1999: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
It was a Hollywood opening to be sure. Cast members from the “Wizard of Oz,” a crowd of VIPs and later the public celebrated the start of subway service to the entertainment capital last June.
The opening of the 4.6-mile Hollywood line with its five new stations marked a milestone for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has struggled with cost overruns and construction problems on the $5-billion subway project.
Trains run daily between Union Station near downtown Los Angeles and the movie-motif station at Hollywood and Vine. The final 6.3 miles of subway from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley is scheduled to open the middle of next year.
For the MTA and Bus Riders Union, it was another contentious year. A federal judge ordered the MTA to buy 248 new buses to relieve overcrowding, but the agency won a reprieve pending further legal arguments. The death toll on the light rail Blue Line rose to 53 when an unlicensed driver in a bandit cab tried to beat a train across the tracks and was rammed. Six people died.
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