Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 4, 1993                   TAG: 9309040038
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JULIE YAMAMOTO ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

TRAINS CATCHING ON IN TRAFFIC-JAMMED LA

The Red Line, the latest addition to greater Los Angeles' expanding rail network, has helped revive their struggling downtown restaurant by changing the way some executives "do lunch." The lunch crowd has doubled since the subway opened in January.

"It's been a godsend for me and for the area," Norm Langer said.

Operators of the region's railways are hoping for similar success in persuading commuters in this traffic-jammed city to abandon their longstanding attachments to cars.

The concept is catching on.

In seven minutes, a person on the east side of downtown can travel the length of the Red Line to Langer's Deli on the west. The 4.4 mile, one-way trip costs 25 cents.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has ambitious plans to build railways crisscrossing much of Southern California by the turn of the century.

"This is a system that you build for 75 to 100 years," said Franklin White, the agency's chief executive officer. "If we don't have a rail system for the long haul, we won't be able to move here."

About 61,700 people board the railway each weekday, according to the authority. That's a pittance compared with 3.7 million who drive to work on the freeways and 1.3 million bus riders.

The first phase of the region's transit master plan was completed in 1990, with the opening of the 22-mile-long Blue Line, which runs above ground from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles.

A separate system, Metrolink, carries long-distance commuters up to 58 miles from the city.

Proponents say a region-wide rail system is the only way to head off logjam on the area's freeways and make its air, among the nation's most polluted, fit for human lungs.

But critics argue that it's too expensive and makes little sense in Los Angeles, with its relatively low population density and abundance of cheap gasoline.

"The [rail] system as it exists now is a reasonably hopeless investment," said James Moore, associate professor of urban and regional planning and civil engineering at the University of Southern California.

Convenience-minded Angelenos won't be easily lured out of their autos, Moore added.

But transit officials are trying.

The Metrolink's double-decker trains, for example, are equipped with tables so commuters can work during the ride.

"We're trying to create an environment in which these people can leave their cars at home and use public transit to get to and from work or some of their smaller errands," said Rick Jager, a spokesman for the MTA.

The Red Line, built over six years at a cost of $1.45 billion, carries about 15,000 people each weekday. About 2.5 million people have boarded so far, Jager said.

The Red Line has been the subject of budget battles. Washington provides about 55 percent of the funding. The rest comes from the state and local taxes.