L.A. Rejects Underground Part of Light Rail System

The Los Angeles City Council, troubled by the possible financial and environmental costs of a downtown subway line, balked Friday at approving the underground portion of a planned Los Angeles-to-Long Beach light rail system.

The half-billion-dollar project--believed to be the largest light rail project in North America--is the first phase of a planned 150-mile rail network throughout the Los Angeles Basin. It also would connect with the proposed Metro Rail subway, now caught in the squeeze of federal budget deliberations.

But council members, worried about the financial uncertainty of Metro Rail and concerned over the light rail project itself, fell one vote short of endorsing the local route proposed by the staff of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

Adoption Expected

The commission, which would build the 22-mile light rail line, is expected to adopt the project later this month and had asked the council to consider backing a subway route through the downtown business district.

The line would start at the proposed Metro Rail station at 7th and Flower streets and run underground for eight-tenths of a mile before surfacing between 11th and 12th streets.

But Councilman Marvin Braude, an outspoken critic, called the downtown proposal a “misguided” plan pushed by “a few special interests” in the business community and opposed by environmentalists.

Braude and other council members instead expressed preference for an aerial route.

‘Cheaper and Quicker’

“We could have that and it would be cheaper and it would be quicker and it would be less disruptive of business,” he said.

The overhead route, which was one of two alternatives rejected by the commission staff, would involve an aerial guideway along Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street. The cost of building an aerial route is cheaper, about $60 million a mile. But commission officials said the longer distance required for the aerial route would make it as expensive as the subway alternative, which costs about twice as much per mile.

A third alternative considered by the commission calls for street-level tracks that would run northbound on Spring and Main streets and southbound on Broadway, but the city rejected that alternative as being too disruptive to traffic.

Downtown business interests and property owners and the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency have lined up behind the subway route. The city Department of Transportation also backed the plan, with some minor changes.

Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, who represents the downtown area, chided his colleagues for not approving the plan and promised: “We’re going to build it, and it’s going to be the biggest project in the United States.”

However, with three council members absent, Lindsay could muster only seven votes out of the eight needed to back the project. The council is expected to reconsider the proposal next Tuesday.

Rick Richmond, executive director of the county Transportation Commission, said Friday that the commission could legally proceed without council approval, but that may not be feasible.

“If the city is opposed to the project, is it prudent to go ahead? . . . . That would be the question for the commission (to answer),” he said.

Old Red Car Route

The rail line, scheduled to start service in mid-1989, would follow much of the remaining right-of-way used by the old Red Cars through communities such as Watts, Willowbrook, Compton and Carson. It is expected to have about 54,000 riders a day.

Richmond said construction could begin in the fall if the commission approves the project.

The cost of the entire Los Angeles-Long Beach project is pegged at $400 million, but Richmond said added costs, including purchasing rights of way and allowing for inflation, could drive the price tag above $500 million.

Money for the Los Angeles-Long Beach line will come from Proposition A, a ballot measure approved in 1980 by county voters.

That measure created a half-cent sales tax to provide revenues for transit improvements in Los Angeles County. Starting next July, about $100 million a year will be earmarked for rail projects, including the L.A.-Long Beach line.