Greater Los Angeles Local, Rapid, Suburban and Regional Rail (WIP)

(10 December, 2024) This is my full proposal for a comprehensive rail network in the Greater Los Angeles area. Services are generally confined to county borders in order to avoid bureaucratic overlap and infighting. Services are numbered by scale of service area. Metrolink, as the only cross-regional and intercounty service, is shown at the top, while local streetcar services handled by individual cities (or COGs in the case of LA County) are shown at the bottom. This proposal is not meant to be realistic or feasible, but instead relies on a much more transit-friendly voter base with a less restrictive and time consuming EIR rules and Federal govt. contingency requirements. This proposal also hinges on the politically impossible notion of redirecting freeway funding as well as removing freeway lanes to make room for more rail infrastructure. This map doesn't show any potential CAHSR, Brightline West or other High Speed Rail services, nor does it show the various BRT networks around the area (i.e the IRL J Line). Intermediate local streetcar stops aren't shown, only termini and connections to other rail stations. I am currently a Political Science student at UCR who only recently moved to California two years ago. I grew up as a military brat/third culture kid who has lived in many places (mainly Manila, Philippines), however since the bulk of my extended family lives in Long Beach, I would regularly make the trip to SoCal during my summer breaks. All of this to say while I feel like I know the Greater LA area well, I'm not native and any feedback from those who have spent more time here would be greatly appreciated! Credit to Nandert and Brian Ceja for certain ROWs Heavy rail lines are shown as Diamonds Light rail lines and trams are shown as crosses Suburban S-Bahns and RER-styled (County Connector, OC Express, IE Interurban, Arrow) rail lines are shown as circles Streetcar Legend: ART - Anaheim Rail Transit AV - Arroyo Verdugo Rail CS - Capital Streetcar FS - Foothill Streetcar IT - Irvine Trolley LBT - Long Beach Trolley FV - French Valley Tramway NCT - North Coast Trolley PT - Pomona Trolleyway SB - South Bay Streetcar SP - San Juan Capistrano/Dana Point Joint Rail Authority VR - Valley Rail Authority