It doesn't quite live up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the opening of the new, 10-kilometre extension to the Los Angeles metro rail system earlier this month has brought together neighbouring communities that, for decades, grew up leading largely separate lives.

Hispanic East Los Angeles is now just one metro stop from downtown L.A.; two stops from Chinatown and a dozen from Pasadena.

Pick up a metro transfer and Long Beach, North Hollywood and Universal City come within easy reach as well. One day there may even be a line all the way out to the edge of the Pacific in Santa Monica.

If it's news to you that L.A. even has urban rail, you're not alone.

This slow-shutter exposure shows heavy traffic creeping along the north-bound 101 freeway in L.A. in February 2009. (Richard Vogel/Associated Press)This slow-shutter exposure shows heavy traffic creeping along the north-bound 101 freeway in L.A. in February 2009. (Richard Vogel/Associated Press)

It's easy to find Angelenos who admit they didn't know their city had such a transit system let alone that some of those trains dip down into the underground tunnels of what could fairly be called a subway.

But it's true. In fact, there is something of a rail renaissance taking place these days in congested, car-crazy L.A., even if it is anyone's guess how helpful that is going to be in helping solve the city's deep-rooted traffic problems.

Back for the future

Renaissance, by the way, is the right word because it reminds us that L.A. had mass rail transit before.

Indeed, it once had the most extensive and effective mass transit system in the world.

At its peak, around the mid-1920s, the Pacific Electric Company together with Los Angeles Railway ran a system of trains, trolleys and buses that connected the fast growing suburbs spreading out around L.A. to the city's downtown core.

In those days it was easily possible to work in L.A. and live all the way out in San Bernardino or the San Fernando Valley where land and housing were cheaper. Tens of thousands did just that.

The result was that instead of growing upward like other cities, greater Los Angeles sprawled outward as the commuter trains rolled over the flat, dry countryside stitching together communities that were becoming ever more densely populated.

This might have been sustainable if the transit system had continued to grow along with the population. But it didn't.

As the car began to steal the hearts of southern California commuters and lure them from rails to roads, the idea grew that rail had no future. There was little enthusiasm in either the private or public sector for keeping the system going.

See the movie

Over the course of a generation the Pacific Electric and L.A. Railway shut down rail lines and stacked up rail cars in junkyards.

In 1963, the last remaining transit tracks were ripped out of the ground, leaving L.A. and its sprawling hinterland henceforth entirely dependent on roads and freeways.

A Metro Gold Line train operator checks his gates before departing the Soto station on L.A.'s new eastside extension, a 10-kilometre link that opened its doors to the public on Nov. 15, 2009. (Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press)A Metro Gold Line train operator checks his gates before departing the Soto station on L.A.'s new eastside extension, a 10-kilometre link that opened its doors to the public on Nov. 15, 2009. (Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press)

It sometimes seems that nothing important has ever happened in L.A. without an accompanying scandal that eventually gets recycled as a screenplay.

Think of the manipulation of water rights that loosely became the back story for the dark 1974 film Chinatown, or the oil rush dealings that made fortunes for some of the city's legendary tycoons as played out in last year's There Will Be Blood.

The death of L.A.'s rail transit system inspired the story for the brilliant animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

It is the tale of how big oil, big auto and big rubber conspired to take over the transit system and then shut it down, thus driving up demand for cars, buses, tires and gas.

The not-so open road

The real-life record shows that in 1947 a number of individuals and corporations were, in fact, indicted under anti-trust legislation and charged with conspiring to gain control of transit companies in cities across the U.S.

Among those charged were General Motors and Firestone, the tire company. And among the transit companies they were alleged to control was L.A. Railway.

At the time, there was some persuasive evidence but the defendants were eventually acquitted of trying to monopolize entire urban transit systems. But they were convicted of monopolizing the sale of buses and parts to those cities and fined $5,000.

It is referred to as the great North American Streetcar Scandal. You could look it up.

The important fact, though, is that L.A. committed itself to roads and freeways in the 1950s and '60s and has lived to regret it.

The long and expensive effort to turn back the clock began in 1990 with the opening of the Blue Line, an electric train that runs from downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach along the same corridor the old red cars of the Pacific Electric used until 1961.

There are many who today doubt whether trying to turn back the clock makes good sense.

The new Gold Line extension is useful for some commuters in East L.A., but it's not the answer to the city's deeper transit problems.

The horrific traffic here still makes it a long and frustrating chore for most people to get where they want to go when they want to go there.

Bus-only lanes would help as would disincentives to car travel such as higher parking rates or possibly even tolls for driving in congested parts of the cities, like London has.

But those are not car-friendly solutions and Los Angeles still has a ridiculously car-friendly culture.

California may like to think of itself as the place where the future begins, but no one should want a future that looks like the Hollywood Freeway at 4:30 in the afternoon.