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ChineseMetroMovies: The Subway From Hell
[tags]red line, los angeles, subway, construction, 60 minutes, youtube[/tags]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79w_161D-Wc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffadein%2Ewordpress%2Ecom%2F2007%2F08%2F19%2Fa%2Dyoutube%2Dhistory%2Dof%2Dthe%2Dred%2Dline%2F[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJBAIIEt1H8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffadein%2Ewordpress%2Ecom%2F2007%2F08%2F19%2Fa%2Dyoutube%2Dhistory%2Dof%2Dthe%2Dred%2Dline%2F[/youtube]
Nearly 12 years ago, on December 17th, 1995, 60 Minutes ran a segment apocalyptically entitled “Earthquakes, Riots, and now the Subway” chronicalling the tumultous construction process of every MetroRider’s favorite bit of public transit, the Metro Red Line. Last week the good people over at FadeIn discovered the segment on YouTube and shared it with its readership, and now I pass it on to you.
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Wow, this is a fascinating look back at the NIMBYism that I was not here to witness. It’s really incredible what lack of vision can do to an uninformed populace.
The part that intrigued me most was about Hollywood blvd. All the people and shop owners upset (and rightfully so)about the misshapes that happened there. And now look at what Hollywood is today because of the subway. It just really blows my mind and makes me rethink how we all need to be able to open our minds at try to see the future.
I liked the guy who wanted to stop construction before it was completed to save 2 billion dollars. Maybe he forgot that they then would have spent 13 billion dollars on 4 miles of subway. Didn’t he consider this? Wow.
Amusing that the NIMBYs expected the subway to carry 33,000 per day. All those people who complained about the construction costing them money, I wonder how much they are making now, that Hollywood Blvd. is booming.
METROWN3D!!!
Amusing that the NIMBYs expected the subway to carry 33,000 per day.
Amusing that the trainbrains expected the subway to carry 396,000 per day.
those people who complained about the construction costing them money,
Many of them are out of business. Ask the rest about the sales tax surcharge. Ask them if they’d vote for it again.
It was only a matter of time before someone added it to YouTube…
I recall the 60 Minutes piece well. I have it stuck somewhere on a VHS tape. Poor Franklin White, beseiged by Leslie Stahl. “Well, hell, Leslie. Now that you’ve opened my eyes to all of the Red Line’s problems, let’s just call the damn thing off!” I mentioned the CBS hatchet job to Roger Snoble at one of his meet-the-public forays. “When you think you’re having a bad day, just remember where the MTA was in 1995…”
Of course, I may be the enemy in all this, a hipster 20-something transplant who moved to LA for an opportunity to work in “the industry”, but the LA I moved into in the summer of 2003, with much of the current system just falling into place (the Gold Line had just opened) was a place brimming with opportunity thanks to the Metro Rail. I moved here with a car, never having had an ambitions of living a “car-free” life and only being vaguely aware of the Red Line, but when I ended up living near Hollywood/Western I think I got to experience an LA with fresh eyes that many old-school people could only dream of or couldn’t even imagine. I hunted for jobs with the Red Line in mind, I explored Downtown LA early on and rode my first city bus thanks to the Red Line. Hollywood Boulevard to me was the boulevard served by LA’s subway more than anything else. If I had moved here before the subway served Hollywood I think my perception of the place would be very different, but to me the Hollywood I know is a bustling urban corridor filled with the sites and sounds that I imagine when I think of big cities and exciting places. I sold my car because of the Red Line, thinking “if I have access to this why bother with all the parking tickets, the rapid degradation of my vehicle, the insanity of traffic, in other words, the burden of owning a vehicle in a big city”.
So maybe at the time the Red Line was fiasco, a boondoggle, a laughing stock… but it has probably played, just by existing, the single biggest role in shaping my life in Los Angeles, and I attribute a lot of my personal success and ability to stay afloat in the city to it. And I can’t imagine I’m the only post-1995 transplant who feels this way.
With time I think the “train-brains” ridership predications will come true and the NIMBYs will realize that growing is not without pain, but maturity is pretty sweet.
I could be wrong, but I dunno, I bet the kids that are 10 years old today are going to be more passionate about this stuff in 10 years than we are.
I hope all people (especially the kids of those people in the room with the reporter) watch this video and see what type of NIMBYism we had. Then, we know who to blame besides the politicians taking our capital. Perception has changed considerably, as many people are wanting Metro Rail. More demand and more appreciation for Los Angeles CITY will evolve with the continued expanded of our metro rail system.
“Amusing that the trainbrains expected the subway to carry 396,000 per day.”
If it had ben built as planned to Santa Monica it WOULD carry that number per day.
The Purple Line will carry 396,000 people per day once it is extended to Santa Monica.
The funny thing about all this is that I kept saying during that time, that once construction was finished, and people were riding the subway line and making it a mundane part of their lives, all this mess and rending of garments would be forgotten, and people would get on with the business and building up LA and redeveloping Hollywood.
Now you have everyone clamoring for the subway or light rail to come to their neighborhood. And these dopes in this 60 Minutes piece, in the hindsight of history, look like the bunch of whiners with no vision that they undeniably were.
I must say though that MTA seems to have taken the lessons learned while building the Red Line to heart: the East LA Gold Line extension is on time, under budget, and has ZERO lost time injuries. And no sinkholes on First Street on the subway portion of the route. And with that type of performance continuing, the MTA will find they have a welcome mat put out for more construction, rather than NIMBYs trying to sue them.