The Transit Fairytale
- Dev Team
- 01 Aug 2011
By Laura Farr
In an LA Times column in 1948 called “Do You Know Your City?” the author reminded citizens that there was, in fact, still active rail service available to them.
The article explains how the city’s tunnels came to be, and points out that “ambitious subway plans for the spreading city have been revived at least once a decade since Edward H. Harriman, pioneer railroad magnate, proposed an underground system in 1906”.
It goes one to explain that while the 1 mile of subway tunnel was meant for electric cars, “automobiles occasionally blunder into it from the street-level western end,” which seems to indicate that LA was becoming a car-centered town as the 1940s came to an end.
By 1951, the Hollywood and Santa Ana Freeways were being built with a large infusion of cash from General Motors. City officials of the day were notably reticent to allocate more money for public transit. LA Times columnist Timothy G. Turner observed, “like other large American cities Los Angeles is in a struggle with the automobile. Transportation is the No. 1 civic problem. We have chosen to try to solve the motor traffic problem before we solve the public rapid transit question”.
Over 25 years after its opening, the Los Angeles’ “subway” system remained stunted with just that same single mile of underground tracks still intended for the above ground streetcars. Turner commented, “many years ago they had a subway system planned and they built the terminal first and that was as far as they got. It is still as far as we have got in solving the problem of public transportation.”
It wasn’t until 1978 that the City of Angels started revisiting the idea of better public transit. Out of the public debates, disputes, surveys, and arguments came great ideas: the Red Line, Blue Line, and Green Line – rapid light rail transit, both above and below ground.
Construction began on the Red Line towards Hollywood in 1993. With issues of methane gas leaks, political funding interference from County and State levels, extremely rare fossil finds, a sinkhole, and anti-subway and rail sentiments from developers and neighbourhood associations, many thought it would never be built. Its current incarnation took seven more years of diligent blasting and boring through neighbourhoods to reach North Hollywood in 2000.
The protest against the proposed Red Line at the time was vociferous. Congress and then-President Clinton pondered terminating the project after a sinkhole nearly killed 2 workers. In the end, however, they achieved a delicate political compromise to begin addressing the need of sustainable, affordable, mass transit in a city for which further expansion of the 10 to 12-lane freeways was not an option.
Gail Goldberg, General Manager of the Los Angeles Planning Department agreed. “We can accommodate more people, we can’t accommodate more cars.” She said, “And so we have to give people other options. Other cities do this…. The car that gave Angelenos freedom in the ’60s has turned into a cell in this era.
We have to put a movie in the backseat of the car to keep the kids busy while we take them to school. This is no way to live.”
By the late 1980s, the neighbourhood of Hollywood was becoming a ghetto. Property values were depressed, businesses were closing and residences getting demolished or standing derelict. There was a sharp increase in gang violence, drug and human trafficking, and homelessness. Prestigious “Old Hollywood” businesses and grocery stores were giving way to gun shops, liquor stores, tattoo parlours, cheque cashing operations, and strip clubs. Tourists would get out of their cars, look at the footprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, witness the seediness of the boulevard, and leave.
As Red Line stations opened, an exceptional thing began to happen – other businesses and developments began to flock back to Hollywood. The former low-rent neighborhood of Hollywood, with some 210,000 people, witnessed something that it hadn’t seen since the 1970s – rising property values and rents. Development and property values have risen steadily in the ensuing years.
Trizec Properties developed a joint-venture called the Hollywood and Highland Project. Trizec made it clear that their vision was to build a shopping and entertainment centre built above a rail station – becoming an instant destination hub, and attracting people directly to the area with no parking or traffic concerns.
In 2001, the centre opened over the Hollywood/Highland metro stop, incorporating restaurants, a nightclub, theatres, and stores. Soon after, the historic Roosevelt Hotel across the street was bought and renovated to its former glory.
Starwood Hotels subsequently built a W Hotel over the Hollywood/Vine Station at a cost of nearly $600 million dollars.
While no one project singularly changed Hollywood, observers believe that the Hollywood and Highland centre acted as a catalyst to help attract new businesses and development to the area, turning the neighbourhood of Hollywood into a sustainable, desirable place to live, work, and play.
LAURA FARR is a civically engaged, community minded downtown resident.
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