Comment by gamblor956 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gamblor956 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The Los Angeles taxi union prevented (read: bribed and coerced) the state / city government from installing a train from LAX to DTLA because they were rolling in cash.

This is false. Pure FUD. The LA taxi union isn't a very powerful union, and was never the primary roadblock to building the Green Line all the way to the airport. The FAA was the reason: they thought the power lines for the rail line would interfere with landing paths of planes. https://www.dailynews.com/2008/01/09/why-green-line-stopped-...

California is corrupt as fuck, from GM paying LA to take out way more efficient train lines so they could sell buses to Beverly Hills preventing LA from building a subway. It makes living here absolutely miserable.

This is also a fraudulent representation of history. The old rail lines (i.e., Pacific Electric) were never profitable because they were intended as loss leaders for suburban housing developments. The lines ultimately went bankrupt when cars became popular because they had a max speed of approximately 15 mph. When LA formed its nascent public transportation system in the 50s, it acquired the few busy/profitable lines remaining. Some of those rights of way were used for new rail construction (for example, the E line to Santa Monica).

Every other city in the country has figured out rail transportation. The FAA could have been pacified if there was any political will to find a real solution. Blaming the FAA because they rejected one design is pure bs.

GM most definitely ran a campaign through the '50s and '60s designed to increase the use of buses as a replacement for street cars. That's not anywhere close to debatable and LA was not the only city that went along with it.

And if you're going to continue to claim that corruption is not the driving force behind these decisions then I would love your explanation for BH doing everything in their power to prevent and delay a rail line because they didn't want homeless people to be have easy access to the area. It's all about money, not the common good. Nobody here is planning for anything other than their own pocketbook.

The FAA could have been pacified if there was any political will to find a real solution. Blaming the FAA because they rejected one design is pure bs.

It's literally the truth. You can't build a rail to the airport if the ultimate governing body for airports in the country won't let you build the rail to the airport. It took decades to get the FAA to withdraw its opposition, and that didn't happen until a Democratic president took over.

I would love your explanation for BH doing everything in their power to prevent and delay a rail line because they didn't want homeless people to be have easy access to the area.

That's not corruption. That's residents of the city of Beverly Hills being opposed to having a rail line in their city because they don't want homeless people having easy access. (And they're not wrong to be worried about it; the homeless use the E Line daily to shuttle between Santa Monica and downtown LA.) It's not corruption simply because you disagree with them. That's how democracy works.

Notably, the businesses in Beverly Hills were very much in favor of a rail line station terminating in the city. However, businesses aren't voters, so if the rail station had been built over the objections of the voting residents, that would be an example of corruption.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com