Could LA Rebuild the Pacific Electric Railway? [Part I] 🚋
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
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Everyone who cares about urban rail and congestion needs to watch this video! We need more of these brilliant films!
The original Pacific Electric System should have been kept in place to begin with. It’s good that commuter rail service is and has been restored on portions as auto traffic has choked & clogged the freeways, expressways in the Eastern cities turning them into parking lots.
This is what I vision. Vermont used as a subway line. Instead of stopping at 120th, continue south stopping at Alpine Village, Harbor-UCLA, make a slight turn towards Harbor College, rise up in the middle of the 110 Freeway like what is seen on the BART to Pleasanton, continue south on the 110 till it reaches the Vincent Thomas Bridge and stop at the Cruise Center, Battleship Iowa, and terminating at Ports O' Call.
I would love to see a line to San Pedro.
Your optimism is admirable and a breath of fresh air. It's a shame so many have bought in to the belief that "it can't be done". There are obviously undeniable challenges to all good ideas, especially in car-centric Southern California. You have a good foundation of knowledge and passion. Keep doing what your doing.
Thanks so much mate! Editing part two of this right now where I look at reviving the old PE lines in DTLA, the San Gabriel Valley and West LA. :)
I would love to see rail re-established to San Pedro. There used to be a tourist shopping area called Ports 'O Call Village. I think it is owed by the City of LA, Harbor Department. There has been some talk of tearing the old shops (which are virtually abandoned) and building a shopping/entertainment venue. From a street view on Google Earth, it looks like the original Red Car lines are still there, so the ROW may be as well. The fish market next to Ports 'O Call is a very popular destination on weekends. It is really a beautiful area and I don't understand why it has not been utilized.
Supposedly the old waterfront red car is coming back at some point better than ever, but I've been bothering buscaino's office about that for like a year and haven't really heard anything so it might be a good idea to throw some funding for that in this 2020 ballot measure now that you bring it up.
in the past year I have rented some air bnb's in the Stanton area, went to Disney on the 50 bus and rode the 29 up and down to the metrolink and Huntington beach, these bus routes are quite busy and serve low income area's that need the transit, I think connecting the Santa Ana and Disney lines because they are quite close, would be a key addition, or at least taking the disney line to the newly constructed ARTIC station just down the street, Katella Ave with the 50 bus route could have a rail corridor built in the median, and so could beach Blvd it is a very wide street, and handles a lot of traffic, the creation of a rail median would most likely make traffic move through and make it easier to connect Knott's Berry Farm with Disney, South county, and LA county, when I was staying in Stanton my place was in a suburb community located right next to the old southern pacific right of way, and it was cool to see how it and many other rail line right of ways still exist in the area and are being used by freight services, but many of them have excess room possibly to co-accommodate a two-way metro rail track and the existing freight lines with ease I would really like to see a bigger better grand scheme of rebuilding old rail and fixing the smog/traffic problems in all 5 counties, I think if the Air Quality Management District were able to put on the ballot and pass this, it would be groundbreaking for all So. Cal residents, we just need to convince them first to get out of traffic and vote!
I grew up in Stanton and rode public transit my whole life I’m 24 now and I’ve always told people about this and they just call me crazy 😛 but the times they are changing and I’m starting to sound not so crazy (:
There’s a UP siding that crosses Ball about half a block away from Disneyland, it’s crosses Cerritos Ave close to the west entrance for Downtown Disney and the tram between the Mickey and Friends lot and the park entrance. Conceivably, you could build a station where the siding crosses Cerritos Ave. and have Disney build a second on-foot entrance over by Cerritos, or even just extend the tram line to the Cerritos Station.
The Blue Line to Long Beach from Los Angeles is like a partial restoration of the Pacific Electric as well as the Gold Line to Pasadena and Azusa.
I'm Really looking forward to the Green Line extension to Torrance if Metro doesn't screw it up. Fingers crossed!
Great video
Your LAX - Disneyland line should terminate at Anaheim along with your other theoretical Anaheim - Redondo Beach line. Also Whittier should connect with your La Habra/Brea line but it should actually deviate and then connect with Norwalk. You should always do what you can to increase connectivity with MetroLink and CAHSR! Even if it means duplicating service.
I love when people read my mind like that - just extended the Disney line to Anaheim on the map of the entire region I'm working on right now for part 3, where I will look at the Inland Empire and sum up everything we know about the ballot measure so far.
