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Mayor’s Tunnel Vision Might Speed Up Subway

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Times Staff Writer

There are only 84 shopping days left until Christmas, so those who want to buy Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa a gift better hurry, because it would be a shame if hardware stores run out of shovels.

As everyone knows, politicians have only one good use for a shovel -- and that’s to dig a subway.

The mayor of Los Angeles has been talking a lot lately about building the subway to the sea. If you’re reading this while driving -- OK, parked -- in Westside traffic, there may actually be a reason to believe the thing may finally get built.

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First, the state infrastructure bond measure on the Nov. 7 ballot could pump more than $1 billion into local public transportation coffers. Some of that could potentially be used for the subway.

Second, the House of Representatives on Sept. 21 repealed a ban on subway tunneling engineered by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) after a Ross Dress for Less clothing store exploded when underground methane gas was ignited in 1985. Waxman said that new tunneling technology would prevent that from happening again.

And that raises a question:

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Question: How long does it take to dig a 13-mile tunnel to the sea?

Answer: A long time if Villaraigosa goes at it alone. Maybe not so long if he employs his crack team of eight press secretaries who shovel it every day.

Just kidding!

On the other hand, what if Villaraigosa employs twin tunnel-boring earth compression machines?

In fact, Metro (the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, perhaps entertaining visions of Paris, has given itself a new name) is currently digging two side-by-side 1.8-mile tunnels below Boyle Heights for the Gold Line’s extension to East Los Angeles.

On most days, the machines are making about 60 to 65 feet of progress. The most they’ve done in a single day since work started last winter was 90 feet.

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So, let’s do some math.

13 miles x 5,280 feet = 68,640 feet.

Now, let’s assume that tunnelers can make only 50 feet a day. Why only 50 feet?

Well, this is Los Angeles, and it’s safe to assume one extremely weird thing will happen during digging. Example: tunnelers wake up a pod of dormant underground space monkeys that then destroy the Earth.

68,640 feet divided by 50 = 1,372.8 days or about 3 3/4 years.

Not so fast, says Metro spokesman Marc Littman.

The subway project, Littman says, has not received a green light from the Metro board. If it does, it would likely take seven to 10 years to get from green light to opening day, he said.

Up to now, the only things the board has done are assign the unbuilt line a color (purple) and approve the hiring of a few staffers and a consultant to study, among other things, potential routes and possible subway alternatives.

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Q: So they’re studying how not to build a subway?

A: Yes.

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Q: Is there any reason to be optimistic it will be built?

A: Absolutely.

Villaraigosa was in London last week to learn how the city secured the 2012 Summer Olympics. The mayor wants to bring the 2016 Games to Los Angeles, and it’s not just because he wants to see world-caliber badminton in person.

Rather, Villaraigosa believes that bringing the Olympics back to Los Angeles would help get the city off its collective keister and force it into building the kind of vast infrastructure improvements needed to host an Olympic Games. Including a subway to the Westside.

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Q: Back in City Hall, is City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo really serious about cleaning up the county’s Department of Children and Family Services?

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Los Angeles resident Rebecca Constantino isn’t sure.

A few weeks ago, Constantino read in this newspaper that Delgadillo was calling on the Los Angeles County civil grand jury to investigate the county’s child-protection agency.

At the time, Delgadillo told reporters that he was genuinely concerned about the welfare of children and that he wasn’t taking this unusual step as a way to rehabilitate his image after his unsuccessful bid last spring for attorney general.

After reading the story, Constantino sent Delgadillo’s office the following e-mail:

“I am a foster parent who has been working with the system for some time. I read about your office’s interest in investigating the agency. I know of several cases where the department has put children in very precarious and unviable situations.... I look forward to hearing from you.”

Constantino didn’t get any response to her e-mail, then left six phone messages. No one called back, she said.

“Even if I’m a nut case, he or someone in his office should call back to see if I’m a nut case,” said Constantino of West Los Angeles. “It’s not like I initiated this -- he did.”

City attorney spokesman Jonathan Diamond was apologetic and said the lack of response was the office’s fault.

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“We’ve since responded to her,” Diamond said, “and it’s unfortunate that it didn’t happen more quickly. But there have been many more cases -- dozens of them -- where people have called and we’ve responded.”

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Q: How much does it cost to fly to Wichita, Kan.?

A: If you’re Councilman Ed Reyes, it cost $1,187.20 in May.

This is part of this column’s occasional feature, “Odd Things Found in Council Member Expense Reports That People in the Private Sector Would Get Spanked for If They Tried.”

Yes, we know it’s a long title.

The worst part: Reyes flew coach. For that kind of money this column sincerely hopes that his flight attendants were no less than the Dixie Chicks.

Reyes was attending a National League of Cities committee meeting on economic development. He bought the ticket May 17. The meeting began May 18. In his expense report, he included a letter dated April 2 that announced the committee meeting.

Booking a ticket the day before a flight is generally not a great strategy for getting a good deal. A search of Orbitz showed that advance-purchase tickets to Wichita generally run in the neighborhood of $350 to $400.

Reyes’ office said he hadn’t been planning to go to Wichita, but that a member of the committee had introduced an anti-immigration initiative that demanded an in-person response.

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“The only reason you go to Wichita is because you have to,” said Tony Perez, a Reyes deputy.

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Q: Back to the subway -- don’t those things cost a lot of money?

A: Accounting for inflation, the subway would cost about $4.8 billion in the year 2015, according to Metro.

A ban on using local sales tax dollars for tunneling that was pushed by county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and approved by voters in 1998 remains in effect. And, with no one talking about other local tax increases, Villaraigosa is seeking to obtain federal funds.

This column has another idea to raise some dough: Hold a subway telethon on the city’s cable channel. The bet here is that Villaraigosa can stay awake longer than Jerry Lewis.

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steve.hymon@latimes.com

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