I have ridden on the subways in D.C., New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Toronto. All of them provide a marvelous means of transportation. Here in Los Angeles we really only have one subway line. It stretches from Downtown to North Hollywood for 17.4 miles. The usage proves that the city needs a subway system. Seats are difficult to find at mid-day.
Angelenoes love their cars. I have grown up in this city and have driven through some of the worst traffic nightmares. They were on the 101, 405, and 5 freeways. Some traffic has made a 30 minute drive into a 3 hour nightmare. A trip from my home to LAX (using the 101 and the 405) is 30 miles but you should allow 1½ hours and that is the time without serious accidents.
For two years I worked on Wilshire Boulevard. It always amazed me that conventional buses would travel down that street in group of three to accommodate the extraordinary need for public transportation. That was happening at lunch time not at rush hour times. If you missed a group of three there will be another group in 5 minutes. In spite of the obvious need for a subway under that boulevard it has been resisted by many people. The NIMBYs have succeeded and in the process have hurt the city’s poorest people and caused major traffic congestion. Who cares about the poorest among us? The have no political voice and so they are ignored.
In the mid 1980s NIMBYs successfully had a federal law passed prohibiting the construction of a subway under Wilshire Boulevard. Now that the congestion has become overwhelming, that law has been reversed. The mayor wants to see this project completed in less than ten years. Building that $6.1 billion subway would employ many thousands people and the resulting mass transit would be eco-friendly. This would be a worthwhile project for stimulus money.
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