I'm glad I could help! I love your video's and will subscribe a watch pt 3! What was your thought about connecting Whittier to Norwalk (I was thinking the gold line)? I think you could avoid duplicating service and increase frequency to and from Norwalk which'll become pretty busy once CAHSR gets there.
We're doing it. You're right about Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs and HSR. Also that new Disney-LAX line will have YUGE ridership on its own.
I live in Inglewood and work in San Pedro and I definitely agree. I hope South Bay gets some love because I hate driving down Hawthorne blvd. They have rail but it’s still in use which is really surprising to me. I grew up in ktown where cars were a must and South Los Angeles where I can hear the trains and kind of miss it waking me for school lol. It’s been replaced by airplane traffic but you know lol. I can’t wait for more rail because I’m tired of my car. Oh I hope they keep PE car along Harbor BLVD in San Pedro’s route but still add track for the knew LRT. A lot people use Manchester to get to the 101fwy or to work so if they do it would help with traffic I used use it to get to work in San Pedro. Western is a good street because it’s always crowded.
Not only would we have to bring back some of the pacific electric but we would have to add some new infrastructure with a little bit of creativity Where we can’t build through or under , we can build over with elevated rail line and we can add light rail to existing freeways
To get rail to Disneyland quicker, a line could follow the West Santa Ana branch to Katella ave and go down Katella to hit the Anahiem Convention Center, Disneyland (which Disneys monrail could meet up with), Angel Stadium/The Grove and end at the ARTIC. which to me, makes more sense then going to Santa Ana in the first place...
also the extension of the green line doesnt seem like it would serve much of anything following the the ROW. i think it should go down Hawthorne Blvd once it hits it. Go all the way down to Sepulveda serving all the car dealers and Del Amo Fashion Center. Turn down Sepulveda and meet back up with the ROW.
just some thoughts...
I know the videos old but I hear you're back so breif question, shouldnt the Disneyland line have a spur, possibly following the A or WSAB lines into downtown for a more central option to Disney? Not abandoning the LAX route either, but it would make at least a little sense for two lines down the 5.
I like the idea in general, but for where I live in the San Fernando Valley, that's not going to be good enough. Most of the SFV wasn't built back then. The Van Nuys to Lankershim Ranch (now known as North Hollywood) line is basically the Orange Line from Van Nuys Blvd to NoHo. The Sheman Way line would be redundant with west half of the Orange Line on Victory (though I could make a case for that to be BRT since the ridership is so high). The Van Nuys to San Fernando line is basically the East Valley Rapid Transit project without the weird turn onto Parthenia and the Sepulveda, there are several other corridors like Ventura Blvd Nordhoff Blvd and Reseda Blvd that were NOT part of the LARRy or PE systems because they weren't as significant then as they are now (though there was motorcoach service). Keep in mind the Red Car was expensive (compared to hourly wages, it was more for the riders who would ride Metrolink today) and slow, as most routes operated in mixed-flow traffic.
So another line in the San Fernando valley then you think? If you had to pick one corridor to make a rail line in addition to what I have already looked at, what would you go with?
I live in South LA and not the San Fernando Valley so your localized expertise is appreciated.
Oh man, pick one? That's a REALLY difficult call. I guess with the East Valley (JEM line) and the Canoga spur of the Orange Line, being where they are, I'd say a line that does a Z-thing would make some sense but it would have to be like 75-100% grade separated, take the 240's route, give it the 744 and 750's stops along Reseda Blvd and Ventura Blvd, and give it a northern east-west spur along Nordhoff Blvd (though it would need to jog a little further north near CSUN to meet their transit center) from Reseda Blvd to Canoga/Nordhoff and have it share the Orange Line's ROW up to Chatsworth Station.
