Celebrating the (Re)Birth of Los Angeles Rail

[tags]metro, los angeles, blue line, rail, anniversary[/tags]

The Metro Blue Line is old enough to drive, but prefers to take the train.

The Militant Angeleno caught this - I missed it - but yesterday, July 14th, was the 17th Birthday of Metro Rail! Los Angeles went for almost 30 years without any sort of city passenger rail until July 14th, 1990 when the Blue Line officially went into service. During those 29 years without any rail, Los Angeles grew by leaps and bounds, eventually overtaking Chicago as the second most populous city in the United States. Thanks to the lack of rail transit, that population growth brought with it a whole buncha cars, and those cars in turn brought a whole buncha traffic and nasty pollution. The reintroduction of rail in Los Angeles is an attempt to rectify the problems that 30 years of car culuture brought the city and region.

And my how Metro Rail has grown in 17 years. From an infant barely recognizable as a transit system to a teenager nearly at the end of it’s awkward stage. Metro Rail’s voice is no longer cracking, the zits are clearing up, and it’s applying to some top colleges (it want’s to study underground tunneling at some place called Wilshire). Give it a year or two (and a light rail line or two) and I bet we’ll have a real nice young adult on our hands. Where will Metro Rail be by the time it’s 30? No one can say for sure, but my guess is it’s going to be really popular in this city.

Happy 17th Birtday Metro Rail, you’re almost an adult, so make us proud!