Don't think it's been mentioned but if you want to broaden public transport service the Highway Trust Fund that was created via the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 might be an interesting opportunity. The follow-on Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 introduced the Mass Transit Account with it receiving a share of the federal gas taxes, if the 1956 act were to include a Mass Transit Account that received say a quarter of a cent from the three cents a gallon tax that would help out.
3.1.7. The Beginning of the Century
The 2001 Tarzana earthquake was without a doubt one of the greatest calamities to befall Los Angeles in recent times. With a magnitude figure of 6.9 Mw and an epicenter on the southern edge of the San Fernando Valley, the earthquake affected both the Valley and the Los Angeles Basin heavily – particularly along the faultlines that run through the metropolitan area from northwest to southeast. The main quake was followed by an estimate of over a thousand aftershocks, of which two reached above 6 Mw, and the resulting chaos is likely to have worsened the damage. Buildings were flattened, roads damaged severely, and thousands were severely injured. Ground acceleration was the fastest ever measured in a US urban area, and shakes were felt as far away as Las Vegas [1].
Structural damage from the quake was felt throughout the Los Angeles metro area, but particularly in the Valley and on the Westside – areas that, in a morbid twist of fortune for the LATC, were also relatively sparsely served by the subway system due to lingering anti-transit sentiment among the mostly affluent residents. Most of the high-capacity transit in the area took the form of blue express buses (the Blue Arrow name was still two years away), and while the fleet was damaged by the earthquake just as private vehicles were, the restoration of service was relatively quick. The only line that was severely damaged was the Blue Line, whose northern branches all ran close to the severely impacted areas. As a result, Blue Line service had to be cut back to Echo Park while restoration works took place, lasting most of the winter. The Hollywood branch (onto which the brunt of the effort was placed, partly due to its more damage-prone alignment and partly due to its symbolic importance for the city) was restored fully by December, while the Van Nuys and San Fernando branches took until March of 2002 before they could open.
However, the earthquake was to have a major effect on transit planning. The LATC had made plans to finally extend the Green Line all the way to Santa Monica, and the Blue Line to Beverly Center to connect with it, but these had to be shelved after a renewed seismological study revealed station alignments to be vulnerable to earthquake damage. In addition, although the residents of Santa Monica and Culver City were gradually becoming more pro-transit (in line with the general shift toward liberalism seen by the upper middle class in the 00s), Beverly Hills remained as intransigent as ever toward the LATC, having to be dragged kicking and screaming into even the common-sense-based and largely beneficial Transit 2000 program. They simply refused to allow any subway service within their city limits, and any attempt at an alignment bypassing Beverly Hills would result in a virtually useless line.
So it was that an alternative was sought, and in mid-2003, it was found. A proposal was made for a bus service that would run articulated buses along a dedicated lane along Santa Monica, La Cienega, Beverly and (again) Santa Monica Boulevards from the Blue Line terminus in West Hollywood via the Yellow Line terminus at Beverly Center to the Santa Monica bus terminal. Beverly Hills authorities let it be known that this would be an acceptable agreement to them, likely as no direct connection would come into existence between them and the Eastside, and on New Year's Day 2004, the new line was inaugurated. The buses were painted in a blue livery and branded as the “Blue Arrows”, a name that came to be used for all LATC express services within a short time.
Rapid transit planning, meanwhile, was focused toward the construction of the La Brea-Crenshaw Crosstown Line, a scheme that was designed to facilitate the westward shift of LA's job market by providing a straight connection between the Valley, Hollywood and LAX. A second crosstown line along Vermont Avenue, with its north end at Glendale and its south end on the USC campus, was also studied, but was found less feasible than the La Brea-Crenshaw alignment. Planning was slightly faster in this case, as nearly the entire line would be in Los Angeles itself (all but the Inglewood section, which was already in existence although as part of the Blue Line), but the line still required appropriations significant enough that a public vote was necessary.
