Blue Line Revs Up for Start of Runs Saturday : Transit: L.A.-Long Beach link is the first in new regional rail system. Security is among major concerns.

Three decades after the last of the area’s Big Red Car trolley lines was abandoned, Los Angeles is taking the first step to rebuild a rail transit network that will eventually cost more than $5 billion and once again link cities such as Santa Monica, Santa Ana and San Bernardino.

In a megalopolis famous for its long romance with automobiles and freeways, transit officials are betting that, despite concerns about security, thousands of motorists can be lured onto the high-tech trolleys that start running on the new $877-million Los Angeles-Long Beach Light Rail Line this weekend.

The so-called Blue Line is the first leg of a projected 150-mile rail network that will be built over the next two decades and will include the Green Line along the new Century Freeway, the Metro Rail Red Line to North Hollywood and other suburban commuter lines.

On Saturday morning, after ribbon-cutting ceremonies and speeches at the Pico Station in downtown Los Angeles, the Blue Line trains will start humming down the tracks every 10 minutes, stopping to pick up passengers at each station.

Transit officials estimate that nearly 100,000 people will take advantage of free rides Saturday afternoon and Sunday as part of festivities designed to promote Monday’s start of commuter runs. To encourage ridership, officials will allow passengers to ride free through the end of the month.

Reinstituting rail transit is a big gamble in Los Angeles County, most experts agree. But county transit officials believe that many motorists are so fed up with freeway congestion they will take the train.

“When the Blue Line trains start rolling Saturday, it will show that Los Angeles is finally taking the first step toward returning to rails,” said Neil Peterson, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, the agency paying the Blue Line bills. “And this will send a signal: Even in Los Angeles, the people are beginning to realize they must change their way of travel if we are to have a livable planet.”

Passenger security is the major worry, officials say, because the 19-mile line traverses gang turf and high-crime sections of Los Angeles. To ensure rider safety, the line will be policed by 120 Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

Traffic safety concerns have been raised by the union representing the train engineers, who fear that the trains will collide with cars at street crossings.

And skeptics question whether the “honor system” for buying tickets and boarding the trains will work, or whether cheating will become widespread, resulting in lost revenue.

Rail critics predict that motorists will not leave their cars and will be afraid to ride the trains.

Commission officials acknowledge that daily ridership will be low initially--roughly 5,000--because portions of the line in downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach will not be completed for another year.

The line will attract up to 35,000 riders a day by the summer of 1991, transit experts predict. A decade from now, when the Blue Line is linked to the other subway and light-rail projects now under construction, the line should be carrying 54,000 passengers a day, they say.

During the first few years of operation, the line is expected to lose money and require heavy subsidies.

Officials say fares will bring in only about $1.5 million, or about 5%, of the $33-million first-year operating budget set by the Southern California Rapid Transit District, which runs the line. By comparison, fares charged on the RTD bus system--one of the largest in the nation--return about 40% of the operating costs.

More than a third of the Blue Line budget--$12 million--will go to pay for security provided by the Transit Services Bureau, a new unit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

No other transit agency has spent so much of its budget on security, according to the RTD. New York City, for example, spends only 10% of its operating budget on security, RTD Comptroller Tom Rubin said.

“We are deliberately making a major investment in security . . . to protect the riders and the $877-million investment,” said Peterson, the transit commission executive director.

Major promotional efforts have been mounted to attract passengers. The RTD spent $250,000 to make and distribute a videotape called “Operation Blue Line” starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It demonstrates how to buy tickets from the automatic vending machines and ride the trains.

In another effort to lure riders, the commission has set the train fare at $1.10 for a one-way ticket, about half what it costs for a bus ride along the same route, and the Blue Line will honor bus passes and transfers.

The start-up of the trolley line has not been smooth or free of conflict.

Built without federal assistance, the project was funded primarily by money raised through a special half-cent county sales tax passed by voters in 1980. This Proposition A money also subsidizes RTD bus operations and funds other transit projects in the county’s 86 cities.

