MTA Plans Rapid Transit Route From Century City to El Monte!!

May 15, 1961: The Metropolitan Transit Authority announces plans for a rapid transit system from Century City to El Monte!  The proposed line, including 12 miles of subway, would extend from the downtown area to El Monte and west to the new Century City in West Los Angeles!! The western terminal would be under Santa Monica Boulevard at the Century City project on which construction has begun!!! The line would swing over to Wilshire Boulevard, continuing downtown via subway beneath Wilshire! The subway would continue to a point one mile east of Union Station, where the line would rise to the surface and travel the Pacific Electric right of way along the San Bernardino Freeway to El Monte!!!!!!! And best of all, according to the Kaiser Industries engineers who helped draft  the plan: “The line would take three years to build.” That’s right. A rapid transit line from Century City to El Monte, including 12 MILES of subway, could be built in three years!!!!!!! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry over this story. Maybe both. email me

Comments

[Steven Moshlak]

Back then, you didn't have as much population or traffic density along these routes, environmental whackos, permits up the wazoo, and the labor unions and affrimative-action subcontractors demanding ALL of the pie.

May I remind you of a little project known as the I-10, which went down because of the earthquake in 1994? How many minority-owned businesses and unions were busting a gut about not getting a piece of the pie? CC Myers / Peter Phillips brought the project in ahead of schedule and broke all expectations by completing the work in 66 days, 74 days ahead of schedule and reaping a bonus of $14.5 million rather than the expected $8 million. The I-10 rebuild cost almost $30 million rather than $20, but it was completed in 66 days rather than 100 days.

Back then, we had incentivizations to complete the tasks at hand. Today, we have created a bureaucratic cluster {fill-in the blank} which is more concerned about sharing, than doing, no matter what the cost in time, money or the resources that are involved.