Happy 20th Birthday, (M) Green Line!

That's A Wrap: The Green Line, wearing a promotional wrap reading, "Metro Green Line Open Summer '95." was the first line to feature wrapped rail cars.

Twenty years ago today, Bill Clinton was president, Richard Riordan was mayor, most of us kind of started recovering from the Northridge Earthquake, Michelle Pfeiffer's Dangerous Minds was the #1 box office hit, and TLC warned everyone to not go chasing Waterfalls.

And the Metro Green Line opened on a warm, sunny Summer Saturday.

Truth be told, The Green Line is probably the overlooked middle child of the entire Metro Rail system (which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, BTW...). It lacks the edginess and maturity of the Blue Line, lacks the heavy crowds and underground nature of the Red Line, and unlike the Purple, Expo and Gold lines, doesn't take people to interesting places like K-Town, the Westside or Pasadena and the Eastside, respectively.

The line was given the designated color of green to reflect the green freeway signage along the 105 Freeway, which it runs down the center of, and to represent the "green" environmental concession that created the rail line to the communities impacted by the construction of the freeway during the early 1980s to early 1990s.

The Green Line also never lived up to its planned expectations: Inspired by Vancouver, Canada's SkyTrain, it was supposed to be the first fully-automated driverless rail transit line in the United States. But the transit workers' unions cried foul, and the driverless plan was eventually dropped.

It was also supposed to serve the suburban gateway communities of southeastern Los Angeles County with the aerospace industry jobs of El Segundo...only to see the Cold War end just as the concrete was starting to get poured, which is the main reason why it's been dissed as "The line to nowhere." And we all know it was supposed to serve LAX at some point, what with the large concrete structure next to the Aviation Station veering northward (which will finally see use once the Crenshaw/LAX Line opens in 2019).

So, sympathizing with overlooked middle children everywhere (Or maybe The Militant is just saying that to hide the fact that he wasn't a middle child), The Militant is dedicating today's blog post to the Metro Green Line's grand opening 20 years ago today!

It was the first Metro Rail grand opening The Militant attended via Metro Rail; he may have driven to  an unspecified free parking spot in DTLA (it no longer exists, sorry), and taken the Red and Blue lines to the Imperial Station (now called the Willowbrook or Rosa Parks station), where the Blue and Green lines met.

MTA CEO Franklin White speaks at the dedication ceremony. And there were balloons.

There they had a dedication ceremony at the park & ride underneath the 105 Freeway with all of them dignitaries, and they had these large colored balloons strewn above the podium area.

The Militant distinctly remembers there was a small Bus Riders Union protest there and he even got into a little debate with a privileged wannabe-Marxist white guy BRU lackey who was trying to proselytize to The Militant -- a person of color of unspecified ethnicity -- that Metro Rail was somehow racist. Yes, the Green Line, which serves lily-white, wealthy communities like Lynwood, Willowbrook and South Los Angeles. Really now. At some point The Militant asked Privilege Boy a "gotcha" question and he couldn't give an answer. Ooh, moted, sucka!

Anyways, the speeches were done and we all got in the long-ass line, up the stairs to the platform to ride the train.

Always a joy to finally see the train come after waiting in line on Opening Day.

The trains looked exactly the same as the Japanese-made vehicles on the Blue Line. In fact, the trains made their home at the Blue Line's yard near the 405 in northern Long Beach for a couple years before the Green Line got its own yard facility a few years later.

Also, the cars were packed, mainly because for the first few years due to a lack of cars (and lack of riders), the Green Line ran single-car trains. It wasn't until sometime in early 1997 when the new, rounded Siemens P-2000 vehicles entered Green Line service and the line finally had two-car trains.

Back then you can have a clear view to the front window.

The Militant and his accompanying operatives rode their first Green Line train from the Imperial station to the "I-105/I-605" station (now just called the Norwalk station).

There, there was basically nothing, except a small fair at the Park & Ride lot where he got some free Metro Rail swag. But then it was straight back in line to the train going the other direction.

Nothing to see here in Norwalk really.

