historiblogography

An Open Letter to an Anonymous Government Official

Dear LA Transit Official(s) Who Designed the Green Line.

You are so clever.

The Green Line takes dead aim as a straight shot through the LA Basin from Lakewood to Hawthorn. In sleek modernist fashion it turns for no man (and probably not women either), dividing the city into neat boxy segments. Ahead of the speeding train as it passes Hawthorn all signs point to LAX directly to the west, the fifth busiest airport in the world, about to be light railed into the 21st century.

But the City Planners were far too clever for that. They knew we would be expecting our multi-million dollar light rail system to connect with the largest airport in the region (indeed the largest west of the Rockies). We had grown complacent, sitting in out armchairs watching the designers chart new mass transit routes. We expected the trains to connect to places people go; we expected one transit system to link to another, rail to meet sky in Westchester. We were wrong.

You faked us out, turning the green line south so as to avoid Los Angeles International Airport. You brilliant designers you! You have demonstrated our supreme stupidity in thinking the trains should do something useful. This isn’t transit, it’s a postmodern art project. You are challenging our categories, tearing down our expectations. Screw linking the biggest airport with the web of light rail. Let’s turn south and go to El Segundo instead!

I tip my hat to you.

posted by Michael Benson @ 9:01 AM