Aqua Line
The Aqua Line is the installation of "Coming Soon" signs that suggest the construction of a subway line that would connect the Westside to downtown and the rest of the Los Angeles metro system. On August 13, 2000, Heavy Trash installed 8 signs along the 15-mile route in an attempt to promote civic dialogue about the need for better transportation in Los Angeles.The message
Heavy Trash created this project in response to the attitudes taken by many upscale neighborhoods towards the implementation of mass-transit in their area. Homeowner groups often see mass-transit as an encroachment upon their living space by lower income residents. This "not in my backyard" mentality has stopped many plans for the expansion of the metro in its tracks.
If the Aqua Line actually existed, it would not only serve to break down barriers between neighborhoods, but it would also benefit the environment by decreasing automotive pollution. In a city where most people rarely leave a small selection of zip codes, the metro line has the power to increase interaction between Angelenos throughout the area; the Aqua Line takes action where the rhetoric of diversity falls short.
The line
The design of the Aqua Line takes into account many elements that are integral to a successful subway line, including bus connections, usage demand, existing right-of-ways, points of interest, historic rail lines, and shortcomings in current public transportation. The Aqua Line runs along Ocean Avenue from Wilshire Boulevard to San Vicente Boulevard, then turns down San Vicente all the way back to Wilshire. It then follows Wilshire down to the metrorail Red Line connection near downtown. The Aqua Line stops provide access to a wide variety of attractions, including the Santa Monica beach, the UCLA campus, the stores on Rodeo Drive, and the museums on Miracle Mile. The line also connects to the Santa Monica Blue Bus line that travels to the Getty Center. Many of the Aqua Line stops are located near the hotels of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in the hope that delegates can bring home a growing awareness of this debate regarding the development of public in cities across the nation.
The history
Los Angeles was once home to one of the most thorough intraurban transit systems in the country. From 1910 to 1950, the Pacific Electric Railway connected the greater Los Angeles area with over 1,000 miles of track, including lines that ran along the proposed route of the Aqua Line. As early as the 1920s, an organized—and illegal—group of automotive corporations (including General Motors, Standard Oil, Firestone Tires, and Mack Trucks) drove the railway to the ground by systematically buying up and dismantling the transit lines, creating today’s automotive city as we know it.In Los Angeles, recent attempts at expanding the mass transit system have been shot down by community groups. Efforts to create a light rail system on the preexisting tracks of Exposition Boulevard met fierce opposition, prompting one city official to call it a “recipe for disaster.” A Los Angeles Times news article on the debate was bluntly titled “MTA to Study Rail, Bus Route That Skirts Upscale Areas” referring to Cheviot Hills. Another plan to create a dedicated busway or possibly even an elevated-rail line down Wilshire Boulevard also faced intense opposition almost immediately after it was proposed.
In response to this opposition, Heavy Trash created the Aqua Line to bring attention to the importance of mass transit in the hope of creating a united Los Angeles.
Press
Pool, Bob. "Signs Point to Westside Transit Mytery." Los Angeles Times. August 16, 2000, B2.
[ link ]
posted by heavytrash at 10:25 PM
24 Comments:
brilliant.
The automotive industry has always had it in for us as Americans.
Definitely more effective than an editorial.
dido.
So what? You put up some signs. Now what?
That is amazingly creative. I was just in LA and was horrified by the pollution and lack of public transportation - and the attitude towards making use of the metro that did exist. Did anything ever come of your project? You guys should date your posts so that people can see the progression of events. Keep up the good work!
In milwaukee we extended the bus line to a suburban mall many years ago. After service started shoplifting at the mall skyrocketed and the number of paying customers dropped. So who benifited by extending the buss service? Who would benifit from an aqua line? If the people who make the largest contribution to the tax base wanted the aqua line there would be an aqua line. If the people who live where the aqua line would go don't want it why build it? If Heavy Trash complained about spending money to wall off a park why would they promote the millions to create the aqua line?
