Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #25 on Jan 26, 2012, 10:56pm »
People tend to forget the Los Angeles Railway - the narrow (42" or "Cape") gauge streetcar system in what is now central Los Angeles and close in suburbs - e.g., Eagle Rock, Hawthorne. My understanding is that it carried more passengers than the PE did.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #26 on Jan 27, 2012, 3:52pm »
I'm certainly no transit historian, but it makes sense to me that the demand for light rail service would decline as more and more people could afford to own and operate their own automobiles. When I moved out here in the late 70s I couldn't afford a car, and for 2 1/2 years I got around using the bus system and relying on my friends who had cars. But that got to be a drag, and as soon as I could afford a car I got one, and I wouldn't have put it off even if LA had a better light rail/trolley mass transit system. I wasn't brainwashed by GM or Standard Oil; I simply preferred the convenience and privacy of having my own car, and my guess is most people did back in the heyday of the Air Line too. It was the victim of technological, economic, and cultural change, and now that people are realizing over-reliance on the automobile has its costs too (traffic, pollution, fuel costs) the pendulum is swinging back the other way.
I'm certainly no transit historian, but it makes sense to me that the demand for light rail service would decline as more and more people could afford to own and operate their own automobiles. When I moved out here in the late 70s I couldn't afford a car, and for 2 1/2 years I got around using the bus system and relying on my friends who had cars. But that got to be a drag, and as soon as I could afford a car I got one, and I wouldn't have put it off even if LA had a better light rail/trolley mass transit system. I wasn't brainwashed by GM or Standard Oil; I simply preferred the convenience and privacy of having my own car, and my guess is most people did back in the heyday of the Air Line too. It was the victim of technological, economic, and cultural change, and now that people are realizing over-reliance on the automobile has its costs too (traffic, pollution, fuel costs) the pendulum is swinging back the other way.
Yes, the total problem of comparing cars v. transit benefit is convenience. Driving is too darn convenient in Los Angeles compared to other cities. That's a fact.
Please name a large world-class city on the size of Los Angeles that has freeways go THROUGH the City?
No freeways go THROUGH London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco (101 stops just south), Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, etc.......... That's the difference. In all those aforementioned cities, the freeways/motorways dead end right before you get into the central city area. There is nothing like the US-101 freeway or I-110 that go right through downtown LA. Imagine if our freeways stopped outside downtown LA? Imagine if LA had "ring freeways" like other cities. The ONLY place where freeways have no advantage to transit is in the West LA area between Overland -- LA Brea -- Olympic --Santa Monica blvd. Once you get transit into that huge area.....the freeway is NOT competitive at all. Unlike downtown LA, where you can easily get off the 101, 110 or 10 freeway and you are in downtown LA.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #28 on Jan 27, 2012, 9:50pm »
Regarding the LA Ry system: Henry Huntington retained ownership of the "Yellow Cars" after he sold the PE to Southern Pacific. After he died in 1927, his estate kept it until 1945. The estate management was in the process of divesting "operating properties" and concentrating on "gilt edged securities", or as a retired Huntington manager told me many years ago, the basic policy was, "If it eats or has to be painted, you don't want your money in it." National City Lines made the estate the proverbial "offer they couldn't refuse." What surprised many people was when NCL subsidiary LA Transit Lines bought 40 all-electric PCC streetcars in 1948, despite their reputation as a strictly bus-oriented outfit. These cars were used on the "P" Pico Blvd-East First St. line, a section of which is now served by the Gold Line. Regarding the 42" gauge: Back over a hundred years ago, Los Angeles had cable car lines, and like the still-running cable cars in San Francisco, the track was 42" gauge. When the LA lines were electrified, the streetcar companies didn't bother to standard-gauge many of them and they stay 42" until the last Yellow Cars (by then many of them were green) ran in 1963. There were several miles of dual-gauge track in downtown LA to accommodate both LARy and PE cars, and the streetcar loop at Orange Empire maintains this practice.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #29 on Jan 28, 2012, 12:50pm »
Reading this topic makes me realize how many different causes there can be for a historic event.
