TRANSIT WATCH : Angel’s Rebirth

Well, at least one Los Angeles mass transit project is proceeding apace. So far, its good fortunes include an absence of sinkholes and street closings. There have been no budgetary problems, no threats of increased federal scrutiny, no interruption in vital funding. And the folks involved in the project even know their way around a tape measure. That sort of thing can come in handy when, say, figuring out how thick a tunnel wall ought to be.

Much of the work is being carried out in a workshop and a back yard in the city of San Fernando. That’s where Martha Diaz Aszkenazy, Jose Contreras and others are working on the restoration of one of the city’s most successful transit efforts: the Angel’s Flight funicular, including its railway station and its historic cable cars.

Angel’s Flight was a major Downtown railway at the beginning of the century, ferrying passengers between the business district and Bunker Hill and generally running far closer to capacity than, well, Metrolink. It was dismantled 26 years ago to make room for an urban renewal project.

Its ceremonial return to operation sometime next summer will bring a welcome bit of history back to life in Downtown. The railway’s 315-foot climb will link riders from the Red Line’s 4th and Hill Street station to California Plaza on Hope Street.

Angel’s Flight might also serve as an unexpectedly appropriate reminder. Its heyday was a time in which Angelenos were perfectly willing to board a train to get from one place to another. Too bad more people don’t feel that way now.