As the Blue Line’s projected cost soared from $411 million in 1984 to the current $877-million figure, the increase touched off a feud between the RTD and the transit commission. The RTD, which needs transit tax dollars for bus operations, accused the commission of letting costs get out of hand. The commission contended that costs rose simply because the light-rail project was expanded.

Controversy also has arisen over use of the honor system for collecting fares. This concept--opposed by some RTD rail experts--has been tried, with some success, in San Diego and Vancouver, Canada, transit experts at the commission said.

The Blue Line will have no gates or barriers. To ride the train, a passenger needs only to buy a ticket from an automatic vending machine and get aboard. There are no ticket collectors or train conductors to punch tickets.

“Fares will be checked only on a random basis by sheriff’s deputies on the station platforms or riding the trains,” said Norm Jester, director of rail activation for the commission. He said that anyone riding the trains without the proper time- and date-stamped ticket will be cited and ejected at the next station. The fine for riding without a ticket is $80.

For the first year, operations will be limited to 19 miles of the 22-mile route because of construction delays at both ends of the line.

When in full operation, the north end of the line will terminate in the Metro Rail subway station under 7th and Flower streets in downtown Los Angeles. However, that station will not be completed until July, 1991.

Meanwhile, the northern terminus will be the Pico Station at Pico and Flower Streets. From there, passengers can catch a shuttle that will take them the rest of the way downtown.

In Long Beach, the line will end temporarily at the Anaheim Street Station, several blocks short of the the Transit Mall Station, which is scheduled for completion in September. Free shuttles will operate until then.

When routine operations start at 5:30 a.m. on Monday, there will be 13 of the big white trains running along the tracks at 10-minute intervals, both northbound and southbound. The trains will travel at up to 55 miles an hour and will take about an hour to cover the route, officials said.

The trains are controlled by state-of-the-art equipment from a “Star Trek”-like command center on Imperial Highway, near Wilmington Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles. Law enforcement dispatchers, sitting at consoles with sophisticated computer links to the trains, will monitor the route on huge electronic wall maps.

Nearby banks of black-and-white TV monitors are connected to cameras that scan station platforms for security and safety problems. Alarms, emergency telephones and other electronic gear on the platforms and in the trains are linked to the command center.

There are 22 stations on the route, along with five overpasses and three bridges. In the midsection of the line there are 35 street crossings guarded by gates, red lights and clanging bells. Sheriff’s deputies have cited more than 100 motorists for driving around the gated barricades as trains approach.

Trains running along the center of Washington and Long Beach Boulevards cross 20 intersections that have no crossing gates. Even though these intersections have special left-turn signals, trains already have collided with cars.

Such traffic controls worry officials of the United Transportation Union, which represents 5,000 RTD bus drivers and now the engineers operating the trains.

The union has “grave concerns over the safety of the light-rail system,” General Chairman Earl Clark wrote the state Public Utilities Commission. He said he was “appalled” by the 20 ungated crossings on Washington and Long Beach boulevards, contending that these unprotected intersections pose “a major threat to life and limb.”

The union asked that the Blue Line opening be delayed until more safety precautions can be built into the system. The PUC has taken no action on the union’s request, Clark said.

Ed McSpeden, director of rail construction for the transportation commission, said the Blue Line train systems were designed and built to comply with all PUC regulations. “The trains operate just like buses on these streets, they follow the speed limits, operate by the same (traffic) rules,” he said.

Overriding all other concerns for the Blue Line is the question of passenger safety and security and protection of the trains and stations from vandals.

“Security is the No. 1 issue,” McSpeden said. “The initial success of this rail line and future rail lines is riding on it. The people have to feel comfortable and want to use the (Blue Line). . . . They should feel personal safety is not a problem.”

Over the strong protests of the RTD and the district’s transit police department, the commission signed a $10-million-a-year contract with the Sheriff’s Department to police the Blue Line.

The special Transit Services Bureau, staffed by 120 full-time sheriff’s deputies, has made nearly 300 arrests for vandalism, theft and other crimes in the last two months, commission officials said.

