Some Say Rail Line Is Just the Ticket; Others Dread It

From merchants in Long Beach to grandmothers in Watts, neighbors of Los Angeles’ first modern light-rail line await the arrival of the commuter trains with a divergent combination of enthusiasm and relief, curiosity and dread.

The 22-mile rail line promises to become an urban artery when it officially opens July 16, joining communities along its route--rich and poor, residential and commercial--with a sleek form of public transportation.

It also threatens to further divide already troubled areas with rows of steel fences that are meant to keep people off the tracks but inadvertently separate stores from customers, children from schools and churches from parishioners.

In life along the Blue Line, for every winner, there is a loser; for everyone hurt, someone is helped.

Waiting for a bus near Compton City Hall, Rene Robinson echoed the sentiments of many commuters who were interviewed. She said fear of crime may keep her from taking the train after it begins regular service. In fact, she said, if her car hadn’t been in the shop, she wouldn’t even have been taking the bus.

“If we don’t get rid of these gangs, it’s not going to be a good train,” she said. “They’re going to ride down there and start things and then come back here and do stuff here, and then there’s going to be a riot.”

The specter of gang violence notwithstanding, many of the more than 100,000 people who now ride buses along the route view the train as a godsend.

In Long Beach’s redevelopment district, in Compton’s shopping malls, in the shiny new mini-malls along downtown’s Washington Boulevard, merchants nearest the 22 stations are cooking up plans to lure riders. They are concocting Blue Line Special meals, erecting hot dog stands, hawking national newspapers and installing larger coffee machines. Managers of vacant commercial buildings report heightened interest in properties close to stations.

Of the prospects of a boom in business, Long Beach merchant Divina Buhay said, “Boy, that looks beautiful--money, money, money.” Buhay, who owns a combination dry cleaner and video store, is enlarging the dry-cleaning area to accommodate commuting customers.

“I envision them dropping off clothes in the morning, going to work, and stopping in on the way back to pick up a video,” she said.

Next door, the Pasty Man meat pie shop soon will be adorned with photographs of the old Red Car, which stopped running in 1961. Owner Robert Faria has been counting on the influx of light-rail business ever since he started rolling dough two years ago.

But in Watts, hairdresser Lorene Cooper now must shuttle her elderly clients back and forth to their homes by car because the light-rail fences--which closed 97th Street--turned a quick walk across the Santa Fe Railroad tracks into a half-mile detour.

“That really messed up my customers,” said Cooper, who has cut, permed and pressed hair in Watts since 1945.

Yet Cooper shares the hopes of many residents of the region the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission calls the mid-corridor: that the train will provide her family and her friends’ families with easier access to jobs and stores.

She is near retirement anyway, she said, and she wistfully recalls riding downtown on the old Red Car trains, which she calls “the Watts car.” She and some of her friends plan to take light rail downtown on July 14, the first of two free-fare days before regular service begins on Monday the 16th.

“I’m going to go to the Grand Central Market and get some rock candy,” she said. “And then I’m going to the May Co. and buy . . . some black shoes.”

Others, such as Compton liquor store owner Ernestine Gaines, are fretting. Like many of the small stores along the rail route, the Naples Winery sits midway between two stations, cut off from half its customers by the fence. Gaines thought the drop-off in business would be temporary; now she is considering suing the Transportation Commission.

“Has it hurt me? Yes, it has hurt me,” she said. “My business fell off like $400 per day when they built that fence.”

The fence and a perceived shortage of landscaping along the rail route are open wounds in the poorer communities of Compton, Watts and Florence, fueling charges of prejudice and neglect. Residents say there should be more pedestrian overpasses and vehicle underpasses to relieve traffic congestion and help the system blend into the local community.

Basil Kimbrew, a Compton activist, plans a protest march in the coming weeks. He objects to the long stretches of fences with only weeds to soften their appearance, especially when contrasted with the row of carefully transplanted palm trees straddling downtown Long Beach’s street median.

“These fence rails represent being in jail here in Compton,” Kimbrew said. “It just seems like we’re being dumbed out again . . . and we’re sick and tired of it.”

No slight was intended, said county Transportation Commission spokeswoman Roberta Tinajero. All stations are well-landscaped, she said, and the city of Long Beach paid more--about $200,000--for extras along Long Beach Boulevard. On Earth Day, the nonprofit Tree People organization also led dozens of volunteers in planting seedlings next to the Long Beach rails.

As for the fences, Tinajero said safety was the prime consideration.

On Long Beach Boulevard no fence was needed, she said, because “pedestrians there have signals where they cross at the crosswalks.” In the mid-corridor area, there are few crosswalk signals and, since the Red Cars stopped running, freight trains have rattled by infrequently and slowly.

“People have been very accustomed to crossing the freight tracks--even darting across in front of a freight train,” she said, “and they are not accustomed to these fast trains coming by every 10 minutes.”

Parents all along the route share safety concerns. But they are not persuaded that even the fencing will keep their children off the tracks.

“Kids are going to find some way to get across,” said Brenda Moffett, who lives with her 14-year-old daughter in Watts in a house whose front yard opens onto the tracks. “There are at least 25 kids on this block alone. What I suggest is that they give us some sort of bridge, or else they’re going to have some fatalities.”

One pedestrian overpass and one train bridge are slated for Compton, Tinajero said. Another pedestrian overpass is being built in Watts and there are four other rail bridges being built or improved: two in Long Beach and one each in Watts and Florence. But she said no others currently figure in the $877-million light rail budget.

Scrutiny of the fences shows that parents may have reason to worry. In the long stretches between stations, holes have been cut through the fence and children have stacked tires and boxes on either side to hop over.

On a recent afternoon, Willie Lee Gregory, 13, and his friends, cousins Donta and Marcus Mason, slipped through a fence hole and across the tracks on their way home from Ralph J. Bunche Middle School in Compton. They had seen other kids, and adults, clip the fence posts with wire cutters and blast through them with blow torches.

“They do it all the time,” said Willie. And when rail maintenance workers repair the holes? “They come back and cut it again,” said Donta.

Nearby, another hole in the fence offers parishioners access to Sacred Heart Church. Father Francisco Vitel said on days when the fence is repaired, walking to the nearest official gap is a hardship for some, especially the elderly. “It can be a long way, six blocks,” he said.

Resentment lingers in mid-corridor communities over an alleged lack of local hiring during construction of the light-rail line. Responding to that criticism, the Transportation Commission recruited local residents for operations jobs. But skepticism continues over whether any actually will be hired.

“We sent them information on 60 people and I have not found anyone from this neighborhood who received a phone call or an interview,” said C. Edward Corbett, director of the community action program for the Westminster Neighborhood Assn.

But Tinajero said 25 people recommended by the association will be hired for a 3 1/2-month information program, under which they will work at the station platforms, answering questions, helping people figure out the fare machines and the schedules and “providing a minimal level of security.”

A backhanded testament to widespread belief in light rail’s future popularity can be heard all along the route as people complain about inadequate station parking. They fear that the scant 1,339 spaces alloted for the entire line will cause rail commuters to clog their residential streets and commercial parking lots. Some stations rely heavily on “kiss-and-ride” areas, where commuters are supposed to be dropped off by non-commuters.

Norm’s Restaurant in Long Beach--which has an ample parking lot within paces of a station--has posted a sign warning customers that it will be watching the lot closely once the trains begin running “and will be forced to have any cars left longer than one hour towed.”