* Could Huntington himself have been a cause? 1) Perhaps only Collis Huntington's nephew could have had the resources to build such a giant rail transit empire, but then again, he made it necessary... he helped develop suburbs which ultimately led to that spread out, sprawling look L.A. has today. 2) His ties to the Southern Pacific may have ultimately been an albatross for the Pacific Electric. Los Angeles would be a different city today if it had adopted the elevated and subway rapid transit proposals in the 1920s or 1930s (this was the same time period when Tokyo started converting to subway lines). 3) Perhaps, he even monopolized transit too much. NYC had competition in its subway lines, and Tokyo still has lots of different companies (with several track gauges)....
* Regarding Tokyo, freeways and transit: Let's not forget that Japan manufactures millions of automobiles, not all of which get shipped out to foreign shores. There's a lot of cars in Tokyo... Tokyo's expressway/ highway system is nothing like Los Angeles' freeway system, but there are elevated roadways in the downtown area ("downtown" Tokyo is a tricky thing to define, given central Tokyo's overall density). The bigger difference may be that these are all toll roads, not freeways.
I'm certainly no transit historian, but it makes sense to me that the demand for light rail service would decline as more and more people could afford to own and operate their own automobiles. When I moved out here in the late 70s I couldn't afford a car, and for 2 1/2 years I got around using the bus system and relying on my friends who had cars. But that got to be a drag, and as soon as I could afford a car I got one, and I wouldn't have put it off even if LA had a better light rail/trolley mass transit system. I wasn't brainwashed by GM or Standard Oil; I simply preferred the convenience and privacy of having my own car, and my guess is most people did back in the heyday of the Air Line too. It was the victim of technological, economic, and cultural change, and now that people are realizing over-reliance on the automobile has its costs too (traffic, pollution, fuel costs) the pendulum is swinging back the other way.
Yes, the total problem of comparing cars v. transit benefit is convenience. Driving is too darn convenient in Los Angeles compared to other cities. That's a fact.
Please name a large world-class city on the size of Los Angeles that has freeways go THROUGH the City?
No freeways go THROUGH London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco (101 stops just south), Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, etc.......... That's the difference. In all those aforementioned cities, the freeways/motorways dead end right before you get into the central city area. There is nothing like the US-101 freeway or I-110 that go right through downtown LA. Imagine if our freeways stopped outside downtown LA? Imagine if LA had "ring freeways" like other cities. The ONLY place where freeways have no advantage to transit is in the West LA area between Overland -- LA Brea -- Olympic --Santa Monica blvd. Once you get transit into that huge area.....the freeway is NOT competitive at all. Unlike downtown LA, where you can easily get off the 101, 110 or 10 freeway and you are in downtown LA.
I think the general thrust of this comment is spot on, but there are plenty of grade separated freeways in New York -- not in Manhattan sure -- but in Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens.
I think the general thrust of this comment is spot on, but there are plenty of grade separated freeways in New York -- not in Manhattan sure -- but in Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens.
There's still an important difference. The number of "freeways" (they don't use that term on the East Coast) in New York is tiny compared with LA, even including all the outer boroughs. This is especially true when measured per capita. It's a matter of degree, not just whether there are expressways or not. And the original point was whether or not the expressways give access to the central business district(s). In the case of New York, they do somewhat, as there is direct expressway access to the main tunnels and bridges, but those feed into surface streets, and expressway infrastructure doesn't carve up neighborhoods in the city center as much. It's definitely the case that the urban fabric of the outer boroughs is weakened by auto infrastructure, but it benefits from direct train access to a huge connected urban infrastructure in Manhattan. Compared to motorways, the rivers play as much or a bigger role in the "underdevelopment" of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Anyway, this forum probably shouldn't be a city to city comparison, just to say that LA has something of a unique relationship with freeways, even if its uniqueness is defined in terms of degree rather than whether other cities have grade separated expressways.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #32 on Jan 29, 2012, 10:02am »
Freeways have had a negative impact on urban Los Angeles primarily in three ways, which have been discussed in detail in this forum: (i) Enabling suburban development on an unprecidented scale at the expense of urban development. (ii) Competing with urban and interurban rail, which means that the remaining urban residents are left with comparatively poor mobility if they themselves do not invest in a car. (iii) Carving up urban neighborhoods and reducing/eliminating walkability between different neighborhoods. The third point is quite serious, and its effects can be seen in the main urbanized areas of LA. As a concrete example, the 101 and 110 partition the area around DTLA into 4 parts, but development is really strongest in only one quadrant. Everywhere else suffers by comparison with a pretty strong dividing line along the freeways. These wounds in the urban fabric will ultimately take billions of dollars of investment to repair, through freeway capping and improved transit. New York, including the outer boroughs, doesn't have this problem to the same degree by a long shot.