I was a charter bus driver giving some Germans a tour of Brentwood when I saw your sign in the median of San Vicente Bl. My eyes bugged out-- I got so excited that there would be a real way to get around. Then heartache and depression when I learned it was a hoax. This was by far the most effective instalation of the three you have included on this blog. The signs looked so real, and it tricked me into beleiveing that it was going to happen, but still left me wondering why it didn't happen. Very effective.
We are dealing with a similar situation right now with the Expo Line. Racist or ignorent Rancho Park residents want to stop it before it gets to the ocean. They complain about noise, and about using the MTA owned ROW as a unofficial greenbelt, but they just don't want people from Jefferson Park, and other predominantly black and brown communities along Exposition boulevard to have access to their neighborhood.
The busline in Milwaukee that was aluded to earlier did not increase crime at said suburban mall (northridge). It increased the perception of crime. There was a murder of a white woman at the mall in 1991, and the husband of the woman claimed that he witnessed a young black male committing the crime. The predictable local media histrionics kicked in and the prevailing opinion among the white community was that northridge was dangerous for whites. Turned out the husband killed his wife himself and blamed it on a black male. He went to prison and was killed there a few years later. But the damage was done, and to this day I still talk to woefully ignorant people (see previous comment on the topic) who equate northridge with an atmosphere that is dangerous for Euro-Americans.
At any rate this project is a wonderful creative way to convey these concepts to people that just don't get it. Unfortunately some people will never get it.
Interesting how people in LA have long forgotten how their city was connected by suburban light rail less than a 100 years ago. That is until the major auto makers bought them all and relegated them to the dump. And now when they live in one of the most smog ridden cities in the world they complain about having a subway system in their neighborhoods...simply mind-blowing. Americans would benefit by looking at most major European cities to solve our mass-transportation problems. Keep it coming Heavytrash.
...these signs were posted back in 2000. A series of new, cheaper, paper fliers have popped up around a number of Rapid bus stations along Wilshire. Are these hoaxes too/continuations of the same hoax? Or did something actually come of this? The center of these fliers seems to be the subway construction at Vermont/Wilshire.
I feel like I saw these signs again in May 2005? But
along Santa Monica Blvd? Were they put up again?
I've since moved up to Seattle, but was so hopeful for LA when I saw the Aqua Line signs. I feel like I saw similar signs this year. ???
Good job... you fooled me.
- A hopeless dreamer for the City of Angels
Aqua Line. I love the name.
"If the people who make the largest contribution to the tax base wanted the aqua line there would be an aqua line. If the people who live where the aqua line would go don't want it why build it?"
It is clear that you have no clue about politics in Los Angeles.
Interesting how people in LA have long forgotten how their city was connected by suburban light rail less than a 100 years ago.
About the history of mass transit in LA - Didn't anybody pay attention to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"? The whole backstory was about buying up transit ROW for a new freeway that ran through Toon Town (or whatever it was called in the movie.) Only thing that made it worth watching.
The only problem with Roger Rabbit's account of LA transit history is that it's purely fictional.
The disappearance of the Red Cars wasn't the result of a GM-led conspiracy. It was mostly simple economics: the interurbans weren't built to be economically sustainable businesses - they were built to raise property values for land speculators and subdividers.
For a concise summary, see Stan Schwarz's page GM and the Red Cars, and the sources it references.
For a very detailed account, see historian Martha Bianco's Kennedy, 60 Minutes, and Roger Rabbit: Understanding Conspiracy-Theory Explanations of The Decline of Urban Mass Transit [PDF].
"GM destroyed the Red Cars" is a myth.
Freaking brillant. I had heard all about you guys and the Aqua Line, but just now did I see the actual sign you guys hosted up there. Looks so awesome...well, we shall see if the Wilshire subway will get built or not.
Let's make clear what really happened to the Pacific Electric Railway (removed in 1961) and the Los Angeles Railway (removed in 1963).
