Ride the D

Date: 2026-05-08

Submitted: 2026-05-25 18:27:28

Visibility: World-readable

Burnishing my transit nerd credentials by traveling to LA to ride the new subway line under Wilshire Boulevard

Almost thirty years ago I remember watching the nineties disaster movie Volcano, featuring a subway line under construction under Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, past the La Brea Tar Pits, that somehow triggers a disastrous volcano along the Miracle Mile. (Never mind that the geologic forces that created the tar pits have nothing to do with volcanic activity; but Wikipedia tells me that there was a ban on tunneling in the area from 1985 to 2005 because of methane in the ground.) This movie probably represented the anxieties of the time surrounding the construction of the LA Metro in downtown LA, and the complicated relationship that residents of Los Angeles have with their cars, the freeways, and mass transit. LA Metro eventually began building an extension of its subway line extending along Wilshire from downtown; on the last day of 2021 (after an interminable bus ride from DTLA along Wilshire to Museum Row, which would eventually be replaced by a fast and easy metro ride) I saw the station box under construction on Wilshire at Fairfax. I paid enough attention to Los Angeles news to know that the new metro extension was supposed to open on Friday, 8th May; and because I'm the right sort of transit nerd, I figured I should take the day off work to go to LA to ride the metro line on the first day it was open.

(Because of the uncertainty surrounding my job, I spent the first four months of the year unable to plan very far in advance because I didn't know what I was going to be doing more than a couple of weeks in advance; at almost any moment I might make it to the end of an interview process and accept a job starting in a matter of weeks. That wave function finally collapsed at the end of April, and I'm excited to report that I'll be starting a new job at the end of May.)

I decided to fly from SFO to LAX on Friday, which meant I got to see Santa Cruz from the air as we climbed. My neighborhood is visible in this picture, as a smudge of urban development surrounded by forest on the outskirts of town.

LAX is now finally testing their brand-new people-mover that will transport people from the terminals to the LAX metro transit center (and a big new combined rental car facility), skipping the notoriously-clogged horseshoe road connecting the terminals, World Way. The transit center itself is now open, with indirect rail service heading in the general direction of downtown. I decided to lean into the metro on this phase of the trip, so I caught the correct shuttle bus from the curb in front of Terminal 4 to the transit center. (The transit center itself is relatively new, having just opened last year; the K line opened in phases starting in 2022.) At the station I added money on my local stored-value transit card, before I realized that the entire metro system would be running for free all weekend in honor of the new D line extension.

(I am reliably informed that the locals prefer the Flyaway bus running between the airport and Union Station, but I wanted to try the transit route because I was visiting on a transit-involved trip.)

The K line took vaguely north-east from the airport, running mostly along dedicated right-of-way on the ground next to streets, with railroad crossing guards for the at-grade street crossings. The line descended into a tunnel and terminated in a neighborhood I didn't recognize, across the street from the E line platform. Many of the people on my train were transferring to the E to head towards downtown. When we arrived at the crowded platform for the inbound E line announcements told us that there was some delay in the line towards Santa Monica but the train would be coming soon.train would be coming soon. At some length the train arrived (just as I got around to complaining about it on social media, which means I think I manifested a train with my post) and we crowded onto the already-almost-full train to ride towards downtown.

By the time I reached DTLA it was seven hours after I left home. This, it turned out, compared unfavorably with the time I might have spent driving from Santa Cruz (according to Google Maps, 5.5 hours if traffic cooperated, but highly variable depending on traffic). Somehow it didn't occur to me that I could just drive to LA; it feels so far away even though it's really not. (This is obviously when I need to mention the promise of California's still-under-construction, distant-future high-speed rail system, which of course ought to make it easier to get to LA from the greater Bay Area. But we're still tens of billions of dollars and decades away from that. Imagine how much better the passenger train service we do have along the coast could be if we bothered to invest any money in it. Imagine how much train we could have if Meta had spent the $80 billion it lit on fire to develop the Metaverse, only to pivot away from that particular boondoggle to the next big thing, on something useful instead.)