The sheriff will deploy roving patrols on station platforms and aboard the trains, and deputies in black-and-white cars will also patrol the line, according to Lt. Jim Holts, the unit’s second in command. “We play hardball with criminal elements up and down the line . . . (and) when people start riding, we will come down even harder,” he said.

Transit advocates know that the performance of the Blue Line will have a major impact on the future of mass transportation in Los Angeles.

Critics like Peter Gordon, associate dean of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at USC, contend that rail transit is too expensive and more could be gained by making freeways more efficient by developing car pools and high-speed busways.

But Peterson says that rail service must be a part of a much larger transportation network that includes a wide range of systems, including improved freeways, busways dedicated to high-ridership vehicles and the like.

Within the next two decades, planners say, the county’s transportation system will include a 150-mile rail network reconnecting downtown Los Angeles with the San Gabriel Valley, the San Fernando Valley, Orange County and beach communities stretching from Santa Monica south to Huntington Beach.

“The Blue Line is the first step,” Peterson said.

BLUE LINE STATION LOCATIONS 1. 7th St./Flower St. 2. Pico Blvd./Flower St. 3. Grand Ave./Washington Blvd. 4. San Pedro St./Washington Blvd. 5. Washington Blvd./Long Beach Ave. 6. Vernon Ave./Long Beach Ave. 7. Slauson Ave./Long Beach Ave. 8. Florence Ave./Graham Ave. 9. Firestone Blvd./Graham Ave. 10. 103rd St./Graham Ave. 11. Imperial Hwy./Wilmington Ave. 12. Compton Blvd./Willowbrook Ave. 13. Artesia Blvd./Acacia St. 14. Del Amo Blvd./Santa Fe Ave. 15. Wardlow Rd./Pacific Ave. 16. Willow St./Long Beach Blvd. 17. Pac. Coast Hwy./Long Beach Blvd. 18. Anaheim St./Long Beach Blvd. 19. 5th St./Long Beach Blvd. 20. 1st St./Long Beach Blvd. 21. 1st St./Pine Ave. 22. 5th St./Pacific Ave.

RTD BLUE LINE Rail transit vehicle Type: * Six-axle light rail vehicle, similar to those used in San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco. * Articulated (flexible in middle) for ease of turning. * Double-ended (either end can be used as front. Supplier/Manufacturer: * Sumitomo corporation of America/Nippon Sharyo, Japan Number ordered/cost each: * 54 at a cost of $1,170,000 each. Dimensions: * Length: 87’ * Width: 8’-8 3/4” * Height: Top of rail to top of roof, 11’-6” * Height: Including extended overhead power collector, 23’-5” maximum. * Height of interior ceilings: 6’-8” Performance: * Powered by electric motors for a quiet, smooth, comfortable ride. * Maximum operating speed: 55 miles per hour. * Acceleration: 0-55 m.p.h. in 45 seconds. * Braking distance (non-emergency or “service braking): 55 m.p.h to full stop within 750 feet. Seat arrangement * Modern technology provides a smooth, quiet ride and all cars are provided with heating, air conditioning and tinted windows. * Each car holds 76 seats, a total of 230 passengers and two wheelchairs. * Maximum of two cars will be linked together. Passenger security * Emergency intercoms are located in each car allowing passengers to talk to the operator of the train. * Train operators are in contact with command center personnel at all times and have access to a silent alarm system. * Door opener buttons are located by each door opening. * Fare inspectors and Los Angeles sheriff’s officers will be riding the train. * Closed-circuit cameras are located at each station and are linked up to central control facility. Other features: * Windows are made of hardened polycarbonate made to withstand heavy impact * Halogen headlights are being used for maximum visibility * Rails are standard gauge (4’-8 1/2” apart) and made of high alloy steel * Walls are made of welded steel construction * Flexible middle allows cars to make tighter turns * 750-volt DC power is supplied to the car by an overhead tractor bar * There is a three-inch gap between train and platform. Floor of train and platform are on same level for easy wheelchair access * Two seats convert for wheelchair space * Seats face operator booth on each side * 4 doors on each side Source: Southern California Rapid Transit District.