Citizens' Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line

Because there’s been a substantial amount of misinformation spread about our purpose and goals, we submitted a memo to the MTA board specifying who we are and what we desire.

MEMO

TO: Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors
FR: Damien Goodmon, Fix Expo Coordinator
DATE: February 28, 2008
RE: The Fix Expo Campaign Goals and Position

Below grade (trench, cut-and-cover or bored tunnel) from Figueroa to La Brea
Fix Expo requests the existing funding for the Expo Line project be used to modify the design from Figueroa to La Brea (a distance of 4 miles) to below grade in either a trench, cut-and-cover, bored tunnel, or some combination thereof, with cost efficient open-cut stations at Menlo (to serve both Vermont and Exposition Park venues), Western, Crenshaw and La Brea. To this end we offer our organizational support to all political efforts towards this modification.

Begin Operations ASAP
The Expo EIR/EIS identifies and clears minimum operable segments at Vermont and Crenshaw. The project can begin operation to one of these temporary termini (or possibly further through EIR modification) while environmental clearance and additional funding is obtained.

The EIR/EIS also clears an extended undercrossing to Watt Way (0.1 miles from Vermont). Extension of the undercrossing to Vermont should be easily obtained. Further utilities under the right-of-way are being moved not just around the trench (at Figueroa), but all the way to Vermont.

By not requesting the Flower Street portion be grade separated, the Fix Expo Campaign position allows the Expo Line construction to continue and operations to begin at least to Vermont with little modification to the EIR/EIS.

Based on the Expo Authority’s own estimates of trench and the MTA’s recently completed Eastside Extension tunnels construction cost the additional construction cost to Expo would be is $245-305 million.

Cost savings can be obtained by constructing shallow cost-efficient open cut (trench) stations, as opposed to deep multi-level subway stations, and combining the Vermont and Exposition Park station (at Menlo) with portals leading to Vermont and Watt Way.

Almost the entire Exposition Blvd portion of Phase 1 of the Expo Line is directly adjacent to homes, churches and schools. From Arlington to Crenshaw the residences directly abut the right-of-way. The noise, blight, and privacy/shade impacts of elevated alignment along Exposition Blvd would irreparably harm the community, and could not meet federal noise and vibration clearance.

The characteristics of the corridor from Vermont to La Brea make below grade the only alternative to the unacceptable at-grade design.

Proposition 1B
4-6 billion in Prop 1B is specifically for mass transit capital projects, a separate $250 million is specifically for grade separations

Proposition 1C/Tax Increment Financing/CRA Bonds
Several of the station locations are in LA CRA project areas (Vermont, Crenshaw, La Brea). Prop 1C provides $850 million for infrastructure improvements to facilitate urban “infill” development & $300 million for dense development around public transit.

Bond Against Future Investment
Additional investments along the corridor will drastically improve future planned rail projects in the LRTP constrained plan. Building the Crenshaw/Exposition intersection below grade with a WYE would eliminate the need rebuild the station in the future. Building Arlington to Crenshaw grade separated allows the Crenshaw line to operate, otherwise with 45-54 trains a day per intersection (Expo and Crenshaw combined) crossing gates in this section would be down 50-68% of the time (40-45 seconds each), having traffic impacts that would not allow the project to be environmentally cleared.

Any additional funding strategies that can be conceived, including air quality, traffic mitigation, and public safety resources, and public-private partnerships.

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Today, our South LA community is literally fighting to save lives.

We’re fighting because a multitude of citizen voices that until some months ago were not very well organized were ignored for decades.

Ignored by MTA. Ignored by LADOT. Ignored by the Federal Transit Administration. Ignored by the California Public Utilities Commission. Ignored by Yvonne Burke, Bernie Parks, Jan Perry and Herb Wesson who all sit on the Expo Line Board, which is responsible for building the Expo Line.

In the past, the South LA’s safety and environmental impact concerns were dismissed not on merit, but because the voices of the individuals speaking were not viewed as powerful enough to warrant attention and respect. As a transit advocate I find that tragic. Tragic because, as I’ve come to learn over the last year, it means that how the Expo Line and others in our region are built is based not on good or safe transit planning, but instead on political power.

Well over the past few months the scales of power in South LA have shifted. Our community, which has long been neglected has risen, and we have brought with us an increase in our expectations of our local political leadership. With a strong united voice the South LA community has proclaimed to our local elected leaders we are NOT your subjects; you are elected to work with and serve US.

This is our moment South LA – this is our time.

continue reading…

Through much trial, tribulation and legal efforts we, the South LA community, have after decades of talking FINALLY convinced our local officials (Wesson, Parks, Perry and Burke) to reevaluate the proposed street-level Farmdale Avenue railroad crossing. At Farmdale the train would pass 240 times a day, just 30 feet from classrooms at Dorsey High School. A train-car accident here, like the hundreds of train-car accidents on the MTA Blue Line, would push the car or train into Dorsey HS classrooms or directly where hundreds of Dorsey HS students would be standing. Building the train at street-level across Farmdale would be a historic tragedy waiting to happen.

The MTA has known from the beginning that a street-level crossing at Dorsey was problematic and did not meet South LA community standards. They were told by us and they were told by the LAUSD. Interest groups in Santa Monica knew as well, and yet these interest groups refuse to support anything other than a street-level crossing at Farmdale, putting in danger OUR South LA children and ruining OUR South LA classrooms. As we, the South LA community work to address this issue, the Santa Monica interest group is pressuring on OUR elected officials to deny OUR community the safety that an underpass would provide.

The pillars of the Santa Monica interest groups’ opposition are as misleading as the information distributed by MTA/Expo (as explained at www.FixExpo.org). The basis of their opposition is also revealing. Their statement is that by delaying this project to study an overpass or underpass at Farmdale the fate of line would be jeopardized. Stated simply, THEY ARE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT GETTING THE EXPO LINE TO SANTA MONICA THAN THE LIVES OF OUR SOUTH LA CHILDREN!!!

So it is clear, it is the MTA and our local politicians that waited two decades until this very late juncture to address the Farmdale crossing problem, (and we’re still waiting for them to address the many other problematic crossings in South LA). And now that the day is finally here, Santa Monica interest groups seek to combat our South LA community, which is is FINALLY being heard, because we have dared to come together and demand something of our political leadership.

Well we have a message for the Santa Monica interest group and politicians who could care less if the Expo Line catches fire in South LA, just as long as the fire is out when it reaches the Santa Monica border: Your input and negative interference in South LA is unwelcome.

WE, THE SOUTH LA COMMUNITY, WILL DETERMINE HOW THE FARMDALE CROSSING WILL BE DESIGNED.

OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WERE ELECTED BY US, ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO US, AND WE EXPECT THEM TO REPRESENT US!

Here are excerpts of the PUC hearing on Farmdale at Dorsey HS on November 5:

To view the some of the rest of the statements from the meeting to our YouTube page: link.

Thank you for all your hard work.

Strength in unity.

Damien Goodmon
Coordinator, Citizens’ Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line
dg@fixexpo.org

P.S. To email the Expo Line Board (Parks, Perry, Burke and Wesson) along with Mayor Villaraigosa to tell them to support South LA’s request to study an underpass at Farmdale, just copy and paste the following email addresses or click on the link:

councilmember.parks@lacity.org, councilmember.wesson@lacity.org, councilmember.perry@lacity.org, seconddistrict@lacbos.org, zev@lacbos.org, alan.corlin@culvercity.org, pam-oconnor@santa-monica.org, mayor@lacity.org

As covered on Front Page Online: Rebuking Santa Monica for Putting Itself Ahead of Our Safety

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