Why it took 65 years for L.A. to build its most important rail line

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If a subway would work anywhere in modern Los Angeles, conventional wisdom said, it was along Wilshire Boulevard.In 1962, California’s then-governor, Edmund G.

Brown, stood in downtown L.A.in the shadow of a rotary drilling rig to support local officials’ plans for a new “Backbone Route” that would stretch west along L.A.’s most bustling thoroughfare to the sea.

“Let’s start drilling!” Brown declared, pulling a handle that started drilling the first hole of soil tests for a subway that planners estimated could be built in just three years.No one back then thought it would take 65 years of political battles, funding struggles and worsening motor traffic for the Wilshire subway to actually open.This week, Metro is set to unveil the first part of a nine-mile subway under Wilshire, one of the most dynamic and traffic-clogged stretches of Los Angeles.Public transit experts say the $9.7-billion D Line extension, which will connect Koreatown to the Westside, is a landmark achievement in L.A.

public transit history.“This is the most important corridor for rail service in L.A.,” said Ethan Elkind, author of Railtown: The Fight for the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Future of the City, noting Wilshire is the most densely populated corridor west of the Mississippi River.“It’s been 65 years, but it’s finally opening, and it will be a high ridership, high capacity line.”The story of why it took Los Angeles so long to build a subway beneath Wilshire involves much more than a failure to get state or federal funding.It’s a tale of the immense challenge of uniting this vast, sprawling metropolis of nearly 10 million people around an overarching vision of what public transit should look like and where it should go.

Over the years, different iterations of the subway project have been blocked by political infighting and local opposition from some neighborhoods.In a ...