MTA Has a Lot Riding on New Subway Line

By JEFFREY L. RABIN

June 6, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

It has all the attributes of a Hollywood blockbuster.

There have been massive cost overruns, numerous casting changes, gripping crises and waves of advance publicity. And, when it premieres this week, Metro Rail’s $3.3-billion Red Line subway between downtown and Hollywood will have to answer the questions that hang over every big-budget spectacular: How will it play at the box office? Who will the paying audience be?

Will the poor and transit-dependent adopt the subway as an alternative to their only other option, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chronically overcrowded buses? Will tourists ride the subway to the stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame? Can the fast trains capture the toughest customer of all: auto-addicted Angelenos?

Obviously, more than trains will be riding on this stretch of rail when it opens Saturday .

No other part of the massive subway project has been plagued by more construction problems than the Hollywood line. Ground subsidence during tunneling damaged buildings, and a sinkhole closed a three-block stretch of Hollywood Boulevard. Those debacles led to the firing of a major tunnel contractor, a fierce legal battle and a quiet settlement to avoid a public trial that would have involved testimony on construction practices that would have embarrassed the MTA.

Among the most discomforting of those disclosures would have been examples of the lax oversight that allowed the cost of the Hollywood line to soar hundreds of millions of dollars over budget to more than $1.7 billion.

Images of the construction problems became symbolic of the subway project’s continuing troubles and contributed to the political climate in which Los Angeles County voters last fall overwhelmingly rejected use of the transit sales tax for new subway lines.

Even so, some who endured the trauma of construction believe the subway’s opening offers Hollywood a chance for recovery and revitalization. “As much as it’s been torture, this is going to help Hollywood,” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg. “Overall, it’s going to help economically.”

To MTA Chief Executive Julian Burke, the opening is a turning point. “When the subway gets to Hollywood, and especially next year when we get to North Hollywood, I think the public will realize the value of Metro Rail,” he said. “It will truly be a fast, safe and convenient alternative to driving and a tremendous boon to the transit-dependent.”

But will the prospect of a 15-minute ride from downtown Los Angeles to Hollywood draw enough riders to justify the enormous investment federal, state and local taxpayers have made in the underground rail line?

By the time the 17-mile subway is completed from Union Station to North Hollywood a year from now, nearly $5 billion will have been spent on one of the nation’s biggest public works projects.

After enormous optimism when the Metro Rail project was being sold to Congress and the public, the projected number of subway riders has fallen drastically. Initially, boosters predicted that a line running from downtown to the San Fernando Valley through Hollywood would have 290,000 boardings each weekday. (A round-trip is two boardings.) However, those 10-year-old estimates assumed a continued downtown building boom, sharply higher gasoline prices and increased downtown parking rates.

Today, the estimates are more modest. The MTA is now betting that opening the Hollywood line will double the Red Line’s current weekday boardings from 38,725 to about 80,000 within six months. The agency predicts that 125,000 people will board the trains on weekdays once the last six miles of the subway--from Hollywood beneath the Santa Monica Mountains to Universal City and North Hollywood--opens in May of next year.

Charles Stark, the MTA’s head of construction, believes the Hollywood line will begin to create the critical mass the subway system needs to demonstrate its value. “The additional five stations and the 11 miles going through the densely populated city of Los Angeles will begin to provide people with the kind of trip length that will be valuable,” he said.

Stark said that when the line goes the full 17 miles to the San Fernando Valley, commuters on the heavily congested Hollywood Freeway will have an alternative to driving. At that point, he said, motorists will ask themselves: “How do I get there the fastest? It’s the travel time that makes the decision,” he said.

The Italian-made subway trains can run at a maximum of 55 mph.

3 Hospitals on the Route

The subway’s Vermont/Sunset station will provide access to three hospitals--Kaiser Permanente, Childrens Hospital and Queen of Angels Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. The Vermont/Santa Monica station is next to Los Angeles City College and down the street from the Braille Institute.

At the Metro Center station downtown, the subway connects with the Blue Line to Long Beach. That 22-mile light rail line in turn links up with the Green Line, which runs for 20 miles from Norwalk to El Segundo.

Subway riders can also connect with Metrolink commuter trains and Amtrak at Union Station.

But Brian Taylor of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA, believes that “if the goal is to reduce congestion on the highway, it’s not going to be very successful,” he said. “The reason for that is not the fault of the MTA.”

Taylor cited the example of the Bay Area Rapid Transit trains that link the East Bay with San Francisco through a subway tube on the bottom of San Francisco Bay. After BART opened, traffic dropped on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, “but within a reasonably short time, it had grown back and exceeded former levels,” he said.

Thus, Taylor predicted that any drop in congestion on the Hollywood Freeway will not be significant and “within a few weeks or months, those reductions will evaporate.”

Transportation planner Jonathan Richmond, a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, is a critic of many urban rail projects, including the Los Angeles subway. “The Red Line is an example of political pork of the utmost order,” he said. “The cost has become truly alarming.”