If you live in south LA what you really want (though it does me no good in the SFV) is to bring back the Los Angeles Railway (yellow cars) or LARRy i.imgur.com/jzpHfjS.jpg
Just one? I'm not even sure how to answer that. I have already spent about 2 hours 2 days ago trying to figure out different routes in different configurations on Google Maps, but that could honestly be its own video. My quasi-realistic ideas generally go east-west and connect Chatsworth Station with CSUN and a few other northern mid-valley areas. One basically from CSUN does the 240's route with the 744's/750's stops. Another goes east along Nordhoff/ Plummer and then connects to several key areas of the North East SFV, but if they added a few infill stops, and double or triple (wherever possible) track the Ventura County Metrolink Line and dramatically increase spans and frequency of service, you could basically fill the same niche. My pie-in-the-sky idea is to extend the Canoga Orange Line branch ROW under (or somehow through) Topanga Canyon to connect Warner Center and Woodland Hills to Santa Monica and the Getty Center. If we're going pie-in-the-sky I would also connect that to CSUN or Ventura Blvd. There are 1.4 million people living in the San Fernando Valley, in a space that's roughly 2 or 3 parallel Islands of Manhattan-scale (geographically speaking), which was unfortunately not built for at-grade rail service, so it's going to be expensive and disruptive AF no matter where I suggest, especially if you ask me for just 1 additional line, because there are a lot of underserved nodes and areas that need to be connected.
Pacific Electric could come back but it would be done with cooperation with the cites it would serve , the railroads , local government , Federal government land grants ! Etc .
excellent idea!
Yeah, almost none of that is going to happen.
1. The chances of yet another transit tax passing is probably zero, especially considering the two thirds needed.
2. MTA can't build stuff in Orange County. At most, there will be a one station overlay (like at the future end of the Gold Line into San Bernardino at Montclair).
3. Orange County is probably going to build the OC Streetcar and then, eventually, extend that northwest using that right of way, where it might meet up with a Metro line (maybe by 2050 or so). That's probably it for the OC. Nothing to Disneyland, nothing anywhere else.
4. The South Bay in LA County in general is problematic for two reasons. Reason one is that there are no main "points of interest" (other than the new football stadium, which might get a stub streetcar or something, as you mentioned) there. Reason two is that it's almost all low density housing, with a few oil refineries sprinkled about. There's no good place to put a railroad that actually gets any ridership unless you put one every four blocks because there is no main employer, point of interest, or cluster of high density housing. The only consolation prize will be an extension of what is now the end of the Green Line. I say "what is now", because they are turning the Crenshaw/LAX line into part of the Green Line proper, because that's where the ridership is, so the Redondo Beach stub is going to turn into a short shuttle only that ends at the LAX people mover station, due to incredibly low ridership on that segment, so a low ridership shuttle will be attached to a low ridership extension. Eventually the Green Line might get extended to the Norwalk Metrolink station too, but Metro seems to give that very small project a very low priority.
Now, I do think Metro has a huge project up their sleeve. I think they are going to extend the Purple Line north past the VA Hospital, basically under the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass. Now, this area is on everybody's maps as a transit corridor, but most people think it's going to be a light rail. The problem is, the grade is so steep that traditional light rail cars can't handle it, and if you are going to build it underground, why not connect to the subway that ends right there anyways. The ridership is there too to support heavy rail (although there will be a bit of a first mile problem in the Valley on the other side). Thing is, this will cost a fortune and soak up a lot of seeming excess funds for a decade or two.
Lots of good ideas for developing South Bay/Southeast Los Angeles County lines with links to Orange County segments of the old P.E. but I don't see this as politically realistic at all. Reconstruction of these lines is expensive even when entire right-of-ways are still intact, funding is scarce, and construction itself is excruciatingly slow. It's not like the old days when these lines were originally built, quickly and on the cheap, through sparsely populated areas which actually clamored for rail service and competed with each other to offer "incentives" for rail to pass through their city. the whole far flung system was built in the first place for real estate purposes where Henry Huntington would buy remote land on the cheap, build a line to it, subdivide it and make a killing. Service was of little consideration apart from its ability to draw customers to the original source of SoCal sprawl.
In those days downtown was the magnet of those connecting lines spiraling out and it remains so even today. It would of course make far more sense--plus increase ridership and efficiency exponentially--to first establish a workable grid of rail connections in a densely populated area so commuters would have more travel options than just downtown as a locus or incidentally any of the stations along a far flung linear line, but rail proponents can be their own worst enemies. Metro Rail is funded by voters in the entire county, and those who would vote for funding would demand that their particular communities would be served in the deal. That means that you cannot concentrate too many projects in any particular area and far flung, single lines extending to county borders become prioritized over better service in the system as a whole. Look at the ridiculous prioritizing and green-lighting of the Gold Line extension to Montclair--overlapping existing Metrolink rail service for much of its eastern route--plus crossing the county line into Montclair when San Bernardino County hasn't the foggiest idea how it will fund their portion of the project, if it will at all.