I think the long term prognosis for Los Angeles, however, is good. As the measure R projects get built, there will hopefully be accompanying transit oriented development, leading to a rich urban experience that competes with the car. This also means access to beaches and mountains, etc. With the Expo line to Santa Monica, one of the big arguments for the car (beach access) will be met by transit. With increasing numbers of transit users, solutions to mountain access will be worked out in a convenient and cost effective way, e.g. by Metrolink to San Bernardino with a timed bus transfer to Big Bear for a day's skiing or hiking. These points were well understood and incorporated into the design of the original Pacific Electric network:
... Los Angeles would be a different city today if it had adopted the elevated and subway rapid transit proposals in the 1920s or 1930s (this was the same time period when Tokyo started converting to subway lines).
I've long thought that the PE might have survived if the subway to Vinyard that SP planned in the 1920s had been built.
Outbound of Vinyard (the yard at Pico-San Vicente-Venice) the lines were mostly on private right-of-way, but they were stuck in mixed traffic on Venice Boulevard into downtown L.A.
Others have documented its history in a lot more detail. In short, opposition by the LA Times and other interests, and then the Depression, killed the Vinyard subway, a logical next step after the one short subway that was build northwest from the Subway Terminal Building. You can still see funny-shaped lots from 8th Street east of Western to Vinyard that its route would have followed.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #34 on Jan 29, 2012, 5:59pm »
Regarding the thought that SP ownership of PE was an "albatross": In the early days (before World War I, SP invested in new cars for not only PE, but its other "traction properties" in the Bay Area, Portland and Fresno. As the other lines closed, "hand-me-down" cars went to PE, adding much "trivia" for railfans to study. SP slowly but surely gave up on local rail passenger service, just as in the 1960's they cut main-line passenger service as fast as they could. Could anything have saved the PE? Transit historians will discuss this until the proverbial cows come home, but between the Southern California climate making year-round motoring feasible back when "Easterners" would put the "flivver" or the Hupmobile in the garage for the winter, and many new residents coming from small towns or rural areas where public transit was meager or nonexistent, it didn't take "Judge Doom" to kill off the Red Car system.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #35 on Jan 29, 2012, 7:09pm »
BTW, beyond just the academic discussion and historic interest in the demise of the Pacific Electric, I hope that people recognize that there are valid points to be learned about the future of Los Angeles transit in studying the mistakes of the past.
The freeways are here to stay. The Big Red Cars aren't coming back, except for rare cases such as the San Pedro Waterfront Red Car Line and other vintage heritage streetcar lines.
In the end, I think the Red and Purple subway lines are finally giving Los Angeles the permanent rapid transit system that it failed to build with the Vinyard subway or other transit plans.
Also, the many overpasses, underpasses, bridges, tunnels and trenches on the Blue, Gold, Green and Expo lines are signs that we are learning to build transit that is more robust than the streetcar routes of the past.
We still have budget constraints to deal with, as we are seeing with the Regional Connector (good to go underground, disappointing to see station entrances and a whole station disappear). However, I think that for the most part, we have developed a system which makes a decent compromise between grade separations and getting a lot of rail built on a short budget.
« Last Edit: Jan 29, 2012, 7:13pm by James Fujita »
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #36 on Jan 30, 2012, 2:27pm »
The big "flip" in LA has not happened yet.
By that I mean the consciousness of transit in the minds of the professional class citizens who welds significant political and economic power in the city. People in LA still by and large do not take into transit access when buying a house or locating their business. Proximity to large transit hubs is still viewed with suspicion by the majority of residents.
