The End of the Line Starts Here

Like anxious kids antsy to test the latest amusement park ride, thousands boarded the Red Line subway Saturday to experience the final leg of the $4.7-billion rail project.

For the first time, riders were able to board the Red Line in the San Fernando Valley and zip underground all the way to downtown Los Angeles in less than half an hour.

The final 6.3 miles of the subway, that section from the Hollywood-Highland station to North Hollywood, closes a geographical, maybe even a cultural, gap between the Valley and the rest of the city.

A day earlier at a VIP ceremony, several Sacramento and Washington types predicted the subway would earn more respect for the Valley, bridging two often combative halves of one city. The same day, a Westside paper lampooned the subway completion as the “invasion of the Valley,” an encroachment of “818s” into enemy 310 area code territory.

None of that civic bickering could spoil Hyman Hoffman’s first ride.

The 88-year-old emerged beaming from the Red Line station at Universal City. An emigre from Eastern Europe, Hoffman is an old hand at public transit after living in the Bronx for years, frequenting the Jerome Avenue and 8th Street subway lines there.

When he moved to North Hollywood, the old Red Cars took him everywhere for less than a quarter, until they were bumped off by cars and freeways.

“There’s no comparison” with New York, he said, gazing at the tile murals and soaring ceilings inside the Universal City station. “This is like a joy ride.”

Just Another Thrill Ride

For many families, the grand opening had all the trappings of an L.A. theme park. Lines often snaked outside in the hot sun around the station, parking lots were packed, and festivals and entertainers greeted passengers at each of the three new stops--North Hollywood, Universal City, and Hollywood Boulevard-Highland Avenue.

Just after 3:15 p.m., MTA officials said about 130,000 had ridden the trains, and they expected to exceed first-day projections of 180,000 passengers. Similar ridership is expected today with free rides continuing on all Red Line trains from 5 a.m. to midnight.

One man collapsed on the Universal City platform with a heart problem and was taken to a local hospital, but no other incidents were reported, the MTA said.

For some, the finished subway was more relief than attraction.

Just south of the North Hollywood station, optometrist Thomas Kutrosky viewed the completion of the Red Line as the end of six years of dust, construction zones and restless nights. His business suffered during the subway work just outside his door, and he and his wife were often disturbed as they slept in their apartment upstairs from his office.

“We survived,” Kutrosky said. “I have a lot of intestinal fortitude to stay here.”

Kutrosky and many others viewed the finished subway as a new chapter for highway-bound Angelenos. His wife, he said, will rely on the Red Line to reach her nursing job downtown.

Taking the bus downtown from their North Hollywood home meant an hour and a half ride, said Heidy Perez, who attended the opening with her mother and children. She won’t have to drive her kids to CityWalk, she said, and her mother’s long bus rides will be replaced by faster train commutes.

Overshadowed by the subway, the MTA’s Rapid Bus service, featuring sleek new red-and-white buses that can electronically keep traffic lights green to speed their passage, also debuted Saturday. Its rides, along Wilshire and Ventura Boulevards, are free through June 30.

The new service lured many curious riders. Among them was Kesavan Korand, who boarded a Rapid bus at Van Nuys Boulevard and timed his trip to Universal City at 16 minutes--a speedy option he said, should he get a job downtown.

As Korand reached Universal City and headed down the escalator to the subway, railroad fan Bob Hughart of Glendale was riding in the front car of a train from Union Station to North Hollywood, peering through the window at the dark tunnel ahead. He clocked the ride at 28 minutes, a feat he said would be tough to beat on the Hollywood Freeway.

Making an Emotional Connection

The new subway extension, Hughart mused, might even slow secession efforts, now that both sides of the Cahuenga Pass would be closer.

But those mocking comments about the subway bringing Valley-ites to the rest of the city?

Nancy Frazen of Studio City said she’s heard the snubs about Valley Girls, bland suburbia and too much heat and smog on her side of the Cahuenga divide.

The Valley may have been the setting for the TV shows “My Three Sons” and “The Brady Bunch,” but even the Sherman Oaks Galleria--Valley Girl central--is getting a face lift as a new entertainment and retail complex.

“It’s totally passe,” she said of the cliches, laughing. “It’s fine if ‘they’ come here and ‘we’ go there,” she said. “It’s nice to have a connection. They need to get over it.”

Finally on the Fast Track

The Valley Edition special report on the opening of the Metro Red Line to North Hollywood and Universal City is available at: https://www.latimes.com/news/state/reports/redline.