Thanks for your great ideas though. It would be wonderful if funding could be obtained though different means for many of these worthwhile projects, but I just don't see that happening at this point.
It's not just realistic, it's inevitable. :) You're right that the PE was built to increase the value of Henry Huntington's real estate portfolio so he could amass the fortune of a true robber baron, but that is no deterrent to the majority of today's voters, because bringing back electric rail suits what our region needs NOW. :) Those 'sparsely populated' areas aren't so sparsely populated anymore.
Agreed, but again local politics seem to work against building an efficient grid because outlying voters who would fund it perceive no local benefit in its development--likewise politicians who represent them. Metro has to prioritize marginal and inefficient routes to placate them in order to get any funding at all. Meanwhile former P.E. routes and their remaining infrastructure in areas which would benefit most from their resurrection are disappearing at an alarming rate. It really is a race against time with little funding to thwart rail opponents and/or those aligned with using old rail routes for development and other purposes.
You said all of that just to say ...no...🐭..
As someone who rode the PE Monrovia Glendora Line at a boy, and have helped preserve a small part of it at Orange Empire Ry. Museum, I look at the map and "I should live so long" is what comes to mind. Back when most of the PE was built, automobiles were just becoming practical and Henry Ford was still developing his assembly line system. As the years went on, more and more people learned how to drive and bought cars. Southern California was especially suited for "mass motoring" because the mild climate meant that cars would last longer, and as the more affluent motorists traded in their cars, an ever widening stream of second, third and even fourth-hand cars gave mobility to people who couldn't afford a new rig. Thus, any revival of PE would have to be as fast and comfortable as a motorcar. One of the great drawbacks of the PE was its lack of "crosstown" connections. One could just about walk from Glendora to Covina in the time it would take to ride from Glendora to Valley Junction, and then backtrack to Covina. If I were editing the map for the 21st Century, I'd have a line following Rosemead and Lakewood Blvds. to east Long Beach, where it would connect with a route along the coast to Balboa (which could be called the Tan Line). One idea that may come to pass in the next ten years would answer another shortcoming in the PE--going from Pasadena to Glendale, which in the PE days would have required taking the Short Line to 6th & Main, and walking to the Subway Terminal to board the train to Glendale.
All very valid points! Just like with airline travel, the point to point model is quickly overtaking hub-and-spoke. If you have to connect through downtown LA to go anywhere else, the system is doomed. Definitely need more crosstown connections.
Also virtually NO ONE ever mentions that it "would have to be as fast and comfortable as a motorcar". EXACTLY! That is one of the main reasons many middle to upper class people refuse to ride... the amenities are sparse, the seats are hard and cramped, and there are a lot of homeless, bangers, crazies, etc.
How can that be fixed? It's not an easy answer.... but start with more security and policing. Why doesn't the train driver have any input with the passengers?
Also maybe adopt the heavy rail model of different classes of service. There are a lot of people that would be happy to pay more than $1.75/ride, for an elevated ridership experience.
Nice to Dream dude.. but as a former Transportation Planner for California.. there is no fucking way this will pass, and.. even if it did.. it would take years and years for purchasing, agreements, Environmental alone will take 10 or 15.. Dream more momma boy
You're the one who's dreaming. If you think traffic isn't the #1 thing most California voters are thinking about when they go to the polls then you are kidding yourself. You'll see in time that the only true obstacle to doing this has been our own pessimism and self-doubt.
fantastic channel.
Here in the U.K. in Manchester we have converted 4 former abandoned rail lines into one integrated Metrolink system. It Has been a roaring success and continues to expand. . . With major new plans for extra lines. LA should do this build a.s.a.p or get Elon Musk involved with the Boring Company. Hope it happens as imagined in the video 🚇👍🏻💰
Hi, I think I commented this a long time ago when you proposed a Long Beach Hydrogen Powered Street Car, but sadly if you were unaware, in the mid-2000s Metro had proposed a plan to Long Beach Citizens of potentially restoring the Newport Balboa Line as far as East Long Beach. Metro was immediately met with two major push backs on the proposal. The first was the founding of parks. Many parts of the line that weren't already built upon have been turned into greenbelts, in some cases with new infrasturctures such as park bathrooms, community centers (Orizaba Park), and a community garden (Zaferia Junction). These parks were still very new at that time so the thought of tearing out what was just put in was crazy to us. The parks now are popular and established in the local community, and route workarounds and detours are near impossible (city gridding). The second problem people had was with noise. People have been brainwashed with the fact that the old Nippon Sharyo Cars of the Blue Line were very noisy at higher speeds and East Long Beach locals who enjoyed their peace and quiet would have none of that. While we can dream, even I think the extension to my neighborhood of Belmont Shore is unrealistic because if the true route is followed, you may find residents, but you won't find riders. Many of these people are well to do or retired and those who travel via mass transit rely on the already exsisting LBT system. It just would seem impractical for what the route would be possible of doing. Sorry to be a downer, but it's the sad and unfortunate truth.
