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Not all new transit projects are on track, however. The initial elevenmile stretch of Metrorail, Miami's elevated railway, was scheduled to open in time to whisk Christmas shoppers to downtown Miami. Now the big day has been postponed until spring. Two federal investigative teams turned up substandard construction work in the nearly $1 billion system, which is almost 70% funded by Washington. Because of a lengthy strike at the supplier, the Budd Co., only 20 of Metrorail's planned fleet of 136 cars are ready for service. "We're not going to accept this thing until it's totally right," declares Dade County Manager Merrett Stierheim. That moment will come none too soon. Traffic inches along 1-95, the area's main thoroughfare, six hours of the day, and downtown parking rates run as high as $6 for three hours. Despite the poor start, Metrorail still expects to open its second segment, a ten-mile extension to the largely Cuban community of Hialeah, on time this year. In addition, Miami is planning to have by 1985 a 1.9-mile-long "people mover"—automated trains that will shuttle 41,000 commuters daily in a loop around the city's developing downtown.
In the automobile-dominated West, seven major transit systems are planned or proposed. Among the most ambitious cities: Los Angeles, which plans to break ground before the Summer Olympics for an 18-mile, $3.3 billion subway that will follow the densely built, heavily trafficked Wilshire Boulevard corridor, cut through Hollywood and end up hi the San Fernando Valley. The underground will be the centerpiece of an eventual 160-mile network, second in size in the U.S. only to New York City's. Supporters see the rail plan as the last best hope for unclogging the city's fabled 715-mile morass of freeways. Predicts George Gibbs Jr., a local insurance executive and rail cheerleader: "The subway will save Los Angeles from drowning in its own congestion."
Even humming Silicon Valley is planning a new transit system. This spring, Santa Clara County will begin construction of 20 miles of light rail and twelve miles of new freeway. The project's $382 million price tag is modest by mass-transit standards, in part because the system does not strive to be as high-tech as the computer culture it will serve. Says Susan Wilson, chairwoman of the Santa Clara County Transit District: "We're looking for a good Chevrolet, not a Cadillac."