I checked into my hotel in DTLA then nipped around the corner to Pershing Square to catch the westbound D. I boarded the next D train and rode through DTLA onto Wilshire, through the last station where the B and D lines run together (where the two platforms were stacked vertically to make it easier for the track to split and cross over each other west of the station), through the station that was (until today) the western end of the line, Wilshire/Western; and onward onto the new stations opening today: Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax, and the new end of the line, Wilshire/La Cienega.

As I rode I listened to the announcements to make sure I knew how to pronounce "Wilshire". (I made the assumption that the recorded announcements for passengers would correctly represent the local pronunciation for names on the line.) As I expected, the announcements pronounced "Wilshire" as "WIL-sure".

I disembarked at La Cienega. The station was new and shiny; nothing had begun to accumulate the dirt and grime from operating an urban metro system. Even the concrete between the tracks looked clean. If new metro stations had a distinctive smell, like new-car smell, this station would smell like that. On the station platforms Metro employees customer service jackets waited to answer questions about the new stations. People milled about the platform taking pictures of the station. On the station concourse, in the open space outside of the fare gates where ticket machines lined the walls, other Metro employees loitered in high-vis vests, talking to each other and other people in the station.

I rode the escalator up to the ground level, on a new plaza at the intersection of Wilshire and La Cienega. People milled about, looking at the new station and the mid-rise buildings surrounding the intersection. Workers were dismantling and removing tables and awnings that had been set up for the opening festivities, which I had missed. I watched a guy walk out of the station narrating a vertical selfie video about the station; when he stopped recording he mentioned that the video would be on Instagram in a few days.

I walked around the blocks surrounding the station. I spotted an equestrian statue across the street, in front of 8484 Wilshire. The statue itself was unlabeled but my phone indicated that it depicted John Wayne.

Next to the station I saw a building numbered 8447 Wilshire, which seemed suspiciously close to the number written in seashells that got James Comey indicted by the regime. I walked two blocks up Wilshire to see if I could spot the apparently-threatening address; I found several other addresses starting with 86 but not number 47.

I returned to the station at the end of the line (at least for now; Metro has already dug the tunnels continuing the line to UCLA and is now fitting out the tunnels and stations for two additional phases planned to open next year) and rode two stations east to La Brea. This station looked much like La Cienega but with different art running the length of the wall along the tracks on either side of the island platform.

I looked around the station at ground level, which had the same crowd of transit enthusiasts. There were fewer mid-rise buildings around the station, but there were several empty lots (some of which were filled with construction equipment, which might have been used to build the metro line) immediately adjacent to the station, which seemed like prime opportunities for higher-density infill development to take advantage of the proximity to the metro line.

On social media I saw a picture of a "Send D Pics" banner, attributed to the vicinity of the Wilshire/La Brea station, so I set out to find it. I walked around the streets surrounding the station until I spotted the brick apartment building behind the station, with the banner still clearly visible hanging out of one of the third-story window facing the station. (It's not entirely obvious in my picture, but the "D" on the banner is contained in a purple circle, referencing how LA Metro represents the D line on its maps and signs.)

I saw enough people wearing "Ride the D" t-shirts that I felt like I was out of uniform without the shirt. LA Metro first intended the shirts to be a one-off promotion, but they were surprised by the demand and resumed selling the shirts. I ordered my own, and received it a week later; I'll be ready next time I Ride the D when the next phases of the line open.

I returned to the station and rode the D inbound to DTLA, then headed to the food hall at Grand Central Market for a late supper. I ate a plate of vegetarian tacos from Villa's Tacos, which seems to be a local institution (and, according to their sign, they appeared in Bad Bunny's halftime show). The tacos were good, as was the spicy mango habanero salsa.

While eating a guy walked up with a bald head, bushy beard, hoverboard, backpack, cyberpunk clothes, and a small black cat with a frilly neckerchief riding on the top of his backpack.

I returned to my hotel in DTLA for the night, after riding my state's newest subway line on its opening day, which feels like an accomplishment and an adequate endorsement for my transit nerd credentials.

I took more pictures from Riding the D at Photos on 2026-05-08.