Please bring this back to L.A.

[dd74]

No, not the old Red Car...

...but an updated version. C'mon. L.A. had the fastest most advanced mass transit system in the world in the 1930s, 40s and 50s from L.A. to Long Beach. IIRC, the Red Car even traveled to San Diego. At any rate, it was the transportation model to have in everyone's city. And it supposedly worked very, very well.

So, why can't it be done again? Put rail lines down the middle of the street, about five feet or so of concrete shoulder on either side of the rails, plug in some electricity and get some cool, comfortable passenger cars - red of course to run on the track.

Sure, complete what needs to be completed re. the subway. But from that point on, make the Red Car a transportation priority.

[slodave]

Dumb drivers here can't even stop for the Orange (?) Line, that runs parallel to Oxnard Street. How do you think they'd do with little trains running down the street?

BTW, I'm not saying that I'm against it...

[varmint]

i live in hollywood. and was here when the subway construction caused a two hundred yard sink hole to open up on the boulevard. while it's not a bad idea, i think our city is criminally incompetent, and incapable of such a project.

p.s. i've used metro rail a few times. shame it doesn't actually go anywhere useful.

[HardDrive]

It can be done....in places like Portland OR and Seattle WA.

Do I REALLY need to tell you why it can't be done in LA? Your political system is....how you say it in your language?.....mui mui ***** disfunctional.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

http://www.monorails.org/tmspages/LA1963.html

In 1963, Los Angeles politicians were given an offer too good to refuse. The Alweg Monorail Company, which had gained world-wide recognition for its demonstration monorail at the 1962 Seattle Century 21 Exposition, was looking to establish a major foothold in the world of urban rail transit. "We are pleased to submit this day a proposal to finance and construct an Alweg Monorail rapid transit system 43 miles in length, serving the San Fernando Valley, the Wilshire corridor, the San Bernardino corridor and downtown Los Angeles." So wrote Sixten Holmquist, then President of the Alweg Rapid Transit Systems in his June 4, 1963 letter to the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). He went on to detail the financing aspect, "this is a turn-key proposal in which a group will share risk, finance the construction, and turn over to MTA a completed and operating system to be repaid from MTA revenues." The entire system came to $105,275,000, "plus any applicable sales tax." Alweg also agreed to conduct feasibility studies for expansion of the system over the entire Los Angeles Metropolitan area if the offer was accepted. Undoubtedly, if the monorail had been built, it would by now have been expanded to all major LA destination points and beyond.

[dd74]

Exactly, Jared. And you know where that monorail was instead built? Disneyland. I'm the most miserable person in The Happiest Place on Earth whenever I ride it.

[tabs]

I remember the Red Cars....I remember Incinerators to burn your trash, I remember ther being NO 60, 605, 57,55, 210 or 134 freeways. I remember the road to Vegas was 2 lanes one in each direction. I remember that ther was no such thing as the 5 N to Frisco...one had to use the old 99.

What I do remember was the San Bernardino to the 10 west to Santa Monica and Pasadena Freeways. Route 66 was still the route west to Santa Monica. To get to the beachone had to go down Beach Blvd aka known as route 39. OR from Pasadena Rosemead blvd which changes to Lakewood Blvd.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I've said this a million times but there's simply too much money involved to expect any meaningful change anytime soon. The people and institutions that make a killing off of a vehicle-dependent populace (automakers, car dealerships, oil/fuel distributors, insurance companies, banks, etc.) are so in bed with the politicians that there simply can't be any meaningful change. Not to mention the infrastructure costs.

SoCal (and particularly L.A.) had their chance to implement visionary mass-transit in the 1960s. That window of opportunity has long since closed. How are you going to fund such a project today when prices for the real estate alone are absurd? Float bonds? Good luck with that in a state looking at certain bankruptcy in the next few years due to overspending and overextension on past bond obligations (and pensions).

Nope, L.A. is screwed. They made their bed in the 1960s when they decided to stake their future on cars only - and now they can live with it.

