Riding the D in Los Angeles: city hopes new subway stations will be game changer | Hacker News Reader

Riding the D in Los Angeles: city hopes new subway stations will be game changer

theguardian.com

85 pointsraybb45 comments

God it's frustrating how slow making these rail transits has been. The D line was literally planned out back in the 1960s and it took this long? I understand the plethora of problems the engineers faced when completing this. But I find it funny that once the World Cup was planned to be in LA, that's when LA leadership expedited all the legal and corporate hurdles in order to make sure we don't have another carmagetton

Some of this was covered in the article, but it’s not actually Los Angeles’ leadership’s fault (rare praise for a city I love and call home), it was shovel-ready and funded to be built in the 80s. Then there was a ballot measure due to ongoing construction problems of a separate line in the 80s that banned tunneling in Los Angeles. This wasn’t overturned until 2007! Then Beverly Hills (which is also not part of Los Angeles city government) fought this line for another 10 years, again with tunneling concerns, because they didn’t want it under them (not so fun fact, Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband, represented them). It went to the California Supreme Court and then the Federal Appeals Court, and finally, in 2017 was allowed to commence construction. Then Beverly Hills decided they wanted (and got) not one but TWO stops (and the only ones outside of downtown with turnstiles). Funny.

An indictment of the state legal system’s slowness, yes (see CAHSR), but the city consistently has fought many of its own nimby residents, other cities, the state, and the United States trying to claw back funding for this for those 60 years. It would not have been built without generations of support from city leadership. So there is hope!

With hundreds of miles funded and planned for or already under construction in the next two decades, the city’s rail future may be the brightest in the country.

While all of this in happening, Metrolink, the rail service that connects LA, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, is having their own budget crisis manifesting in "temporary" reductions in service. More info: https://calelectricrail.org/metrolink-is-facing-service-cuts...

Metrolink’s multi-county governance structure bums me out, as a majority of them are actively against expanding it, improving it, or even funding it. At least Metro has Los Angeles in control of a majority of the votes to squash any anti-transit shenanigans on what is supposed to be an organization tasked with expanding transit. Metrolink has no such mechanism to protect itself from the inside.

Glad to hear it.

An underground K-Line extension was recently approved to go through my neighborhood. This is after a small handful of 2-3 homeowners caused it to be delayed by 18 months over objections that seismic activity from drilling would be noticeable under their homes.

The city spent a year doing a study and report to appease the concerns of these residents, who - when presented with this extensive report showing that it would NOT be noticeable - proceeded to disregard the opinion of the city engineers and continue blocking it with the help of the Mayor, who is a friend.

Thankfully their objections were finally outvoted. West Hollywood had put up several billion in matching funds to pay for the extension, and if things had continued to drag on, the offer would have expired and jeopardized the entire project.

> West Hollywood had put up several billion

West Hollywood has several billion dollars? To spare?

via a 75-year EIFD, which the city successfully lobbied the state to change California law to allow them to enact. Talk about city support!

It may not look like it, but most residents in LA are literally begging for an option to navigate the city that is not car-bound. Cost isn’t even a concern at this point, for better or worse, it’s just the current situation of 30 min traffic to drive 3 miles at rush hour is untenable in a region that is about 50 miles in each direction. And WeHo has no direct highway access anywhere, so they’re really feeling the brunt of it.

Exactly. This line was actually planned for in the approved Measure M Ballot Measure in 2016 to be “shovel ready” [environmentally cleared, funding identified, etc] by 2022, with optimistic projections hoping construction would be finished by 2028. Clearly, we’re at least 6 years behind schedule, considering the final funding votes and route design specifics won’t be set until then, much less construction. It was not a surprise, so I consider any further delays on that front by detractors to be in bad faith, and I am happy that Metro has started to put its foot down and force progress, albeit I wish they would have done so sooner.

Nevertheless, I think it’s a good sign of government inertia that we won’t run into a 60 year delay ever again, especially as Metro prepares to finalize approval of the Sepulveda Pass Subway from LAX to the Valley.

