The fight for LA’s new subway extension

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While I was going to school at UCLA, there was a lot of talk and planning regarding the “Purple Line”, a new subway line that would extended from Downtown Los Angeles to the beach at Santa Monica. This would substantially reduce the amount of time it took for students and residents to get downtown from West LA, travel between other areas in West LA, and get to the beach. Many students and I were excited to see this project come to its fruition.

Figure 1. Purple Line extension map
Source: Metro website
Recently, I learned that the Beverly Hills School District is using school bond proceeds, financed by a voter-backed ballot measure to reconstruct aging school facilities, to pay for the legal campaign against the Metro subway extension. Hearing this news was extremely disappointing because the public transit system in Los Angeles could really use this upgrade. According to a study conducted by Metro Service Planning, average bus speeds are steadily decreasing (see Figure 2). The district has already raised 13 million dollars in local taxes (Bliss, 2018). Many of the Beverly Hills students have also been participating in protests. The students got permission slips signed by the parents and the schools provided transportation for them to protest in local parks (Chandler, 2018). The school district has clearly been successful at garnering local public support, raising money and getting the attention of the media.

Figure 2. Metro Bus Average Speeds, from 2000 to 2017, measured in mph
Source: Metro Service Planning, March 2017
Beverly Hill’s legal battle rests on the claim that the drilling for the subway would cause a methane explosion from the oil and gas under the ground. I was happy to learn that so far, this legal battle has not put a stop to the construction. LA Metro has denied these claims, and their safety, environmental and engineering reviews have held up in court. As of last tuesday, October 16, the tunneling has officially begun in this area.

I can’t help but wonder, was this legal battle fueled by a desire to keep lower income folks and minorities out of the West LA neighborhoods? Beverly Hills is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in LA, and the introduction of rail will make traveling to this part of LA far more affordable and efficient. Perhaps Beverly Hills residents are afraid that this will allow lower income folks to freely access their neighborhood. From my point of view, this project would greatly expand rights on transit for people living in south LA, east LA, and South Bay. I wish that the Beverly Hills students would realize that fighting against this project could ultimately limit their own transit futures.
Figure 3. Beverly Hill students protesting
Source: Myung J. Chun, Los Angeles Times

REFERENCES

 Anderson, M. L. 2017. Subway Strikes and Slow Downs. Access, (51), Spring.

 Bliss, Laura. (2018, October 22). Beverly Hills Has Financed Its Metro Fight With $13 Million In Local Taxes. City Lab. Retrieved from https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/10/beverly-hills-has-financed-its-metro-fight-13-million-local-taxes/573265/

 Carino, M. (2017, July 28). LA buses have gotten slower and increasingly off-schedule. KPCC. https://www.scpr.org/news/2017/07/28/74203/la-buses-have-gotten-slower-and-increasingly-off-s/

 Chandler, Jenna.  (2018, October 12). Hundreds of Beverly Hills students protest Metro’s subway to the Westside. Curbed Los Angeles. Retrieved from https://la.curbed.com/2018/10/12/17968706/beverly-hills-purple-line-subway-protest?fbclid=IwAR3qxGzRdeYNAX9Sx6gPJVnD9f0u491SHxEG-t8k7PQjjCH4xv4akLaZSbU

 Chiland, Elijah. (2018, October 2). What to know about Metro’s Purple Line subway extension. Curbed Los Angeles. Retrieved from https://la.curbed.com/2017/1/13/14229338/purple-line-subway-extension-opening-date-wilshire

 Shaver, K. (2018, October 17). Purple Line’s Overnight Tunneling Leaves Some Residents Desperate for Sleep. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/purple-lines-overnight-tunneling-leaves-residents-desperate-for-sleep/2018/10/17/85f1998c-d188-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html?utm_term=.bdd0a709c194


Written by: Sophie Appell

Edited by: Kate Wihtol

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 4, 2018 at 7:31 PM

    Wow, this is super interesting! As I started to read this, I immediately thought, do Beverly Hills kid even use public transit?! To me this obviously seems a battle to keep low-income communities out of their neighborhood.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 7, 2018 at 3:08 PM

    Super interesting and I want to read more about it! I think you are definitely on to something that it is being used to keep low-income communities out. Especially since high school students and youth are the ones being encouraged to protest something they may not fully understand.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 7, 2018 at 7:22 PM

    Great article and very interesting topic! I'm so curious as to how a local public school district could legally challenge a transit agency without some higher governmental entity (like the city gov't or county) stepping in and squashing it? But then again, given the history of exclusionary development and policy in LA, it's not all too surprising I guess. Mike Davis' "City of Quartz" is a *really* fascinating read about LA's development and it ties in frequently with transportation issues -- give it a read this summer if you have the time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownNovember 15, 2018 at 9:29 AM

    This makes me think of the proposed yellow line extension from Portland into Vancover, WA which was canceled in 2014 after the State of Washington pulled out of the project. To me, as someone who has experienced peak hour congestion commuting from Vancouver to Portland, it seems that a light rail expansion would be a huge help for relieving some of this congestion. However, concerns about the high costs of the line expansion as well as concerns that it would lead to sprawl (seems odd, but that is what this Oregonian article says) were cited as reasons Washington pulled out, but I have heard anecdotally that there was a big push from certain members of the Vancouver community to keep the light rail out because it would bring “undesirables” from Portland into their city.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownNovember 15, 2018 at 9:30 AM

      Sorry, here is the link to the Oregonian article mentioned above: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2014/03/columbia_river_crossing_odot_t.html

      Delete

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