Both of these systems were at their peak around the mid 1920's, with over 1000 miles of track. They were privately owned companies. Both companies began to replace some of their rail lines with bus lines as early as the 1920's. At first this was done to reach new service areas, but eventually some rail line were removed and replaced with bus service. The company was profitable for a brief period. Ridership began to decline in the 1930's, with an increase in the 1940's, thanks to World War II. Once the war was over, the decline continued and increased.
National City Lines was the holding company owned by General Motors and other companies. While they DID buy up trolley and rail lines around the USA, and shut them down, (and they were found guilty of this in a court of law) they didn't do this in Los Angeles.
There were many factors leading to the demise of our electric railways. One factor was people thought they were unsafe. Why? They couldn't update their trains. Why? They couldn't raise their fares. Why? These were controlled by the state public utilities comission.
Also, the private companies had to pay taxes for having their rails on public streets. And the rail companies had to maintain the roads themselves!
Also, some of the trolley lines around the USA were owned by electric utilities (makes sense, they were electrically powered), but court decisisons stated that this was counter to anti-trust regulations, forcing the utilities to divest the systems (a number of them just shut down the lines). Plus, many people would rather drive their own cars. As automobiles became cheaper and more reliable, more and more people abandoned the rails and began to demand freeways. The freeway dream had taken hold.
The fact is that the Pacific Electric was sold to a bus operator, Metropolitan Coach Lines, in 1954. They intended to remove all rail lines. They removed most of them within a year. The state government would not allow them to shut down the most popular lines, so MCL sold the PE rail lines. They were taken over by the first MTA (a county of Los Angeles agency) in 1958. At that time, the MTA also took over the Los Angeles Railway.
So, unfortunately, it was a government entity that removed both the Red Cars and Yellow Cars. But at that time the contentional wisdom was that the whole system needed updating and couldn't be used anymore. We needed to build a subway to avoid congestion.
Too bad the local government didn't take it over earlier, then it might not have disappeared totally. The City of Pittsburgh took over their city trolley system in 1922, and while it was reduced in size, it never disappeared completely.
As early as the 1920's, transit studies indicated that we needed a full subway system as this was the only way to avoid surface congestion. This was done eventually with the Red Line subway, and more should be done in the future, in spite of the cost.
Southern California needs a subway network, as big as the free system, maybe even bigger. Imagine several thousand miles of subway line, linking every major destination in Southern California. We can do it!
The myth of oil and automotive interests destroying mass transit in LA needs to be corrected. Rail had long been in a period of decline before the trains were taken out of service. People were more interested in cars because they fit the transportation needs of Los Angeles (everybody going everywhere).
That's why buses are a much better option for people in LA than rail is. Buses provide the flexibility of routing that people want and need in this town. They are also much less expensive.
Rail is a 19th century technology. We live in a 21st century city.
You may have play with trains as a kid, it doesn't mean that we should use them to get around as adults.
Frankly this is by far the most effective installation of the three you have included on this blog. The signs looks far close to the reality, I really appreciate yours effectiveness in implementing it...It really makes me thinks for a while that it may happen.....
Speaking as an Angeleno born and raised, I'm sorry to say that I missed seeing these signs.
The thing I don't understand is how the MTA is continuing to buy more Metro RAPID buses, despite the fact that more things on the road is precisely what we DON'T need. People don't want to give up their cars because the buses fall victim to the grid lock and shitty stoplights that your car does, except you're riding in a bus with thirty strangers and you can't pick your own radio stations!
The thing I hate most about the Metrolink is the speed. When it takes an hour or more to get from El Segundo to central station, thats when you know you've got a problem. Hell, I can drive my car on a 9 O'Clock sunday morning and get downtown in ten minutes. Seriously guys, what the fuck? If the light rail performs consistently worse than the other options, obviously people are going to go with the other option. Also, someone should put vending machines in 'link stations, because you wait there for so long you're bound to get thirsty.
The public trasportation in Los Angeles is not helping the traffic jams maybe they should start thinking like NY, but it is nice they are doing something.
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