In Spain and France, once the legislature approves a transit project, it preempts all other laws and is very difficult to litigate out of existence. Lawsuits cripple our ability to build infrastructure.

Yes, it is this way in most European countries where public transit infrastructure works.

The US constitution’s supremacy clause allows for this too

But because higher governments derive their existence from the support of the lower governments, laws are frequently written to allow opt in by lower governments

California very commonly inverts the supremacy relationship

Municipal level governments don’t practice the county’s laws unless they opt in, and don’t practice many of the states laws unless they opt in

Exceptions apply

A lot of the burden is from federal requirements (NEPA and the APA) that subject every government action to endless litigation. In Spain and France, the laws authorizing transit projects also bar challenges under many corresponding national laws. The idea is that the government has made the decision to do something after extended consideration, and that's that.

Thanks for this awesome explanation!

Yeah... Kinda like how Paris used the Olympics to get the political willpower to cleanup the river.

City's trying to brand themselves and look good on a global stage does funny things.

Hmm I also tend to clean house thoroughly only when guests come over. Perhaps an effect that should be applied.

Or like how San Francisco got rid of all the homeless people when Xi Jinping came to visit in 2023.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/san-francisco-mocked-china-mo...

In 1985, a Ross Dress for Less exploded due to methane gas, and congressman Henry Waxman representing the westside used that to federally ban any idea of a subway for decades.

Prior to that, Henry Wilshire, who donated the land for Wilshire Blvd in 1895, made a condition that no rail lines would be built on Wilshire.

I once watched the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) close a section of doorways from the street into a station (Runnymede) to replace a small section of tile floor on the inside. It was about 10 ft x 4 ft section, it took somewhere around 2.5 years. After they ripped out the tile on in the first week, I didn't see anyone until it was done 2.5 years later. It took about another 2-3 weeks to remove the plywood and caution tape so people could use the doors again instead of having to walk around to another entrance.

The Eglinton line has taken 15 years and good portion is above ground where they don't even have to tunnel. Still not done, probably another 15-20 years left.

It's why I laugh when Carney proposes a high speed rail link between Toronto and Montreal, it would take a couple of centuries to build.

Some cities and countries are inept, they can no longer build anything because of the bureaucracy and the need for consensus from 100000 different interest groups.

In my country we still use the same railroad lines that were built in the 19th century.

Coming from Germany I found it funny how tiny the subway lines are in major cities in the US compared to medium-sized cities here.

I always thought Germany was a country centered a lot around cars but it was so much more extreme in the states; seemed not possible to live in a city(!) without a car.

Depends on the city. In LA, yes it’s very hard to live without a car. I live in Seattle and I live car free as well as many of my friends. It’s not that we can’t afford it, we’ve just built our lives around transit and biking and the city is pretty good for it. Then of course there’s NYC, which is likely better than most European cities for transit. But you’re right that the average here is far far worse when it comes to transit and living car free or car lite.

In the states if you want to live car free you can but you need to be strategic in where you live within a city. I have lived in a few from east to west coast, suburbs to urban. By selecting your place in a city carefully you can go car free or mostly car free.

Even in LA it's quite possible to live without a car if you live in the right neigbhorhoods like K-Town or any other centrally located one where both the Metro and buses are plentiful. LA's a huge place with varying amounts of density.

This. I’ve lived in both Seattle and LA. LA was significantly faster and easier to get to destinations than it ever was in Seattle. Unless you actually live in LA and use the transit, a lot of outsiders will always default to “LA transit bad” which is far from the reality.

Seattle was the worst city I’ve ever lived in and not owned a vehicle. It actually made me appreciate Portlands transit even more given the size of the region. LA has even more reliable transit than both, despite how prevalent and necessary most times a vehicle is in SoCal. In LA I was able to get around quickly and further with no drama. Seattle transit I know has been improving, but your routes, frequency, and speeds made me want to pull my hair out. This is also as someone who lived in Capitol Hill which is apparently the transit heaven of Seattle.

