Street-Level Rail System for Los Angeles

When will Mayor Richard Riordan, the MTA and the city of Los Angeles realize we can move into the next century with new and modern mass transportation without spending billions and incurring interminable delays? A quiet, street-level rail system can be built quickly, efficiently and with little impact to nearby businesses and neighborhoods.

Extending the Wilshire Red Line is the most obvious example: A street car could begin at the Wilshire-Western Red Line station, traveling west down Wilshire Boulevard, through Museum Row and the corridor of many populated office buildings. It would then continue through Beverly Hills (where Wilshire is seven lanes wide, offering plenty of room for cars and rail to coexist) and turn left on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Riders would enjoy the view of the newly restored boulevard (as outlined recently by city planners) as they glide through Century City and continue through Westwood and Santa Monica, where the trip would end at the doorstep of the Pacific Ocean.

Combining the needs of commuters and tourists, this transit line could be a model for a series of street-level rail lines throughout the region, many emanating from the subway.

More buses are not the answer, but expensive and lengthy tunneling isn’t practical for this city either.

JAY TANNENBAUM

Los Angeles

* It’s time to stop digging and to come out into the great climate our city is known around the world for. Monorails, bikeways and light rail are the answer to the region’s transportation woes, not more polluting buses or dangerous digging into the dark depths of the city.

TIMOTHY JOLLIFFE

Echo Park

* I found it unfortunate that you didn’t run Robert Poole’s March 4 letter (suggesting that MTA spend more of its money on freeway widening) and the March 5 article reporting that the World Bank has found spending money to accommodate cars drains cities of wealth together. What a contrast.

Los Angelenos realize we have gone past what the World Bank terms the point of “diseconomy associated with car use growth” and we need to spend more of our transportation money creating a “more balanced transportation system.” The Times suggests it’s obvious, but the MTA and its critics are oblivious.

PETER JACOBSEN

Pasadena