Neil Peterson on Metro (Los Angeles) Blue Line (1991)

Interview with Neil Peterson Blue LIne 4/15/91 /
[Videorecording] ABC Television, 1991.

A segment from a 1991 televsion broadcast of ABC's Good Morning America, it features an interview with Neil Peterson, Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC), on the one-year anniversary of the Metro Blue Line (running from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles, California) and briefly discusses the long range transit plan for Los Angeles. Peterson says in the interview that he tends to agree with stories that the mid-20th century streetcar transit system in Los Angeles was the victim of large corporations led by General Motors.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Light Rail
• Los Angeles California
• Metro
• Long Beach California
• Los Angeles County
• Transportation Commission
• LACTC
• commuters
• Transit History
• Public Transport
• Blue Line (Los Angeles Metro)

[electricrailwaygod]

For framptonorchablis: Love your comment, I only wish to add that light (or any) rail that is electrified is way more environmentally friendly and efficient. (Especially if the electricity is produced in an environmental manner). I don't know the sourses for SoCal Edision, but busses (unless being trolleybusses) are most environmentally unfriendly, as they stink up the atmosphere, are inefficient, caught in the same traffic jams and don't carry the load as a train. I say, GO ELECTRIC!

[electricrailwaygod]

This Jonathan Richmond is a stoolpidgeon for General Motors! He is a leftover from the old NCL (National City Lines) scandal! WHAT AN IDIOT AND TRAITOR TOWARDS THIS PLANET! Jonathan, if you shoudl be reading this, I highly suggest PLEASE visit Japan and Europe that would totally belay your absolute stupidity! (BTW, how much has GM offered you at MIT)? SHAMEFUL!

[framptonorchablis]

@FullMentalPanic Yeah that guy is so full of shit. There's no such thing as a bus that's going to magically pick you up at your door and take you to your destination, any more than there is a rail line that does. The difference with rail is that it's faster and much more reliable, and rail encourages denser, more transit-friendly development.

That 300 mile plan was never actually a serious goal. There was never $140 billion lying around. The actual funded projects got built.

[FullMentalPanic]

How I drool at the early rail alignment proposals. We aren't ANYWHERE NEAR reaching that goal, and it's almost 20 years since the Blue line opened.

Also, Jonathan Richmond is an elitist douchebag to denounce our rail efforts with a haughty, condescending voice, and to think that we can replace dedicated train right-of-ways with shared bus and auto highways, which has already been tried ad nauseum. Let him get run over by a high-speed train, coming to California by 2020.