The measure was put on the ballot alongside the mayoral primary in March of 2005, and the construction of the line quickly became a major issue in the mayoral race as a result. Mayor Yaroslavsky campaigned in support of it, arguing that it would bring jobs to LA, take pressure off downtown and benefit tourism by more closely matching visitors' travel patterns. His major opponent, Republican councilman Hal Bernson [2], opposed it as a waste of public money, citing the need to maintain existing lines and the ability to use express buses to cover crosstown routes at a fraction of the cost. Both men were veterans to the field of transit, Bernson having served as chair of the city council's Transportation Committee, and both had their followings, but Yaroslavsky remained a fairly popular mayor, and while he failed to win outright at the primary stage, the fact that the measure passed by a narrow margin was seen as a good sign for his chances of reelection to a fourth term. Indeed, after a fairly eventless general campaign, Yaroslavsky ended up defeating Bernson by a 52-to-48 margin, which must be considered an impressive feat given that it was his third election as the incumbent.
The appropriate planning actions having been taken and clearances given, construction commenced in August of 2006, using a tunnel boring machine for the first time in LA history – this was considered the preferable option as the alignment of the new line didn't follow the street grid as closely as previous lines had [3]. Construction was refreshingly eventless, and the line opened to great fanfare on March 21st, 2009, with speeches given by Governor Solis and Mayor Ridley-Thomas to mark the occasion, and the line was christened the Purple Line after a public consultation on the matter. LA had yet another service added to its rapid transit system, and the line achieved its goals of drawing in new riders and taking pressure off the Blue Line.
Since the Purple Line, no major transit expansion efforts have been made. The LATC subway system of today has six services on three line corridors, with 129 stations and over 220 km of track [4], in addition to almost as large of a network on the Pacific Electric side of things. A new series of cars, the 6000 series, was commissioned from Rohr to serve the Purple Line, and along with the 90s stock it makes up the overwhelming majority of rolling stock in the system. Since the refurbishments of the 1990s, while regular maintenance has taken place, no major work has been done to modernize the older lines, and some stations are once again beginning to show their age, but it's a far cry from the decrepit state of the system in 1993. The 2012 American Community Survey, which recorded modal splits in major American cities, showed that an estimated 24% of Angelenos use transit to commute, with around 67% driving and insignificant numbers walking or cycling [5].
[1] This is broadly similar to the OTL Northridge earthquake, except insofar as it takes place seven years later, is slightly stronger due to built up tension over this period (this is where it becomes glaringly obvious that I know next to nothing about seismology, so apologies if this suspends the disbelief of any seismology fan who might be reading) and the epicenter is slightly closer to the southern edge of the Valley than OTL.
[2] ITTL, due to the more public-works-friendly and slightly less liberal bent of the Democratic Party, LA remains somewhat competitive between the two major parties. Expect any sort of Greens or similar to be strong here as well though.
[3] The line runs alongside the Blue Line from LAX to Windsor Hills, then along Crenshaw Boulevard up until about I-10, where it continues due north to meet the Yellow Line at Vineyard Junction (the meeting of Pico, Venice and San Vicente Boulevards). From there it turns northwest slightly, joining up with La Brea Avenue at Wilshire, and continues to follow La Brea and later Cahuenga Boulevard until meeting up with the Blue Line again at Garnsey, from where it takes over the San Fernando branch.
[4] Yes, TTL's United States uses metric – no President Reagan or similar intransigent conservative in office from 1981 means the gradual conversion that was started under the Carter administration (see Interstate 19 and Fenway Park's distance markers pre-2002) is carried to term. And as for the network size listed, it's technically an inflated figure as it counts the sections of line shared by the Blue and Purple lines separately for the two lines, but something around 200 km is probably an accurate length estimate. Placed in OTL this would make the LA Subway the second-largest transit system by track mileage in the US, with only New York's being larger (though the Chicago “L” also has more stations).
