L.A. New Subway

Los Angeles will get a subway. Not how they imagined but it's a start. The subway will cut through heavily populated Wilshire Boulevard. Is the most promising corridor in Los Angeles for rail rapid transit. Connecting downtown L.A. to western coastal suburbs. This news didn't come without a fight. From court battles to congressional debates. There was decades of delay over safety and environmental concerns.

       The multi billion dollar Purple Line Extension won't be as previously described. It would end miles from the ocean, and even this far it will take around 20 years. In my opinion that is too long for a city of Los Angeles to wait. The first Purple Line segment is being financed with a $1.2 billion grant and a $856-million loan from the federal government. When the entire subway is complete, riders will get from downtown to the coastal suburbs in about 25 minutes. The purple line is expected to to boost average weekly ridership to about 215,000 daily boardings. According to Los Angeles major Eric Garcetti, “This will help people get to where they need to go, cut traffic and boost the economy.”

In the mid-1980s the subway extension came to a halt after a methane gas leak from the ground. This contributed to a 22 year delay of the project. A team of tunneling and transportation experts said the line could be safely built because improvements and boring machines and construction techniques. Brian Taylor, a transportation expert and professor at UCLA, rebottle their idea. He said, “despite improvements in tunneling, construction of the line will be complicated by webs of utility lines, old oilfields, pockets of gas and seismic conditions.” I agreed completely that seismic conditions would be a challenge. Los Angeles is notorious for earthquakes. It only takes a jolt to crack the concrete and bury the subway with the earths crust.

Even with construction underway people are still questioning whether the $600 million to $700 million a mile cost of the Purple Line could benefit more people. Though officials say the Purple Line will reduce traffic, the project's environmental analyst indicates there will be only limited relief on Wilshire and near by streets and little to no relief for the freeways. Metro officials argue that the only way to relieve traffic is if more subway and light rail are added and linked together. 

Santa Monica's mayor predicted the subway will encourage a significant shift away from the automobile. “If the car is king of L.A., then the Purple Line will be the queen of L.A.”

Weikel, Dan. "L.A.'s Not-quite 'subway to the Sea' Finally Breaks Ground."Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 07 Nov. 2014. Web. 06 Feb. 2015. <http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-westside-subway-20141108-story.html>.