God it's frustrating how slow making these rail transits has been. The D line was literally planned out back in the 1960s and it took this long? I understand the plethora of problems the engineers faced when completing this. But I find it funny that once the World Cup was planned to be in LA, that's when LA leadership expedited all the legal and corporate hurdles in order to make sure we don't have another carmagetton
Some of this was covered in the article, but it’s not actually Los Angeles’ leadership’s fault (rare praise for a city I love and call home), it was shovel-ready and funded to be built in the 80s. Then there was a ballot measure due to ongoing construction problems of a separate line in the 80s that banned tunneling in Los Angeles. This wasn’t overturned until 2007!
Then Beverly Hills (which is also not part of Los Angeles city government) fought this line for another 10 years, again with tunneling concerns, because they didn’t want it under them (not so fun fact, Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband, represented them). It went to the California Supreme Court and then the Federal Appeals Court, and finally, in 2017 was allowed to commence construction. Then Beverly Hills decided they wanted (and got) not one but TWO stops (and the only ones outside of downtown with turnstiles). Funny.
An indictment of the state legal system’s slowness, yes (see CAHSR), but the city consistently has fought many of its own nimby residents, other cities, the state, and the United States trying to claw back funding for this for those 60 years. It would not have been built without generations of support from city leadership. So there is hope!
With hundreds of miles funded and planned for or already under construction in the next two decades, the city’s rail future may be the brightest in the country.
An underground K-Line extension was recently approved to go through my neighborhood. This is after a small handful of 2-3 homeowners caused it to be delayed by 18 months over objections that seismic activity from drilling would be noticeable under their homes.
The city spent a year doing a study and report to appease the concerns of these residents, who - when presented with this extensive report showing that it would NOT be noticeable - proceeded to disregard the opinion of the city engineers and continue blocking it with the help of the Mayor, who is a friend.
Thankfully their objections were finally outvoted. West Hollywood had put up several billion in matching funds to pay for the extension, and if things had continued to drag on, the offer would have expired and jeopardized the entire project.
While all of this in happening, Metrolink, the rail service that connects LA, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, is having their own budget crisis manifesting in "temporary" reductions in service. More info: https://calelectricrail.org/metrolink-is-facing-service-cuts...
In 1985, a Ross Dress for Less exploded due to methane gas, and congressman Henry Waxman representing the westside used that to federally ban any idea of a subway for decades.
Prior to that, Henry Wilshire, who donated the land for Wilshire Blvd in 1895, made a condition that no rail lines would be built on Wilshire.
I once watched the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) close a section of doorways from the street into a station (Runnymede) to replace a small section of tile floor on the inside. It was about 10 ft x 4 ft section, it took somewhere around 2.5 years. After they ripped out the tile on in the first week, I didn't see anyone until it was done 2.5 years later. It took about another 2-3 weeks to remove the plywood and caution tape so people could use the doors again instead of having to walk around to another entrance.
The Eglinton line has taken 15 years and good portion is above ground where they don't even have to tunnel. Still not done, probably another 15-20 years left.
It's why I laugh when Carney proposes a high speed rail link between Toronto and Montreal, it would take a couple of centuries to build.
Some cities and countries are inept, they can no longer build anything because of the bureaucracy and the need for consensus from 100000 different interest groups.
Coming from Germany I found it funny how tiny the subway lines are in major cities in the US compared to medium-sized cities here.
I always thought Germany was a country centered a lot around cars but it was so much more extreme in the states; seemed not possible to live in a city(!) without a car.
Depends on the city. In LA, yes it’s very hard to live without a car. I live in Seattle and I live car free as well as many of my friends. It’s not that we can’t afford it, we’ve just built our lives around transit and biking and the city is pretty good for it. Then of course there’s NYC, which is likely better than most European cities for transit. But you’re right that the average here is far far worse when it comes to transit and living car free or car lite.
In the states if you want to live car free you can but you need to be strategic in where you live within a city. I have lived in a few from east to west coast, suburbs to urban. By selecting your place in a city carefully you can go car free or mostly car free.
Los Angeles just needs buses that come through frequently enough to obviate the need to check the schedule. Also dynamic bus routing, which would reduce the total number of buses required for this.
Buses have a fundamental speed issue that subways do not because subways do not stop at intersections for cross traffic. At LA's vast scale you need a subway, possibly even express subways.
There was a similar case in Seattle with the South Lake Union Trolley, which was quickly renamed to South Lake Union Streetcar, once T-shirts pointing out the unfortunate acronym started drawing attention. This one is clearly deliberate though.
