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ChineseBuilding the Metro Red Line
Contributed by Fred Camino on April 17th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Via CurbedLA I discovered this now ancient video (from 1991) provided on YouTube by the Metro Librarian.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Wow Fred, this is a good stuff. I remember when they first opened the Westlake McArthur Park leg and then Hollywood and Vine and finally Norrt Hollywood. It seems like so long ago.
I like how that video uses stock footage of the interior of a BART train affixed with the Metro logo.
I figured that it was BART, but I really wanted to know for sure.
300 mile rail system? If only.
If BART is going to go to Union Station they are definitely going to impose zone fares.
Oh.. wait. BART is already zoned yet hasn’t collapsed. How can that be?
It outsources the collapse to the local bus systems.
Ohhhh…. So BART stands for Backbone All Redline Trips?
There’s a funny irony in using BART for this movie, now that the red line is the stand-in for subways the world over in cheap made-for-TV movies!
Does the 300 mile figure include Metrolink?
Only in Contra Costa County does BART really form a backbone of the local bus system. San Francisco and Oakland more or less have local buses follow the street grid.
BART, as a special multicountry district, is first in line for transportation funding. When there’s a capital or operating shortfall, the member counties usually cannibalize bus service to pay for bus service. San Mateo County is the most notorious example of losing more service and ridership than the BART-to-SFO extension brought in. Santa Clara County is a fine kettle of fish: worried about a BART extension, marred by a poorly used light rail system, and maintaining a bus system in the face of a post-dotcom-bubble economy.
For a while, back in the day, LACTC was talking about the 300-mile Los Angeles rail system — which was later changed to the 400-mile rail system.
You have to remember that this was LACTC, and particularly, this was Neil Peterson — and that LACTC was counting Metrorail (and LACTC, now LACMTA, actually own the non-leased tracks in LA County).
I still have the maps from the 2002 “30-Year Integrated Transportation Plan,” including the one that showed all the rail lines that would be in operation or in construction by 2001. I counted 16 different new lines or extensions that weren’t, including several that will NEVER be (such as the MagLev connector between LAX and Palmdale Airport).
Hi Tom -
Did you see this one? SCRTD Meeting the Challenge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKtixeeJrJk
I had never seen three of these four before — these are GREAT!
It is absolutely amazing what you can find in the MTA Library. For decades, Dorothy was the de facto historian, and what she preserved really tells a story — the line of studies that had subways down Wilshire, for example, goes for decades.
Tom Rubin
Literally. The birth certificate of Wilshire Subway idea reads 1962. Dorothy Gray assembled a grand collection. 1000+ VHS tapes were already deteriorating, it was time to convert to DVD. We’re working to get information as electronically accessible as possible - in some cases using free tools online like YouTube. Transit investments deserve thorough public discussion. We’ve digitized all employee newsmagazines from 1958 to 1998, those will be next to be posted online once we finish with video and film.