The Green Line has been criticized for not going all the way east to link with Metrolink's Norwalk station, which would have been a real awesome thing and connected commuters to places like Orange County and the Inland Empire, but all of the plans and funding for the Green Line was already in place by the time Metrolink was first conceived in 1990, and opened just two years later.

We're in El Segundo! Please check if you didn't leave your wallet behind!

After some monotonous riding in the middle of the Century Freeway, it was time to head to the western section of the line, which The Militant was waiting all day to see. It was nice, sleek, elevated, almost monorail-like, passing over a bunch of sprawling business parks with well-manicured landscaped lawns.

These futuristic-looking stations look like you're in a toy or something.

We arrived at the Marine Avenue station, now called "Marine/Redondo Beach," in the extreme northeastern reaches of Redondo Beach -- you can smell the sea, and feel the sea breeze, but you still can't see the sea (unlike in Mar Vista...). How deceptive. The Militant wanted his King Harbor freshly-boiled crab NOW!

The end of the line, then as it is now.

It was time to head back to the Blue Line. There wasn't much to see here either, though there was a cool burger joint just a block or so away on Marine. And then there was the end of the line, a yellow bumping post to keep trains from falling off some 40 feet below. Twenty years later, though there's talk of extending the Green Line to the South Bay, there are currently no solidified plans to extend it in either direction.

Today the Green Line is the 5th busiest line in the Metro Rail system, carrying some 39,000 riders each weekday. Despite what it never became, it was the first rail transit line in the United States to go from suburb to suburb, avoiding the city center. It was the first Metro Rail line to open in its entirety, with no future phases or extensions to follow. It was also the first light rail line in the Metro Rail system to be totally grade-separated (and the only light rail line on the Metro to have zero automobile collisions!). The Green Line also had the first "wrapped" rail vehicles on the Metro Rail system, and though it was never automated, it was the first Metro Rail line to use the automated station call announcements, which are standard systemwide.

If the Metro Rail system map is an upside-down stick figure, The Green Line represents the arms. And you can't do too much without arms, so let's give props to the Green Line on its 20th birthday today! Happy Birthday, Metro Green Line!

The Bike Path To Summer

Although Memorial Day weekend was over a month ago, and the Summer Solstice came and went last week, for this Militant, it's not Summer until I visit the beach. Having some work responsibilities wrapped up by early afternoon, I found a unique window of opportunity to hit the coast on Thursday.

Since 1993, I've inaugurated the arrival of Summer with a ride down the 22-mile South Bay Bike Path.

Despite the beach being outside my driving ban territory, I still decided to save some gas anyway by taking advantage of Metro's new Rapid Line 704, which supposedly gets me to Santa Monica in an hour. To my dismay, the bus wasn't on time (or maybe I missed the last one?) and it wasn't a fancy red-colored bus, but rather a regular poppy-orange Metro Local with a "704 Santa Monica" headsign. Nevertheless, the bike went on the front rack, the iPod went in my ears, and I was on my way.

It did take about an hour to reach the beach, not bad. I disembarked at Colorado and started pedaling, passing the throngs of digital camera-snapping summer tourists outside iconic Santa Monica Pier sign, crossing the curiously-named Moomat Ahiko Way -- which is native American Chumash for "Breath of the Ocean" and not after some Arab-Japanese fellow as I had previously thought. Within a few minutes, I was finally on The Path.

My destination, the end of the path at Torrance County Beach was a virtually-unseen point in the distance, past the slight haze created by coastal moisture. Riding on the path during the summer is a unique experience; the sum beats down on your back and arms yet your face is cooled by the moist sea air, rewarded frequently by the delicate coastal breezes. The experience is just not the same during the winter, where it's considerably colder, and the flat, spanning aesthetic of the beach is dramatically altered by storm berms bulldozed in the sand. Yes, I can always come here in the winter, but I don't like to.