The Metro light rail lines (blue, gold, red, green) are nice, but only if you're going to (or from) the ghettos. Having the blue line terminate here in Long Beach is a blessing and a curse. It can get you to downtown L.A. if you feel some compelling reason to want to ever go there, but the downside is it's an easy, cheap conduit for every manner of ghetto trash from North L.B., Compton and South Central to come down here and start trouble. Go walk around the Pike some night. It can get downright scary.

[RWebb]

I thought LA had started a light rail line that ran downtown??

High oil prices will help reduce the money differential that Porsche-O-Phile noted.

Also, since it's Yike, Ike season, and also fire season here out west, disasters can help us to remodel our urban centers. Next time there is an earthquake or a large chaparral fire, people get to re-think whether they really want to rebuild in that spot.

This has happened in SFO (the bay fill "shaky" zones were not rebuilt nearly so much as the rocky parts, and IIRC some were made into parks), and in NoLa (some parts of the city will likely not be rebuilt - the lowest lying parts).

After last year's fire season, I saw the head fire mgmt. guy say that the real culprit was the pattern of land use. Eventually, others will get the message. It may take a few more fires tho.

[The Gaijin]

A different time and place.

What was the population in 1963?

How spread out was it?

[Zeke]

In Long Beach, they tore up all the Red Car tracks only to replace them in the exact location for the Blue Line (why wasn't it called the Red Line?). Except, the Red Cars split off and went diagonally thru LB to Seal Beach. Most of the rightaway is still there and the old four way bridge at California and Hill is still standing with nothing under it but drug dealers.

[dd74]

Originally Posted by RWebb

I thought LA had started a light rail line that ran downtown??

High oil prices will help reduce the money differential that Porsche-O-Phile noted.

Also, since it's Yike, Ike season, and also fire season here out west, disasters can help us to remodel our urban centers. Next time there is an earthquake or a large chaparral fire, people get to re-think whether they really want to rebuild in that spot.

This has happened in SFO (the bay fill "shaky" zones were not rebuilt nearly so much as the rocky parts, and IIRC some were made into parks), and in NoLa (some parts of the city will likely not be rebuilt - the lowest lying parts).

After last year's fire season, I saw the head fire mgmt. guy say that the real culprit was the pattern of land use. Eventually, others will get the message. It may take a few more fires tho.

+1. It probably will take a disaster to rethink things down here. For instance, our recent train accident. Or a complete meltdown of all forms of transportation in the city.

So far, as for the train disaster, it seems more are concerned with covering their ass than coming to a solution so this doesn't happen again.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Just a few items as a current Metro employee involved with the construction of the current rail system:

The "MTA" mentioned is Jared's post above about the monorail is in no way connected to the current agency named MTA; now using the name "Metro". The current MTA was created by a state legislation mandated merger of the old SCRTD (Southern California Rapid Transit District) with the then LACTC/RCC - Los Angeles County Transporation Commission and its subsidiary (of which I was an employee) the Rail Construction Corporation.

The name "Red Cars" was a nickname for the coaches used by the Pacific Electric company. There were over 1200 miles of track at its peak and yes it went from Ventura in the north; south to almost San Diego. Of course this was in the days well before the many county transit agencies that exist today. The only agency that works across counties today is the SCRRA - Southern California Regional Rail Authority, which you know (if at all) as "Metrolink". That agency has representation from Ventura, LA, Orange, SB and Riverside Counties on its board. It uses old freight rail right of ways purchased for use by new, low polluting double decker rail cars. It has been very successful but in no wy resembles a modern, catenary light rail system like this thread is bemoaning the loss of.

[dd74]

Originally Posted by Dan in Pasadena

Just a few items as a current Metro employee involved with the construction of the current rail system:

The "MTA" mentioned is Jared's post above about the monorail is in no way connected to the current agency named MTA; now using the name "Metro". The current MTA was created by a state legislation mandated merger of the old SCRTD (Southern California Rapid Transit District) with the then LACTC/RCC - Los Angeles County Transporation Commission and its subsidiary (of which I was an employee) the Rail Construction Corporation.

