L.A. Subway’s Message Is Clear: This Is Not New York : Transportation: Red Line officials try to create an image that will woo commuters from their cars.

As a Red Line train zipped down the tracks during a recent test run, transit officials repeated what has become a mantra among those readying the city’s first subway: We are not the Big Apple.

It was the highest praise that Neil Peterson, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, could offer as he spoke to city officials and employees assembled on a train pulling into the Civic Center station.

“It’s light. It’s airy. It’s clean,” he said. “And it’s going to stay clean. This is not New York.”

In the five weeks that remain before Los Angeles’ premier subway starts serving the public, Peterson and other transit officials have started the not-New York drumbeat as a way of marketing the Red Line and softening Southern Californians’ misperceptions about underground commuting.

“If you live in L.A. and grew up in L.A., going underground is not a natural experience for you--neither is taking the subway,” said Jessica Cusick, director of the LACTC’s art program and a former New Yorker.

“Obviously,” Cusick said, “New York runs an incredibly efficient subway and in terms of efficiency, we’d be more than happy to duplicate it. But in L.A., we are still trying to woo people away from their cars. Making that experience as agreeable as possible is important.”

The subway walls have neither billboards nor graffiti. Red Line stations are dotted with artwork such as a much-touted sculpture of five pink men flying near the ceiling of the Civic Center station. Train cars move swiftly and quietly, and they are sparkling clean--not unexpected considering that they have yet to be subjected to the traveling public. Fares, officials say, will be paid on the honor system.

And there are no bathrooms.

“If you have ever seen the bathrooms in the New York subway, you’ve seen that they’re closed off, they are places where bad things happen,” Peterson said. “We assume if you’re taking a seven-minute trip, you’ve taken precautions.”

True, the Red Line--with its 4.4 miles of track--provides only a fraction of the network that New York subways offer. But local transit officials say that it is a quality ride from Union Station to 7th Street and Wilshire Boulevard, a ride that uses the industry’s most advanced technology. This subway will run on continuously welded tracks that will not create that clickety-clack you hear in New York.

To win passengers in Los Angeles, this attention to detail may be an essential marketing gambit, some say.

“Obviously, the New York system is often seen as a crime scene; a place packed with urban marauders,” said Margaret Crawford, professor of history at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. “It’s just selling the system to L.A. by removing those connotations. . . . It’s trying to create a new image for the L.A. subway system that’s going to make it compelling.”

Although local rail officials do not disparage the efficiency of the Big Apple’s 88-year-old system, they clearly worry about the tarnished image New York’s subway administrators have been struggling for years to shake.

“If you are a New Yorker, you get used to abuse,” sighed Jared Lebow, spokesman for the New York City Transit Authority. “Everyone outside New York thinks this is some kind of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

For the past three years, Lebow said, New York officials have touted a new graffiti-free subway, its trains cleansed regularly by transit crews. And since 1982, Lebow said, the New York system has purchased 1,775 subway cars and rebuilt others.

Yet, New York’s subway is saddled with a powerful negative image. Graffiti-splattered cars are still seen regularly on television and in movies. When Disney officials created a subway exhibit in Disney World in Orlando, Fla., the station and cars were covered with graffiti; New York officials fired off a letter of correction.

And so, local transit officials market the fledgling Red Line in terms of what it is not. Station ceilings are not low like in New York. Instead, they are up to 40 feet in some stations, Cusick said.

Unlike the Big Apple, each L.A. station will have elevators to carry the handicapped. There will be no New York-style turnstiles and, instead, passengers occasionally will be asked to show their tickets to roaming agents, said Ed McSpedon, president of the Rail Construction Corp.

“It’s part of an overall marketing message,” said Stephanie Brady, an LACTC spokeswoman. “The message needs to be loud and clear. The Red Line is safe and secure. It’s not ominous. It’s not New York.”

For New Yorkers, this approach is about as appreciated as an undercooked Nathan’s hot dog.

“You can pooh-pooh our subway all you want--our system goes everywhere,” said Mark Nason, 33, a New York native and a waiter at McSorley’s, one of the city’s oldest bars.

“This is New York, this is Manhattan,” Nason said. “We don’t really care what’s going on west of the Hudson.”

Subways Side by Side

Since the Red Line is not expected to open until next month, officials cannot compare the performance of the fledgling L.A. system to that of the New York City subway, almost a century old. But there are certain comparisons--namely to New York’s graffiti-plagued trains of old--they hope passengers will not make.

NEW YORK CITY

Fare: $1.25.

Passengers: 1.5 million daily.

Track: 230 miles in use.

Routes: 25.

Stations: 469.

Hours: Operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Number of cars: 5,950.

Frequency: Trains every 2.5 to 3 minutes during rush hour; every 20 minutes during off hours (10 p.m. to 5 a.m.)

Crew: One operator and one conductor aboard train.

Restrooms in stations: 100.

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LOS ANGELES

Fare: $1.10.

Passengers: Unknown.

Track: 4.4 miles initially.

Routes: 1.

Stations: 5.

Hours: Will operate 5 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Number of cars: 16.

Frequency: Trains every 10 minutes.

Crew: One operator.

Restrooms in stations: None.