This is why Expo is so important... The Westside has usually large concentration of the economic and political power class in LA and how they view transit vis-a-vie Expo is going to be tremendously important to the future of LA's transit development and mobility. We will have arrived when the real estate listing in Cheviot Hill starts to tout walking distance to Expo line stations.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #37 on Jan 30, 2012, 6:04pm »
"bzcat" makes a good point: to many Southern Californians, the attitude expressed about 30 years ago when then-Governor Deukmejian referred to railways as "exotic" transportation still holds true. Non-automotive transport is for "other people". Indeed, when ballot propositions for financing transit in general and railways in particular have passed, cynics have often said that many of the "yes" votes came from people who hoped everyone else would start riding trains and buses, leaving the roads clear for them. As a side note, many years ago I was in the San Diego area and saw apartment buildings with "for rent" signs advertising "close to trolley station" as a selling point.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #38 on Jan 30, 2012, 7:13pm »
Another problem is that rail transit gets caught up in the sprawl vs. density debate.
As a rail transit supporter, I know that subways and light rail work best in areas with at least a degree of density above suburban sprawl. Also, denser can be greener as potential public park space gets preserved instead of sprawled across by single-family homes.
However, there are many people who seem to prefer private back yards over public parks (or who want both, in the same way that people want services but no taxes). For some people, it seems like even three-to-five stories tall can be a skyscraper.
And of course, there is nothing wrong with the suburban park-and-ride rail station, either.
For people who have a hard time understanding the difference between correlation and causation, rail transit can be a threat to their narrow definition of Southern California living.
We will have arrived when the real estate listing in Cheviot Hill starts to tout walking distance to Expo line stations.
We arrived 90 years ago. We need to arrive again. The "Cheviot Hills" housing tract/subdivision adjacent to Expo is "Country Club Highlands" (Cheviot is historically a different subdivision). In 1923, Country Club Highlands was advertised for having "the airline to the beaches."
Mount Washington residents fought the Gold (initially Blue) Line (remember No Blue Line At Grade - NOBLAG?), and now homes are advertised for proximity to it: "Quick walk to the Gold Line in prime elementary school district." (http://www.westsiderentals.com/houses/Mount-Washington-houses/)
People tend to forget the Los Angeles Railway - the narrow (42" or "Cape") gauge streetcar system in what is now central Los Angeles and close in suburbs - e.g., Eagle Rock, Hawthorne. My understanding is that it carried more passengers than the PE did.
That's true. Los Angeles Railway (local access rail) carried something like up to 5 times as many passengers as Pacific Electric ("interurban" commuter rail) did. The two ought to be compared more like Metro Rail and MetroLink today.
It's also worth noting that New York City had a lot of streetcar lines like Los Angeles Railway, they were the first to sell out to National City Lines. If the subways were any less permanent, they probably would have sold those out too. Were talking less than 20 cents per gallon for gasoline!
Joined: Feb 2012 Gender: Male Posts: 2 Location: Cheviot Hills
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #41 on Feb 3, 2012, 3:53pm »
I find little to dispute from the collective wisdom here about the demise of the PE, etc., and the reasons for it. I also want to humbly submit a first semester undergraduate paper I wrote about it, if only because this group is probably the only one anywhere that would be half way interested in what a college kid had to say 33 years ago. (My current understanding is more nuanced and along the lines of what has been said above.)
The UCLA Research Library's Special Collections department had great original resources - including studies and plans for the "future" that were never built. All of the lost opportunities were sad to see.
That said, having arrived in LA in 1979 when we had no passenger rail, it is more than gratifying to see the opportunties we have seized for future generations.
Joined: Feb 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 424 Location: Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, CA
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #42 on Feb 12, 2012, 1:48pm »
We visited Heritage Square yesterday, alongside the Pasadena Freeway, where the Palms Depot was relocated. The station was in fact called "The Palms," not Palms. Our docent asserted that the name came from the palm trees that lined the road leading from National Boulevard up to the Depot.
With the current suggestion that the local stop be called "Palms," I couldn't help but think that I'd prefer "The Palms." ...truly capturing the station's predecessor.
We visited Heritage Square yesterday, alongside the Pasadena Freeway, where the Palms Depot was relocated. The station was in fact called "The Palms," not Palms. Our docent asserted that the name came from the palm trees that lined the road leading from National Boulevard up to the Depot.