While resources have been poured into building the rail system, Richmond said, “a lot of low-income people have suffered” from a degradation of the MTA’s bus service.

Richmond also said the decision to divert the subway to Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley rather than continuing west along the much denser Wilshire corridor, as originally planned, reduced the rail system’s potential ridership.

The detour occurred after a methane gas explosion and fire injured 21 people at a Ross Dress for Less store on Fairfax Avenue in 1985.

At the insistence of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), Congress in 1986 blocked the use of federal funds to tunnel through a “high-risk zone” of methane gas along Wilshire, effectively forcing the subway north on Vermont and west on Hollywood Boulevard. “It was diverted for political needs at least as great as the gas risk,” Richmond said. “It was never really designed properly from a transportation perspective.”

William Fulton, author of the book “The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles,” said the subway will increase transportation capacity in central Los Angeles. However, he said it’s too bad the Red Line did not run from the Eastside to Century City along Wilshire.

Although the Red Line as built “snakes around, it runs through some of the densest job and housing centers in the entire region,” Fulton said. He noted that the MTA’s busiest bus lines run on Wilshire and Vermont.

Over time, Fulton foresees real estate development taking place around the subway, strengthening the core of the region.

“This is not going to change the physical shape of Los Angeles overnight. No single public transit project is going to do that,” he said. “Is it going to shape the city in a way that is positive? Possibly, yes.

“We clearly are going to see some revival of Hollywood.” With the subway open, Fulton said, “in a certain way, Hollywood is an extension of downtown.”

In fact, after years of construction chaos, Hollywood is experiencing a recovery. Councilwoman Goldberg said the subway will end up being an asset for her Hollywood district. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, at least with the MTA,” she said.

Economic Benefits Seen From New Line

Transit chief Burke sees the subway “not only as a transportation vehicle, it is also an economic catalyst. It’s literally changing the face of Hollywood by spurring major joint economic development around the subway stations.”

The massive $430-million Trizec-Hahn project already is underway above the Hollywood and Highland station, although the subway will not open to that point until next year. The city is investing $90 million to build a 3,000-car parking garage for the project and to construct a new theater.

With a hotel, retail and entertainment complex that will become the new home of the Academy Awards, the project is seen as the focal point for a renaissance of Hollywood’s west end.

Nearby are such landmarks as the El Capitan and Mann’s Chinese theaters. To reach these tourist destinations, a shuttle bus is planned from the Hollywood/Vine station up the boulevard to La Brea Avenue.

At the opposite end of Hollywood, a shopping center and low-and moderate-income housing project are planned near the Hollywood and Western station.

When the entire subway is finished, Goldberg said, it will connect Hollywood to downtown and North Hollywood, which will be good news for the entertainment industry.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Subway Opening

The long-delayed Metro Rail subway to Hollywood will open to the public Saturday. Passengers can ride the subway for free that weekend to celebrate the start of rail service to the entertainment capital. The 4.6 miles of new subway from the Wilshire/Vermont station to Hollywood includes five new stops. With the addition of the Hollywood line, 11.1 miles of subway and 13 stations will be open from Union Station through downtown Los Angeles to Hollywood/Vine. The final 6.3 miles of subway, from Hollywood/Vine to the San Fernando Valley is scheduled to open in May 2000. There will be three stations on that route, at Hollywood/Highland, Universal City and North Hollywood.

Basic fare:

$1.35 each way

Tokens: 90 cents*

Transfer to bus or rail: 25 cents

Monthly pass: $42

Semi-monthly pass: $21

Weekly pass: $11

Note: MTA has special fares for seniors and the disabled. There are also lower cost monthly passes for seniors and students. A fare increase is being considered.

*Sold at retail outlets throughout MTA service areas but not in the stations.

Travel Time:

Downtown Los Angeles to Hollywood

Approximately 15 minutes

Hours of Operation: 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily

Schedule:

Peak periods: trains every 10 minutes

Midday: trains every 12 minutes

Evenings: trains every 20 minutes

Weekends: trains every 12 minutes

Peak periods:

Weekday mornings: 6 to 9 a.m.

Weekday afternoons: 3 to 6 p.m.

Handicapped access: Elevators at all stations.

Parking: There will be 96 parking spaces at the Hollywood/Vine station, with additional private parking lots nearby. There is no parking at the four other stations on the Hollywood line.

Security: LAPD officers patrol trains and stations; there are surveillance cameras posted in stations and on platforms.

Bicycle racks: At all five Hollywood stations.

Restrooms: None at Metro Rail stations.

For more information:

Contact the MTA at 1-800-COMMUTE or visit the MTA Web site at www.mta.net

TRAINS

Manufacturer: Breda/Italy

Cars ordered: 104

Cost: $180 million

Maximum speed: 55 mph

Length: 75 feet

Passengers: 60 seated, 110 standing