-LA- Transit System

-LA- Transit System

Twenty-nine years after the last interurban rail line was abandoned and twenty-seven years after the last streetcar went out of service overwhelming public support brought rail transit back to Los Angeles in 1990 with Metro, a heavy rail subway and light rail system that's operated by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The public along with civic leaders realized that an all bus system did nothing to improve Los Angeles public transit. Slow moving buses only polluted the air as they chugged along and made traffic congestion worse. The twenty-seven year all bus 'experiment' failed miserably. Today 270,000 commuters use Metro trains each day.

View of the city from the Chinatown Station platform.

Metrolink trains and commuters at Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal. Metrolink plays a key role in the Los Angeles region's bus and rail system by bringing commuters into the city from outlying areas. Commuters can then either walk or transfer to Metro buses and trains to their final destination. The successful commuter rail system operated by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority runs 142 daily trains on 507 miles of track on seven lines stretching as far north as Ventura, as far east as San Bernardino and as far south as Oceanside.