I came to UCLA on a bus. In August 1995 I took an Amtrak train
to Union Station from Orange County and then the Metro Red Line
subway to where it ended, then, at MacArthur Park. From there, I
took a long bus ride down Wilshire Boulevard to UCLA. After my last
final in 1998, I boarded a Santa Monica Blue Bus and headed to my
girlfriend’s apartment in Venice. I left UCLA on a bus,
too.
During my years at UCLA, I never owned a car. I appreciated the
financial convenience of being car-free in Los Angeles. I learned
to navigate the much-maligned public transit system. I took the bus
to the beach, museums, jobs and the growing Metro Rail system
emerging from Downtown. I used UCLA’s vanpool program to get
from my father’s house in Huntington Beach to school.
Yes, it was often slow. But it was also enriching and
eye-opening. Most of my classmates navigated Los Angeles in an
automobile cocoon ““ fearful of all sojourns on city streets
much east or south of UCLA. (This was just a few years after the
1992 riots.) On the bus and the Metro Rail, I sat next to people of
all races and backgrounds including housekeepers, housewives,
paralegals and business people. From the window of a bus, I saw
businesses along Wilshire Boulevard’s Miracle Mile to Latino
and Korean neighborhoods in the Mid-City area.
Metro Rail and the buses have markedly improved in the past 10
years. The Metro Red Line subway was completed in 2000,
connecting Downtown, mid-Wilshire, Hollywood and the Valley. It is
now one of the busiest individual subway lines in the United
States. Just last year, the Metro Gold Line to Pasadena was
completed, connecting Old Town Pasadena and the Rose Bowl to the
Metro Rail system. (I now use Metro Rail to go to UCLA football
games.)
On the West side, that slow bus ride I took down Wilshire in
1995 has been radically transformed. Candy-apple red Metro
Rapid buses, a ubiquitous presence around the corner of Wilshire
and Westwood boulevards, now speed down the Wilshire Boulevard
spine and between the West side and the Valley using signal
priority to slip through traffic signals. In the past few weeks,
Metro and Santa Monica Blue Buses started having their own
dedicated lanes for about a mile between Centinela and Federal
avenues, west of the 405 freeway.
Nearly half the people moving down Wilshire Boulevard during the
weekday are on a bus. At 70,000 riders per weekday, Wilshire
Boulevard is among the busiest bus corridors in the nation.
Of course, the Great Dream is to bring rail to the West
side. “When is the subway going to come to
Westwood?” I am always asked. I have to tell these
people, with disappointment, of the cost overruns that doomed
bringing the subway quickly to the West side. However, ears perk up
when I tell them of the Expo Rail project.
Last year, the governor signed Senate Bill 314 in law, allowing
the MTA to put a half-cent increase in the sales tax on the ballot
to fund massive improvements to both public transit and roads in
Los Angeles County.Â
Dear to the heart of Bruins and Westsiders, it would fund the
Exposition Boulevard light-rail project ““ opening in 2011,
between downtown and Santa Monica. It would run from Downtown,
through USC, Culver City and Mar Vista to Santa Monica. It would
also extend the Metro Red Line to at least Fairfax Avenue and
Wilshire Boulevard, with an eventual vision of extending it to
Century City and Westwood.
Given the current voter mood and other concerns, it seems
unlikely the MTA will put this farsighted measure on the ballot
this November. This is too bad, as I am sure that most Bruins
and Westsiders know that amid worsening traffic congestion, higher
population densities and ever-growing gas prices, the golden days
of auto dependency are over.
Los Angeles seems destined to embrace a civic model that makes
great cities like London, Paris and New York so livable ““
rapid public transit. It creates real public space and brings
people together. I just hope we embrace it sooner rather than
later.
Lytton is a UCLA alumnus who graduated in 1998. He is a
volunteer art docent for the Metro Rail system and is the political
director of the Transit Coalition.