Clear Track for a New Line

Thursday, more than a decade after the concept was first put forward, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board is expected to officially bless a light rail line that should one day run from downtown to Santa Monica along Exposition Boulevard. Even with the board’s green light, however, construction won’t begin for several years because of MTA funding constraints, the first passengers won’t board until 2014 and for many more years the trains will run only as far as Venice and Robertson boulevards. Still, the board vote, if it goes as it should, is cause to pop a few champagne corks.

The Expo project has long been an obvious answer to growing traffic congestion, taking commuters from the ocean and downtown in about 45 minutes. The proposed rail line will follow the same route as the popular Red Car line, in use until 1953. In fact, Exposition was such an obvious transit corridor that years ago the MTA bought up the right of way from the ocean to Exposition Park.

But obvious doesn’t mean simple. As subway and light rail got built in other areas, battles over key details--including the location of grade crossings along the 17-mile route--have kept the project stalled. Also, for years the clout of residents in Cheviot Hills and Rancho Park, fearing that trains running nearby would bring noise and crime, meant political trouble for any local official who backed the line. The Expo route now detours south at Robertson, taking in parts of Culver City instead, a plus for folks who work or live there.

The Expo line also floundered so long because of ungrounded assumptions that the line would prove useful only to certain areas. Maybe traffic had to get bad enough for local leaders to realize that the Expo line will be a boon to folks on the Westside and in South and Central Los Angeles. The realization of the broad benefits of the Expo line has happened in part because of a campaign by cities along the route, like Santa Monica, farsighted elected officials and a coalition of local residents, Friends 4 Expo Transit, who just want to be able to leave their cars home.

In the face of such now-unified support, even MTA board members who opposed the project before should vote for it Thursday. We’d like to think that support will herald a new attitude toward public transit in this land where the car is king.