Opinion: Rep. Waxman undoes his subway damage

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The silliest of the hurdles to extending the Red Line (well, now the Purple Line) subway down Wilshire Boulevard looks like it’s finally about to be knocked over. Rep. Henry Waxman’s absurd federal ban on tunneling in the methane-rich Fairfax district, home of the La Brea Tarpits and various smelly/tarry geological emanations, was lifted today in the House; a bill to do the same in the upper house was reintroduced this week by California’s two senators. Waxman had tried to get the ban lifted last year, but it stalled in the Senate; this time it should sail through.

Waxman has always maintained that he was genuinely worried that subway tunneling in the area could cause a methane explosion. A better explanation is that, at the time he imposed the ban in 1986, tunneling would have caused a political explosion. Wealthy Westsiders thought a subway would bring the wrong element (i.e. brown people) to their neighborhoods. Now that Westside traffic is a teeth-grinding nightmare, they’ve changed their minds.

Getting rid of the ban is crucial if Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is to realize his ambition to extend the subway down Wilshire, perhaps as far as the ocean in Santa Monica. The state bond money passed by voters in November will at least give him the chance to get it part of the way there, most likely taking the Wilshire arm from its current terminus at Western to Fairfax Avenue, though possibly as far as Westwood.

Subway haters--and they are legion in Los Angeles--maintain that they’re a terrible waste of money, since for a fraction of the cost you could buy more buses or even dedicated busways like the Orange Line in the San Fernando Valley. They have a point, but buses aren’t the answer for Wilshire, which is the economic spinal cord of Los Angeles. In a city this geographically spread out, there is only one area with the kind of Manhattan-like commercial and residential density to justify subway construction: the Wilshire corridor. The roadway is simply too narrow for surface options to make sense, and the transit needs are too great for anything but rail. Villaraigosa is on exactly the right track when it comes to transportation.