Interesting! How long ago was that? Seattle has higher transit ridership than both those cities and is rapidly expanding its transit system. I believe we are still leading the pack in transit ridership growth yoy. Maybe you were here before it got good? I’ve only lived here 5 years.

Pre pandemic. Seattle has more riders than Los Angeles? That’s…not right? I recall needing to rent a car to get nearly anywhere around Seattle, like if I wanted to get from home in Capitol Hill to Golden Gardens, that’s nearly an hour to go 8mi with multiple transfers. The issue with Seattle is it’s a small city with a giant body of the water in the middle of it, with not many bus lanes or hard rail.

Conversely, you can get from downtown LA to Santa Monica in the same amount of time, which is nearly twice the distance, direct. This was not to cherry pick a route either, just a popular dense neighborhood to somewhere scenic.

Sorry, I meant ridership per capita. In Seattle about 15% of people commute via transit (and I believe it’s the fastest increasing in the country), but LA is 6% and flat.

Seattle’s geography is conducive to transit, because there are many bridges where all traffic is constricted. That means point to point trips by car are often taking a similar route to buses. It also restricted the city’s ability to sprawl (although even suburban Bellevue is above LA at 8%).

The standard of service for nearly every bus line that operates in Seattle is 15 minutes frequency, even on weekends. Many lines operate every 10, and the new G Line that opened last year in fully dedicated bus lanes runs every 6!

I lived in Silicon Valley without a car for 2 years. Commuted between Palo Alto and Santa Clara by Caltrain commuter rail. Took the local bus system frequently. Rented a car occasionally. It can be done but it's not easy.

Author delivers the lolz:

“Friday’s grand opening was full of fanfare and big D energy.”

> lolz

Well:

  "Ride the D" is a T-shirt and crop top design sold by the Los Angeles Metro ... "D" set inside a purple circle ... The slogan is a sexual innuendo, as "the D" is also slang for "the dick" ... The shirts ... have quickly gone viral ... sold out on February 27, 2026, just a day after launch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_the_D

I've lived in LA and I've lived in Scandinavia. And car life sucks. So good luck and Godspeed, Los Angeles.

Los Angeles just needs buses that come through frequently enough to obviate the need to check the schedule. Also dynamic bus routing, which would reduce the total number of buses required for this.

Buses have a fundamental speed issue that subways do not because subways do not stop at intersections for cross traffic. At LA's vast scale you need a subway, possibly even express subways.

You need both, but it's not exactly realistic to have metro lines everywhere. The west side is pretty dense and has a lot of commercial/business activity so the value per dollar is high. By comparison the east side is super spread out and has a low(er) residential density so the value is far lower. Not to mention a good chunk of the residents on the east side aren't in favor of metro lines in their neighborhood (the stalled Whittier extension of the E line).

It's a pain for me personally since a group I'm involved with is active in the San Gabriel Valley and since I don't have a car I have to rely on buses. It's not an exaggeration when I say a trip for me that's 5 miles west would take double the amount of time east. I'm just glad the planned subway to Van Nuys and the San Fernando Valley up north seems to be going well.

Metros can work with good feeder bus links; and Los Angeles has fairly frequent, if slow buses.

LA has pretty much exhausted what it can do with good bus networks though.

Like most cities around the world it really varies by what route and time of day. There’s plenty of sub every 5m routes during peak hours.

Ride the D? Wow

That's actually the official slogan by LA Metro: https://shop.metro.net/collections/ride-the-d

And someone even created a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_the_D

It's LA.

Yeah, that's ridiculous

There was a similar case in Seattle with the South Lake Union Trolley, which was quickly renamed to South Lake Union Streetcar, once T-shirts pointing out the unfortunate acronym started drawing attention. This one is clearly deliberate though.

Changing social norms with time. The dub the dew generation is now starting to actually have some pull and/or be worth pandering to.

The millennials and younger rightfully think every organization and institution is a joke, don't think their words are worth anything, results matter, etc. Since words and names are of low value they don't have a stick up their ass about being SuperSerious(TM) with them like the boomers and older did.

Give it a few years and some place with a name that starts with F will name their transit system FART.

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