How about these gas prices eh? 😃
Metrolink electrification? Amtrak to LAX?
Interesting theory on the ability to get so much rebuilt but it's insane to think that these local communities won't rebel against train lines being built. Already the Green Line Torrance extension using a freight line through Lawndale is getting resistance (they want it to run down Hawthorne blvd but that sounds impossible). More importantly, if you think the Beach Cities would give up the Greenbelt without a Beverly Hills-style fight you are out of you are living on another planet. The Beach Cities love their rich enclave and they definitely don't want to turn into Santa Monica. Those cities will never, ever give into an above ground train and would fight like hell to keep the masses away from their multi-million dollar homes. What possible incentive could there possibly be for them? I'm genuinely curious.
Thanks! It's a fair question but I disagree with your view. If wealthy Santa Monica can come to understand the benefits of having a train, so can the beach cities. When I say that there's a better park that could be offered to the beach cities in exchange for the revival of rail service through what is now veteran's park, I'm talking about using eminent domain to seize the massive chevron refinery south of LAX and turning it into a park. The beach cities would give almost anything to get that thing shut down, so that can just be added to the equation if there is any real resistance to rail, which I don't think there will be in the first place.
Oh my friend, having lived in one of those communities I think you really misunderstand the situation there. I've sat through too many council meetings to believe there will be anything *but* resistance.
Refinery becoming a park? No. Chevron "pays off" the Beach Cities, El Segundo, especially. There are no community objections to the refinery like there was for the AES Redondo Beach Power Plant. Not to mention the right-of-way your referencing only skirts El Segundo on the east but goes directly thru Manhattan & Hermosa. El Segundo has been in bed with that refinery for over a century. They have no incentive. And for portions of that refinery have already been sold off (The Point at El Segundo) and Manhattan Beach Village were the result, not open space. Not to mention the cleanup necessary for a 100-yr-old refinery to become a park would be astronomical.
The Beach Cities can't even agree on whether to call it PCH or Sepulveda Blvd and you'd expect a grand bargain here? Manhattan Beach began work to sue the City of Los Angeles for reducing lanes on Vista del Mar & Culver Blvd (lanes that have now been restored). If I were advising you on your vision I'd merely say you ought to pick your battles. If Lawndale and Highland Park residents object to light rail imagine how millionaires will do? (Also Manhattan Village wants to destroy part of the right-of-way with new construction at the Village Mall).
Setting aside how much the rich really hate having "poor, dangerous, riff-raff" coming from trains and the fact that the city of Manhattan Beach would literally spend millions fighting it (assuming it was above ground), I'm not even sure the density is high enough to really support rail (and again, the cities are working hard to make sure that density stays low). Best of luck.
Thanks! I'll need it. Our regional politics are complex, but not unmanageably complex though. Trust me, I will be proven right about this in time.
Looking forward to it.
Southern California need an inter-county rail system elevated or level with all major freeways some not necessarily inter-county (405,110,5,710,605) obviously with express routes during peak/rush hour(s)
Exciting!
What about the architecture that you'd like to appear for the stations? How do you think it should look like?
How about doing the San Pedro/Port of LA segment to end at Pot's O Call Village??
What about all those new houses they’re building in the row along normandie? It seems that community doesn’t want a rail line.
ought to bring that long beach branch down alamitos or california (the original up route) instead. cherry is ridiculously congested basically at all times what with having an off ramp on the 405, plus crossing that off ramp would be more difficult construction, and alamitos is actually quite a big wider to begin with
also it would dump right out at the pike which im sure gov planners would love
Alamitos would definitely worth considering in addition to Cherry as well. The main reason I didn't use alamitos here is because the Mayor Garcia is already having Metro study bringing the blue line terminus closer to the pike, so if that ends up happening a route down alamitos to the pike would end up being redundant.
