Expo Line

Moving to deliver on their promise to create thousands of jobs with proceeds from a voter-approved tax for transportation projects, Los Angeles County officials Thursday approved a sweeping employment program. Officials say it will dramatically increase the number of workers hired from communities near upcoming transit projects expected to cost at least $10 million. Special attention will be given to applicants who live in areas of high unemployment. "We are demonstrating that we are serious about job creation and job opportunity, and jobs that are good-paying jobs with benefits that support families," said county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is also on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board that approved the measure, 11 to 1. The opposing vote came from Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who said he preferred studying a limited system before expanding.

Resolving a key issue in a $890-million transit contract, federal officials announced Wednesday that a Japanese firm's plan to build up to 235 cars for Los Angeles-area light-rail lines complies with requirements that American workers be used for final assembly. In its decision, the Federal Transit Administration rejected assertions by local labor organizations, community activists and two competing companies that Kinkisharyo International's production plan would violate "Buy America" requirements by climate-testing a few rail cars in Japan and not the United States.

For some, the opening of the Expo light rail line means an easier commute to work or school. For others, it's a chance to ride mass transit to Staples Center or to visit the museums in Exposition Park. But for Ayanna White, a 31-year-old mother of four, including 3-year-old twin boys, the new rail line could give her something precious -- an extra hour of sleep each morning. "It means a lot. To you, maybe not, but to me it means the world," said White, who lives within walking distance of the line's current western terminus at La Cienega and Jefferson boulevards.

State safety regulators have ordered stringent inspections of a downtown Los Angeles rail junction for the newly opened Expo Line because of a serious design flaw that poses an increased risk of train derailments. Officials of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority insist the intersection of the region's newest light rail service and the older Long Beach Blue Line at Washington Boulevard and Flower Street is safe for now because of small modifications to the tracks.

Almost 60 years after the Pacific Electric Railway stopped running trains to Santa Monica, the resurrection of passenger rail service to the Westside will begin with the grand opening of the $930-million Expo light rail line. Saturday's start of service marks the first step in an effort to bring rail service back to one of the region's most traffic-clogged areas, something transportation experts have long said is crucial to developing a workable rail network for Los Angeles County.

While many agencies are cutting back, Los Angeles' aggressive rail expansion is picking up steam. The county's Metropolitan Transportation Authority unveiled this month a record $4.15-billion budget that includes money for about a dozen rail lines that are either under construction or being planned. If all goes as anticipated, Metro in the next year would begin construction of a new rail line along Crenshaw Boulevard, complete the Expo Line to Culver City and continue work on an expansion of the Gold Line from Pasadena to Azusa.

The developer of a proposed downtown football stadium is counting on a dramatic change in the behavior of L.A. sports fans, releasing a report Thursday that bets 1 in 4 ticket buyers would come to the 72,000-seat venue without a car on weekdays. With more than 19,000 vehicles expected to flood downtown for games at Farmers Field, Anschutz Entertainment Group's strategy for traffic hinges, in part, on convincing ticket buyers to travel via the Metro Blue Line, the upcoming Expo Line and other public transit routes.

The 5600 block of Atlantic Avenue doesn't look like much at first glance, especially if you're zipping through at 45 mph. A dry cleaner, a pupuseria , a T-shirt shop and a medical marijuana dispensary line the low-rise street in the North Village Annex section of Long Beach. About a third of the storefronts are vacant. But if you climb out of the car, you'll notice that this classic commercial strip - convenient for drivers, charmless and alienating for everybody else - is in the midst of a remarkable evolution.

Re "Westside cities have big bets riding on Expo Line's success," April 28 The Expo Line light rail will not improve traffic congestion much, even though it was advertised as a relief for gridlock. It will, however, lead to increased business development, which will increase traffic congestion around the train stations. And as this development occurs, current residents will likely be priced out when rents rise. Who is this benefiting for all the expense? Greg Austin Los Alamitos ALSO: Letters: Choices at L.A. Unified Letters: When to collect Social Security Letters: Nathan Fletcher's GOP defection

Citing extensive safety improvements, state regulators Thursday cleared the way for completion of the first leg of the Expo light rail project by approving a controversial street-level crossing next to Dorsey High School. In its decision, the California Public Utilities Commission adopted recommendations made in June by one of the agency's hearing officers, who supported a revised plan that called for two station platforms, speed restrictions for trains, motor vehicle gates and other safety improvements for a proposed rail crossing at Farmdale Avenue and Exposition Boulevard.