With the current suggestion that the local stop be called "Palms," I couldn't help but think that I'd prefer "The Palms." ...truly capturing the station's predecessor.
Yes, it was "The Palms," until the City of Los Angeles annexed it in the 1920s. There were palm trees around the station, the last of which were cut down when the Depot Grounds building was replaced by Price Self-Storage five years ago.
I would be OK with Palms. We don't need full historical accuracy. Besides, The Palms is no longer used. National/Palms is awful for the station name.
I find little to dispute from the collective wisdom here about the demise of the PE, etc., and the reasons for it. I also want to humbly submit a first semester undergraduate paper I wrote about it, if only because this group is probably the only one anywhere that would be half way interested in what a college kid had to say 33 years ago. (My current understanding is more nuanced and along the lines of what has been said above.)
The UCLA Research Library's Special Collections department had great original resources - including studies and plans for the "future" that were never built. All of the lost opportunities were sad to see.
That said, having arrived in LA in 1979 when we had no passenger rail, it is more than gratifying to see the opportunties we have seized for future generations.
Thanks for posting your research paper!
(For anyone interested in reading the document in Windows, you will have to first add a pdf extension to the end of the filename.)
The intersection naming scheme is pervasive throughout our rail system. I agree that it's awful in general, but why is this one particularly bad?
This is just my opinion... others have offered different explanations.
Intersection names are ok if it is at major streets that are otherwise well known, independent of the station being there. These locations tend to be major crossroads that are major commercial centers (e.g. Hollywood/Highland, Wilshire/Western).
National and Palms are neighborhood streets that very few people outside of Palms/West LA know where it is. The more meaningful name for such a residential stations is the actual name of the neighborhood. Most people know "Palms" is a section of West LA south of I-10 freeway but they can't point to a map and say here is National/Palms. Station names needs to reflect common usage. Intersection station names only make sense if people already refer to the intersection by name.
For example, "Wilshire/La Cienega" probably makes more sense than calling it "East Beverly Hills".
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #47 on Feb 13, 2012, 5:42pm »
There are some people who want every station to be named after neighborhoods, others who want them named only after cross streets, but I believe that case-by-case discretion makes sense. For example, giving cross streets along Hollywood Blvd., Vermont Ave., and Wilshire Blvd. makes sense; that gives an immediate location that everyone can understand, especially when there are multiple stations on a street and in a neighborhood. By the same token, Universal City, Pershing Square, Civic Center and Union Station also make sense, because they refer to specific, well-known landmarks.
I have mixed feelings about the "Culver Junction" Station name; I believe that the arterial names are much more widely known. Still, Culver Junction would be far better than "Culver City," which is far too vague of a location to help people figure out their proximity to where they need to go.
Most people in LA drive, so they know the major arterials. If you emerge at Venice and Robertson, you can figure out which direction you need to go...but Culver City? When there is a future north-south line station near Culver City Hall (which also be close to the studio), then it would make sense, but not for a station at the edge of the city.
Joined: Feb 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 424 Location: Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, CA
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #48 on Feb 14, 2012, 2:58pm »
Well reasoned; thank you. The next station up the line might be called Palms --and I've been leaning towards a preference for "The Palms," adopting the historical name as noted in an earlier post, above-- but alternatively, Palms/Cheviot Hills or Palms/National probably offers a better "geographic identification" advantage as you note.
Re: History of the Expo Line « Reply #49 on Feb 14, 2012, 3:44pm »
I think "historic naming" works as long as the place name is still being used and is well-known. That hasn't been, and shouldn't be a problem with most station names.
I think the size of a district makes a difference as well. Larger areas ("Hollywood," "Koreatown") are more likely to have more than one station, while smaller ones can probably get away with one station with the neighborhood name.
If the name isn't in general usage, such as the "The" in "The Palms", then it doesn't make as much sense to me, even if it is historic. Palms would be usable as a station name, but "The Palms" probably ought to be a plaque at the station explaining the historic origins of the current name.
« Last Edit: Feb 14, 2012, 3:48pm by James Fujita »
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