Having breezed past the Venice Boardwalk on my summer bike rides on The Path, I decided to play "tourist" and simply walk my bike along the Boardwalk (a misnomer since it's simply pavement). It was my first time on the actual Boardwalk since helping a friend visiting from Philadelphia realize her dream of rollerblading in Venice Beach a decade ago (for my newbie rollerblading ass though, it was a muscle-aching nightmare). Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be a tourist. If all I saw of Angelenos were stoned-out smelly dudes strumming guitars while selling ersatz paintings or hawking henna designs, I might not like this town all that much. Although I must report that I spotted the Silver Lake Walking Dude of all people, in all his sunburned glory, here on the Venice Boardwalk, well outside his home environs.

After Venice Beach, I got back on the bike and rode through the "street" segment of The Path, crossing one of Abbot Kinney's few surviving canals and navigating the perimeter of Marina Del Rey, finally reaching a dedicated bike path again where it junctions with the Ballona Creek Path. I think I'll shut up for now and let the pictures speak for themselves:

Gigantic crane birds (center) hang out in the Ballona Wetlands --

the last piece of land untouched since the native Tongva tribe roamed the area.

The Del Rey Lagoon, just south of Ballona Creek,
is the last vestige of a large span of marshland
that would eventually be dredged to create The Marina.

Looking back north, The El Segundo Power Plant hums and churns
while surfers ride the waves just yards away.

The surfer's monument at Hermosa Beach Pier.

The path ends here, next to the fortress-like cliffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Looking back, to think I came all this way.
Santa Monica can hardly be seen in the distance.

The sand, the surf, the foam, the kelp, the easy feeling of a
summer evening in Southern California.

When the sun sets over the Pacific...

My Summer initiation ritual is not complete without baptizing myself in the waters of the Pacific (okay, just a knee-deep wade would suffice this time), reminding me that I've completed my journey, and forming a connection to my ancestors who have similarly waded the other side. As the sun set, some music provided by the iPod orchestra completed the mood, of a day finishing off its business in this part of the world.

Now time for the journey back.

With night approaching, the environment suddenly changes, and it's not necessarily for the worse. The moist sea air embraced me like an invisible blanket, keeping me relatively warm as I speed through the cold of night. Pier lights served as decorative strings jutting out into the dark, unknown expanse of the ocean. As I raced back towards Santa Monica and the receding layer of remaining post-dusk sunlight fades into bands of orange and purple, the bonfires of Doheny State Beach formed seemed to form their own runway perpendicular to the paths of jet planes roaring above.

Come 9 p.m., in the dark, unlit expanses of Playa Del Rey, I felt like a western Pioneer navigating towards unknown territory, with only a small bike light guiding my way. Daunting, yes, but really very exciting. The full moon also provided quite a sight with its light reflecting on the waters of Ballona Creek (photo right).

But once I reached Santa Monica, the quiet solace of the beach at night ended suddenly, with the lights of the Pacific Park blaring on the Pier and throngs of people walking around both on the Path and on the sand. The energy of this beach continued as if the sun had never set. A free valet service was set up to accommodate people's bikes next to the path, and the lot was mostly full.

Navigating the Santa Monica streets by the 3rd Street Promenade, I had long left the dark, silent solitude of the beach at night and was back in the city again, waiting for the 4 bus to take my bike and my tired Militant self back home.

Yes. Summer is finally here.

When Ya Gotta Go, Go Metro!

Looks like the automatic pay toilets have hit my hood. A brand new Metro Latrine is being installed at the Metro Rail Vermont/Santa Monica station. About time, I say. Maybe the Metro Bus stop across the street won't reek of urine anymore. A week ago, the news racks were removed from the site, a rectangular hole dug out of the pavement and a large concrete base installed. When a water main was spotted protruding from the base, I knew it was Potty Time. The toilet, an off-the-shelf model by international street advertising company JCDecaux is identical to ones seen in Downtown, as well as in Frisco, Chicago and Paris.
A closer look at the pay toilet gave way to a definite nod to Los Angeles' rich diversity. Instructions on how to use the toilets are also given in German and French (pictured left), because, we all know that Los Angeles is famous for its large Deutsch- and Français- speaking immigrant communities. Oh well, it doesn't matter what race, ethnicity or nationality you are. You might be an American outside the toilet, but inside... You're-A-Peein.'