MACARTHUR PARK : Community’s Hopes Riding on Red Line

The first segment of the Metro Red Line is scheduled to open Saturday, carrying passengers and hopes for neighborhood revitalization along a 4.4-mile stretch between Union Station and MacArthur Park.

Festivities are planned from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday at each of the five stations, including the MacArthur Park-Westlake station, which is seen as an important step in the development of the neighborhood.

“The subway will enhance the community,” said John Mills, coordinator of the Westlake chapter of MASH L.A. (More Advocates for Safer Homes), a community improvement group. “I’m a native of the area, and this is long overdue. We should have had a subway 40 years ago.”

Transit officials expect that 7,800 passengers will ride the city’s first underground rail line each day from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. during its first year of operation. And neighborhood activists hope that construction planned around MacArthur Park for the next few years could make the station an increasingly desirable destination.

The RTD and a consortium of private developers have proposed building retail stores, housing and medical facilities on the 12 acres surrounding the station, said Dana Woodbury, RTD director of planning.

City Councilman Mike Hernandez said he plans to closely watch how well the subway and the anticipated development projects serve residents around the station, a majority of whom depend on public transportation.

“We have to make sure that the subway links up with other forms of public transportation for it to be of most use to people who don’t have automobiles,” Hernandez said.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission has advertised the Red Line in the Spanish-language media to encourage ridership, said Clara Potes-Fellow, a commission spokeswoman. “The Red Line links two important centers of activity for Latinos, “ Potes-Fellow said, referring to Westlake and Downtown.

Fred Yousefzadeh, a developer whose BHDC Inc. has constructed several commercial and residential buildings around the station and is building more, said the subway’s opening “could be amazing for the economy of the area.” But he added that potential benefits could slip away if crime around MacArthur Park isn’t controlled.

For Se Yoon, who owns a shoe store on 7th Street, the reopening of the park--which will remain closed until next year because of continued subway construction--is the key to attracting more business. “I think most people will use the subway to go Downtown rather than to come this way, at least until the park is open,” he said.

The second part of the Red Line from MacArthur Park to Western Avenue is scheduled to open in 1996.

Norm Langer, owner of Langer’s Delicatessen & Restaurant, which has been at 7th and Alvarado streets since 1947, takes a longer-term view of the subway. “There’s absolutely no downside to it,” Langer said. “And when they open up the segment to Western Avenue, that will link up all the offices on Wilshire Boulevard to the park and Downtown.”