Citizens' Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line

On Thursday April 24th, the MTA Board voted to increase the Expo Line budget by $54 million for a Culver City overpass, increasing the project budget to $862 million dollars for the 8.5-mile light rail line from Downtown LA to Culver City. $4 million of the $54 million came from the City of Culver City, while the remaining $50 million came from State Proposition 1B, the $19 billion transportation bond that was passed by voters in November of 2006. $218 million of the bond has gone towards the increase in the Expo Line budget, which was just $640 million six months ago.

Prop. 1B is the same resource the Fix Expo Campaign been requesting MTA go after for grade separations in South LA since the day the bond was passed. It’s even on our petitions (pdf). Yet the MTA keeps telling us, “There’s no money.”

As Carol Tucker of the Baldwin Neighborhood Homeowners Association has said, “They found the money for the Figueroa underpass at USC and they found the money for overpasses in Culver City. They find the money for everything and everywhere except South LA. Have they no shame?”

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We remain concerned about the safety and environmental impacts of the light rail line design as is passes through South LA primarily at street level. The street-level design is unsafe and as evidence by the MTA’s Blue Line which at 91 deaths and 802 accidents to date is the deadliest light rail line in the country.

The close proximity of several schools to the rail line, namely Dorsey High School and Foshay Learning Center, has prompted action from School Board Member Marguerite LaMotte, the LAUSD Board of Education, LAUSD Parent Collaborative and UTLA all requesting grade separation at all or some intersections.

The grade separations and street realignment west of La Cienega means no child will have to walk across and no car will have to drive across the Expo Line tracks in Culver City. Yet South LA is being told we have to accept these safety risks.

As child advocate and West Adams Neighborhood Council member Clint Simmons says, “Instead of insulting our intelligence by telling us they can’t find the money to build underpasses in South LA, MTA should just admit that killing black and brown kids, and ruining South LA school environments and communities is a part of doing business.”

An astonishing fact is that MTA is spending more money to build the the 1 mile from La Cienega to Robertson than they are in the 4 miles from Vermont to La Brea. That’s not right, and placing the bulk of the safety hazards and disproportionate environmental impacts in majority-minority South LA communities is textbook environmental racism and against the law.

It’s inevitable but we’re going to have to go to court. And by our side will be the international law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath and Rosenthal, LLP. The group’s legal strategy will be headed by firm partners Ivor Samson, a recipient of the prestigious 2007 California Lawyer of the Year award, and Christopher Prince, who when he was at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund was instrumental in the landmark environmental justice case Labor/Community Strategy Center vs. MTA, which resulted in a 10-year consent decree.

“This firm is huge, these guys are winners, and they know how the MTA operates,” said Tucker. “It speaks to the level of injustice that they’ve agreed to represent us pro bono.”

As covered on Front Page Online: Culver City Was Taken Care of, Why Not South Los Angeles?

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Less than 24 hours after a 75-year old woman was killed and a 19-year old young man was placed in critical condition in separate incidents with the MTA’s Blue Line, dozens of South LA community members concerned that the MTA’s proposed light rail Expo Line would lead to similar fates walked out in protest of a community meeting in the auditorium of Leimert Park’s Tom Bradley Elementary School after their insistent request for an open public forum for questions and answers was denied by Expo Line project mangers.

The community meeting, conducted by the Expo Line Construction Authority, was intended to discuss the proposed movement of one of the power substations along the route for the proposed $858 million dollar light rail project currently under construction from downtown to Culver City. But when the room was told about the previous day’s accidents and the history of substations on MTA’s other light rail lines catching fire, the room demanded an on the record question and answer period, only to be forcibly denied by the Expo Authority.

“We were told that if we wanted to have our comments recorded we had to go in the corner and a court reporter would write them down,” said Jackie Ryan of Save Leimert Neighborhood Coalition. “I was completely insulted,” she continued. “They would light the place on fire if they tried to do that in other cities.”

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Tuesday night’s meeting was the second Expo Line community meeting in South LA in the past week in which attendees vocally objected to the Expo Authority’s refusal to answer questions in an open forum. After a lengthy powerpoint presentation on April 1 at Holman United Methodist Church, the audience erupted in anger to what they described as “divide and conquer tactics” when an Expo Authority public relations representative told the audience to address their questions to the several Expo Line employees on the outskirts of the room.

“It’s clear that they don’t want to answer the tough questions in front of the entire community, and want to discourage people from speaking out,” said Damien Goodmon of the Citizens’ Campaign to Fix the Expo Line. “The facts are what they are: this line is designed primarily like the MTA’s Blue Line, which at over 91 deaths and 802 accident is the deadliest light rail line in the country. Unless our politicians force a redesign of the primarily street-level running in South LA, people in our community will die – children will die.”

“Where are our elected representatives,” asked a Baldwin Vista resident at Tuesday’s meeting. When it was announced that Bernard Parks, Yvonne Burke, Jan Perry and Herb Wesson all sit on the Board of Directors of the Expo Authority and that community leaders have spent over a year attempting to persuade the Board to have public forums, the resident responded, “If they’re treating us like this, they need to be replaced.”

Mr. Goodmon announced that the community group expects to finalize an agreement with a “very prestigious” law firm to represent the large and growing community coalition by the end of next week. “Like black and brown leaders before us we’re going to have to go to court for justice,” he said. “The difference is, we’re not going to court to fight white racist politicians, we’re going to fight politicians of our own color.”

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