God it's frustrating how slow making these rail transits has been. The D line was literally planned out back in the 1960s and it took this long? I understand the plethora of problems the engineers faced when completing this. But I find it funny that once the World Cup was planned to be in LA, that's when LA leadership expedited all the legal and corporate hurdles in order to make sure we don't have another carmagetton
Some of this was covered in the article, but it’s not actually Los Angeles’ leadership’s fault (rare praise for a city I love and call home), it was shovel-ready and funded to be built in the 80s. Then there was a ballot measure due to ongoing construction problems of a separate line in the 80s that banned tunneling in Los Angeles. This wasn’t overturned until 2007! Then Beverly Hills (which is also not part of Los Angeles city government) fought this line for another 10 years, again with tunneling concerns, because they didn’t want it under them (not so fun fact, Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband, represented them). It went to the California Supreme Court and then the Federal Appeals Court, and finally, in 2017 was allowed to commence construction. Then Beverly Hills decided they wanted (and got) not one but TWO stops (and the only ones outside of downtown with turnstiles). Funny.
An indictment of the state legal system’s slowness, yes (see CAHSR), but the city consistently has fought many of its own nimby residents, other cities, the state, and the United States trying to claw back funding for this for those 60 years. It would not have been built without generations of support from city leadership. So there is hope!
With hundreds of miles funded and planned for or already under construction in the next two decades, the city’s rail future may be the brightest in the country.
Glad to hear it.
An underground K-Line extension was recently approved to go through my neighborhood. This is after a small handful of 2-3 homeowners caused it to be delayed by 18 months over objections that seismic activity from drilling would be noticeable under their homes.
The city spent a year doing a study and report to appease the concerns of these residents, who - when presented with this extensive report showing that it would NOT be noticeable - proceeded to disregard the opinion of the city engineers and continue blocking it with the help of the Mayor, who is a friend.
Thankfully their objections were finally outvoted. West Hollywood had put up several billion in matching funds to pay for the extension, and if things had continued to drag on, the offer would have expired and jeopardized the entire project.
While all of this in happening, Metrolink, the rail service that connects LA, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, is having their own budget crisis manifesting in "temporary" reductions in service. More info: https://calelectricrail.org/metrolink-is-facing-service-cuts...
In 1985, a Ross Dress for Less exploded due to methane gas, and congressman Henry Waxman representing the westside used that to federally ban any idea of a subway for decades.
Prior to that, Henry Wilshire, who donated the land for Wilshire Blvd in 1895, made a condition that no rail lines would be built on Wilshire.
Yeah... Kinda like how Paris used the Olympics to get the political willpower to cleanup the river.
City's trying to brand themselves and look good on a global stage does funny things.
Or like how San Francisco got rid of all the homeless people when Xi Jinping came to visit in 2023.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/san-francisco-mocked-china-mo...
Hmm I also tend to clean house thoroughly only when guests come over. Perhaps an effect that should be applied.
I once watched the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) close a section of doorways from the street into a station (Runnymede) to replace a small section of tile floor on the inside. It was about 10 ft x 4 ft section, it took somewhere around 2.5 years. After they ripped out the tile on in the first week, I didn't see anyone until it was done 2.5 years later. It took about another 2-3 weeks to remove the plywood and caution tape so people could use the doors again instead of having to walk around to another entrance.
The Eglinton line has taken 15 years and good portion is above ground where they don't even have to tunnel. Still not done, probably another 15-20 years left.
It's why I laugh when Carney proposes a high speed rail link between Toronto and Montreal, it would take a couple of centuries to build.
Some cities and countries are inept, they can no longer build anything because of the bureaucracy and the need for consensus from 100000 different interest groups.
Coming from Germany I found it funny how tiny the subway lines are in major cities in the US compared to medium-sized cities here.
I always thought Germany was a country centered a lot around cars but it was so much more extreme in the states; seemed not possible to live in a city(!) without a car.
Depends on the city. In LA, yes it’s very hard to live without a car. I live in Seattle and I live car free as well as many of my friends. It’s not that we can’t afford it, we’ve just built our lives around transit and biking and the city is pretty good for it. Then of course there’s NYC, which is likely better than most European cities for transit. But you’re right that the average here is far far worse when it comes to transit and living car free or car lite.
In the states if you want to live car free you can but you need to be strategic in where you live within a city. I have lived in a few from east to west coast, suburbs to urban. By selecting your place in a city carefully you can go car free or mostly car free.
Los Angeles just needs buses that come through frequently enough to obviate the need to check the schedule. Also dynamic bus routing, which would reduce the total number of buses required for this.
Buses have a fundamental speed issue that subways do not because subways do not stop at intersections for cross traffic. At LA's vast scale you need a subway, possibly even express subways.
I've lived in LA and I've lived in Scandinavia. And car life sucks. So good luck and Godspeed, Los Angeles.
Ride the D? Wow
That's actually the official slogan by LA Metro: https://shop.metro.net/collections/ride-the-d
And someone even created a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_the_D
It's LA.
There was a similar case in Seattle with the South Lake Union Trolley, which was quickly renamed to South Lake Union Streetcar, once T-shirts pointing out the unfortunate acronym started drawing attention. This one is clearly deliberate though.
Yeah, that's ridiculous
The entire entertainment industry in SoCal was built upon riding the D.