LA Unveils a New Rail Line

A city famous for its choked freeways and crawling commutes has a new claim to fame: the longest light-rail line in the world.

That’s according to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which opened a 1.9-mile subway tunnel under downtown Los Angeles last week. The tunnel caps a $1.8 billion project that will now allow riders to travel directly between Long Beach and Azusa, a journey of nearly 50 miles, or between Santa Monica and East Los Angeles.

The new link, called the Regional Connector, includes three new underground stations and links three light-rail lines, reducing travel times by eliminating the need for many riders to transfer.

Transit agencies across California and the nation are trying to reinvent themselves after the coronavirus pandemic drastically changed commuting patterns and ridership. Los Angeles leaders hope that by making use of the light-rail network more convenient, they can lure new riders, ease traffic and cut pollution.

“It remakes transportation in Los Angeles County,” Bart Reed, executive director of the Transit Coalition, a public-transit advocacy group, said of the new link. “Anywhere you go, driving is often slow. The truth is that trains are a mobility solution in Los Angeles.”

I rode the newly extended A line recently, from Long Beach through downtown Los Angeles, across Pasadena and into Azusa at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. The whole trip took just under two hours at speeds reaching 56 miles an hour. Train cars were mostly uncrowded.

At a time when transit budgets are being squeezed across the country, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, known as Metro, is expanding light rail in part because of a series of voter-approved sales tax increases meant to fund such projects, dating back to Proposition A in 1980.

“We’re following the will of the voters,” said Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles County supervisor and a Metro board member. “We’re making a major investment in building out a modern transportation system that connects people to where they want to go.”

With Los Angeles scheduled to hold the 2028 Summer Olympics, officials believe that expanding the light-rail system will better connect cities across the county, the most populous in the nation, while reducing street congestion and carbon emissions.

“There is no other choice, because we’re not going to build new freeways,” said Ara Najarian, a Glendale City Council member and the chair of Metro’s board of directors. “We want to get people out of cars and into safe, reliable transit.”

The expansion also comes at a time when drug overdoses on the trains have been increasing, and a series of travelers aboard Metro trains have been attacked. Violent crime on public transit in Los Angeles County is up about 10 percent from last year, and drug-related offenses have surged 301 percent, according to Metro figures.

Ridership remains below prepandemic levels but has begun to increase steadily. About 23.4 million riders used Metro trains and buses in April 2023, 10 percent more than in April 2022, according to Metro officials. Buses account for more than two-thirds of total ridership.

As my train traveled back to Long Beach, it was rush hour, and many more riders came on board. Metro “ambassadors” — guides wearing lime-green shirts — stood in pairs at station platforms and on train cars, with black pouches of doses of naloxone, a medication used in opioid overdoses, affixed to their belts.

“They have to do something about crime and people being attacked,” said Judy Louie, 69, a Sierra Madre resident riding with her sister to downtown Los Angeles. “It’s appalling.”

Other passengers said a fast and reliable light-rail system had potential in a sprawling region where car culture reigns and public transit is often seen as uncomfortable or inconvenient.

“There’s a stigma,” Bill Teweles, 72, said.

Traveling to Little Tokyo, Teweles said he believed the new Regional Connector would make navigating downtown easier while attracting new riders, easing traffic and helping the environment.

“I’m an optimist,” he added.

For more:

Douglas Morino is a journalist based in Los Angeles.

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Jackie Leventhal, who recommends discovering new sights in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco:

“San Francisco’s largest park is well known to many. The park’s mainstays — the Japanese Tea Garden, de Young Museum and many lakes — are well traversed. However, you can walk unguided and discover many other tidbits waiting for you to see. We found a lush fern grove, the first children’s playground in the country, blooming magnolias, the meditative AIDS Memorial Grove and the Janis Joplin Tree. Bikers, skaters, musicians make every stroll a unique happening.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to [email protected]. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

What we’re reading

The 25 most influential works of postwar queer literature.

Tell us

We’re almost halfway through 2023! What are the best things that have happened to you so far this year? What have been your wins? Or your unexpected joys, big or small?

Tell me at [email protected]. Please include your full name and the city where you live.

And before you go, some good news

Things are looking up for a California creature that once seemed destined for extinction.

The Santa Cruz kangaroo rat was for decades thought to exist only in a tiny pocket of sandhills in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County. But scientists have recently identified new populations 25 miles away, The Mercury News reports.

“It was unbelievable,” said Ken Hickman, who detected the elusive subspecies near Los Gatos. “People have been looking for them for years.”

Thanks for reading. We’ll be back on Monday. Enjoy your weekend.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword.

Soumya Karlamangla, Johnna Margalotti and Maia Coleman contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

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