L.A. Blue Line's Big Problems

[WhoozOn1st]

Breakdowns and delays plague Metro Blue Line

"As officials build mass transit lines at a rapid clip, Los Angeles County's oldest and most-used light-rail system has been breaking down with alarming frequency.

"The Blue Line from Long Beach to downtown L.A. — one of the nation's busiest light-rail routes, with 26 million annual riders — has suffered a rash of maintenance problems that have left commuters who rely on the service facing major delays."

Mike Clantz [far end of pit] inspects a Blue Line car in Long Beach. Deferred maintenance has led to an increase in delays on the Blue Line this year. (Photo by Gary Friedman, Los Angeles Times)

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[WhoozOn1st]

Some L.A. Times readers responded to the story about the Metro Blue Line's woes (even if no AU readers did), which boil down to insufficient attention being paid, and funds allocated, to maintenance. Names omitted, and letters cut/pasted to spare slogging through the other seven letters published the same day.

Problems with L.A.'s Blue Line rail system

Off the rails

Re "Blue Line's woes a black mark for Metro," April 21

No one should be surprised that the Blue Line light-rail system from downtown L.A. to Long Beach has high maintenance costs.

The goal of Propositions A and C and Measure R, which raised the sales tax, was to build a rail system, but not necessarily to maintain and operate one. As more lines are built, more money must be spent to maintain the system. The question now is whether the system has reached the size where all the construction money is required for maintenance and none is left for construction.

In the last century, Henry E. Huntington and others who built the first version of rail transit in Los Angeles learned the same lesson: Construction is easy, but maintenance is expensive and hard.

Los Angeles

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At 22 years old, the Blue Line is "aging" so much that it's starting to fail? The residents of New York, Boston and London must be rolling in the aisles.

Claremont

 

 

Northbound Blue Line train, heading for downtown L.A., approaches Imperial/Wilmington (Rosa Parks) station, a transfer point for the Green Line, which crosses overhead in the median of the 105 freeway. At right is a U.P. right of way to L.A. Harbor.

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[Blackwolf]

Old-world (East Coast) issues that are now starting to impact the rail projects of the West Coast that came to existence in the late 1980's through the 1990's. LA's Metro systems is right up there with Sacramento's RT and San Francisco's MUNI for realizing the cost of maintaining what has been built. Seattle and Portland, too are beginning to feel the full cost of running their systems.

A hump to be hurdled. But in politically-charged times like these, it is prudent for users of the system to stand by their cause and make the boards who run them funnel the appropriate amount of funds for maintenance. It is all to easy to repeat the '50s and '60s, and just rip out the systems because they are "too expensive".

 

[trainman74]

At 22 years old, the Blue Line is "aging" so much that it's starting to fail? The residents of New York, Boston and London must be rolling in the aisles.

Claremont

Perhaps not the residents of New York who remember what condition the subway system was in during the 1970s!

 

[Trogdor]

Really old systems have been dealing with the reality of worn out infrastructure for years (or decades). Therefore, they have generally figured out how to perform ongoing maintenance as a part of their operations. That said, old systems in the US still have billions of dollars worth of unmet capital needs to get to a state of good repair.

Systems that were built new in the last couple of decades are just starting to experience the fact of equipment and certain parts of their infrastructure needing replacement or rehab.

One of the problems has been the fact that the federal government will provide massive amounts of money for "new starts" projects, but federal operating subsidies were eliminated a couple of decades ago, and there is no corresponding "rebuild" program (other than individual earmarks in the budget) for existing transit infrastructure. That's why Phoenix can get a federal grant for a new light rail line that might serve a few people, but Chicago, which has a demonstrated need for transit through actual ridership can't use those same funds to replace a 100-year-old elevated structure that probably carries more people in a month than the Phoenix system will carry in a year.

 

[George Harris]

. . . Chicago, which has a demonstrated need for transit through actual ridership can't use those same funds to replace a 100-year-old elevated structure that probably carries more people in a month than the Phoenix system will carry in a year.

Come on now. That is not at all true. The Chicago EL probably carries more people in a week than Phoenix carries in a year.

Most of the builders and operators are, or should be, aware of the funding disconnect. That is why there is a tendency to try for low maintenance in all aspects of the construction. Unfortunately, when the need to reduce construction cost comes up, the brainstormers behind this (aside from demonstrating a profound lack of brains) tend to go for changing to lower cost facilities despite what it does to the service life before replacement or major maintenance is required.

A huge factor in this is that the usual politician's idea of long range planning and thinking is only as far as the date of the next time he comes up for election.

 

[Bob Dylan]

. . . Chicago, which has a demonstrated need for transit through actual ridership can't use those same funds to replace a 100-year-old elevated structure that probably carries more people in a month than the Phoenix system will carry in a year.

Come on now. That is not at all true. The Chicago EL probably carries more people in a week than Phoenix carries in a year.

Most of the builders and operators are, or should be, aware of the funding disconnect. That is why there is a tendency to try for low maintenance in all aspects of the construction. Unfortunately, when the need to reduce construction cost comes up, the brainstormers behind this (aside from demonstrating a profound lack of brains) tend to go for changing to lower cost facilities despite what it does to the service life before replacement or major maintenance is required.

A huge factor in this is that the usual politician's idea of long range planning and thinking is only as far as the date of the next time he comes up for election.

Hey Now! You are Correct Sir!

 

[AlanB]

. . . Chicago, which has a demonstrated need for transit through actual ridership can't use those same funds to replace a 100-year-old elevated structure that probably carries more people in a month than the Phoenix system will carry in a year.

Come on now. That is not at all true. The Chicago EL probably carries more people in a week than Phoenix carries in a year.

Actually George, he's closer than you in his guess.

According to APTA, here's the CTA's 4th Quarter numbers:

October  20.312 million rides
November 18.618 M
December 17.168 M

Average daily ridership for the CTA's L/subways is 713,500.

Entire 2011 ridership for Phoenix: 13.162 Million.

Average daily ridership for Phoenix: 41,300.