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ALPERN AT LARGE - Well, we did it. Twenty years or so a bunch of us joined Darrell Clarke and several other visionaries into pushing for an Exposition Light Rail Line. Then that bunch of us pushed for a Green Line/LAX Connection, and also a push for two other subways—the Wilshire Subway and now “the other subway”.
That other subway was and is the now-completed Downtown Light Rail Connector, or Regional Connector, or my personal name of “Expo Line Phase III”, or whatever name you wish to call the underground light rail line with four critical Downtown L.A. stops that finally ties our countywide rail system together.
I’ve made it my business over the last generation (not the only one, mind you, but one of the loudest, thanks in part to CityWatchLA and the late Ken Draper) to figure out what the Westside of L.A. and other regions wanted with respect to a modern, 21st-Century mass transit system.
In short, we wanted in 2000 what we wanted in 2020, and more likely than not what we will want in the 2028 Olympics, and in 2035, and in 2040: a convenient, cost-effective, efficient, and safe system of getting from here to there.
It’s exactly like our roads and freeways and bus systems. Something that just makes sense.
In addition to cute names like “Expo Line Phase III”, which would extend the Expo Line (or E Line, or whatever quasi-New York, ridiculously-sterile, or other silly systemic name it’s going to be called) east and north to fill in the Downtown Gap of four light rail lines converging without connecting, I also came up with the OTTER Line name:
OTTER as in “Ocean To The Empire Rail” Line.
Well, we now have a non-transfer, single-seat ride from the Ocean to East L.A., and a non-transfer, single-seat ride from Downtown Long Beach to the Inland Empire. Easy access from the San Gabriel Valley to Long Beach. Easy access from Pasadena to the beach. And easy access to the Wilshire Blvd. and San Fernando/Universal Studios subways.
And all with easy, usually single-seat, trips to the Downtown City/County where so many work, live, and play. Stadiums, law offices, government seats of power, etc. all reside and now thrive with a Downtown recovery that was all hand-in-hand with the rail efforts started by the grassroots.
Some of those grassroots formed groups were led by awesome individuals like the aforementioned Darrell Clarke, as well as Robert Leabow, Matthew Hetz, Daniel Walker, Alan Weeks, Bart Reed, and others. These groups were all non-profit, volunteer, grassroots entities that some remember, but perhaps most readers don’t:
Friends4 Expo Transit, Friends of the Green Line, Friends of the Red Line, the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee (thank you, my friend Bill Rosendahl…R.I.P.), and The Transit Coalition.
But now we have a host of problems plaguing light rail and transit ridership, which I hope will all be overcome…despite my heart-breaking doubts that they won’t any time soon.
There is another big connection that will occur with the Metro Rail/LAX People Mover connection, and like the Regional Light Rail Connector (or whatever name you wish to call it) is a preliminary effort prior to the 2028 Olympics.
Unfortunately—and this is a major part of the problems plaguing the growth of Metro Rail and other rapid-transit efforts –the decision to place an insulting, outrageous, and perhaps offensively cost-ineffective bikeway between LAX and Downtown Union Station along a publicly-own rail line right-of-way instead of a LAX/Downtown connection is in our future.
Silly, ain’t it?
And, of course, the safety/homeless/gangbanger/no-crime-enforcement complaints that have always, and will always, exist.
Perhaps the two female Westside L.A. Councilmembers, Traci Park and Katy Yaroslavsky, and especially our female L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, will succeed where so many pig-headed tone-deaf males have failed with respect to convenience and safety…
…because if very few to no women feel safe riding (and especially with their kids), then overall ridership will be forever moribund. I can’t tell you how many times I debated this issue with other men (perhaps I actually LISTEN to my wife and other women).
It should also be mentioned that one of our grassroots fighters, Gökhan Esirgen of the USC Physics & Astronomy Department, played a major role in engineering this Downtown Light Rail Connector subway completely underground when more than a few Metro engineers said it couldn’t be done.
And I remember personally funding an “Expo Expo” in Santa Monica when a whole bunch of Westside and other folks said the Expo Line couldn’t be done. Kudos to my beloved wife and two kids, who for too long had a busy and absentee husband and father giving up so much time for grassroots transportation and neighborhood council advocacy efforts.
I also remember a few of us who aren’t around anymore (they’ve moved up to that big rail line in the sky, or something to that tune) who would have loved to live long enough to see this big L.A. County rail network exist.
To summarize, the grassroots got this ball rolling, and the taxpayers will fund the construction and operations of this and other public light rail lines.
So to all the backslapping, attention-grabbing political leaders who for too long were completely AWOL when it came to fighting for this system, and are praising it (and themselves, directly or indirectly) please don’t forget who started all this, and who are necessary to keep the momentum going for these wonderful transportation victories.
These took, and will take, years of fighting when all sorts of folks will tell you it can’t be done. Don’t lose heart, and don’t forget the ones who are necessary to keep this train moving.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
