APRIL

Glinting in the sun, shiny new subway cars sat idle in a downtown rail yard after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority halted work on planned extensions of the Metro Rail subway to the Eastside and Mid-City. Los Angeles County voters reinforced that decision by overwhelmingly approving a November ballot measure that makes future expansion of the subway system far more difficult. The voters outlawed use of the county’s transit sales tax for any more underground rail projects once the subway reaches the San Fernando Valley in 2000. Meanwhile, after years of neglecting the nation’s second-largest bus system, the MTA admitted that it failed to meet a federal court order to reduce chronic overcrowding. The transit agency promised to buy 2,095 new buses over the next six years to replace its aging and crippled fleet. And those unneeded subway cars? They’re for sale.