By Rachel Dovey.
In the wake of declining bus ridership numbers and continuously present congestion along Interstate 405, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is interested in reviving an idea that was largely abandoned by city planners in the ’80s: monorail.
The Los Angles Times reports:
Los Angeles County voters in November approved Measure M, a sales tax increase expected to raise $120 billion over the first four decades of assessment to help pay for transportation projects, including a possible rail line through the Sepulveda Pass.
Metro has not started the so-called “alternatives analysis” for the project, which will include a more detailed examination of several options for connecting the Valley to the Westside.
Monorail has been considered for Metro projects before; the agency considered it as one way to connect Koreatown to Mid-Wilshire, but instead opted for the heavy-rail subway that is now being built.
Planners originally pitched a monorail proposal that would have cost $539 million in 1960. They wanted to create about 70 miles of rail, most of it elevated. But opposition whittled the plan down over the years, and it was scrapped in the 1980s. One of the project’s main advocates was late author Ray Bradbury, according to the Times.
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