A hitchhikers guide to the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension grand opening
Added on Friday, November 13th, 2009Photo by Yours Truly. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.
The opening of an urban rail line is truly a cause for celebration, especially in Los Angeles — the city that’s a blonde joke come to life.
November 15, 2009, marks a time when L.A. could celebrate that in more than 5 years of construction, the hard hats managed to build a rail line from downtown L.A. a whole six miles east, with almost two miles built in a tunnel intentionally. The Gold Line continues beyond Union Station to East Los Angeles. It will travel along East First Street in Boyle Heights, then zag to Fourth Street in East Los Angeles.
In 20 years of rail (and busway) openings, two things have proven as certain as the sun rising in the East and two and two adding to four:
1. These events are a lot of fun and the festive atmosphere brings out tens, if not hundreds, of thousands
2. Angelenos, generally speaking, are insufferably petulant and are less mentally sharp than a zombie on Quaaludes.
Both of these self-evident truths will be on full display November 15 as the Gold Line Eastside Extension makes for its public debut.
In the process of making maps for the DASH restructuring series, I have been inundated by curious and credulous MetroReaders or their friends and/or unindicted co-conspirators asking me on what we can look forward to on opening weekend. Which is really strange, because I try hard to hide my e-mail addresses and generally try to avoid any contact with you outside of the comments here.
Yet with great knowledge comes great responsibility. Your Metro Yoda will answer some of the questions to help MetroReaders along their way on their public transit Jedi-hood. And with great science fiction references comes a great tribute and thank you to one of the masters of the genre, the late, great Douglas Adams. Without you, the title to this blog post and your witty, easily imitable writing style would not have made this effort possible (in the case of the title) or even relevant (in the case of the writing style).








