Type Light rail Stations 50 Track gauge Narrow gauge | Locale Los Angeles, Vernon Opened 1914 | |
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System Los Angeles Railway, Los Angeles MTA Termini Vermont Avenue and Monroe Street
Pacific Crossing Owner Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority | ||
V was a line operated by the Los Angeles Railway from 1920 to 1958, and by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority from 1958 to 1963.
History
The Vermont-Vernon line was the last new route built by the Los Angeles Railway. Although Henry Huntington had been reluctant to build any cross-town (circumferential) lines, exponential growth along the Wilshire Corridor made it necessary. At the time, Los Angeles had no buses. From Vermont and Beverly, the route ran south on Vermont Avenue to Vernon Avenue, thence east on Vernon to Pacific Boulevard, then east again on Leonis Boulevard to Downey Road in Vernon. A branch line also ran from Vernon Avenue south on Santa Fe Avenue to Slauson Avenue. In 1920, the route was renamed "V."
In 1925, plans had been drawn up to extend the Vermont line over 2 miles further north to Los Feliz Boulevard. Instead, the route was extended less than a mile north to Monroe Street and west on Monroe to Heliotrope, on what was then the campus of UCLA. Today that is the campus of Los Angeles City College. During the LATL era, the Leonis and Santa Fe branches were eliminated; instead the V line ended at a loop called Pacific Crossing, in the center of Vernon. It was the only cross-town route in the LAMTA era, and was shut down with the other routes in 1963.