The Train's Coming, but will USC Students Care?
The clicking of wheels on track, the clanging of crossing gates, the sound of a horn: these are noises associated with the west, the land claimed by the railroads. After decades of relative absense, rail is beginning to return to the urban areas of Los Angeles. The summer of 2003 saw the Los Angeles MTA (now Metro) open the Gold Line, a 13.7 mile light rail line running from Downtown's Union Station north to Pasadena. The line's arrival was met with much fanfare, and Metro projected ridership would soon be 26,000 to 32,000 boardings on the average weekday (``Spring/Summer Quarterly''). With this line Metro began to alter the face of Los Angeles public transit, which for decades has been dominated by the bus. Los Angeles has long been reputed to be a city that requires a car, unlike other large transit-rich metro areas such as New York and Chicago, but Metro hopes to change that through the expansion of attractive transit options such as the Gold Line. Currently in preliminary stages is the Mid-City/Exposition Light Rail Project (hereafter Expo Line), a 9.6 mile line that will skirt the USC campus as it runs along Exposition, eventually connecting downtown and the Santa Monica beaches. Though the USC administration has raised opposition, the question is no longer whether the line will be built: Metro intends to break ground in 2007 and have the first stage of the line functional by 2012. Instead, now that the train's coming, the question now is will any USC students care once it gets here? A poll of student opinions when it comes to transit revealed that on the whole USC students are ambivalent about public transit, and may be apt to ignore the Expo Line when it does arrive. If this is the case, how then can Metro hope to make the line a success? While initial numbers and current attitudes might not look good, success will come as time and awareness mold the line into its place in the community.
The public transportation landscape in Los Angeles has not always looked the way it does now. Living here one quickly becomes used to the sight of buses on all major streets. Around USC buses rumble north-south on Vermont, Hoover, and Figueroa while heading east-west on Adams, Jefferson, and Exposition. Any Los Angeles driver quickly becomes used to having to deal with the annoyance of having a bus pull out in front of her, only to promptly stop again a block or two later. For many Angelenos this is what they see of public transportation: buses as obstacles to be dealt with on the road. What many don't realize, though, is the extent to which rail is increasingly becoming a part of the Los Angeles transportation landscape. The Gold Line and the future Expo Line are parts of a Metro Rail system that is larger than most people realize. System-wide Metro has 73.1 miles of rail routes, and accommodates over 192,000 boardings each weekday. These routes are fed by Metro's buses, which are the site of over one million boardings each weekday (``Facts at a Glance''). Of course the rail lines of today are no match for the old Pacific Electric Railway, along whose former right of way many of today's new lines run. In 1944 the Pacific Electric's tracks spanned 1,150 miles, four counties, and served 109 million passengers (``Red Cars''). Though official numbers from other transit agencies are difficult to come up with, the Pacific Electric's span was far greater than that of today's large and well-known system such as the New York subway and the London underground. In the days before freeways, rail was the primary transit option in Los Angeles. The development of the bus killed the Red Cars, as agencies jumped at the chance to buy the much cheaper vehicles that didn't need to run on tracks. For years speculation raged that the automobile manufacturers had conspired together to kill the trolleys in favor of their own buses (``Taken for a Ride''). Today much of the right of way and track still lies vacant, ghosts of the lines that used to be. Like the Gold and Blue Lines, the Expo Line will pass over the same right of way the Pacific Electric cars used to travel as it heads down Exposition Blvd.
Though you might expect USC to be a strong proponent of increasing the transit options available to its students, the section of line that would separate the school from Exposition Park proved to be a source of consternation. During the fall of 2002 USC donated $300,000 to a ballot initiative that would have funded moving that stretch of the line underground (Ortiz). A year earlier USC President Stephen Sample wrote an Op Ed piece claiming that a ground-level line would hurt ties between the university and Exposition Park: ``An above-ground system would disrupt the cohesiveness of Exposition Park and stifle the development that all of us in the area have worked so hard to create and nurture ... Any above-ground option would create a physical and visual barrier.'' While Sample and the university do support mass transit through the corridor, their push to add cost and complexity to the project at a time when all California transit agencies are struggling to make ends meet could scarcely be welcomed by Metro planners. It is especially hard to imagine how the relative scarcity of quiet of traffic on an electrified light-rail line could pose a significant problem when compared to the noise and obstacle of automobile traffic already hurtling down Exposition Boulevard at high speeds.
