LONG BEACH, Calif. — Just five years ago, it seemed as if passenger rail in the San Gabriel Valley was doomed to be a thing of the past, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority had indefinitely shelved an already long-delayed light rail project from Los Angeles to Pasadena, citing budget constraints. It was only 10 percent finished.
The MTA, an agency that was knee-deep in subway construction, didn’t have the money to build the Pasadena line. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, then a state senator, recalled conversations he had with Cynthia Kurtz, who was then Pasadena’s assistant city manager.
“I told Cynthia that I was convinced the MTA would never build the Blue Line and if we were going to build it, we would have to build it ourselves,’ the congressman said.
With the blessing and pleas of the cities of Pasadena, South Pasadena and Los Angeles, Schiff authored state legislation to wrest control of the planning, construction and funding of what was then called the Blue Line from the MTA.
The bill created a partnership known as a joint powers authority among the three cities, and the light rail project was back on track.
“We were very conscious when we were drafting the bill that this might become the model,’ Schiff said. “There was a lot riding on this concept … about how you can deliver transportation cost-effectively.’
Although only 13.7 miles long, the light rail project represented a move back to the future for a region that traced its roots to railroads.
In the late 1800s, Santa Fe passenger trains carried some of the first settlers to the San Gabriel Valley, then covered with citrus groves and Spanish land-grant ranchos.
As the population grew during the 20th century, the old Pacific Electric streetcars were the travel mode that kept Southern Californians moving in the era before freeways and three-car garages.
In recent decades, train travel was relegated to long-distance trips rather than short hops with Amtrak trains carrying passengers out of state and across the country. By 1994, passenger trains had disappeared from the Valley, as Santa Fe sold off the tracks that its freights had shared with Amtrak.
When light rail since renamed the Gold Line debuts on that same route next summer, train travel will have made a longshot comeback.
“This line is on track and on budget, which is nothing short of miraculous,’ Schiff said.
Of course, the $725.5 million project wasn’t built by politicians, but rather by the Blue Line Construction Authority and hundreds of construction workers it set in motion.
One of the first tasks of the fledgling agency was to hire a chief executive officer. Rick Thorpe won the job in a 3-2 vote, supported by the Pasadena, South Pasadena and Claremont representatives on the Blue Line board of directors. The MTA representative and ex-Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez cast the “no’ votes.
Thorpe arrived in late 1999, bringing experience to the job from previous work on light rail systems in San Diego and Salt Lake City.
The MTA and construction authority forged a working relationship and sent their own representative Vivien Bonzo to sit on the Blue Line board of directors. Thorpe said the construction authority inherited 8,000 sheets of design plans from the MTA.
Julian Burke, former CEO of the MTA, provided cautious encouragement to the construction authority. “He was skeptical that there was enough money,’ Thorpe said. “Many times he said: ‘Rick, that’s why we didn’t build it.”
Hernandez, a founding Blue Line board member, also was concerned about how the communities he represented chiefly Highland Park, Mount Washington and Chinatown would fare with light rail coming through their neighborhoods.
At an early meeting in Chinatown, residents were displeased with a station planned for their neighborhood.
“I soon found out, after getting my head handed to me, that this was not what the community wanted,’ Thorpe recalled. But fences were mended there and in other areas.
“I went from getting booed and yelled at at my first meeting to applause at my last meeting,’ Thorpe said.
Early on, Schiff lobbied his statehouse colleagues for funding to keep construction going. During the MTA era, one cost-saving proposal was to build about half of the line, ending just shy of Old Pasadena.
“I was told in no uncertain terms that the project would not be cut back to Del Mar,’ Thorpe said. He recalls Pasadena City Councilman Paul Little, a Blue Line board member, making that statement.
A turning point came one day as Thorpe spoke with Schiff.
“We’re $60 million short of being able to build this project,’ he told Schiff. “Adam says, ‘I’m meeting with the governor for lunch.”
Soon after, Schiff had good news.
“‘I was able to get the governor to put in $40 million of ‘congestion relief’ funds,” the former state senator told Thorpe.
Now, with construction virtually complete, the line undergoing testing and trains set to begin running in eight months, Thorpe frets about one more thing.
“I personally think one of the biggest problems will be too much ridership,’ he said. “I think they’re going to need three-car trains immediately.’
But too much ridership 33,000 daily passengers is the current prediction is a good worry to have.