The name "Red Cars" was a nickname for the coaches used by the Pacific Electric company. There were over 1200 miles of track at its peak and yes it went from Ventura in the north; south to almost San Diego. Of course this was in the days well before the many county transit agencies that exist today. The only agency that works across counties today is the SCRRA - Southern California Regional Rail Authority, which you know (if at all) as "Metrolink". That agency has representation from Ventura, LA, Orange, SB and Riverside Counties on its board. It uses old freight rail right of ways purchased for use by new, low polluting double decker rail cars. It has been very successful but in no wy resembles a modern, catenary light rail system like this thread is bemoaning the loss of.

Those in this thread aren't the only ones "bemoaning" its absence. And not many, I'm certain, care about the merger logistics, statistics, details, and anything else involved in what was once the SCRTD and what is now MTA, and what "Metrolink" governs over.

The fact is what was once the "Red Car" system needs to be reinstalled. Or something similar to it. If not that, a monorail that runs alongside the freeways and above major boulevards. The problem with a catenary rail system in LA Metro is much of the land such a system once existed on, has now, in its wake, been converted to something else. Ex. a catenary line ran down Santa Monica from West Hollywood, through Beverly Hills and West L.A. before breaking off at Sepulveda to head south. Guess what that land is used for now? In B.H., metered parking. In L.A., they widened the street.

As to the "Red Car," I've always wondered why waste billions on a subway to nowhere built in "earthquake country," when a good portion of the rail lines' infrastructure (I've heard almost 30%) still exists a half-century after the "Red Cars" were pulled off their routes and dismantled for whatever conspiring reasons?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Absolutely true. This region is in dire need of a viable mass-transit system. And by "viable" I do not mean just throwing more city buses at the problem. Nobody rides them - they take too long to go anywhere (other than highly local) and they unfortunately will always suffer from a "low class" stigma no matter how clean and nice they're made. It's part of the culture, unfortunately and it'll be decades to change that image - far too long a time frame to fix any problems today or be part of a solution in the short to intermediate term.

Rail is the way to go IMHO. But there's no way the governments here can afford it anymore. Way, way too expensive and the state is way too over-extended as it is. I don't see any easy solution to this one.

[Oh Haha]

I just watched a PBS show on the history of the Michigan railway system last night. At one time, these type of train cars were THE way to get around the cities.

Apparently, there are cities of moderate sizes looking into this again.

[JavaBrewer]

Other than long distance point to point destinations rail is a horrible idea. The cost of installing a fixed tracks is prohibitive and contentious. The better alternative is to use road going trains...buses. They would leverage existing road infrastructure and routes can be added/changed quickly to accommodate daily/weekly/seasonal changes. Rolling on dedicated lanes/streets with modern propane/electric buses (think trolley cars on wheels) the system can reach anywhere and provide much better coverage to suburbs and outlying areas.

We have the coaster here in San Diego that serves North county to downtown. Not only is it very expensive to ride in both time and money it also does not get 99% of the folks to their final destination. They then have to rely on buses, taxi, or the trolley. That's a total non-started for most folks - myself included.

[RWebb]

Buses are always slower than car traffic.

Fixed rail can be faster. AND, it's been found that once you lay down fixed rail, it encourages denser, cluster-style development. Lots of food places locate there b/c of all the walk up traffic.

Portland now has FIVE rail lines! It is a matter of civic will. Our state and P'land don't "have any money" either. The feds might help out some in the future - we'll see. It sure makes sense.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

There's a reason that east coast and midwest cities have such high ridership numbers on their light rail systems. Because it works.

Boston's MBTA and "T" subways are always packed. Same with Chicago's El trains and the commuter trains to the outlying suburbs. Same with NY's subway AND commuter trains. Etc.

L.A. blew it BIGTIME by not going for the monorail in the 1960s. They condemned this area to eventual saturation and "maxing out" by dependence on automobiles. It absolutely will choke off the growth potential of the area (and does already to some extent).

[Vipergrün]

Guess the metrolink crash came at a bad time for this thread. I've seen the people who 'drive' many of these trains. I would not trust them to operate the ferris wheel at the County fair. Besides, the people of LA will never give up their BMW's in favor of mass transit.

It's nice to dream, though.