LONG BEACH, Calif. – To the relief of commuters everywhere, Metro’s oldest rail line has reopened after the $350 million New Blue Improvements Project completed the northern half, which now connects downtown all the way to Long Beach.

It is no longer called the Blue Line. It is now the A Line and after nine months of taking transfers, artist LP Ǽkili Ross couldn’t be happier. He has used public transportation his entire life.

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“I grew up in Pasadena and we rode the 268,” said Ross. “It was right by my house on the corner and we rode it to the arcade, to school, to the mall. You know, we sit there chilling in the bus just battle rapping each other, just kicking it.”

He is doing a lot more than kicking it these days. Ross is one of the artists participating in Metro’s first-ever digital art portrait series. His art is featured in their “More People Than You Know” campaign. The series celebrates the people who use and live along the A Line. Artists with ties these neighborhoods worked closely with Metro Art to produce works that are intimate, immediate, and relevant to the local communities.

“I love that I get to create public art because it allows me to instill my emotional legacy in the city,” said Ross. “And to see people echo back and reflect and change the way that they feel about the fact that they can receive happiness and joy through what I create, the colors I choose, the palette can change the way that people think.”

The portrait series is shown on nearly 100 new digital displays at all 22 A Line stations. Ross’s portrait of his wife Misha will be released later this year on a new limited edition Metro TAP cards so commuters will be carrying his art in their wallets. For Ross, being in a public art program reminds him how important public art can be to a neighborhood.

“It also astounds me how much you can change a community,” said  Ross. “Seeing abandoned buildings being painted over and they’re not abandoned buildings anymore. Now they have facilitated. Art lives there. Artists have put their message there so they live again.”

Public art gives new life to old train stations.