Despite these objections the Expo Line is poised to be built, and will run imediately adjacent to USC. Given this close proximity it would seem that USC students would be a traget market for Metro, but will students use the line? When asked about their usage of currently available public transit options, the overwhelming response was that they don't use them. Thirty-nine percent of students asked said they had never used any form of available transit. Eighty-nine percent said they used public transit options never or rarely, while none claimed to use transit options regularly or daily. There are many possible reasons for this minimally positive response. Seventy-two percent of students queried live either on or near campus, leading to little need for routine transportation. The corridor most served by DASH buses, that from USC to Downtown, seems sparsely traveled by students. Only six percent of students reported living downtown. A resounding eighty-three percent of students reported having a car with them at school, giving them the ability to find their way around without having to use the bus or train. Looking at these numbers it seems logical to assume that a line like the Expo Line might not carry much incentive for USC students.
Students, usually being cash-poor and having many things they would rather spend money on than gas would seem to be great candidates for the relatively cheap ride of public transit. So why aren't they? One theory to explain the aversion USC students have to transit is that their ridership would be greater if they were more aware of the options available to them. Many students are seemingly in the dark about transit other than the buses they see every day. Chris Castruita, a Junior majoring in American Studies, said that while he himself has made use of the system, others are surprised that it exists. "It's happened before that I've been talking about a trip I took, and a friend stopped me to ask, 'LA has a subway?'" Certainly a part of the problem is marketing, especially when it comes to students who are often from areas other than Los Angeles.
The problem can not be solved with a couple handouts or a billboard, however. The Gold Line opened to significant media coverage, and an estimated 150,000 riders turned out to take a free ride in its inaugural weekend (``Gold Line''). Since, though, response has been taken to be less than stellar. This month the LA Times quoted January ridership at 15,000 boardings per weekday, ``far less than the 38,000 boardings that officials who built the line predicted it would have reached by now.'' The same article goes on to point out that while the Blue Line opened to similar numbers, only 20,000 boardings per weekday in 1990, that number has since risen to 75,000 (Streeter). It takes time for a line to become a part of the fabric of the community and come to be something that people depend on daily. It could be years before the effects start to sink in. For USC students who come from areas unserved by good public transportation - in all honesty the entire country outside of a few large cities - four years may not even be enough. For those who have grown up in a automobile-centered culture, habits are hard to break. The lasting public view of public transportation is that it hinders mobility by reducing flexibility, rather than aids it. That conception will be tough to break in a short period of time.
Perhaps necessity, rather than desire, will be the catalyst that gets students out of their cars and into transit. With USC's continuing lack of near-by affordable housing, the student population is increasingly driven to look to off-campus locales such as downtown for their next residence. Luxury apartment complexes like the Medici and Orsini have already drawn some students away from campus. As these students leave the walking-distance commutes found near campus, they will have to increasingly wrestle with Los Angeles traffic. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said that public transit would be a consideration if they decided to live away from campus. Interestingly, those same people said that the mode of transportation wouldn't matter, with identical numbers expressing an interest in rail and bus. This stands in opposition to the common understanding in transit planning that rail is more attractive to commuters than bus routes. Perhaps, though, it is a reflection on the lack of knowledge students have of either. For the vast majority of students with little to no experience with transit, perhaps all the options available are lumped together and given the same characteristics regardless of their mode.
Though USC students may not be thinking about it now, light rail will be coming to the USC area. Doubtless there will be challenges, and the tale of the Gold Line thus far suggests that initial ridership may be light. Regardless, Los Angeles must take steps to address its transportation issues. Only through steps taken now can there be any chance of building the capacity to deal with the increased needs of the future. USC students, along with all residents of the city, will be forced to consider their transportation options carefully as freeways become increasingly more congested. The Expo Line might be a long time coming, and it might take even longer to become heavily utilized, but in time it will become an integral part of the lives of both students and the surrounding community.
Works Cited
"Gold Line open for business." Railway Age. Sep 2003. Vol. 204, Iss. 9; pg. 30
"Metro Quarterly - Spring/Summer Issue." Los Angeles MTA. Spring 2003. 8 April 2004. <http://metro.net/news_info/publications/images/metro_quarterly_spring_summer.pdf>
"MTA News - Facts at a Glance." Los Angeles MTA. 8 April 2004. <http://metro.net/press/pressroom/facts.htm>
Ortiz, Jon. "Clearing the Road for Pet Projects." Los Angeles Times. 9 Sep. 2002: A1
Sample, Stephen and Mark Ridley-Thomas. "Don't Turn Exposition Park Into a Rail Yard." Los Angeles Times. 28 Jun. 2001: B15
Streeter, Kurt. "Gold Line So Far Has Few Takers." Los Angeles Times. 8 Mar. 2004: B3
"The Red Cars of Los Angeles." Los Angeles: Past, Present & Future. 8 April 2004. <http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/la/historic/redcars/>