Contract for Green Line Cars
You reported the awarding of the contract for automated trains on the Green Line. They cost more (much more) than the current Long Beach line. The mayor, some of the commissioners and high-powered lobbyists wanted it.
On Oct. 25, you ran the first story on this automation and its higher costs. The increased costs were due to developing the automation system. “It would be the first in this country.” It isn’t the first in this hemisphere. For years Vancouver, British Columbia, has run an automated 17-mile rail system that is a combined elevated and surface rail to the suburbs south of Vancouver. It’s fast, dependable, clean, and efficient. Who made the cars and the automated system that’s worked for over 7 years? Is it too much for our transit authority to ask? It’s already been invented and proved, so it certainly can’t cost as much.
It is a prototype for the monorail that the people in the San Fernando Valley want.
JOHN GORMAN, Studio City
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