L.A.’s Track to the Future

Just as there are no second acts in American life, there are very few second chances when it comes to planning decisions. Southern California, however, has been given such a second chance--the opportunity to recover a usable fixed-rail transit system--and it would be willful folly not to take it.

On the list of regrettable choices, Los Angeles’ decision to abandon and dismantle its 1,164-mile network of Red Car trolley lines ranks somewhere near Gen. Custer’s thought that it would be amusing to annoy Sitting Bull. Today, every Southern Californian who travels wearily bears the consequences of the Red Cars’ loss, and is burdened by the knowledge that replicating them would be, for all intents and purposes, fiscally and politically impossible.

Or, at least it was until a few months ago. At that point, fate, deregulation and the appetite of large corporations for other large corporations combined to give this region another chance for rational transit. Saddled with debt and a declining freight business, two railroads--Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe--have offered to sell the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission five little used branch lines and some adjacent properties. The commission will get about $800 million from the half-cent sales tax earmarked to fund transit, and the cities of Los Angeles, Culver City and Santa Monica have expressed some interest in helping with the purchase.

If acquired, as they should be, these lines would allow the commission to assemble an appropriate mix of light-rail and heavy commuter lines unmatched since the Red Cars rolled from San Bernardino to the sea. For those of us who believe that a fixed-rail system has a part to play in solving this region’s mounting transit problems, it’s rather like discovering that two pairs of Passenger Pigeons have been lurking all these years in some back-yard aviary and now are available for purchase by the public zoo.

The five right-of-ways offered for sale include:

--A 14-mile line running from Santa Monica along Exposition Boulevard past the Coliseum, where it would intersect the Long Beach Light Rail route;

--A 12.5-mile stretch of track connecting Santa Ana to Paramount and the Century Freeway Light Rail Corridor, now under construction;

--A 20-mile line running west from Burbank along Victory and Chandler boulevards through Van Nuys and Canoga Park north to Chatsworth;

--A 58-mile route suitable for heavy commuter trains running from Los Angeles’ Union Station east through Baldwin Park all the way to San Bernardino.

--Another San Gabriel Valley line potentially able to carry commuter trains from Union Station, north through Pasadena and east through Azusa to San Bernardino.

All of the lines could be readily linked with the Metro Rail subway now under construction in Los Angeles and with one or more of the two light rail lines now being built in L.A. County

County Supervisor Pete Schabarum and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley have urged the Transportation Commission to take steps to acquire the lines. Nearly $500,000 already is being spent to appraise the routes. However, groups of homeowners on Los Angeles’ Westside and in the San Fernando Valley are pressuring the City Council to stall or prevent the purchase.

They are anxious about the possible impact of light rail on the residential neighborhoods through which it would pass. Some also believe the availability of less expensive light-rail routes would inhibit the future construction of higher-cost, but environmentally more desirable, Metro Rail lines in their parts of the community.

These are serious concerns and deserve scrupulous examination. But they should not delay purchase of the right-of-ways and the adjacent properties. The railroads intend to sell the adjoining land now and the lines themselves by the end of the year. The Transportation Commission should negotiate a realistic price and make the deal. With that accomplished, there will be ample time for a thorough public discussion of the best use for each route.

The point is that the opportunity to correct an historic mistake has been presented to Southern California now. A third chance would be too much for which to hope.