Hey Los Angeles, There's a Train Arrivin'

TRANSPO LA - Last night I took my 17-year-old son to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. What a rite of passage. It seems like only yesterday that I was going to one of my own first rock concerts, Springsteen and a smaller E Street Band, at Madison Square Garden.
And, like my son, I was around 17 at the time. That means it was around 1977, a thought almost as scary to me as trying to get from LA's Westside to downtown, as I often do, without the Wilshire subway at rush hour.

But all that is changing. As Bruce and the band sang in one of last night's many final encores, "There's a train a comin'."

How was the show? Probably the best rock and blues and soul shows all rolled into one that I have ever seen. While that's no understatement, the real show in Los Angeles opened Monday morning at 5 am when the Expo Line started running between downtown and La Cienega Blvd.

Like the special time I spent last night with my son, I'm only hoping this is the first of several critical line openings in the years to come. My Metro bucket list includes the Crenshaw Line, the Green Line extension to LAX and the mother of all Los Angeles rail lines, the Westside subway extension to the VA or beyond.

Hey Los Angeles. There's a train arrivin'. Just get on board.

(Joel Epstein is a communications and public affairs consultant focused on transportation, development and other urban issues and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: www.twitter.com/thejoelepstein) –cw

Tags: Joel Epstein, Transportation, Los Angeles, Metro, Expo Line, Light Rail, Subway to the Sea, Bruce Springsteen







CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 35
Pub: May 1, 2012