritos to Norwalk, where the new Century Freeway will eventually include a light-rail link to Los Angeles International Airport, intersecting with the Los Angeles-Long Beach line along the way. The Orange County Transit District has already purchased the old Southern Pacific right-of-way from Stanton to Santa Ana. The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission should use the same kind of foresight and move quickly to pursue this latest offer.

Experts have long debated how a vast area like greater Los Angeles could best be served by mass transit, and more than one specialist has pointed out that the simplest means of linking the area’s many cities together would be to follow the old railroad routes that helped define this region’s sprawl in the first place. In the past, some railroad officials have resisted giving up their old rights-of-way, despite a reduction in railroad traffic. But in this case, Southern Pacific is not just willing to talk, but to sell, an offer of negotiations not to be missed.