[5] This may sound disheartening after all this work building a transit system, but it's similar to what we see IOTL in places with relatively substantial transit like Boston or Chicago. For comparison, Los Angeles' OTL figure is 11% transit commuters.
Last edited:
Enjoyed reading the thread so far, when do we likely get to start seeing Pittsburgh?
The Rosh Hashanah War of 1966? I'm assuming this is another off-screen point of divergence that replaces our timeline's Six-Day War of 1967.
The Blue Line connecting to the Blue Line?
3.2. Pittsburgh
3.2.1. The Streetcar Years
3.2.1. The Streetcar Years
Pittsburgh is one of America's archetypal industrial cities, and as such was very much on the rise prior to about 1960 and has been somewhat in decline since then. The 1950 census had it in twelfth place nationally with 676,806 inhabitants in the city alone and 1,515,237 inhabitants in Allegheny County as a whole. Its geography was and is unusual, with the city center located in the bottom of a valley formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, and surrounded by steep hills on which the city's suburbs are built. For this reason, it was generally difficult to build parkways in the Pittsburgh area to the same extent as elsewhere, and combined with an unusual pro-transit bent on the part of the city fathers, this meant that Pittsburgh was one of few stragglers remaining with nearly its entire network intact by the time of the 1967 oil crash.
As can be expected of a major industrial center in the East, Pittsburgh was also an early comer to the transit game – horse cars were running up and down Pitt Avenue as early as 1859, and the late 1880s saw the first experimental ventures into cable and electric traction, before finally settling on the electric system and implementing it over the following decade. From 1902, the main operator of the network was the somewhat confusingly named Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo), who ran a monopoly service from 1905. Like a great many transit operators across the US, their economy wasn't the best, and they filed for bankruptcy on two separate occasions. The first, in 1918, lasted six years before the company could be reconstructed, and the second, in 1938, would last until 1951. By then, the company had participated in the Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee, the joint engineering committee that designed the now-iconic PCC streetcar, and Pittsburgh was one of the new car's most enthusiastic users, with over 600 PCC cars serving the PRCo network at its peak.
After the general upswing in ridership caused by the war years, PRCo was able to pass out of receivership in early 1951, and like most transit companies of the time, committed to a series of network rationalizations aimed at improving the bottom line. PRCo's rationalization program was relatively restrained, but still saw the closure of fifteen routes of varying importance – most prominently the Washington County interurbans – between 1951 and 1953. Several of the eastern routes were closed in 1958, when road improvements in those areas necessitated the removal of streetcar tracks.
Pittsburgh is of course a city of bridges, and many of its bridges were crucial thoroughfares for the streetcars, with resulting chokepoints for car traffic. Local authorities were eager to be rid of the tracks and make room for more car lanes, and frequently came into conflict with PRCo over this – notably in 1957, when the state Department of Transportation wanted to rebuild the Point Bridge to an all-car design, which would've eliminated the last streetcar link between downtown and the West End. PRCo sued, backed by the city government, and eventually won their case, resulting in the new bridge being built with streetcar tracks on its lower level [1].
In the first half of the 60s, PRCo continued its program of rationalizations, closing a significant portion of the North Side routes in 1963. Most notable of these was the 21/Fineview route, which sported one of the steepest inclines of any streetcar route in the United States at 12.24%, and which became a legendary fixture of the neighborhood after its closing, having been less significant by comparison before the event [2]. The 55 route, serving East Pittsburgh via Glenwood and Homestead, was finally closed in September of 1964 after lengthy attempts by PRCo to keep it running, as the bridge connection was repaved and the trolley tracks eliminated to make way for four-lane car traffic.