Amonth ago, I found myself at the hospital bedside of my friend Willie Middlebrook, as he lay paralyzed on his right side. It was a week before his latest solo show was due to open at Avenue 50 Studio, the community art gallery in Highland Park, and a few weeks before his work "Wanderers" would be unveiled at the Expo Line's new Crenshaw station. Willie, a great photographer, master technician and storyteller, had been working in his Inglewood studio the day before, printing the final piece for the Avenue 50 show.

The 5600 block of Atlantic Avenue doesn't look like much at first glance, especially if you're zipping through at 45 mph. A dry cleaner, a pupuseria , a T-shirt shop and a medical marijuana dispensary line the low-rise street in the North Village Annex section of Long Beach. About a third of the storefronts are vacant. But if you climb out of the car, you'll notice that this classic commercial strip - convenient for drivers, charmless and alienating for everybody else - is in the midst of a remarkable evolution.

"Here we are - no, I mean there we were… Flash! The distant shipping in the Thames is gone. Whirr!… Dustheaps, market gardens, and waste grounds. Rattle!...Shock!...Bur-r-r-r! The tunnel…I am… flying for Folkestone…Bang!… Everything is flying. " -- "A Flight," by Charles Dickens, describing a rail trip from London in the journal "Household Words," 1851 :: Who knew that Charles Dickens, master scribe who brought us Scrooge, Copperfield and tale upon cautionary tale of hard 19th century life, was a transit aficionado with a story to tell traffic-snarled Angelenos about their plight?

Re "Vandals lash out in Seattle," May 2 Kudos to Occupy Seattle for smashing windows at an American Apparel store. This U.S.-based company keeps its manufacturing in the country (Los Angeles, to be exact), creating thousands of U.S. retail and manufacturing jobs. It struggles for a profit. The protesters also targeted Starbucks, a U.S.-based company with several coffee bean roasting plants across the country. It plans on building a new plant in Georgia and reactivating a once-dormant factory in Ohio to make mugs.

Re "Patt Morrison Asks: Nathan Fletcher," Opinion, April 28 The out-of-town infatuation with San Diego mayoral candidate and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher is hard to fathom. Of course, the "story" is that Fletcher recently broke ranks with the Republican Party and is now running as an independent. Shades of former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, and how did that turn out? Following a stint working for the disgraced (and now convicted felon) former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Fletcher got elected to the Assembly as a Republican and later declared his candidacy for mayor as a Republican.

Re "Westside cities have big bets riding on Expo Line's success," April 28 The Expo Line light rail will not improve traffic congestion much, even though it was advertised as a relief for gridlock. It will, however, lead to increased business development, which will increase traffic congestion around the train stations. And as this development occurs, current residents will likely be priced out when rents rise. Who is this benefiting for all the expense? Greg Austin Los Alamitos ALSO: Letters: Choices at L.A. Unified Letters: When to collect Social Security Letters: Nathan Fletcher's GOP defection

State safety regulators have ordered stringent inspections of a downtown Los Angeles rail junction for the newly opened Expo Line because of a serious design flaw that poses an increased risk of train derailments. Officials of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority insist the intersection of the region's newest light rail service and the older Long Beach Blue Line at Washington Boulevard and Flower Street is safe for now because of small modifications to the tracks.

Los Angeles transportation officials readily admit that building the first phase of the Expo Line has been trying, costing hundreds of millions of dollars more than originally budgeted and suffering nagging delays. But city and county leaders hope to leave those problems behind when they gather in Santa Monica on Monday to mark the start of construction of the second phase of the rail line — the first to reach far into the traffic-clogged Westside since trolleys ran some 50 years ago. "Phase 1 was overly tough … over the top," said Rick Thorpe, executive director of the authority in charge of building the Expo Line.

This is getting to be a pattern. Every time a major rail line opens in Los Angeles, my reaction tends to unfold in two distinct parts: excitement tempered pretty quickly by a sense of disappointment, of opportunities missed. The $930-million Expo Line is the latest example. The excitement flows from the way new transit lines are remaking - genuinely, thoroughly remaking - the civic, cultural and architectural map of Los Angeles. Running south and then bending west from downtown, skirting the campuses of L.A. Trade Tech and USC before reaching the corner of Jefferson and La Cienega boulevards, the Expo Line's first phase, with its eight stops, has brought the city's light-rail network to the doorstep of the dense Westside.

False equivalency Re "Student loans, abuse against women spur fights in Congress," April 26 The article says, "The looming confrontations on both issues show how hard it is for Republicans - or Democrats, for that matter - to compromise in this highly contentious environment. " Democrats, often to my dismay, are usually too willing to compromise. Republicans, at least since President Obama was elected, never do unless the public outcry is so great and they're forced to. And to imply that there is an equivalency between taking funds from public health versus a tax increase on the rich that is "off-limits" because almost all Republicans have signed a pledge not to raise taxes is laughable.