‘Metro Rail Is Dead . . .’
Waxman’s appeal to the RTD and the City Council to scrap the downtown Metro Rail project--and substitute “light-rail lines on freeways”--is wrong on three counts.
Despite his alarmism, the scientific panel has judged that the subway tunneling is feasible and reasonably safe, given the proper precautionary techniques.
There are no freeways within the Central City Corridor, the area of heaviest mass transit patronage. Existing freeways only skirt its edges. And a new elevated or surface rail line within the Central City is all but impossible politically.
The 1986-90 budget constraints will certainly reduce available federal funds and thus lengthen construction time. But this will not necessarily end transit projects.
The RTD and the City Council--and Congress--should thank Waxman for his well-meaning but misguided advice, and then decline to accept it.
CHARLES STINSON
Hollywood
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