As far as cherry goes though, roads can be reconfigured so the fact that cherry is typically very congested (it is, I used to live right by Ocean and Cherry) is not necessarily a permanent one. One potential fix for that would be to simply close that particular I-405 ramp and maybe divert the freeway traffic down orange or alamitos instead.
Also, there's always Redondo. That was a PE route too of course, and a bit wider than cherry. that might be worth studying in addition to Cherry, Alamitos (and maybeee California) too. Do you think we should try and rebuild the old Long Beach Southern Pacific depot that burned down a few years ago? That'd look real nice in Bixby Park I bet.
Los Angelist didn't know that about plans for alamitos, don't know much about official plans in general. I like the idea of putting something down alamitos, it's one of a handful of streets downtown that are a little wider with only a marginal amount of traffic. I work in Pasadena a lot and one thing I noticed is that they're putting in tons of big underground parking under new construction. pretty sure it's a law there, dunno if long beach has anything like that but I bet if they did they could improve traffic and have enough room for real comprehensive street cars downtown and into the nearby suburbs
and if it comes to the point where you start thinking about extreme traffic changing measures like moving around off ramps I think people are going to really reconsider their reservations about using designated park space if you know what I mean
ya gotta remember,these were privately owned systems,the company was responsible for the upkeep of the roads,when not right of way,soooo trucks,cars could use the roads,guess who paid for the upkeep of the roads,without taxpayer support.the privately owned company
You're not wrong that the SP/PE was taxed to death! That is part of what happened to the original SP Central Depot - the city took ownership of the SP's main route to the port and turned it into what is now Alameda street, only to force the SP to also do what would today be Caltrans job in addition to maintaining their own tracks which now had to be shared with cars and trucks.
No, it was lost to GM, Firestone and the soon to be RTD bus system
I dont think that the entire network of the Pacific Electric Railway can be rebuilt because most of the land that the rails would go on would most likely have been built on & most owners probably dont want to budge without millions of $$$ in their pockets
Idk what the law is in UK but here in LA we have eminent domain to deal with stubborn landowners. "without millions of $$$ in their pockets".
Millions, that's cute. We're getting new funding with a ballot measure in 2020 to the tune of several hundred billion dollars to build all this.
lol
the most politically feasible would ideally be the cheapest in terms of routing
Exactly. That's why we use the historic PE routes-of-way instead of bulldozing a bunch of neighborhoods to build new ones like they did with the freeways.
i always thought the flood control canals were underused; never heard anything about anyone considering putting something along them. since the cities are attempting to figure out how to recharge the ground waters, maybe that would mean some real estate freed up along them
That'll be good to keep in mind if anything needs to be added going forward. The flood control canals are actually real naturally occurring rivers though believe it or not, although admittedly the army corps of engineers did a pretty good job of hiding that fact when they paved them all back in the 1930's. That's what the city is spending all that money on now - undoing that environmental damage from way back then. The best way to recharge the groundwater would be to rip up a bunch of pavement and build LA a whole mess of new public parks. Pavement is the main reason the water doesn't get through to the aquifer like it did naturally before the place got all built up.
Most people are not going to Downtown LA. PE was radiated from DTLA. There was no way to get from San Bernardino to Balboa for instance, without going to LA and doubling back. No one misses PE more than I, as I rode what was left in the 50's. It makes no sense to me to build lines that compete with one another. Metrolink is running to San Bernardino so why extend the Gold line to Clairmont? There is a profound lack of cohesion between the transit agencies.
Johnny James dude where do you live, the rush into la in the morning and out in the evening is so evident it's more dependable than the sun coming up
It is odd that the Gold Line and the San Bernardino Metrolink line will be competing with each other and sharing several stations. Only reason I can think of is because they already own the right of way and so it was the lazy and cheap way out, and that way people in Eastern LA County get something for their transit sales tax. But then again, being lazy and cheap might be a good thing, because it's already approved and under construction.
Rail is obsolete and a waste of money.
See the "Trackless trains" being developed in China, basically a light rail with tires instead of rail wheels and guided
by sensors in the road.
JohnRinNoHo you are obsolete