Then the Crash of 1966 struck. Like everywhere else in the US, Pittsburgh was badly struck by the oil crisis, but unlike a great many other cities, it already had a ready-made alternative to car usage. Add to this the awkward geography of the city, which made large-scale automobile traffic relatively impractical to begin with, and you get a massive ridership surge for PRCo in the 1967 and 1968 business years. The streetcar network, long derided by Pittsburghers as “the world's largest trolley museum”, went from a civic embarrassment to a mainstay of the city's transportation network overnight, and more and more residents who had abandoned the trolley for their own car began to use it for day-to-day commuting again.
More important even than the increasing economic buoyancy of transit was the political earthquake this caused. For instance, the city of McKeesport, up the Monongahela from Pittsburgh, which had previously lobbied to get rid of its trolley connections to make room for car commuters, now did a volte face and started fighting to keep the remaining route [3]. The East End routes, which had been preserved in almost their original extent until the crash, were also preserved, although the rationalizations eventually saw the Negley routes closed, as well as the largely duplicated 67/Swissvale and 76/Hamilton routes. And perhaps most importantly of all, PRCo was bought out by the Allegheny County Port Authority, which set up the Port Authority Transit System (PAT) to operate both trolleys and buses, the latter having previously been run by some 40 independent businesses [4]. PAT immediately set up a committee to look into replacing some of the system's aging PCC cars with new rolling stock, the nucleus of what became the now-legendary Foerster Committee. Pittsburgh's transit system was on the rebound at last.
[1] IOTL they lost the case, and the new Fort Pitt bridge was built without streetcar tracks – the West End routes all had to be axed as a result.
[2] This is very common with transit in general, with the Pacific Electric as perhaps the finest example – utterly despised by most of its users before closing, an LA icon and focus for nostalgia for decades afterward.
[3] IOTL, McKeesport also hated the trolleys from about the mid-50s, and its last connection was axed in 1963. ITTL, the Glenwood Bridge gets rebuilt with trolley tracks, which keeps the route in place long enough to save it.
[4] This was true IOTL as well. IOTL the PAT takeover came three years earlier, in 1964.
Last edited:
More like the Yom Kippur War, both in terms of the actual conflict and its international consequences. I mentioned it briefly in LA's parts 3 and 4, and it's the cause of TTL's oil crisis - somewhat fortuitously since it comes before the last major streetcar networks were shut down.
Yeah, that's a typo - obviously I meant to connect with the Green Line. Should be fixed in a second.
Thanks, good to have you on board.
Pittsburgh is a pain in the ass subway-wise, since its city center is several dozen feet below most of the suburbs, so running subway tunnels through the city and surface tracks outside it isn't necessarily the most obvious solution.
Just read this all in one sitting after meaning to read it for a long time. I really enjoyed it - always interesting to see my hometown featured in a TL, and due to the nature of this TL I specifically appreciated seeing familiar locales, streets, and intersections pop-up. At least two intersections which I drive through on an almost daily basis got name-dropped, and that was pretty neat. Looking forward to the next chapters.
So tell me, using this transit system, what's the best way for one to go from Hollywood (approx. Fairfax/Sunset) to Altadena?
It's always gratifying when someone who's actually from the place you're writing about likes what you wrote about the place.
So tell me, using this transit system, what's the best way for one to go from Hollywood (approx. Fairfax/Sunset) to Altadena?
At a ballpark guess, the simplest way would be Blue Line to Downtown Crossing, then either Yellow Line to South Pasadena then PE to one of the Pasadena stations or a walk through the tunnel to 6th/Main and then PE straight to Pasadena, and finally either a streetcar (Pasadena still has some, thanks to an unusually proactive city council - I don't have any close line of reasoning behind this other than rule of cool) or if there's no streetcar to Altadena, a bus. All of this would only require a single fare because of Transit 2000, so just punch in at West Hollywood station (which is at Santa Monica and Fairfax - my guess is there'd be a Blue Arrow service running along Fairfax, but I haven't bothered to map those) and then punch out upon arriving in Altadena.
Awesome, thanks. Interesting to see that Pasadena has streetcars, but then again, the city likes interesting old-school stuff like that.